Question Two. Whether an Adult who is Feigning Receives the Effect of Baptism

87. Proceeding thus to the second point [n.56]: and it is argued that an adult who is feigning may receive the grace of baptism.

Because Galatians 3.27, “As many of you as are baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” But no one puts on Christ unless, by receiving grace, he become conformed to Christ;     therefore etc     .

88. Again, if someone feigning do not receive grace then, since he cannot be saved without baptismal grace, he would, when the feint is given up, have to be baptized another time. The consequence is plain from a similarity, that a feigning penitent is bound to do penance truly for the same sins. The consequent is unacceptable [sc. he must be baptized again], as is plain from the authorities of the saints in the text [Lombard, Sent. IV d.4 ch.2].

89. Again, baptism expels sin; not the sin which is not present, because that was already expelled before; but what has been expelled cannot be expelled; therefore, it expels the sin which is then present. Therefore, no sin in someone who is feigning impedes the effect of baptism.

90. To the contrary:

Augustine, Sermon 351, On the Utility of Doing Penance ch.2 (and it is in Lombard’s text): “When anyone who is established as arbiter of his own will comes to the sacrament of the faithful, unless he repent of his old life, he cannot begin a new one.” 91. Again, Augustine, On Baptism Against the Donatists I ch.12 n.18, “Baptism begins to be effective then for salvation when the pretense by a true confession has departed - the pretense that, with the heart persevering in malice, does not allow the washing away of sins to take place.” Therefore, the pretense was preventing the washing in baptism to happen, and consequently preventing the grace.

I. To the Question

92. I reply: “He who feigns is pretending one thing on the outside but has another on the inside” [Bonaventure, Richard of Middleton, Sent., ad loc.]. Therefore, someone can, in receiving baptism, be feigning in two ways:

A. About him who Feigns on the Outside to be Willing, is Unwilling on the Inside

93. In one way because he shows himself to be willing to receive the [baptismal] washing in the way the Church intends to confer it, and yet he has the opposite in his mind.

94. And this person does not receive the sacrament (as is plain from the preceding question [nn.70]), because he is simply unwilling with respect to sacramental washing though he is willing with respect to washing; and if such a person were later to give up the pretense, he would need to be baptized. Yet the Church would judge him to be consenting to sacramental washing and would compel him to observance of the Christian faith, because the Church assumes the better side when signs are more indicative of it (as the Church presumes about someone who feigns to know her to whom he is pledged that, after marriage, he does know her with marital affection; and therefore the Church compels him to true matrimonial consent with her).

B. About him who Feigns on the Outside to Be Disposed, is not Disposed on the Inside

95. In another way can someone be feigning, by showing himself to be disposed to receive the sacrament and yet is not disposed interiorly, either because he does not have right faith or because he has then some mortal sin, actual or past, which he does not in any way have attrition for. And the saints and doctors commonly speak of a baptized person who is feigning in this second way [Lombard, Sent. IV d.4 ch.2].

1. A Person so Feigning does not in Baptism Receive Grace but through Penance

96. And about someone thus feigning [n.95] I say that since God does not justify someone who is unwilling (according to Augustine’s “He who created you without you will not justify you without you” [ Sermo 149 ch. 11 n.13]), this person - who has in actuality a bar against grace (namely infidelity or some sin that he is now committing by act of will, or that he committed before), and is no way displeased with himself - in no way receives grace, according to Augustine’s remark above [n.90] “anyone who is established as arbiter of his own will     etc .” And of this man is understood the verse from Wisdom 1.5, “The Holy Spirit flees from him who feigns discipline.”

97. And if the objection is made that therefore      this man seems to be in perplexity, because the way of salvation is not open to him, since he cannot be baptized again (because he has been baptized), and without baptismal grace he cannot be saved - I reply: he cannot be baptized because God instituted baptism to be unrepeatable lest, because of the full remission of guilt and punishment that takes place in it, occasion be given for more often doing wrong were baptism able to be more often repeated.a

a.a [Interpolated text] Now the fact that in baptism there is remission of all sin is stated by Ambrose [rather Ambrosiaster On the Epistle to the Romans 11.29] in Gratian Decretum p.3, ‘On Consecration’ d.4 ch.99 (and it is taken from the gloss on the words “the gifts of God are without repentance,” Romans 11.29): “The grace of God in baptism,” he says, “does not require sighing or weeping or any work, but it bestows everything gratuitously.” The Master also in Sent. IV d.4 ch.6 n.1.

