Question One. Whether to Every Mortal Actual Sin there Correspond a Proper Satisfaction

1. “And just as with the aforesaid authorities” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.15 ch.1 n.1].

2. The fifteenth distinction - about which I ask first whether to every mortal actual sin there correspond a proper satisfaction.

3. It seems not:

Because then satisfaction could be made for one without making satisfaction for another, for the satisfaction could be paid proper to one without the satisfaction proper to another. But the consequent is false, because in this way someone in making satisfaction for one would be reconciled to original friendship, and in not making satisfaction for the other would remain an enemy; therefore, he would be a friend and an enemy at the same time, which is impossible.

4. Again, satisfaction could then be made for one sin, with the other sin remaining, because what is proper to the former sin could be paid, although the will for the latter sin remained.

5. Again, if to every sin there is a proper satisfaction, then prayer alone would be due for one sin, fasting for another, and almsgiving for another. The consequent is false, because then none of these penalties could be imposed indifferently for any sin, and so in some case no satisfaction could be imposed for sin; because it is possible for a poor man to sin with the sin to which almsgiving responds, and he would not be able to do it. Similarly, never in that case would all such things be imposed together for one sin.

6. Again, according to the Master, Sent.IV d.20 ch.1 nn.5-6 (and it is taken from [Ps.-]Augustine On True and False Penitence ch.18 n.34), sometimes contrition is so great that it destroys the whole of the penalty; therefore contrition can be a common satisfaction that is sufficient for any sin. It is also required for any sin, because without it no sin is destroyed.

7. On the contrary:

Satisfaction for a fault is payment of the penalty, because satisfaction is the giving back of that which, according to justice, should be given back. But according to justice, penalty puts a fault in order, and a proper penalty corresponds to a determinate fault as putting its disorder in order;     therefore etc     .

8. Again, in Revelation 18.7 it is said of Babylon, “Give her as much torment and grief as she gave herself glory and was in delights;” and according to the number of her sins will the number of her beatings be also.

I. To the Question

9. I reply: satisfaction is in one way taken generally, in another way properly and strictly.

A. About Satisfaction Taken Generally

10. As to the first, there are five things that need looking at: first, what is the idea of the name; second, whether satisfaction for guilt in this way is possible for man; third, in what it consists and from whom; fourth, whether, as to the question, a proper penalty corresponds to every sin; fifth whether, following the difficulty touched on in the first two arguments [nn.3-4], one satisfaction can be separated from another.

1. About the Idea of the Name ‘Satisfaction’ Taken Generally

11. About the first point, one needs to note that the idea of satisfaction taken generally is this: satisfaction is the voluntary giving back of the equivalent of that which is otherwise not due.

12. The first point, namely ‘giving back’, is plain, because it is not an absolute gift; for the term ‘satis-’ [‘enough’] states commensuration with something correspondent that precedes.

13. As to the term ‘voluntary etc.’, this is plain, because if the giving back were involuntary it would not be ‘satis-faction’ [‘doing enough’] but ‘satis-passion’ [‘suffering enough’], and in this way he from whom the penalty due for a fault committed is unwillingly exacted suffers enough but does not do enough (= ‘satisfy’).

14. As to the term ‘equivalent etc.’, this is plain because the verbal element ‘satis-’ implies this; justice also requires this, giving satisfaction back for that which it corresponds to.

15. The fourth part, namely ‘otherwise not due’, is plain, because if it were otherwise due, satisfaction would not be made for it, for there would not be correspondence in justice with it but with something else.

16. And this idea of satisfaction applies to any contract and obligation whatever. For in this way can he who receives a benefit make satisfaction to the benefactor, and in this way can he who is loved to the lover, by recompensing equal love. And thus can this idea be found both in free acts of the will and in acts in any way necessary, namely contracts, where there is a sort of obligation necessitating the making of a return. Likewise, since guilt makes the delinquent a debtor to him against whom he sins, this idea of satisfaction can be found there, namely that he should return to him what is equivalent and otherwise not due, up to the amount he took away by sin.

