Question One. Whether the Power of the Keys Extends Only to Temporal Penalty

1. “Here is wont to be asked” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.18 ch.1 n.1].

2. The eighteenth distinction, wherein the Master treats of the power of the keys. And in the nineteenth distinction he treats of the conferring of the keys.

3. About this eighteenth distinction I ask whether the power of the keys extends itself only to the temporal penalty.That is, and not to the eternal penalty as well [nn.86-95]. ⁵⁷

4. That it does not:

Because if it does, then either to remitting penalty or to inflicting it:

Not for remitting it, because then by frequent absolutions the whole penalty due to sin could be remitted, and thus any priest would have the power of absolving from guilt and from penalty by frequent absolutions, which is unacceptable and impossible.

Nor for inflicting penalty, because then any penitent would be bound to any penalty enjoined on him by a priest, which is false. Because if some priest indiscreetly impose an immoderate penalty, about which the penitent can know that it is a penalty disproportionate to the fault (namely he can know from Scripture, which contains the correspondence of penalties to fault), he is not bound to fulfill it, because he is not bound to obey an inferior against the will of the superior, nor even at a tangent to the will of the superior; because he does not obey an inferior save because of the will of the superior; and there is no will of a superior, namely of God, that inflicts so great a penalty for that fault.

5. Again, John 20.23, “Whose sins you remit they are remitted     etc .” Therefore      the power of the keys of the Church is for remitting sins;     therefore it precisely does not extend itself to temporal penalty; therefore etc     .

6. To the opposite:

The power of the keys is for, and extends itself to, something; but not for anything other than temporal penalty;     therefore etc     . The major is plain, because otherwise there would be no power. The proof of the minor is that the power of the keys is not for remission of eternal guilt or penalty because, according to the Master in the text (Lombard, ibid. [ch.4 n.6]), these two belong to God alone.

7. Before use of the keys, sin is remitted by contrition and the will to confess alone, from Augustine and Cassiodorus on Psalm 31 “I said, I will confess” [d.17 nn.4-5].     Therefore , if use of the keys has regard to anything in this matter, it will only be temporal penalty.