The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus :: Ordinatio. Book 4. Distinctions 14

B. Whether by the Ordained Power of God the Same Sin in Number could in Any Way Return

1. Response

18. About the second article [n.9] I say that God has disposed that the sins of the penitent are covered over after penitence, that is, that, according to Augustine expounding Psalm 31.1, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven etc .” [Expositions of Psalms ps.31 exposition 2 n.9], they are seen no more for vengeance and, according to Nahum 1.9, “God will not pass judgment on it twice.” And therefore , by the ordained power of God, the same obligation cannot return, nor return to the same penalty, after it has been extinguished. And this is what is contained in Gratian, Decretum p.2 cause 33 q.3 d.4 ch.24, “The divine clemency does not suffer dismissed sins to return for vengeance anymore.”

2. Objection and its Solution

19. To the contrary:

Good works made dead by sin revive afterwards in him who rises, as [Ps.]Augustine says [On True and False Penance ch.14 n.29], and it is in the text [Lombard, Sent. IV d.15 ch.6 n.3], “It is a pious thing to believe that, when he has by the grace of God destroyed in man prior evils, he will also reward goods, so too, when he has destroyed what he finds not to be his own, he loves the good that he has planted in him.”

20. Again, evils are related to punishment as goods are to reward; but goods previously done come alive again for reward; therefore, evils too return for punishment.

21. It could in one way be said [sc. in reply to n.19] that this is superabundant divine mercy, that good things always live in his acceptation (meritorious goods, I say) and a reward would always have to be returned for them unless, because of a new fault, there were an indisposition in the receiver. But evils are totally extinguished such that neither in themselves, nor in the divine understanding or will, do they remain ordained for vengeance. And therefore Augustine, in response to a certain objection by infidels who prove that God does not always want to dismiss sins (“for they say that then God is an inciter of evil and that they to whom he always gives grace always please him”), replies [On True and False Penance ch.5 n.11]: “It is agreed that sins much displease him who is always at the ready to destroy them; for if he love them, he would not thus destroy them;” and it is in Gratian, Decretum [p.2 cause 33 q. 3; Lombard, Sent. IV d.14 ch.5 n.2].

22. And, according to this way, an example from the jurists would be good for the purpose in hand, that some right remains for someone for whom, because of some impediment, action does not remain, or does not belong. Thus in the case of someone who possesses good merits in the divine acceptation, but ones deadened by mortal sin, there remains the whole right that corresponds, for eternal life, to those merits. But the action of them does not remain as long as he is an enemy; and if he is always an enemy, the action ceases permanently. But when enmity contracted by a new mortal sin ceases, a new right does not return, but action according to the old right is due to him. And in the case of remitted evil the right does not remain nor the action, because God does not have the right of revenge over remitted sin; for penitence has so perfectly covered his sin and remitted it that no action remain to God for taking vengeance.

23. Although this be said well in commendation of the excellent mercy of God, it can yet in some way be reduced to justice, in this way: sin is not remitted unless at least the debt for eternal penalty is commuted into debt for temporal penalty; and when the commutation has been done, never is the guilt as a rule remitted unless the temporal penalty is in itself paid or in an equivalent penalty. And consequently, after mortal sin has first been remitted in itself and its penalty paid, nothing of right remains afterwards whereby any penalty for the sin is to be required from the penitent. But after merit worthy of eternal life, never is this worth for eternal good commuted, according to justice, into some temporal good; therefore never does that right expire until the eternal good is paid. But it is not paid to the wayfarer while he is wayfarer. Therefore the right always remains, though extinct through mortal sin, because the carrying out of his right is not then due to him.

24. The cases, then, of reward for dead merits and of the coming back of sins remitted are not alike, not only because of divine mercy (which is indeed true), but also because of the justice that commutes the eternal there to the temporal. But not so here [sc. the case of dead merits].

25. The answer to the second [n.20] is plain from the same point, that evils do not have the like relationship in this respect to punishment that goods have to reward, because evils can be punished temporally and sufficiently (if the eternal penalty have been commuted into a temporal one), but good merits cannot be rewarded sufficiently by such commutation, nor rewarded consequently unless the eternal reward itself be conferred on them, which never happens to a wayfarer. And therefore his right always remains safe for the glory that he has acquired through those merits.

3. Objection to the Last Statement and its Solution

26. Against this [n.25]: in that case everyone who rises from mortal sin would rise in greater grace than the grace from which he fell, because he would rise in all the now revived goods that he had before; and, besides this, in the act of penitence through which he rises and which he adds to the past ones; and so he would rise in greater grace. But this is unacceptable: first because not everyone who falls always falls more seriously than he fell before, nor does he therefore rise, when he rises, more graced than he was before; second because the first grace can be greater or lesser, and consequently can be least; but the first grace is acquired through penitence; therefore it is possible that sometimes the grace recovered through penitence is the least.

27. To this I say that to have more merits in divine acceptation (merits kept in their order to the reward that is to be rendered for them) is not the same as to have greater grace intensively. For universally, to every merit there corresponds and is due not only some accidental reward but some essential reward. The fact is plain, because if someone had this merit alone [sc. first grace through penitence, n.26], without any other merit, he would be beatified not precisely in the degree in which, without merits, he would be beatified on account of grace alone (as a baptized child is) - for the grace of anyone who has his own merit exceeds the glory of such a child. Therefore, every merit, following other merits already possessed, requires, corresponding to it, its proper essential degree of glory; and yet grace is not at once increased by any merit, nor is he who has more merits always in greater grace.

