Dist. 28, Art. 1, 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/28/q/bon-sent-II-d28-a1-q2
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### Article I. Question II. *Whether free choice without grace that makes pleasing can conquer its adversary.*

Second, it is asked whether free choice without grace that makes pleasing can conquer its adversary. And it seems that it can.

1. In Genesis chapter four it was said to Cain: *Beneath you shall be your appetite, and you shall have dominion over it;* but it is established that Cain was already in mortal sin: therefore in that state he was able to have dominion over his own appetite. But the adversary has no victory in us except through our appetite: if therefore without grace that makes pleasing Cain was able to overcome his own appetite, it seems that he could also conquer the adversary.

2. Likewise, Bernard in the book *On Free Choice*: *Free choice is the most powerful thing under God.* And in the same place he says that free choice « suffers no failing of itself at all, wherefore most especially in it the image of the eternal and unchangeable deity is seen. For though it has a beginning, yet it knows no setting; nor does it receive increase from justice or from grace, nor loss from the misery of sin ». Therefore if free choice, aided by grace and justice, can overcome the adversary, by parity of reasoning it seems that it can do so also by itself.

3. Likewise, the spirit of lust is cast down or conquered through continence, and the spirit of anger through patience, and so of the rest; but continence and patience can be had without grace that makes pleasing, through grace freely given: therefore it seems, etc.

4. Likewise, it is more difficult to conquer oneself than to conquer the devil; for as has been held, and as the Master says above in the twenty-first distinction: « The temptation of the flesh is stronger than the temptation of the enemy »; but a man without grace that makes pleasing can conquer himself and expose himself to death, as is plain in heretics: therefore much more strongly does it seem that without grace that makes pleasing he can triumph over the devil.

5. Likewise, our adversary, in whom there is no grace that makes pleasing, can frequently overpower us and subjugate us to himself: if therefore a man is not of worse condition than the devil is, it seems that without any gift of grace someone can conquer his adversary.

**On the contrary:**
1. First Corinthians chapter fifteen: *Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord:* therefore without the help of Christ no one can have victory over the enemy. If therefore Christ helps us through his grace, by which he justifies us, it seems, etc.

2. Likewise, Romans chapter seven: *Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?* And he answers: *The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.* If therefore no one conquers the adversary except one who is delivered from the law of sin and death, it seems that without the grace of God through Jesus Christ — which indeed is grace that makes pleasing — one cannot conquer the adversary.

3. Likewise, upon that text of the Psalm: *They were weakened* etc., the Gloss: « Not able to resist vices by themselves ». « For when God desists from his help, a man can labor, but not conquer »: therefore it seems that without the help of grace that makes pleasing it does not happen that one conquers the tempter. But if you say that this is to be understood of grace freely given, not of grace that makes pleasing alone, the objection is made through another Gloss upon that text of the Psalm: *Sendings in by evil angels* etc.; there the Gloss: « The devil has power over a sinner as over his own beast »: therefore since one cannot be rescued from sin except through grace that makes pleasing, one cannot be rescued from the power of the devil except through it: therefore without it one cannot conquer him.

4. Likewise, to the conqueror a crown is owed, according to what is said in Apocalypse chapters two and three; but to no one fighting against the adversary is the crown of glory owed, except to him who has grace that makes pleasing: therefore no one without it can conquer the devil.

5. Likewise, whatever a man may do and whatever also he may guard against, so long as he is without grace that makes pleasing, he remains in fault, as was shown before; but while he remains in fault, he is the servant of the devil, and a servant also of sin; and he who is the servant of the devil has been conquered by the devil, according to what is said in second Peter chapter two: therefore without grace that makes pleasing it is impossible to triumph over the devil.

### Conclusion

> Without grace that makes pleasing a man cannot so conquer the adversary as to make progress in the merit of condignity.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that it is one thing to say that someone resists the adversary, and another that someone conquers the adversary. For victory implies more than resistance. For resistance consists in this, that one does not consent to the diabolical suggestion; but victory consists in attaining the opposite of that which the devil intended. Now the devil intended to render the man an enemy to God, and to make him deserving of eternal punishment. Then, therefore, does a man conquer the adversary, when he so resists temptation that he is made a greater friend of God and merits the eternal kingdom. — And since this cannot be without grace that makes pleasing, therefore it must be granted that, although someone through grace freely given can resist the devil, so as not to consent to him when he suggests, nevertheless without the gift that renders a man acceptable to God he cannot conquer him, so as to make progress against the devil's intention in the dignity of merit or in the merit of condignity. — And the reasons that show this are to be granted.

*To the 1st.* To that which is objected concerning what was said to Cain: *Beneath you shall be your appetite* etc., it must be said that although it was in his power to restrain his appetite, so that he did not proceed into the act of sin, even without grace that makes pleasing; nevertheless it does not follow from this that he could conquer the adversary; because, even if he did this without grace, there would be there resistance, by which he would avoid punishment, yet there would not be there victory, by which he would merit the palm.

*To the 2nd.* To that which is objected, that free choice is said to be the most powerful thing under God, and that it is neither increased nor diminished; it must be said that, just as was expounded above, this is understood as to the privation of compulsion, not as to the power of preserving rectitude.

*To the 3rd.* To that which is objected, that the spirit of lust is conquered through continence; it must be said that although through continence, which is without grace that makes pleasing, one can resist the spirit of lust, nevertheless that resistance cannot be called a triumph, for the reason that one attains no palm from it.

*To the 4th.* To that which is objected, that one can conquer oneself without grace that makes pleasing; it must be said that this is false. For although a heretic, who exposes himself to death, may seem to conquer himself, nevertheless there is not there victory, but a casting-down. For he is overcome by the wickedness of his error and the perversity of his conscience and the depth of his obstinacy; and on account of this he merits confusion and ignominy from that endurance of death rather than glory.

*To the 5th.* To that which is objected, that the devil can conquer a man without grace; it must be said that the devil's victory consists in subjugating the man to himself through sin, whereas the man's victory consists in earning that which the devil lost; and therefore, just as it is easier to sin than to make progress in good, so it is easier for the devil to overcome the man than for the man to conquer the adversary. Moreover, the devil does not conquer a man except one who is willing and consenting, whereas the devil is never conquered willingly; and therefore it does not follow that, if the devil can carry off victory over a man without grace, that likewise it can be the other way around; rather it is not alike, as has been shown.