2. Whether this Sort of Satisfaction for Guilt is Possible for Man

a. Anselm’s Solution

17. About the second [n.10] it is said [Anselm, Why God Man I ch.23] that it is not possible for man to make satisfaction to God for sin - to God, I say, whom he has offended.

18. First [Anselm, I ch.13], because by sin the honor due to God is taken away; but nothing equivalent to the honor of God can be returned to him by us.

19. Second [Anselm, I ch.21], because mortal sin is an infinite evil; for it is an evil as great as he against whom the sin is committed; nothing but a finite good can be given back to him by us;     therefore , it is not equivalent; therefore etc     . [it does not make satisfaction].

20. Again, from another middle term, namely from what is otherwise due [Augustine, 86 Diverse Questions q.68 n.6, Bernard, On Loving God ch.6 n.16, cited by Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.15 princ.1 q.2], argument is made thus, that whatever we can pay out to God of obeisance and honor is all due to him by reason of creation, governance, and redemption; therefore, we cannot pay out to him what is not due to him, even from the innocent, and consequently it is due to him otherwise than for sin.

21. It is said, therefore [Anselm, II chs.18-19], that the sinner can make satisfaction in virtue of the passion of Christ, because that passion is so far accepted by the Triune God that, by virtue of his passion, the satisfaction is accepted that, accepted by itself, would not be satisfaction.

b. What Should be Said of Anselm’s Solution

22. But if this opinion is taking its understanding about God’s absolute power, because God could not accept any act of a penitent as a just satisfaction for sin save insofar as this act is conjoined with the merit of Christ’s passion - here is disproof of it [cf. also Scotus, Lectura III d.20 nn.12-39].

23. First, because it is not impossible for the Son of God not to have been incarnate and, consequently, not to have suffered; and it would have been possible, along with this, for God to have brought the predestined to beatitude, and to have done so justly (without however excluding mercy). Therefore, it would have been possible for the penitent to have made satisfaction for himself - for God cannot beatify the sinner justly without satisfaction.

24. This is confirmed by Augustine, On the Trinity XIII ch.10 n.13, “There was also, indeed, another way possible for our redemption, namely other than by the incarnation and passion; but none was more agreeable to the healing of our misery.” Therefore, our fall could be healed in a way other than through the incarnation and passion of Christ.

25. Again the passion of Christ only destroys our fault as a meritorious cause, and consequently as a second cause, which is not of the essence of the thing; indeed, it is reduced to the genus of efficient cause. But whatever God can do through a second efficient cause he can do immediately; therefore he could, without it, justly and in ordered manner remit guilt.

26. But if it be said to these two arguments [nn.23, 25] that God could, without the mediation of Christ, have destroyed the fault of the wayfarer, and so have led him to beatitude (according to the first argument [n.23]), and have immediately justified him

(according to the second argument [n.25]); yet not by way of satisfaction (because there would not have been anything equivalent then to give back), but now there is a whole equivalent through the passion of Christ (but with this passion being such as to be a satisfaction for it) - On the contrary: satisfaction is a returning of equivalent for equivalent; but the sin turning away from God was as evil as the turning back to God out of charity was good; also, my sin took away as much good (and not more), and as much good can be in my act, as was of a nature to be in my act; so through that amount of good, therefore, can something altogether equivalent be given back.

27. If it be said that my act is not the equivalent in good of the evil in displeasure [sc. caused to God] unless the act be elicited by grace, but the first grace would only be given to a sinner by the passion of Christ - on the contrary, because the first grace can very well, by the absolute power of God, be given without the merit of the passion of Christ.

28. The proof is:

Because the supreme grace given to a creature is given to the soul of Christ, and without any merit; for in no way was his passion either displayed or foreseen in respect of the grace to be conferred on him; rather, it was foreseen that he was going to have grace first before his passion was to be accepted.

Again, the passion of Christ was a finite good, even when taken according to the whole idea of merit in it; because it was not an uncreated good, nor consequently was it accepted by God infinitely on the part of the object, because God was not blessed by willing or loving that passion as he is by loving his essence. If infinity in sin, therefore, would prohibit possible satisfaction, it will also prohibit it after the passion of Christ is in place.

c. Scotus’ own Solution

29. As concerns this article [n.10], it can be said that God could, of his absolute power, have given the sinner after attrition, as through a fitting disposition and merit by congruity, a grace by which the sinner’s movement would become contrition, and thus, by satisfaction, have destroyed sin, because by an act returning to God the equivalent of the good that sin took away.

