III. To the Principal Arguments

76. To the first principal argument [n.2] the statement is made that, although the bad angels believe, yet the act in them of believing is bad because they hate what they believe. - But against this: an act of intellect, as it precedes an act of will, does not get deformity from a following act of will, but the bad angels can, in that prior act, conceive something true, and this a truth both of speculation (as that ‘God is three’) and of practice (as that ‘God is to be loved’).

77. One can say therefore to this argument that it proves a truth, namely that the bad angels have some act with diminished moral goodness, namely because the act is not bad with the contrary malice, that is, does not have any circumstance contrary to a due circumstance, although it does lack a circumstance that is due; for the bad angels do not believe because of the end that they should believe, and the circumstance of the end is necessary for moral goodness.

78. To the second [n.3] I say that ‘capacity’ and being ‘a sharer’ point to a remote potency when speaking of potency to act [n.49] - or, when speaking of potency which is a principle, they point to a partial, diminished active or passive principle.

79. To the third [n.4] I concede that there is free choice in them.

80. And when you argue that ‘the possibility for sin is not part of free choice’ (according to Anselm [n.4]) - I say that it is one thing to speak of the possibility for sin and another of the power for sin; for the first states order to a deformed act, while the second states the idea of a principle whereby a deformed act can be elicited.

81. Now the first order is not free choice absolutely, nor anything of it, nor is any ‘order to act’ some active principle or part of it.

82. In a second way I say that that by which there is a ‘possibility for sin’ includes two things, one of which is ‘possibility’ and the other is ‘being defective’. And that by which this thing is possible is its ‘possibility’, which ‘possibility’ is per se liberty and power of choice - but the second part does not belong to free choice as it is free choice, but as it is this sort of free choice, namely a defective one; such that, just as free choice in general is that whereby someone can will (and this taking the ‘in general’ as Anselm takes it, as it belongs to God and the blessed), so ‘this’ free choice - a free choice that can sin, namely a created one (that is, belonging to a wayfarer) - is that by which one can will defectively. However a dissimilarity can, up to a point, be posited, that for ‘absolute willing’ the whole positive entity of free will (and it alone) is the principle - but for the deformity in the act nothing positive in free choice is principle first.

83. And then to the form of the argument [n.4] I say that, given there is freedom of choice there, all that follows is that it is the power by which a positive act can be performed, which act is from the power qua power - and consequently that, insofar as there is free choice for it, it is not a sin; but it can be a sin from the defect accompanying the act.

84. However, one can concede the whole argument [n.4], namely that the bad angels have power for not sinning, because they have a power that is not formally sin -although they do not have a power of not sinning, that is, of not being in sin. Just as a sinner is said to be in sin after the sin he has committed has passed, and just as, being deprived of grace, he remains guilty (namely until he does penance for the sin committed), so the bad angels cannot of themselves not sin, that is, not be in sin; nor does their free choice need to be a power for not sinning, that, is for not being in sin.

85. And if you argue according to Anselm that ‘free choice is a power of keeping rightness for its own sake’, and that therefore he who has it can keep rightness by it and so not be in sin - I reply that someone can by free choice keep rightness when it is present (but not otherwise), and this is how Anselm expounds the matter.

86. To the other argument [the sixth, n.7] I say that in the case of merely natural agents there is a return, when all impediments cease, to the natural disposition, provided no violent action prevents it; and the reason is that the intrinsic principle (as far as concerns itself) is necessary in respect of natural goodness, and so always causes this natural goodness unless it is overcome by something that dominates it. But the will is not in this way a cause with respect to goodness in its act, but it has only a certain as it were passive natural inclination to goodness in act, which goodness, although it can give it to the act, yet it is not inclined to the giving of it by natural necessity the way a heavy object is to going downwards.

87. One can say in another way that sin is against nature, that is, against the act that is of a nature to be elicited in concord with and in conformity to the natural inclination; but there is no need, from this, that it be contrary to the will in itself, just as it is not necessary that what is contrary to an effect or an accident be contrary to the cause or the subject, especially when this sort of cause is not a natural cause of its effect but a free one.

88. To the other argument [the fourth, n.5] - about the likeness [between intellect and will] - I say that although it concludes against those who say the intellect is a sufficient mover of the will [nn.9, 19], because they would have to say that the intellect of the first angel [sc. Lucifer] does not rightly conceive any practical principle (because if it did rightly conceive, it would move the will in conformity with itself and so rightly), yet I believe this to be false, because just as the first principles of speculation are true from the terms, so also the first principles of action - and consequently an intellect that can conceive the quiddity of the terms of the first practical principle, and combine them, has a sufficient mover, and a mover ‘by way of nature’, for assenting to that principle; therefore the will, whose act is posterior, cannot impede the intellect in this - or at any rate cannot drive it to assent to the opposite.

89. As to how what is said in the Ethics is true, “everyone bad is ignorant” [n.5, Ethics 3.2.1110b28-30], this has to be dealt with elsewhere [Ord. 3 d.36 nn.11-14].

90. One can however say to the argument that the likeness [between intellect and will] is not valid, because the intellect can be compelled to assent such that it cannot be so blind that - when it apprehends the terms from the evidence of the terms - it cannot conceive the truth of the proposition composed of them. But the will is not compelled by the goodness of the object; therefore it can be so turned aside that no good, however great, when shown it moves it to love it, or at least to love it in ordered way.

91. To the other argument [the fifth, n.6] I say that when a habit is perfect or at its peak (as far as it can be perfected in such a subject, or according to the limit prefixed for it by divine wisdom), all subsequent acts do nothing to increase it but would only proceed from the habit already generated. Just as the acts of a good angel do not increase the habit of his charity, whether effectively or meritoriously (because he is in the term, either according to the nature of the habit or according to the capacity of the subject, or at any rate according to the term prefixed for him by God), but all those acts proceed from the fullness of the habit thus made perfect - so similarly in the issue at hand, the perfection of the habit [of a bad angel] is in the term according to the rule of divine wisdom, which does not permit the bad angels to increase their malice in intensity, and so the subsequent acts are only disposed as effects of a bad habit and not as agent causes of it.

92. The same response works for the point about punishment [n.6], that just as the substantial reward is determinate in the first instant in which an angel is blessed (nor does it then increase, because the good acts that follow are not meritorious, though they are good), so too in the case of a damned angel, he is, in the first instant of his damnation, determined to a definite punishment, which does not increase in intensity. And yet neither will his bad acts which he elicits be unpunished, just as neither will the good acts of a good angel be unrewarded; those good acts, indeed, of a good angel are included in the first act, because they proceed from the perfection of the beatific act - but as to the accidental reward that they can have, any act is its own reward; so too the bad acts which a damned angel elicits, are included in the first punishment determined with certainty for him - and any act, in the way it can have an accidental and a proper punishment, has itself for punishment (“you have commanded, Lord,” says Augustine Confessions 1.12 n.19, “and it is so, that every sinner is a punishment to himself”). For the most powerful and greatest punishment is the privation of the greatest good, and of this sort formally is the malice of guild in an evil act turning away from God. Therefore the punishment of the bad angels increases infinitely in extension, just as does also their malice - but neither increases in intensity.

93. And if you object that a second bad act is demeritorious, therefore a proper punishment corresponds to it - I reply that, although one can concede that a second bad act is guilt, yet it is not properly demeritorious (because it is not elicited by a wayfarer, to whom alone belongs meriting and demeriting), but can more properly be called a damnatory act or an act of someone damned; just as, on the other side, the act of someone blessed, although it is acceptable to God, is yet not properly meritorious but rather beatific or the act of someone blessed, or an act proceeding from blessedness.