A. Solution of the Question

1. Two Conclusions of Others

86. As to the question asked about the eighteenth distinction [n.3] there are two conclusions:

The first negative: namely that the force of the keys does not extend itself to the removal of guilt or of eternal penalty [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.18 q.1 a.3; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.18 princ.2 q.1].

87. The master seems to think this in this distinction [Lombard, Sent. IV d.18 ch.6 n.3], “God,” he says, “does by himself dismiss sin thus, because he both cleanses the soul from interior stain and releases it from the debt of eternal death.”

88. What then do Gospel priests do?

He replies: “God bestows on them the power of binding and loosing, that is, of showing that they are bound or loosed.”

89. He proves it about the leper who is cured before sent to the priest, Luke 5.14; similarly about Lazarus resuscitated before handed to the disciples to be loosed, John 11.44.

90. Again, Jerome in his Commentary on Matthew 16.19, “I will give you the keys etc.,” says “In Leviticus 14.2-4 lepers are bidden to show themselves to the priests, because the priests do not make them lepers or clean, but discern who are clean or unclean.”

91. Herefrom the Master says [ibid.], “What once the legal priests had in the Law in curing lepers, this now the Gospel priest has in retaining or remitting faults.”

92. The affirmative conclusion is added [n.86; Aquinas, ibid., Richard of Middleton, ibid. q.2], that the force of the keys extends itself to the temporal penalty.

93. And in this the Master gives exposition in a different way [ibid. n.4] about how the Gospel priest looses and binds, because “he binds to the temporal penalty that he imposes on the confessing penitent, but he looses when he dismisses something from the penalty due, or admits the sinner who is purged by it to communion in the sacraments.”

94. But the point is added that this power is with respect to the temporal penalty, because the act of it is not ratified unless it is in conformity with divine judgment, namely, unless it imposes as much penalty as, according to divine justice, responds to the sins. Suppose, for example, that this man is by his sins bound according to strict rigor to such and such a penalty of ten days; the priest can remit, by virtue of the keys, a penalty for him of three days, and let it be that this priest, as dispenser of the Church’s treasury, could remit one or two days - after all this, the man remains obligated to six or five days, from which, if the priest dismiss something, this his obligation is not ratified, because the key of power is then erring in binding and loosing; for it makes him more loosed from temporal penalty than God judges him loosed,That is, the priest, by virtue of the keys, remits to the penitent in confession three days of the ten that are due. Then, by virtue of being dispenser of the Church’s treasury (and not by the power of the keys), he remits another one or two days, leaving the penitent with five or six days still to pay. If the priest remits more, imposing a lesser penalty still on the penitent in confession (as Richard [n.92] at least allows he may do), the penitent’s obligation to this lesser penalty is not ratified by God, but the penitent must pay the full five or six days remaining, at least in purgatory. ⁵⁹ and consequently, unless he pay those six days here, the remainder of them will be exacted in purgatory.

2. Refutation of the Conclusions

a. Against the First Conclusion

95. Against the first [n.86]: because then the sacrament of penitence would not be a sacrament of the New Law. Nor would it have any causality or causal disposition for the first grace, because it would never be received save by one who already has the first grace, for no one is worthily shown to be loosed by God unless he was loosed before.

96. Again, the reception of this sacrament is an instrument for grace, that is, a disposition efficacious and necessary, by divine statute, for the reception of grace. But an instrument or preceding disposition is not a sign recollective or ostensive of anything as already past but of the future; therefore, the conferring of the sacrament of penitence, in order for it to be worthily done, does not need to be a sign of a preceding divine absolution.

97. I concede this point, as has been made clear at length in distinction 14 question 4 [nn.130-150], that the sacrament of penitence can be worthily received by someone who has attrition, and this with as much attrition as would not suffice by way of merit for receiving justification at the term of attrition. And if at the term it not in pretense be received, the first grace that is conferred by God is received; and sacramental absolution is an efficacious sign of the absolution that follows in the final instant of it, just as the speaking of the words is a sign of confection of the body of Christ.

98. Accordingly, it is plain how this sacrament is an instrument for the first grace as a disposition previous to it, in the way that alteration can be called an instrument with respect to the generation of substance, because it is a disposition previous to it.