30. This act could also be otherwise not due, because although (if God wished to obligate us) we be bound to God whatever we are and do, yet he, of his very great mercy, considering our weakness and difficulty in respect of good, did not wish to obligate us by way of rule save to the Decalogue; and he could then have ordained to obligate man only to the Decalogue, without incarnating Christ. Man, therefore, could then do some works of supererogation that would otherwise not be due from him, and then the whole idea of satisfaction would be saved.

31. However God, of his ordained power, has not disposed to give the sinner the first grace save in virtue of the merit of him who was without sin, namely Christ; because, as was touched on above [nn.27-28], he did not dispose to reconcile the enemy to himself save through an obedience more welcome to himself than the offence of his was displeasing to himself; and such obedience of his is the passion of Christ and its merit. And thus did he not dispose to give grace to the sinner without the passion of Christ, without which grace there cannot be satisfaction at all, because not equivalent in any way either simply or in divine acceptation. Therefore, much more of ordained power is it not possible for satisfaction to be made to God save in virtue of the passion of Christ.

3. What Satisfaction Consists In

32. About the third point [n.10] I say that in this understanding satisfaction consists more in penal acts or voluntary sufferings than in other non-penal good acts. Although sometimes satisfaction could be made through some non-penal good act, because God can well accept a great act of charity for the punishment due to a single crime; because though it not be punishment proper, it is yet a greater good and gives honor to God more than does what would be its proper punishment. But, as a matter of rule, just as guilt is put into order by penalty and not by anything else of greater good than the guilt is, so satisfaction said in this way consists in actions or sufferings having the idea of penalty.

33. And this is what [Ps.-]Augustine says, On True and False Penitence ch.15 n.31 (and it is in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.16 ch.2 n.6), “There are worthy fruits of the virtues that do not suffice for the penitent; for penitence demands weightier fruits, so that he who is dead may by grief and groans win life.”

34. Now these penal acts or voluntary sufferings are reduced, in genus, to an interior act of displeasure or passion of sadness, and to an exterior act of confessing sin (which is very penal) or to a concomitant passion (namely shame), and to an act or passion simply exterior, namely vexing of flesh (and all such vexing should be contained or reduced to fasting) or raising the mind to God (and this is done through prayer) or expending of one’s temporal goods (which is done by almsgiving).

4. Solution of the Question

35. From this the fourth article [n.10] is clear, namely the solution of the question: for whether the satisfaction be understood to be proper as determinate, that is, in species, or proper as determinate, that is, in number, a proper satisfaction does not necessarily correspond to each sin; because both the same satisfaction in species and the same in number can correspond to this sin and to that.

36. That the same in species can correspond is plain, because contrition can correspond to this sin and to that, and it is the same in species, especially if the objects be the same in species.

37. That the same in number can correspond is plain, because contrition about several sins together in general can on its own correspond to those several sins; but then, for the satisfaction to be total, it must not be lessened, because let something of it suffice for one sin and something for another, the something and the something of it, I say, are not of parts really in act, but of degrees of intensity, namely such that the contrition be in so great a degree of intensity that in a far lesser degree it would suffice for one sin, and in the degree it super-adds it would suffice for another sin beyond

38. Several satisfactions too, whether total or partial, can correspond to a single sin: Total indeed because there is no sin that cannot be remitted through contrition alone, and then the contrition alone is a total satisfaction. The same sin can also be remitted through a weak contrition and through other penalties supplying for the imperfection of the contrition. But a contrition intense on one side, and the same weak on another (along with other penalties), differ also in species, though they be equivalent in divine acceptation.

39. Briefly, then, I say that a proper satisfaction does not belong to every sin, as if, forsooth, it correspond to no other sin, and not any other sin correspond to it. But to every sin a satisfaction proper for the moment now corresponds, even though another could be proper to it. I understand by ‘proper for the moment now’ either as in itself a distinct satisfaction or as something virtually included in satisfaction.

