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C. About Voluntary Penalty or Punishment
1. About the Thing of Such Punishment or Penitence
a. The Penalty or Punishment should be Voluntary
40. About the third article [n.16] one must first see about the thing, second about the name.
And about the thing let this be the conclusion, that for the deletion of sin there is required as a rule a voluntary penalty or punishment.
41. The proof of this is that sin is deleted through some punishment, as was said in the second article [nn.36-39], and that through some punishment it is not deleted, as is plain in the damned. And about the penalty that immediately follows a fault, “You have commanded, O Lord, and so it is, that each sinner should be a penalty to himself,” according to Augustine Confessions I ch.12 n.19 [cf. Ord. II d.7 n.92].
42. Now a difference between a punishment by which sin is deleted and a punishment by which it is not deleted is not as provable as it is about what is voluntary and what is involuntary. First because the punishment of the damned is far greater, intensively and extensively, than is the punishment of a wayfarer whose sin is deleted by the punishment; and consequently being more and less intensive and extensive does not make a difference between a punishment that deletes sin and a punishment that does not.4 Second because we see it so in human offenses, that a voluntary penalty or distress placates the one offended, but not at all one that is involuntary and undertaken with murmuring.5 Therefore if deletion of offense be owed to some penalty and to some penalty not, and if the difference in this regard is not as provable by anything as it is by the voluntary and involuntary, it is reasonable that voluntary penalty be as a rule required for deletion of sin.
43. Then follows a corollary, how guilt is set in order in a double way by penalty: for guilt that remains is put in order by the accompanying penalty, but the penalty is involuntary; and guilt put in order by a voluntary penalty is deleted by it.
b. About the Ways in which a Penalty can be Voluntary
44. But if you ask how some penalty could be voluntary, since it is of the idea of penalty that it be involuntary (because just as no one commits sin in what he does not want, so no one is punished in what he does want) - I reply: this difficulty requires a rather long explication.
45. And here it must be noted that the involuntary is simply that against which the will simply murmurs back.
46. And consequently, by opposition, the voluntary can be understood in three ways: in one way that against which the will altogether does not murmur but patiently sustains; in a second way that which it voluntarily accepts; in a third way that which it voluntarily causes - and this in two ways: either as partial proximate cause and not intending the effect, or as principal remote cause and intending the effect. And thus are four members obtained.
47. And this distinction is plain, because in the first two modes sadness is only the object of the will; in the third it is only the effect and not the object; in the fourth it is the object and the effect, unless something else prevent it (these members will be at once explained [nn.49-55]). The order here is also plain, because the second makes an addition as to the idea of what is voluntary to the first, and the third to the second and the fourth to the third.
48. And penalty too can be understood either as whatever is disadvantageous or disagreeable (and that can be in a sense-part in man or in the body conjoined with act of the sense-soul), or it can be the prime disagreeable thing, which is the sadness that is the penalty properly and first, about which Augustine says, City of God XIV ch.15, “sadness is the soul’s dissenting from the things that happen to us against our will.”
49. Having made supposition, then, about the exterior penalties as about things that are manifest how they can be voluntary in each of these four ways of the voluntary [n.46] - let us see specifically about this first penalty, namely sadness.
50. It is plain that it can be voluntary in the first way, namely voluntary in a certain respect, that is, ‘borne patiently’, because a disagreeable evil, provided however it not be against right reason, can be undergone not only patiently absolutely but patiently in an ordered way.
51. It can also [sc. in the second way, n.46] be accepted in order to some end, as Augustine says [Ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penitence ch.13; in Lombard, Sent. IV d.14 ch.13 n.6], “Let the sinner grieve for his sin, and rejoice in his grief.”
52. But, third [n.46], as to how the will causes grief or sadness voluntarily as partial cause, a difficulty arises. I say that sadness in any will cannot be caused naturally save by two causes coming together, namely from actual willing of some existence and from actual apprehending of that existence,6 in line with the preceding description of sadness from Augustine [n.48]. Whatever therefore is cause of volition is partial cause of sadness, though it not intend, nor need intend, to cause sadness through the volition. Now these two causes, whenever they come together, cause (as far as it is from themselves) sadness as a naturally consequent effect.
53. From this third the fourth [n.46] is made clear, because from the fact that sadness follows, as a natural effect, on actual volition of something and actual consideration of the thing willed, then although these two proximate causes could come together in a multiplicity of ways (because coming from as many causes as such actual consideration in the intellect and such actual volition in the will can come from), yet no single one can be cause of sadness (speaking of natural causation) unless there could be a cause of the coming together of these two that are the naturally necessary proximate causes.