99. There is no likeness, then, between the priest of the law [of Moses] with respect to leprosy and the Gospel priest with respect to guilt; because the former only performed something that was a sign recollective of cleansing from leprosy, and nothing that was an efficacious prognostic sign of a cleansing that follows. But the latter [sc. the Gospel priest] performs an act that is an efficacious prognostic sign of a cleansing that follows at the last instant; nor however is he lying, because the absolution [of the penitent] is understood to be for the instant at which he is absolved by God and the Church.

100. If you say that therefore the priest destroys the stain and eternal penalty of death, which is proper to God - I say that he does both, provided there are two there, which was spoken about elsewhere [d.16 nn.44-65]. But he only does them instrumentally, not indeed in reaching the effect either by his own power or that of another, but by reaching something prior, which is a necessitating disposition for the effect - necessitating, I say, by divine pact. And such an agent that causes a disposition necessary for the term is called an ‘instrumental agent’, just as is true of something that alters and generates [n.98]. But it is proper principally to God to cleanse and to remit the debt by also reaching the effect; and neither of these belongs to the priest.

101. The authorities, therefore, that the Master adduces for himself [nn.89-91], do affirmatively say that the priest does this, and it is indeed true that the Gospel priest shows this [penitent] cleansed and loosed at the instant at which his absolution is understood to be. But not this only; rather he thus shows that the showing is a disposition preceding and necessary for that which is shown. For this is the excellence of the sacraments of the New Law, that the reception of them is a disposition sufficient for grace; but of the legal ones [sc. of the Mosaic Law] not even the reception was an efficacious disposition for bodily cleansing of leprosy, or that sort of foulness.

102. Now it would be similar if we were to speak of the priest of the law [of Moses] purifying someone, through certain washings, from some irregularity contracted in the Law by contact with leprosy or the like. For then the priest would perform an act that would be a sign efficacious of reconciliation from this sort of irregularity and of cleansing from this pollution, in the act or term of which cleansing the effect signified would follow, namely that this person was worthy to commune with the rest in the Synagogue.

b. Against the Second Conclusion

103. Against what is said secondly [nn.92, 94], it can be argued as follows: the power of judging in a case is not committed to anyone whose judgment will never, for any diligence whatever he is able to use, be ratified but only by chance or by special divine miracle; but whatever diligence a priest is able to use, he can never reach that indivisible point of the penalty that God judges this sinner to deserve. If he do, then, reach it, this will be by chance or special miracle, and it will not, for you [n.94], be ratified unless he do reach it; therefore he does not have the power of judging.

104. There is a confirmation, because it is not likely that God has given the Church a power of thus judging what he wants the judgment of the Church to ratify, and yet that it be impossible for the Church to judge correctly such that it not be ratified save by chance or special miracle.

105. Again, no one is constituted an arbiter between parties under the condition that he judge precisely according to the will of one of the parties, and this especially when he cannot determinately know the will of that party. But in a judgment of penitence the parties are God and the sinner, between whom the priest is arbiter. Therefore, the priest is not bound to judge precisely the penalty that God would inflict on the sinner, especially since he could not be clear about the will of God as to what it precisely is as the sinner is a member of the Church.

106. Again, if the priest impose a little bit more than correspond to the penitent’s sins, it is not probable but that the penitent would be bound to fulfill it. Therefore, although he impose a little bit less than the deserved penalty, it seems to be enough; for if something less than the point that divine justice dictates were not enough, then he ought not to fulfil any penalty beyond that point of divine justice.

3. Scotus’ own Response

107. I say, therefore that, as in other cases of exchange commutative justice possesses some latitude such that it has regard not to some indivisible point in an exchange but to the mean of right reason, so punitive justice, which is a certain exchange of penalty for guilt, does not necessarily have regard to an indivisible degree of penalty corresponding to the guilt, but there is some latitude below which a lesser penalty does not suffice and beyond which a greater penalty is not to be imposed. And a key that, outside that whole latitude, binds below or beyond it, is in error; and then not undeservedly is what it looses on earth not loosed in heaven, that is, not ratified. But a key within that latitude is not in error. And therefore the judgment is ratified to the extent that, it is necessary to fulfill whatever is imposed within that latitude. And if it not be fulfilled, what is left over will be exacted in purgatory. And if less be imposed and be fulfilled, nothing more will be exacted in purgatory.