5. About the Separation of Satisfaction from Satisfaction Taken Universally

40. As to the fifth article [n.10], I say that satisfaction, taking it in this way (which however is total and not lessened satisfaction), reconciles the one making satisfaction to him whom he has offended, because either the offense is implacable, which is contrary to mercy, or, if it is placable, it is so through nothing more than through satisfaction said in this way. But it is impossible for anyone to be reconciled to God and yet remain in some sin.

41. Hence [Ps.-]Augustine On True and False Penitence, ch.9 n.24 [in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.15 ch.7 n.4, and also in Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 33 q.3 d.3 ch.42], “I know that God is enemy to every criminal; how then would he who keeps back his crime receive pardon from another, and without the love of God obtain pardon, without which no one ever found grace? An enemy of God is he while he perseveres in his offense. It is a sort of impiety of infidelity to hope for half a pardon from him who is Justice.” It follows, then, that it is impossible to satisfy God about one sin while remaining impenitent in act about another mortal sin.

42. But if the separation of this satisfaction from another satisfaction be understood such that, while a man is actually returning to God some sort of contrition or satisfaction for this sin, indeed sufficient for this sin, he is not actually returning satisfaction sufficient for another sin - I say that the satisfaction proper to this sin can be separated from the satisfaction proper to that sin, and this as to the effect, though not as to the affection, at least in habit. For as to the effect this is plain, because just as it is not necessary for the intellect to consider simultaneously this sin and that one, so it is not necessary for the will to be penitent simultaneously about this sin and that one, and this when taking ‘to be penitent’ for any of the four significations set down in the preceding distinction, question one [d.14 n.62]. But nevertheless, while he considers one sin and is penitent about it, he does at least in habit satisfy for the other, that is, he is ready in mind, should he think about it, to make satisfaction at some time for it.

B. About Satisfaction Taken Properly and Strictly

43. About the second main point [n.9], namely satisfaction taken strictly, four things need to be seen, proportionally to what was said [n.10]: first, the idea of the name as before; the second, about possibility, does not have here any difficulty, so what was third before will here be second, namely in what the satisfaction consists; and from this comes, third, the solution of the question whether to every sin there correspond its proper satisfaction; fourth whether one proper satisfaction is separable from another.

1. About the Idea of the Name ‘Satisfaction’ Taken Strictly

44. On the first point [n.43] I say that ‘satisfaction is an exterior operation, laboring or penal, voluntarily undertaken, for punishing a sin committed by oneself, and this for placating divine offense’; or it is ‘a passion or penalty voluntarily borne in its order to sin or the remission of sin’. This is much stricter and more particular than satisfaction in the first way [nn.11-16], because that one can consist in an interior or exterior penal act of voluntary suffering.

2. What Such Satisfaction Consists In

45. The second point [n.43] is plain, because as an exterior act or suffering is distinguished from an interior act or suffering of mind and from an act of speech or concomitant suffering, the satisfaction consists only in three difficult works, namely fasting, prayer, and almsgiving (which were spoken of in the third preceding article [n.34]), or in voluntary sufferings concomitant to these three difficult things.

3. Whether to Every Sin there Correspond its Proper Satisfaction

46. From this I say about the third article [n.43] that to sins in their kind distinguished into three members, namely into sin of the flesh, sin of concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life [I John 2.16], there correspond by congruity proper satisfactions in their kind, namely: to the sin of the flesh corresponds fasting, or universally any pain of the flesh more directed to repressing such sin of the flesh (and under this I comprehend vigils, pilgrimages, rough clothing, nakedness, going barefoot, indeed universally any fatiguing labor). And to the sin of pride and the other spiritual sins there more appropriately corresponds prayer, which humbles the spirit before God and strengthens the spirit against spiritual sins. And to sins in temporal goods, as to avarice or any cupidity (as rape, theft, unjust removal), there corresponds more appropriately the giving away of alms. The reason for all these is because of the greater correspondence of the penalty to the crime, because “what a man sins in, in that will he also be punished” [Wisdom 11.17]. Such is the statement about this correspondence in general and by congruity.

