3. Scotus’ own Opinion

28. As to this article [n.16], then, I say that nothing real, absolute or respective, is in anyone by which he may be called a sinner after all act of sinning ceases - and this whether gravely or multiply a sinner, as one is said to be after the act passes away.

29. And if it be said that something left behind by the act remains, it is not formally sin, because it can continue in someone justified, just as a vicious habit, or a disposition for it, remains in someone justified suddenly. The fact is plain because at the beginning he is prone to follow the inclination of the vicious habit, but in fighting against the inclination of it he merits well and acquires for himself a habit to the contrary. Hence great sinners do not, as soon as they are justified, have that peace which the perfect and practiced in virtue do.

30. Also, whatever habit or vicious disposition might, from acts, be left behind, it would cease to be after passage of time unless it were strengthened by frequent acts (just as universally every disposition for a habit ceases to be when the acts perfecting that habit cease to be). But that by which a sinner is, after an act, said to be a sinner does not cease to be through any time however much, although like acts not be added to it; for he is a sinner for ever from when he committed it. So there is not anything absolute or respective there, positive or privative, from the time of the ceasing of the act up to penance, by which he may be called a sinner, but there is only a certain relation of reason, insofar as he is an object of the intellect or will of God. Because, after he has committed the sin, the will of God ordains him to a penalty corresponding to the sin, and the intellect of God foresees this for all time until the penalty due is paid.

31. The proof of this is from Augustine on Psalm 31.1-2, narration 2 n.9, “Blessed are those” [whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered]: ‘To see sins’, he says, belongs to God for assigning to penalty; ‘but to turn his face from sins’, this is for God not to keep for penalty. So Augustine says,     therefore , that sins are not covered over by God such that God not see them, but that he not wish to attend to them, that is, to punish them; therefore , that a sinner remains in guilt after the act passes away is only that he is ordained by God’s will for penalty befitting the sin. But an object of intellect or of will has, as it is understood or willed, only a relation of reason; therefore etc     .

32. This is confirmed by a likeness: let it be that God not consider, in a multiplication of merits, the habit of charity - as is possible if the merits be mild or even if they were intense - yet he who had many merits is, after the exterior or interior acts pass away, more deserving than someone else. Which is nothing other than that he is ordained to a greater glory, by which is not obtained anything real positive or privative intrinsic to him, absolute or respective, but only a relation of reason insofar as he is an object of the divine will and in order to be ordained to greater glory. For there, in the divine acceptance, merits are ordained, or the man is ordained through merits, to such or such a glory. Just as, therefore, this acceptation for transient merits is nothing really save an act of the divine will (and in this there is only a relation of reason as in an object willed), so on the other side the casting off of this man because of transient sins is only a reprobation or repulsion in the divine will, and in the sinner it is only a relation of reason (as of someone cast off or reprobate) for such or such a penalty.

33. This finally is plain from a like obvious case, that if someone offend a great prince with the sort of offense that a great penalty responds to, there is, when that act ceases, nothing in him that, before the act for which he be called an enemy now and not before, was not previously there; but the transient act in him is only in the will of the offended lord himself, and by this fact is it a relation of reason in him, as in a subject or object willed for such sort of penalty.

34. From this a corollary follows, that after the act of sin ceases the offense, stain, and fault is nothing other than this relation of reason, namely ordination to a penalty; and as this is unbecoming to the very soul, it is said to be the ‘stain’ of the soul (just as ‘beauty’ is said of it as the opposite); but as it is formally an obligation for this penalty it is called ‘guilt’; and as it is an act of divine will (which is this whole reality), by which act the soul is ordered to such penalty, it is called ‘offense’. For ‘to be offended’ or ‘to be angry’ is in God nothing other than will to exact vengeance with this penalty; and although God be said figuratively to be angry or offended, yet by taking this idea of ‘to be angry’ for ‘to will to avenge’ (excluding any accompanying passion of this ‘will’), God is formally angry and offended, because he is formally willing to avenge sin committed against his Law.