Dist. 24, Part 2, Art. 3, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/24/q/bon-sent-II-d24-p2-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether mortal sin can be in the sensuality.*

Secondly it is asked whether mortal sin can be in the sensuality. And that it can, seems [to follow].

1. Just as the first movement has being in the sensible part, so too the act in which the consummation of the sin consists: therefore, just as venial sin is held to be in the sensuality on account of the first movement, so mortal [sin] must be held to be [there] on account of the consummated act.

2. Likewise, in that in which there is a *disposition*, there is apt to be a *habit*; but the venial *disposes* toward the mortal: therefore, since the venial can be in the sensuality, as has been shown, it seems so, etc.

3. Likewise, mortal fault is opposed to original justice; but that original justice was in Adam not only according to reason, but also according to the sensible part, since the whole [man] was ordered: therefore it seems that mortal fault can be in the sensuality, since opposites are apt to come to be about the same thing.

4. Likewise, just as the higher portion of reason is related to the good, so the sensuality declines toward evil; but in the higher portion of reason there can be venial sin by surreptition, as was shown above: therefore, conversely, from full consent and the perpetration of the sin, mortal sin will be able to descend even to the sensuality, so that, just as the sensuality communicates venial sin to the higher [part], so the higher part may communicate mortal sin to the sensuality.

**On the contrary:**
1. What completes mortal sin as such is aversion from God; but it belongs to reason alone to be turned away from God, since to it alone belongs being turned to God: therefore from reason alone can a sin be a mortal sin.

2. Likewise, consent alone makes mortal sin; but consent belongs to the rational part alone: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, mortal fault and grace mutually expel each other, therefore they have being about the same thing; but sanctifying grace, since in it is regarded the image of likeness, has being only in reason: therefore neither [does] mortal fault.

4. Likewise, if mortal fault were in the sensuality, this would not be except because it is perpetrated through it: therefore when someone perpetrates a homicide through the sword and the hand, the sin of homicide will be in the sword and the hand; and if it is false to say this, it is also absurd to say that mortal sin is in the sensuality.

> **Conclusion.** Mortal sin, neither inasmuch as it names a fault, nor inasmuch as it names a vice, is to be placed in the sensuality.

**I respond:** It must be said that mortal sin, neither inasmuch as it is a fault nor inasmuch as it is a vice, is to be placed in the sensuality. — And the reason for this is that mortal sin vitiates otherwise than venial sin does. For mortal sin vitiates and disorders with a *perfect* disorder, so to speak, which indeed consists in aversion from God and contempt of him and the consent of deliberation. But these belong to reason alone; and therefore mortal sin consists in reason alone. But the venial disorder is not a consummated disorder, but an *inchoate* one; and because disorder is apt to be begun in the lower power and consummated in the higher: hence it is that venial sin, inasmuch as it is a vice, is found in the sensuality. For it is not directly opposed to the habit of virtue, as is the vice of mortal sin, but only by a certain inclination and relation to the term toward which it disposes. But the viciousness and disorder of the mortal [sin] simply excludes the habit of virtue; and therefore every mortal sin is placed in *reason*, and none in the *sensuality*. — And the reasons showing this are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected first, that the act of sin is in the sensuality, just as the first movement; it must be said that, although it happens that both are found in the sensuality, yet [it is] in one way and another. For the first movement is found in the sensuality in such a way that it takes its origin there, and it is rather of the sensuality as exciting reason than as excited and moved by reason. But the act of mortal sin is found in the sensuality in such a way that it takes its origin from the command of reason, and is of the sensuality rather as moved than as moving. And since disorder and viciousness is held to be a sin there where they take their origin and where it is in the *account* of action, not in the *account* of passion; hence it is that from the first movement existing in the sensuality, venial sin is held to be there; but from the act of sin perpetrated through the sensuality, mortal sin is not held to be in it.

2. To that which is objected, that disposition and habit are apt to come to be in the same power; it must be said that this is true of that disposition which is of the same nature as the habit, and from which there is a passing over into the habit, just as the disposition-of-knowledge becomes the habit-of-knowledge. But of that disposition which is of another genus and disposes only by a certain ordering, it does not hold true. For the act of one power can be a disposition for eliciting the act of another power, just as cognition [is a disposition] for affection. And so it holds in the proposed [case]; therefore it is not valid.

3. To that which is objected concerning original justice, it must be said that of original justice it happens that one speaks in two ways: either inasmuch as it names a certain *habit regulating* nature in the state of innocence, or inasmuch as it names a full *rectification* of all the powers. In the first way original justice has being in *reason alone*; and thus fault is opposed to it. In the second way it has being not only in *reason*, but also in the *lower powers*; and thus it is taken away not only by *fault*, but also by *punishment*, or by something which in some way has the character of punishment, in some way the character of fault; and such is venial sin.

4. To that which is objected, that as the sensuality is related to the illicit, so reason is related to the good; it must be said that that comparison is not valid, because the higher power can do more than the lower; therefore, although the higher power can put on the act and disposition of the lower and busy itself about its object, it does not, however, follow that it can [be so] conversely.

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