47. But about the necessary or the congruous in special cases it is not so, because it is not possible for one of these penal works to fit someone who has sinned, however, with a sin to which by congruity such penalty or such satisfaction belongs, as to a pauper who has committed theft is almsgiving not fitting, and so on in other cases; and then, if contrition not suffice, the sin ought not to remain entirely unavenged.

48. It is possible, then, and congruous to the moment, to impose as proper satisfaction on this sin something that yet is not proper to it with a universal correspondence by congruity; and for this is required the discretion of the priest, so that he not impose on anyone a penalty too inappropriate, but one that more agrees with him and that perhaps he will complete better.

49. For example, a pauper can neither give alms nor pray but must labor continually for his necessary sustenance; nor can he fast because then he would not be up to the labor necessary for continually acquiring his necessary sustenance. What then? The labor itself is for him a continuing fast, because it is a continuing pain of the flesh. He need only be induced to undergo that labor in remission for his sins, intending to refer it to this end, at least until the opportunity arises for him to pay some other satisfaction -and other things can be imposed as mildly and lightly as to be possible for him.

50. Likewise, a rich man who has fallen into a sin of the flesh, if he is so delicate that he not wish to fast or to undergo any notable pain, or it is presumed that, if it were imposed on him, he would quickly throw it off and would thus sin with a new sin - he is to be induced to prayer and almsgiving, and that thing is to be imposed on him which he receives gladly and which he is believed more perseveringly to fulfill. Or if he not wish to receive any penitence imposed on him by the priest, yet says he is displeased with the sin he has committed and has a firm purpose of not backsliding, he must be absolved and not dismissed, lest he fall into despair; and the penalty must be announced to him, the penalty that was to be done and imposed for his sins, and that he should, without imposition, study to fulfill it in itself or in its equivalent, otherwise he will pay it to the full in purgatory.

51. This mercy sufficiently accords with the prophecy about Christ that Matthew repeats [Matthew 12.20, from Isaiah 42.3], “The bruised reed he will not break, the smoking flax he will not quench.” The bruised reed is the sinner bruised with temptations and sins; the smoking flax is flax overly dank with sins, but having something of the fire of charity. He is quenched were he obligated by the harshness of the priest to a thing too difficult; but he will not be quenched if it is preached to him that he must either here or elsewhere pay the penalty, and that he should study to pay as much of the penalty here as is due for his sins, lest a harsher penalty be exacted elsewhere.

4. Whether One Proper Satisfaction is Separable from Another

a. Opinion of Others and its Refutation

52. About the fourth [n.43] it is said [Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 33 q.3, d.3 chs.39-49; Lombard, Sent. IV d.15 chs.1-3; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.15 princ.1 q.5] that although exterior satisfaction for one sin could be separated from satisfaction for another, as when someone prays then does not give alms, yet exterior satisfaction cannot be so done for one sin that he remain in some other sin. And the proof is that he would please God as to one sin and still be God’s enemy. And, to this extent, the satisfactions must be conjoined at any rate in the will, at least in habit though not in effect or as actually in the will.

53. But this opinion seems too hard against sinners, and an to be occasion for greater obstinacy. For if someone who is truly repentant today, and who is humbly taking on the satisfaction (let it be a fast of three days), falls back tomorrow into mortal sin and, not being penitent about that sin, fasts on the third day because it was imposed on him -if you say that the fast on the third day is not an exterior satisfaction, there is much occasion for inducing the one who has lapsed not to fast on the third day, and so occasion for new mortal sin, because in his transgressing this penitence received from the priest there seems to be mortal sin, since there is transgression of a precept of the Church and of the vicar of God in this act.