54. Now a common cause of this sort can the will be as commanding an act of consideration and an act of volition of the same object, and this in an ordering to the intended end, so that a punitive sadness follows; therefore the will, when bidding the intellect to consider something as existing in act and bidding the will to will it as existing in act, causes sadness as a single cause, as also intending this effect - and this not as proximate cause, because there cannot be a proximate single sufficient cause; but it causes sadness as a remote single cause, because it is cause of the proximate causes in regard to sadness, and cause of the applying of them.
55. Thus therefore is it plain how the first penalty, namely sadness [n.49], can be supremely voluntary and caused by the will, not only as by a partial cause (the way the will universally causes when causing what happens), but as by a total cause, namely by applying the proximate partial causes of this effect, and this in an order to causing such effect.
56. Then as to the argument that ‘every penalty is involuntary’ [n.44], it is true in itself, and this when comparing it to the will that is following love of advantage. However, a penalty can be voluntary in the antecedent will, namely in the voluntary applying of the causes on which a penalty follows. It can also be voluntary with accepting will, and this with a will that follows love of justice, because it thus accepts whatever has an order to something that is to be justly willed per se; and this sadness can be toward something that is to be justly willed per se.
2. About the Name of the Aforesaid Penitence
a. About the Word ‘Penitence’ Equivocally Taken
57. About the second conclusion of this article [n.32], namely about the word ‘penitence’, I say that, just as in the case of the voluntary punishment [nn.49-55], it turns out there are many things to consider: First indeed, the will to punish, which is a commanding or efficacious will joining together the proximate causes of undergoing the punishment; second, the not willing to have sinned or to give displeasure, which is a proximate partial cause of the penalty, although the not willing not intend the penalty; and third, willing, that is, accepting, the undergoing of the punishment now inflicted; fourth, bearing the punishment patiently. And let these four be thus briefly expressed: to avenge what has been done; to detest what has been done; to accept the penalty inflicted; to bear patiently the penalty inflicted.
58. To these four correspond another four on the part of the term of the volition, wherein the material element is the same, namely ‘to punish’. And there are four superadded formal elements, namely what is willed by the will causing, what by the will detesting, what by the will accepting, what by the will patiently bearing.
59. Now it is plain that none of the aforesaid volitions is per se the same as the punishment undergone. And thus the name [sc. ‘penitence’], which per se signifies volition and connotes punishment, will not signify punishment univocally in connoting volition, and consequently, if any expression per se signify the punishment willed and the willing of the penalty, this will be done equivocally. Again, if it signify this fourfold volition, this will be done equivocally.
60. The same name, then, could be equivocally imposed on these eight elements.
b. About the Word ‘Penitence’ Taken Univocally or Properly
61. But putting the stress on the term ‘to be penitent’, since ‘to be penitent’ is ‘to hold a penalty’7 (according to the etymology of the word), and since ‘to hold a penalty’ imports suffering with respect to the penalty (not just the suffering of it as it is present8), the thing signified by this term seems to consists in four primary things.
62. And so there is a fourfold description of what it is ‘to be penitent’:
First is this: ‘To be penitent is to avenge a sin committed by oneself’. And it is plain how there it is ‘holding a penalty’, because to apply a penalty to oneself is to hold it; and it can be so understood whether one apply or inflict the penalty in fact or in affection, because he who avenges no less avenges even when the penalty, because of the defect of some second cause, not follow, provided however he himself have equal intention to inflict the penalty.
The second description of what it is ‘to be penitent’ is ‘to detest or hate a sin committed by oneself’ or ‘to have displeasure about this sin committed by oneself’. And it is plain how there it is ‘holding a penalty’, because holding it in a partial proximate cause. And this is understood of the willing-against or detesting or having displeasure about this sin in its proper idea, or in general at the same time about any sin committed by oneself - and again whether of formal or virtual displeasure. And virtual displeasure is any act of the will virtually including that displeasure, the way a cause in some way includes its effect even though the effect in itself not be caused; thus since every willing-against arises from some willing, all displeasure or willing-against of sin, although it not be present formally, can yet be present virtually in one’s will, on which will such displeasure is of a nature to follow.
The third description: ‘to be penitent is to accept gladly a punishment inflicted for sin committed’. And it is plain how here it is ‘holding a penalty’, in just the way an object is held by an act of will; and this can be understood of accepting formally or virtually, namely in some acceptation in which it is included virtually, just as willing a thing for an end is included in willing the end.
The fourth description: ‘to be penitent is to suffer patiently the punishment inflicted on oneself for one’s sin’. And it is plain how here it is ‘holding a penalty’, because it is not to cast off by murmuring back; hence too it is similarly said in this sense to be ‘to sustain’9, as if to keep oneself under the action of the agent, or of the one doing the inflicting, by conforming oneself to it.
63. All voluntary punishment is contained under one or other of the four modes of penitence. But, for the deletion of any actual mortal sin committed after baptism, some voluntary punishment is required; so for the deletion of it is required penitence stated in one or other of the four modes.