28. Although therefore grace alone suffice for some glory, yet to merits there corresponds some determinate degree, at least, of glory, though to a greater grace without merits there correspond a greater glory than to a lesser grace. However, in every person the same there is put a merit of grace that is added on, although by it grace is not immediately made more intense. However there does correspond to it a degree of glory beyond the degree that corresponds precisely to the grace.

29. Through this I say to the argument [n.26] that he who rises has more merits in the acceptation of God than when he fell, and consequently, in this respect, he is ordained to a greater glory; but it is not necessary that he rise in greater grace, because a greater or lesser grace is given then to him according to his disposition to detest intensely or weakly the sin he committed.

4. A Further Objection and its Solution

30. But on the contrary [to n.29]:

Then he would carry back an advantage from his fall, since he rises more worthy of reward in acceptation.

31. Besides, the response given [n.29] seems to include things repugnant to each other; because if he is worthy of a greater glory when he rises than when he fell, and he fell from a great grace whereby he was worthy of a great glory, then he does not rise in a little grace, because that single merit, which by rising he adds on, would not add as much glory as was the glory taken away by the deficiency of second grace (or its being lesser with respect to first grace); therefore etc .⁶⁹

32. To the first [n.30] I say that he does not obtain an advantage but a great disadvantage, not only because he sinned, but because (as to the issue at hand) the whole time he remained in sin is lost to him, and in that time he could have multiplied merits, had he then remained in grace.

33. To the second [n.31] I say that if one removes what in glory corresponds to merits (and let it be called b) from what in it corresponds to grace (and let it be called a), perhaps a does exceed b; and when he rises, because all his prior merits live in God’s acceptation, the right and dignity for the whole of b returns; but the right for a does not return to him, if the second grace is less than the first; therefore the merits live again, but the prior grace does not live again.

34. And this is sufficiently consonant with justice, because the prior grace was a gift of God only, but the merits were in some way the works of man; and therefore are they always preserved for him in divine acceptation; but the grace is not so preserved for him that he should, because he had it, be always equally ordered to a reward on account of it - but only if he now has it.

35. This way, by holding that the essential degree of glory corresponds to merit [n.34], is consonant with Scripture, which in many places asserts this sentence of divine justice, that it “renders to each man according to his works” [Psalm 61.12, Romans 2.6]; but nowhere in Scripture does one get that he renders to each according to what he has. And it is consonant with the observance of divine Law, because it is useful to do continually, as far as possible, meritorious works according to the Law, though the works are weak to such degree that through them grace is not at once increased; because a determinate degree of glory corresponds to individuals in God’s acceptation.⁷⁰

36. Nor is it as expedient to preserve grace as it is to do a weak work that grace is not increased by, because although he who thus weakly acts not have greater grace through his work than he who sleeps (in whom grace is preserved without such work), yet he does not labor in vain, nor does he exceed in nothing him who slept; rather by the fact that he worked he is now worthy of some eternal good which the former is not worthy of.

5. Two Corollaries

37. From these points follow two corollaries:

One is that there is someone, worthy of greater glory (speaking of what in glory corresponds to merits, and about worth not proximately but remotely, namely according to right, but suspended right), who is damned, and there is another, worthy of much less glory, who in this way is saved. But this is for the reason that this other is worthy in an accessible way, because he now has right that is unsuspended. He is also worthy of the other element in glory corresponding to grace, of which he who is damned is not worthy; and to no one is what corresponds to merits given without what corresponds to grace, but conversely.

38. Also, if what corresponds to merit is of the same idea as what corresponds to grace, and if what corresponds to merit is by every merit increased in divine acceptation, then to completed merits corresponds as much glory as what corresponds to grace. Since, therefore, he who has grace in a determinate degree would be saved, and he who has all the merits, but dead merits, would be damned, then he who is worthy, but with remote and suspended worth (and is thus worthy of much greater glory), will be damned; and he who is worthy with an accessible worth of much lesser glory will be saved. And it is no wonder that to an enemy, while he is an enemy, all past goods whatever are not sufficient for obtaining reward.

39. The second corollary is that the merits, to which a great degree of glory corresponds, while they are dead, cannot merit the least grace - otherwise he who had fallen from many merits would already have merited to rise from his fall through the first grace that, because of those merits, was to be conferred on him. And yet I do not believe that the dead merits have altogether no effect in divine acceptation for giving first grace to him who has lapsed; because although, in strict justice, this enemy of God is not worthy with worth accessible to any grace and glory, yet the excellent mercy of God, because of that person’s preceding though now dead merits, more quickly gives hum grace for rising up again.

40. Hence, just as I believe that a more perfect man falls, because of his greater ingratitude, more gravely, so I believe that, other things being equal, he rises again more quickly because of the kindness of God, who in some way accepts his past merits for this purpose. Hence, I heard one time of a man, before very perfect and afterwards fallen very deep, who, although he would, because of his evil deeds, have to be adjudged for death, was most mercifully visited, and suddenly the most perfect penitence was breathed into him. This should well attract anyone to act meritoriously as much as he can always, because whether he is going to remain or whether he is going to fall, [his past merits] will not be totally forgotten before God.

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