54. Herefrom can the following argument be formed: if after a lapse, and before complete penitence, someone not carry out the original satisfaction imposed on him, he sins mortally with a new sin; therefore if he do carry it out he does well, because he does an act of obedience; but he only does an act of obedience insofar as it is imposed on him as part of his satisfaction.

b. Scotus’ own Response

55. I say without prejudice, therefore, that he who is once truly penitent, and who receives a satisfaction or wholly fitting penitence imposed on him by the Church (the keys not erring), will, however much he backslide, only ever be held to fulfilment of that single penitence or satisfaction. And if he fulfill it in charity, it is better, because he not only pays the penalty but merits grace. But if without charity he fulfill it willingly he pays the penalty indeed, but he does not merit grace; and if it is from him without charity exacted, the penalty is paid, though he himself not pay it.

56. And in the first case there is satisfaction simply, because satisfaction that reconciles and pleases; in the second case there is a certain satisfaction, because there is ‘a voluntary giving back etc.’ [n.11], but not reconciling or pleasing satisfaction; and in the third case there is a satisfaction beyond which a further penalty is not exacted.

57. And from the second case [n.55] it follows that if he has in mortal sin fulfilled a great part of the satisfaction imposed on him and if afterwards he is again penitent about the new sin, penitence for the first sin that he has made satisfaction for (albeit without charity) is not to be imposed on him again, but only for the new sins that were the cause that the former satisfaction was dead.

And if you argue, ‘it is dead, therefore it is not satisfaction’ - this does not follow, but only that it is not a satisfaction that pleases and reconciles to friendship.

And if it be said, ‘therefore it is not satisfaction’ - this does not follow, because it suffices God that one by will pay the penalty due in punishment for the sin committed, because (as is less apparent) to do enough or to suffer enough also suffices. The fact is plain in human acts: for if to some offense against a king there precisely correspond according to law the cutting off of the hand, if the hand be cut off against the offender’s will, the offender suffers or does enough, and so far does this suffice the king, because the king should not in law and justice demand further penalty from him, and yet such a one is not received into the grace and friendship of the king. Much more then could it suffice for punishment of guilt if someone inflict on himself the due penalty, though he not be in the grace and friendship of the offended judge himself.

58. From the third case [n.55] it can be said that if such a one, because of the new sin that he has fallen back into, were damned before he had completed the whole penalty imposed on him, he would be punished in hell with a penalty corresponding to that which was not paid here; and when, after some time, it has been paid, it would not be punished further with any penalty - just as is also the case with venial sin, because someone dying in venial as well as in mortal sin would not be punished eternally for the venial sin (as will be said below, d.21 nn.29-31). And it is the same way in the matter at hand; for from the fact that, according to full punitive justice, a temporal penalty has been once imposed on this man for a sin he truly repented of, never from this man will a penalty for this sin save a temporal one be due, and when it is paid, there is no penalty.

II. To the Initial Arguments of Both Parts

59. To the arguments:

To the first two [nn.3-4] the answer is plain from the fifth article of the first member [nn.40-42] and the fourth member of the second article [nn.55-58].

60. To the third [n.5] the answer is plain from the third article of the second member [nn.46-51].

61. To the fourth [n.6] the answer is plain from the fourth article of the first member [nn.35-39].

62. And if you argue that contrition can destroy any sin, therefore to no sin does any other proper satisfaction correspond - this does not follow. However, because contrition does include some satisfaction, in desire at least (as will be said in d.17 nn.77-78), and although sometimes a contrition so intense may suffice or make satisfaction for any penalty to be inflicted, yet the precept about inflicting some penalty is not unreasonable, because contrition as a rule is only a partial satisfaction, and general precepts are for general remedy and accord with the conditions that are found in men for the most part.

63. To the first argument for the opposite [n.7], I concede that some penalty corresponds in some way to the guilt, either a penalty distinct in itself or a part contained virtually in another penalty; and thus there is a satisfaction proper to it, whether actual or virtual, and so a penalty proper to it, because no other now corresponds to it, speaking of total satisfaction, even if another could correspond to it. Also this penalty does not now correspond to another guilt, though it could correspond to another one.

64. To the authority from Revelation [n.8], I say that it is speaking of the penalty of the damned. The thing is plain from the text, 14.8: “Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen etc.” And it is true there that very precisely and properly is the penalty commensurate with the guilt; but neither as great a precision nor as great a commensuration exists or is required in a penitential penalty.