2. The Second Conclusion

44. The second conclusion is this: the infusion of grace and the remission of guilt are a real two changes.Scotus’ Latin is unhelpfully ambiguous, since ‘real’ could go with ‘two’ or with ‘changes’. But it cannot go with ‘changes’ because remission of sin or guilt is said not to be a real change [nn.45, 49]. Therefore, it must go with ‘two’ and the sense is there is not just one change here [nn.39-43], but two, because, as n.45 says, one is a real change and the other is not. ⁴⁰

45. This is plain, because the infusion of grace is a real change, since it is between privation of the real form and the real form; but remission of guilt is not a real change;     therefore etc     .

46. The major of this reason has been proved [n.45], and is plain from the fact that there is one real change here.

47. The minor needs proof:

Here one must understand that if actual sin were posited to be the corruption or privation formally of some degree of nature, or of natural rectitude, or of some proper positive state or other, then the expulsion of guilt would be the restitution of the positive state that guilt was the privation of; and then the expulsion of guilt could be a real and positive change, from the privation of this rectitude to this rectitude.

48. But this was rejected in Ord. II dd.34-37 nn.36-40, 46, because intellectual nature cannot be corrupted through any action of itself; and just as the whole of nature is incorruptible so also is any degree of it, because if one degree could be corrupted by nature itself through an action of itself, the result would be that the whole could be corrupted by actions of itself repeated several times. Hence as was said there [ibid. supra], the remark of Augustine in Enchiridion [cited by Scotus in Lectura II dd.34-37 n.36], “sin is bad to the extent of the good it takes away,” must be understood to mean, not that it takes away from the goodness of nature in its primary being [sc. substantial being], because the failing of a contingent effect is not repugnant to the cause, since neither is it repugnant to the contingent effect to which it would seem to be more repugnant;Sin is a contingent effect of nature, for no one sins by nature or necessarily, and is not repugnant to nature, for then sin would be impossible; and a fortiori sin is not repugnant to acts of virtue, which are also contingent effects, and opposite effects, of nature. ⁴¹ but it must be understood to mean ‘to take away good in second act,’ not a good, to be sure, that is present, but a good that ought to be present.

49. Therefore if it were posited that some stain, proper to actual sin, were to remain in the soul and that it were expelled by penitence, then remission of guilt could be posited to be a real change away from that guilt to the lack of it. But this was rejected above in distinction 14, question 1, first article [nn.17-20, 34], where it was shown that after the past guilty action, interior and exterior, there remains, besides habitual injustice (which is lack of grace and single in a single soul), no proper actual injustice by which one may be called a sinner by such a sin. For the soul is not receptive immediately of the wrongness that is of a nature to exist in actual sin, but is so only through the medium of the proximate act in which that wrongness is. Therefore, after the past act, the soul remains obligated only to the proper penalty corresponding to the fault committed; and so this obligation is called ‘being guilty’, which remains in the soul after the passing of the intrinsic and extrinsic act.

50. And from this can the minor be proved of the reason accepted before [nn.45, 49, taken from d.14], as follows:

Obligation to a penalty for a fault committed is not anything real in the soul after the past act, but is only a relation of reason in the willed object as willed; therefore, turning away from this relation of reason, which is from this obligation to non-obligation, is not any real change.

51. The consequence is plain, because a change is not real unless it is to a real positive term or a real privative term.

52. The antecedent is plain because, just as what is willed by me has, from the fact that it is willed by me, no new real form, absolute or relative, but only a relation of reason corresponding to the real volition in me - so by the fact that someone, after he has committed a fault, is willed or ordained to a penalty by the divine will, then, since the fault not remain as either any real positive or privative thing, neither is any real relation going to remain founded on the fault, but only a relation of reason; and this, taking relation of reason indifferently for an object willed just as for an object understood (the way contained in Ord. I distinction 45 question 1 nn.7-110), because the comparing of an object willed through an act of will to something else is no more real than the comparing of an object understood through an act of intellect to something else.