2. Arguments against the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard

113. Against this conclusion, whether it be according to the intention of the Master or not, one can argue in two ways assumed from the faith: the first is taken from the justification of the sinner or from divine acceptance, and this without any elicited act, - the second is taken from the nature of a meritorious act.

114. [First way] - From the first way the argument goes first as follows: the sinner before repentance is unjust, after repentance just, in the way the Scripture calls the sinner ‘unjust’ and him who has been freed from sin ‘just’. - From this the argument runs: injustice, since it is formally a privation, cannot be taken away from anyone unless the opposite habit is given to him, because ‘to deprive of a privation’ is to put a habit in its place, for opposites are immediate in the case of a subject naturally fitted for them (Metaphysics 10.4.1055a33, 55b3-6); the soul is naturally fitted to receive justice; therefore the one who is justified, having been made just from being unjust, receives the habit opposite to the privation; for if there were nothing formally more present in him now than before, he would not more lack the privation now than he lacked it before.

115. Further, a sinner before repentance is not worthy of eternal life, but after repentance he is worthy of eternal life; but he is not worthy save by something formally inhering in him to which, according to the rules of divine justice, it is judged that eternal life should be given, and he had nothing of this sort before; therefore something positive is in the just man formally, by which he is worthy of eternal life.

116. Further, God does not accept a sinner for eternal life, but he does accept him who has been justified. I ask then what it is ‘to accept for eternal life’? It is not ‘to will -with the will of being well pleased - to beatify him for the present now’, because then God would immediately beatify him; therefore it is ‘to will that person- in accord with the disposition he now has - to be worthy of such a reward’ whom before God did not will to be worthy of such a reward. The difference here cannot, as it seems, be posited in the divine will, because nothing is new there, for the divine will is immutable; therefore it is because of a difference on the part of the person, because the divine will wants any person disposed in the same way to be disposed in the same way.

117. The confirmation of this reason [n.116] is that divine volition, because it is in itself one act, does not have the idea of opposed or distinct acts - as acts of willing and not willing - in the absence of any distinction in the connoted objects; for this ‘divine willing’ is not some willing of being well-pleased - and likewise not some not willing -unless the objects are distinct, otherwise contradictories will be true without any distinction to cause that truth; therefore, since God wills the justified person for some being for which he does not will the sinner, on account of which difference he is said in Scripture ‘to love the just’ and ‘to hate sinners’ [Proverbs 15.9; Ecclesiastes 12.3, 7; Psalm 5.7], the consequence is that this difference - according to its idea on the part of the divine volition - necessarily requires an actual distinction on the part of the objects themselves. Therefore the person in question is disposed in himself in one way when he is said to be ‘beloved of God’ or ‘accepted for eternal life’ but in another way when he is ‘hated’.

118. Lastly there is, according to this first way, an argument as follows, that if there is in the soul of this person nothing after repentance other than what was there before, it does not seem that his soul is disposed any differently toward God, nor God toward him, because this difference does not seem to be on account of any change that has happened on the part of God. Therefore if it be conceded, as seems necessary, that he be in some way differently disposed toward God, and conversely God toward him, then this is because of a change in him, - and so something will come to be formally in him de novo; but faith and hope do not come to be in him de novo, because they have remained in the sinner, - therefore charity does.

119. One might also argue, according to his first way, that God, who was offended by the sinner before, remits the offence when the sinner later repents; this is not because of any change in the divine will (as there can be in me when I remit an offense); therefore it is because of the fact that he to whom the offense is remitted is differently disposed in himself.

120. But this argument is not conclusive, as will be plain in IV d.16 q.2 n.19, where it will be said that God remits the offense to the sinner first in nature before he gives the sinner grace. Hence the arguments - if any according to this first way are valid - must be taken from passive acceptance and from order or dignity for eternal life, which accord with a justified person and not with a sinner, as has just been argued [n.119]; but they must not be taken from mere remission of the offense [n.113], which is in itself a lesser thing than to be just.

121. [Second way] - From the second way, namely from the idea of a meritorious act [n.113], the argument goes as follows:

Nothing is said to act formally in any action unless the principle of the action is the form of the agent; this is taken from On the Soul 2.2.414a12-14 where, from the fact that the soul is ‘that whereby we live and sense’     etc . [n.13], the conclusion is drawn that the soul is the act and form of what performs those acts; therefore     , since meritorious action belongs to the will, or to the man working through his will, the result is that that by which he meritoriously acts is his form. But that by which he meritoriously acts cannot be pure nature, because then he could meritoriously act from his natural powers alone, which seems to be the error of Pelagius; therefore something supernatural is required; clearly not faith or hope, because these remain in a sinner, - therefore charity.

122. Further, no action is in the power of an agent unless that agent has a form by which it can act; for if it could act through something assisting it - something merely extrinsic - which is not in its power, such an action is not in its power, just as neither is the assistance of the extrinsic thing in its power. But the Holy Spirit assisting the will is not in the power of the will, just as neither is universally the action of a superior cause in the power of an inferior cause. Therefore if the will could act from the assistance alone and did not have a form in itself by which it was sufficiently able to proceed to a meritorious act, the result follows that the meritorious act would not be in its power, -which seems discordant.

123. Further, if the Holy Spirit is moving the will in a special way in the case of a meritorious action, the consequence is that the motion is cause of something in the will itself and that, with respect to it, the will does not have any causality but only a passive receptivity; either then that something is an act of loving, and then the result is that the act of loving is in no way from the will; or it is some other thing which naturally precedes the act of loving, - and this other thing I call ‘a habit’, because a perfection prior to act in a power (a perfection that is habitual or can be habitual) seems to be a habit.

124. Further, fourth, the identity of the Father with the Son is greater than any union of the Holy Spirit with the will can be; but the Father is not said, because of this identity, to do anything by the Son, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2, because ‘the Father is not wise by generated wisdom’; therefore much less will the will be said to do anything because of the union with it of ‘the Holy Spirit at work’.