98. But from no one, however often he falls, has God closed off in this life the path of salvation; for he did not wish to bind any of us to a greater mercy toward our neighbor than he wished to have himself toward his subject; and when Peter asks, Matthew 18.21-22, how often he should forgive his brother who sins against him, whether up to “seven times,” he replies to him, “up to seventy times seven.” Indeed, according to Augustine in his homily on that place [Sermon 83 on Matthew 18], “thousands of thousands of times;” and universally, as often as a man has sinned and acknowledged it, so often should he be forgiven. Therefore, did God thus institute some other remedy, namely the sacrament of penance, as many times as someone will have sinned as wayfarer.

99. And then I say the way of salvation for this person [nn.95-96] is open through true penance for the pretense, according to the authority adduced from Augustine [n.91].

100. And if the objection is made, “how will he get the grace of baptism or its effect?”

In one way it can be said that the pretense is only dismissed through true penance; but once it has been dismissed, baptism has its effect as regard all the sins preceding baptism that, however, were not the cause of the pretense in baptism. For example, someone has committed seven mortal sins before baptism, and on coming to baptism he has attrition about six and the seventh actually pleases him, or about it he in no way has attrition now. That seventh is alone the cause of his pretense in baptism; he must then be truly penitent about this seventh sin, both in itself and insofar as it was the cause of his pretense in baptism.

101. Which I say to this extent, that perhaps he has sinned with a new mortal sin, doing irreverence to the sacrament of baptism by receiving it with such pretense. But after the departure of the pretense, which was the impediment to the effect of baptism, God confers the grace of baptism as remedy against the other sins that would have been deleted in baptism if the pretense had not occurred.

102. And therefore it is not necessary for such a feigner to have true penance for the other sins, nor perhaps a new attrition for them (besides the one that was had before baptism); but once the only impediment has been removed, then just as God would have stood by his sign before [sc. the sign of baptism] to cause the effect of it, or to give it when baptism was received, had there not been an impediment in the receiver, so is he always ready, after reception of the sign, to stand by him who received it, so as to cause the effect of it when the impediment ceases.

103. Nor is it necessary to say that the character in the one feigning does anything, but only that God from the same pact [sc. the pact to give grace through the sacramental signs: d.1 nn.315, 322, d.14 q.4 nn.7-8] also stands afterwards by him who was the recipient, as soon as the obstacle is taken away.

2. Objections to the Aforesaid Solution

104. But argument against this is made, because this pretense, according to you [sc. Scotus, nn.98-99], is destroyed through penance; but one mortal sin cannot be destroyed without all of them being destroyed, because according to Augustine [ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penance ch.9 n.24; also Gratian Decretum p.2 causa 33 q.3 d.3 ch.42], “It is impious to hope for a half pardon from God.” Therefore, all the other sins are destroyed by that penance; so baptismal grace does not destroy those others.

105. Again, no mortal sin that remains after baptism can be destroyed without penance, because “it is a second account after shipwreck,” according to Jerome [Epistle 130, to Demetrias n.9; Lombard, Sent. IV d.12 ch.1 n.1]. But those other sins, which are not cause of the pretense, are present after baptism; therefore they are only destroyed by penance. Of if you imagine them to be destroyed by baptism when the impediment to the effect of baptism is taken away [as Scotus thinks, n.100], why cannot the pretense, which was the cause of the impediment, be thus taken away, when the impediment ceases, by baptism itself?

3. Response to the First Objection

106. If it be said to the first of these [n.104] that ‘penance, as far as concerns itself, could delete all sins, yet when it is prevented by some higher or more potent cause, it does not delete them; but that other cause is so present here that baptismal grace as to the other six sins prevents penance or the effect of it’ -

This does not seem reasonable, because pretense is naturally taken away first before anything is caused by baptism; but in that prior moment he must have true penance, because “pretense is not taken away without true penance,” according to Augustine, On Baptism against the Donatists I ch.12 n.18; “true penance reconciles fully to God in every respect,” Ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penance ch.9 n.24 [in Lombard’s text, IV d.15 ch.7 n.4]; therefore Baptism cannot prevent the effect of penance as to anything that needs to be deleted; rather penance prevents as to everything.

107. It can therefore be said differently that true penance perfectly reconciles to God, and consequently leaves no sin behind. But yet penance does not per se cure everything that was present, but only what is the object of the penance (namely what the penitent is penitent about). But sometimes it is necessary for ‘every sin that is deleted’ to be the object of penance, namely if all the sins were committed after baptism; and sometimes it is not necessary, as in the matter at hand.

108. Therefore not by virtue of penance are all these sins dismissed; but in the sacrament of confession they are partly dismissed by penance, partly by another cause; and so there is got there not a half pardon but a total pardon from God; not however total through penance, because there was no need to do penance for all the sins that were present.