108. Now this middle within that latitude is possible for a man to know by the Law of God with the assistance of natural reason. And therefore obligation to this broad latitude is obligation to what is possible for a man without special miracle and without chance and fortune.

109. But is the penitent bound to fulfill the penalty imposed by a non-erring key?

I say that he is, if he will to submit himself to this priest both as to absolution of guilt and as to receiving or paying the corresponding temporal penalty; for he is then obligated to precept of the Church, to which he has voluntarily submitted himself.

110. But if he only wish to submit himself to this priest as to change of eternal penalty to temporal, and not as to the appraisal of the temporal penalty, but as concerns that, and the appraisal of it, he wants to submit himself to the hand of God either here or in purgatory - it would not be expedient to repulse such a one without absolution; for perhaps he would go away desperate.

111. Nor does it seem that he is in mortal sin because of this will, if he be contrite about the sin and wish to be punished for it (with a deserving penalty) by him to whom it justly belongs to inflict the penalty, though he not wish it to be inflicted on him by this priest, nor wish himself to accept it so as to make this priest the minister of the inflicting of it.

112. And it cannot be said that this penitent is disobedient to the Church, because he can submit himself to the decision of the Church as concerns the penitential judgment to which he is bound to submit himself, but he does not wish to submit himself to the judgment that follows. And it is plain that the judgment that follows is not necessarily included in the first one, because a priest, however uniform the first judgment is, considerably varies the following one. Hence frequently too, because of the will of the one confessing to undergo a great penalty, he gives him a moderate penalty telling him he must pay the rest in purgatory; and although that little penalty be manifestly disproportionate (outside the latitude) to the fault, not for this reason does such a one not receive the sacrament of penitence.

113. In the same way it seems that a priest could impose no penalty at all on him because of his resistance to receive it, telling him that he must pay the whole penalty in purgatory. And Augustine hints at this [Ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penitence ch.10 n.25], that if some displeasing penitence is imposed on someone who can scarcely be made inclined toward it, one must be afraid that he will take occasion therefrom to fall back into mortal sin, because taking occasion to throw the penitence away, wherein he will sin mortally after refusing to submit himself to the priest in the receiving of it.

114. But suppose that the key of science is in error but not the key of power, is the judgment not ratified in heaven?

I reply: the key of science errs when the things that belong to the judgment are not well inquired into or examined, as that if some empty circumstances are inquired into that neither aggravate nor alleviate the deed but are pleasing to the prurient ears of the confessor, and if no inquiry is made into the attrition of the one confessing but the priest only listens to him as if he were narrating a single story. In the first case, indeed, although something be done that was not to be done, however provided nothing be omitted that was to be done, as that, along with circumstances being required that did not need to be required, those are required that did need to be required, then a correct judgment can follow; but in the second case, with the requiring of what displeases the one confessing omitted, a right judgment cannot follow save by chance.

115. In brief, therefore, I say that if the key of science err by pursuing things not necessary to the case or that are illicit, the confessor sins; but if he dismisses nothing of what is necessary for cognizance of the case, he can judge rightly. But if the key of science err by omitting something that is necessary to the cognizance of the case, the priest both sins and cannot judge rightly save by chance, and especially about the attrition of the one confessing.

116. But if the penitent show himself sorry although however he is not, he is in pretense and is departing from true penitence, and with a new sin. And the key of science does not err, but the penitent himself is wandering into his own peril. And then the judgment of the priest is ratified in heaven, for he did what it was his to do, because, as a man, he could only see the heart through external signs. But it is not ratified as concerns the one who receives it, because he is not capable of it in the way he shows himself capable of it.

117. But suppose that, when something necessary has been omitted from the case, the confessor brings in a right sentence - I say that it will be ratified as concerns the one who receives it (provided he is not in pretense), such that it will be sufficient for him to fulfill the penalty. And in this way must distinctions be drawn, that sometimes a judgment is ratified on both sides, both that of the priest and that of the recipient; and sometimes on the part of the latter and not the former; and sometimes on the part of the former and not the latter.