4. Whether One Proper Satisfaction is Separable from Another

a. Opinion of Others and its Refutation

52. About the fourth [n.43] it is said [Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 33 q.3, d.3 chs.39-49; Lombard, Sent. IV d.15 chs.1-3; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.15 princ.1 q.5] that although exterior satisfaction for one sin could be separated from satisfaction for another, as when someone prays then does not give alms, yet exterior satisfaction cannot be so done for one sin that he remain in some other sin. And the proof is that he would please God as to one sin and still be God’s enemy. And, to this extent, the satisfactions must be conjoined at any rate in the will, at least in habit though not in effect or as actually in the will.

53. But this opinion seems too hard against sinners, and an to be occasion for greater obstinacy. For if someone who is truly repentant today, and who is humbly taking on the satisfaction (let it be a fast of three days), falls back tomorrow into mortal sin and, not being penitent about that sin, fasts on the third day because it was imposed on him -if you say that the fast on the third day is not an exterior satisfaction, there is much occasion for inducing the one who has lapsed not to fast on the third day, and so occasion for new mortal sin, because in his transgressing this penitence received from the priest there seems to be mortal sin, since there is transgression of a precept of the Church and of the vicar of God in this act.

54. Herefrom can the following argument be formed: if after a lapse, and before complete penitence, someone not carry out the original satisfaction imposed on him, he sins mortally with a new sin; therefore if he do carry it out he does well, because he does an act of obedience; but he only does an act of obedience insofar as it is imposed on him as part of his satisfaction.

b. Scotus’ own Response

55. I say without prejudice, therefore, that he who is once truly penitent, and who receives a satisfaction or wholly fitting penitence imposed on him by the Church (the keys not erring), will, however much he backslide, only ever be held to fulfilment of that single penitence or satisfaction. And if he fulfill it in charity, it is better, because he not only pays the penalty but merits grace. But if without charity he fulfill it willingly he pays the penalty indeed, but he does not merit grace; and if it is from him without charity exacted, the penalty is paid, though he himself not pay it.

56. And in the first case there is satisfaction simply, because satisfaction that reconciles and pleases; in the second case there is a certain satisfaction, because there is ‘a voluntary giving back etc.’ [n.11], but not reconciling or pleasing satisfaction; and in the third case there is a satisfaction beyond which a further penalty is not exacted.

57. And from the second case [n.55] it follows that if he has in mortal sin fulfilled a great part of the satisfaction imposed on him and if afterwards he is again penitent about the new sin, penitence for the first sin that he has made satisfaction for (albeit without charity) is not to be imposed on him again, but only for the new sins that were the cause that the former satisfaction was dead.

And if you argue, ‘it is dead, therefore it is not satisfaction’ - this does not follow, but only that it is not a satisfaction that pleases and reconciles to friendship.

And if it be said, ‘therefore it is not satisfaction’ - this does not follow, because it suffices God that one by will pay the penalty due in punishment for the sin committed, because (as is less apparent) to do enough or to suffer enough also suffices. The fact is plain in human acts: for if to some offense against a king there precisely correspond according to law the cutting off of the hand, if the hand be cut off against the offender’s will, the offender suffers or does enough, and so far does this suffice the king, because the king should not in law and justice demand further penalty from him, and yet such a one is not received into the grace and friendship of the king. Much more then could it suffice for punishment of guilt if someone inflict on himself the due penalty, though he not be in the grace and friendship of the offended judge himself.

58. From the third case [n.55] it can be said that if such a one, because of the new sin that he has fallen back into, were damned before he had completed the whole penalty imposed on him, he would be punished in hell with a penalty corresponding to that which was not paid here; and when, after some time, it has been paid, it would not be punished further with any penalty - just as is also the case with venial sin, because someone dying in venial as well as in mortal sin would not be punished eternally for the venial sin (as will be said below, d.21 nn.29-31). And it is the same way in the matter at hand; for from the fact that, according to full punitive justice, a temporal penalty has been once imposed on this man for a sin he truly repented of, never from this man will a penalty for this sin save a temporal one be due, and when it is paid, there is no penalty.