B. Scotus’ own Opinion

13. It can therefore be said that if original justice did have this effect, namely to cause perfect tranquility in the soul as to all its powers (so that no lower power would incline against the judgment of a higher; or if it did incline as far as concerned itself, it could yet be ordered and regulated by a higher power without difficulty on the part of the higher, and without sadness on the part of the lower), then, since the soul would not have this when made purely in its natural conditions alone, there is need to posit in it a supernatural gift so that this perfect tranquility may exist in the soul.

14. For the will,a when conjoined to the sensitive appetite, is of a nature to enjoy delight along with that appetite, just as the intellect, when conjoined with the senses, is of a nature to understand sensible things; and if such a will is conjoined with many sensitive appetites, it is of a nature to enjoy delight along with all of them - and thus, not only can it not draw the appetite back from what delights it without any contrary inclination on the part of the appetite and without any difficulty, but neither does it seem able without difficulty to draw itself back from delighting along with the appetite. In order, then, for it to draw itself back with delight, something must become more delightful to it than is the delightful thing of the lower appetite that it jointly delights in together with that appetite; so in order for the will to be able to draw itself back with delight from every disordered delighting along with a lower power, something must of itself be more delightful to the will than any delightful thing of any lower power; and since there is nothing such on the part of the will itself, there must have been something supernatural in the will whereby the end became more delightful to it than anything delightful of any sensitive appetite -and for this reason the will would more delightfully draw itself back from joint delight along with the sensitive appetite than depart from that delightful thing, namely from the end.b If there was then this effect in the first man, namely perfect tranquility, and it was an effect of original justice, that justice was a supernatural gift, because God made it more delightful to the will than any appetible sensible thing, and this could not have come from any natural gift of the will itself.

a. a[Interpolation] From this a second argument can be formed.

b. b[Interpolation] according to which it jointly delighted along with the sensitive appetite.

15. But is it really the case that by this all rebellion is taken away, so that the lower power delightfully draws itself back from its proper delightful object?

I reply:

If the will abstains delightfully from joint delight with a lower power, the whole man delightfully abstains from the delightful object of the lower sensitive appetite; but the whole man does not abstain with sadness if the lower power abstains with sadness; for what belongs to man according to a higher power belongs to him simply, and not for this reason is it denied to him if it does not belong to him according to a lower power.

16. But if it be said, on the part of a lower power, that the lower power on its part delightfully obeys reason, then it seems that something must be placed in the lower power so that it may be thus delightfully drawn to something delightful to the will; for it does not seem that a lower power would from its own nature be delightfully torn away from its own delightful thing; nor even was the lower power from its nature as it is a power lower than the will delightfully torn away in itself from its delightful object, because this essential order remains now and yet there is no such delight now. There would be need, then, to posit in the individual lower appetitive powers individual gifts, so that each of them would, through its gift, be moved by the will, and the will by its gift would move itself delightfully in relation to the lower powers; and if there were several such gifts, that gift was most of all original justice which was in the will.

17. For through that gift the will would prevent certain delights of the sensitive appetite from ever being present in it, as the delight of committing adultery with another’s beautiful wife. The will would have had command over some delights and would have made a good use of them, as the delights of knowing one’s own wife by obeying the divine precept (namely the precept ‘Be fruitful and multiply etc.’ Genesis 1.28), so that those lawful delights, which by occasion, for the time they were present, are to be had, would not have been held by the will as end, but would have been referred to the due end. From some lawful delights too, which are sometimes to be had, the will would sometimes have turned away, as from the delight that was not be had save for a time. And each of these acts, whether preventing delights, or using well delights possessed, or turning away from possessed delights, the will would do delightfully through that supernatural gift whereby it was more delightful to it to adhere to the ultimate end and to all things ordered toward it than to be separated from it by adhering to something delightful not ordered to the end.

18. All these things the will could not have had from pure nature, although it would of itself have some gift to which all these were proper. Nor for this reason would there be delight, although the whole man, to whom the principal power of delighting belonged, would delight. Nor perhaps is it necessary to posit that no sensitive appetite could then have been saddened; for sight could then have seen something foul and hearing could then have heard something foul, and both could have offended the sensitive appetite, just as a fitting sensible object could also have delighted it; but the will then would have used those sadnesses well, and would even have used the sadnesses of the lower appetites delightfully (so that it would not have been saddened immediately by the inferior appetites), just as it would have used the delights of them well, delighting along with them not immoderately.

19. About the other effect attributed to original justice, namely immortality, there is no need to argue, because this immortality - as was said in d.19 [not in the Ordinatio, see Lectura 2 d.19 n.5] - was not an impossibility of dying (even while that state continued), but a possibility of not dying; and this possibility would have been preserved in an act of not dying by means of the many aids that are talked of there, namely eating of the tree of life, the guardianship of the angels, also divine protection and good internal regimen, and the rest of the things there talked of [ibid. nn.10-15].