109. And accordingly it should be said that those six sins [n.100] are destroyed as to punishment and as to guilt, nor is it necessary to have contrition or make confession or satisfaction for them, but only for the seventh that was the cause of the pretense.

4. Response to the Second Objection

110. To the second [n.105] it can be said that although all the mortal sins are present after baptism, yet none of them was the cause that they had not already been deleted in baptism. But the remaining seventh one was the cause why neither it nor the others have been deleted; and therefore it is rational that with respect to it baptism has no efficacy, but that it does have effect with respect to the others, because it has formally prevented the effect of baptism while the others have not. And then the proposition ‘mortal sin is not destroyed after baptism save through penance’ [n.105] must be understood of sin committed after baptism, or of sin altogether inherent, namely such that there was no contrition or attrition about it in baptism or after baptism.

111. It can be said in another way that when he now truly repents of his pretense, a grace is infused into him more perfect than would be the grace that would be infused precisely by virtue of penitence, so that it includes in itself the perfection of penitential and baptismal grace; and in this way baptism has its effect because it gives to someone who is repentant for his pretense a grace equivalent to baptismal grace, together with the grace that is merited from repenting.

a. Objection to this Response

112. But against this it is argued that then he would gain an advantage from this pretense, more than if he had not then been pretending and afterwards had fallen into a sin similar to the pretense; for if he had fallen into pretense in this way and were now repentant, he would not now have grace save by virtue of penance alone. But you [sc. Scotus] say that he who then was feigning in baptism has as it were a double grace in repenting [n.111].

b. Triple Response to the Objection

113. Here it can, in one way, be said that he does not gain an advantage but rather a loss; because at the time of baptism, and in the subsequent time up to penitence, he is a son of Gehenna [Matthew 23.15], and also all his works are dead. But if he had not been feigning, he would then, and afterwards up to his fall, have been a son of the Kingdom, and his works would have been alive, whereby he would have merited increase of grace and glory.

114. It can in another way be said that if he had not been feigning and if, having lapsed later, he were truly to do penance, he would, in doing penance, receive as much grace as he does now when doing penance for his pretense, because by rising through penance from mortal sin he recovers all the grace from which he fell, and some grace through penance in addition, and this either in reality or in divine acceptation; but about this below in the matter on penance [Ord. IV d.14 q.4].

115. It can in a third way chiefly be said that he who does penance for his pretense alone receives grace by virtue of the penance, and does not in this way receive a greater grace than if he had not been feigning in baptism and if, falling after baptism, he were now to rise again through penance. For it is not likely that equal grace not be given to someone equally penitent and about an equal or lesser sin. But he who has lapsed after baptism, although he has in some respect sinned more gravely than he who feigned, yet he who feigned has sinned more gravely in some other respect, because he has done irreverence to the sacrament.

116. And then the words that are said about the effect of baptism (which effect he obtains who does penance for his pretense) are to be taken to mean, not that in that penance he receive some grace by virtue of baptism (because his receiving of baptism was dead, and the dead cannot revive), but because he is absolved from the precept about receiving baptism, because he has fulfilled that precept. But the fulfilling of it was of no value to him for salvation before the penance. He receives the grace of baptism, therefore, when he repents, because he is a son of the Kingdom; nor is he obligated to receive baptism for the purpose of being a son of the Kingdom, because he has fulfilled that precept. And here note that someone actually sinning mortally in some act can fulfill in that act an affirmative precept.

II. To the Initial Arguments

117. To the first argument [n.87] I say that everyone baptized has to this extent put on Christ, that he is ascribed to the family of Christ; but he has not put on Christ through charity and grace. The first ‘putting on’ can be said to be common to everyone in the family; but the second is the ‘putting on’ of sons [Bonaventure Sent. IV d.4 p.1 dub.4]. Or it can be said that he is not baptized in Christ but in the name of Christ, because not in virtue of Christ interiorly baptizing him.

118. To the second [n.88] the answer is plain in the body of the question [nn.93-99].

119. To the third [n.89] I say that baptism expels sin - not because in the same person there is grace and sin in such a way that in the instant in which baptism has its effect it does not expel the sin that is then present (for which reason [as the objection tries to conclude, n.89] ‘no sin in someone who is feigning impedes baptism’), for grace and sin do not stand with each other at the same time; but baptismal grace expels all sin that was present up to that point. Now the guilt that is then actually present, or which is actually then being committed (because there is no attrition or contrition present about it), baptism does not expel, because it finds the obstacle of a will that is contrary.