Dist. 28, Art. 2, 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-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether free choice, deprived of all grace, can resist any temptation.*

Secondly it is asked whether free choice, deprived of all grace, can resist any temptation. And that it can, it seems.

**Arguments for the affirmative.**

1. Gregory in the *Morals*: "Weak is the enemy who does not conquer save the one willing." But what someone does voluntarily, he can not-do: therefore if someone voluntarily consents to the adversary, even one deprived of grace can not-consent, and through this resist temptation.

2. Likewise, free choice, deprived of all grace, is still free; if it is free, then it cannot be compelled: therefore it can resist the diabolical suggestion; and if so: therefore it can also resist not only one, but even every temptation.

3. Likewise, the good is more powerful than any evil whatever; but free choice, deprived of all grace, still has the natural faculty of judgment, which is in it by nature: therefore, since that is a good, it is more powerful than sin and concupiscence and the diabolical temptation inclining to evil; and if so: therefore it can resist not only one, but any temptation whatever.

4. Likewise, since there is a "threefold power, namely of grace, of nature, and of vice," according to what is said in the Gloss on Romans 7; the power of grace adds upon the power of nature; but the power of vice diminishes: therefore the power of nature is above the power of vice: therefore, every grace being set aside, with the natural power alone remaining, it seems that free choice can resist the impelling vice.

5. Likewise, just as free choice is changeable toward evil, so every creature is changeable into non-being; but many creatures are conserved in being without any freely given grace, through natural principles and the divine presence: therefore by parity of reason it seems that through free choice, deprived of grace, by its own power without any superadded gift of grace, someone can escape a fall into sin.

6. Likewise, "the demons have given to them intact and most splendid [gifts]," therefore much more the free choice of fallen man; but unfallen free choice could of itself resist temptation: therefore by parity of reason it seems that fallen free choice can do this, even if it be deprived of all grace. But if perhaps you say that, although it be intact as to the nature of the power, it is nevertheless weakened and diminished as to the consequent capacity, so that it cannot resist; then I ask: either it can, or it cannot. If it can, I have my point. If it cannot; and no one is to be blamed for what he cannot avoid: therefore either free choice would not sin by not resisting temptation, or in sinning it would not be blameworthy. But both of these are impossible: therefore the other remains, namely that it can resist temptation.

**On the contrary:**

1. Matthew 6: *And lead us not into temptation,* is said in the Lord's Prayer; but no one asks of another what he can do through himself: if therefore man wisely asks this of God, it seems that man cannot do this through free choice without some gratuitous gift.

2. Likewise, Augustine, in defining free choice, as was held above in distinction 24, says that free choice "is a faculty of will and reason, by which the good is chosen, grace assisting, and the evil, grace withdrawing." If therefore this account is correct; unless divine grace be present, free choice will always choose the evil: therefore it will resist no temptation.

3. Likewise, on that passage of Romans 7: *To will is present with me,* etc., the Gloss: "It is natural in a certain way to will the good through reason; but this willing is such that it is always overcome by the force of the flesh": therefore it seems that without the help of grace man always, when he is tempted, consents to the fault.

4. Likewise, free choice in pre-choosing always follows the predominant affection, and this Anselm expressly declares in the book *On Free Choice*, and it is manifest by experience; but without grace, at least freely given, when free choice is corrupted, the love of one's own good reigns: therefore it seems that it always pre-chooses that, so far as concerns itself, unless divine grace assist: therefore the same as before.

5. Likewise, death is not in us except through sin: therefore where there is a necessity of dying, it seems that, unless God's grace be present, there is likewise a necessity also of sinning; but where there is a necessity of sinning, there is no power of resisting temptation: if therefore free choice has this, insofar as it is deprived of grace; it is clear, etc.

6. Likewise, one having a lame foot, when he walks, must limp: therefore if the spiritual foot is one having a disordered and crooked affection, it necessarily limps in its act: therefore necessarily free choice, deprived of grace, since it is fallen and made crooked, will be cast headlong into sin. But if this is so, it is impossible that without the gift of grace it should resist temptation.

### Conclusion

> Man's free choice, deprived of all grace, neither can resist every temptation, nor must it succumb to every temptation.

**I respond:** For understanding the foregoing it must be noted that some held that free choice, according to the state in which it now is, without the gift of grace can by its own power resist every temptation; for if this were not so, sin ought not to be imputed to it. — But this position is plainly false and against sacred Scripture and against the testimonies of the Saints. For if no one can resist the temptation of lust except through continence, no one the temptation of unbelief except through faith; but it does not befall one to have continence and faith without the gift of divine grace, according to what is said in Wisdom 8: *I cannot be continent,* etc., and in 1 Corinthians 12: *To another is given faith in the same spirit:* it is plain from sacred Scripture itself that free choice without the gift of grace cannot resist every temptation. This too Augustine proves in many ways in the book *On the Perfection of Man's Righteousness*, and *On Nature and Grace;* and in the book *On True Religion* he says expressly that he who does not wish to be surpassed by another must envy the other; and so the proud man must sometimes sin by the sin of envy; and likewise it is to be understood to be so in the other kinds of sins. And therefore that position of Pelagius is to be repudiated as erroneous. — Now this is what deceived Pelagius, that free choice is never deprived of all freely given grace; and he attributed the power of grace to nature itself. For, blinded by pride, he did not know how to distinguish between natural and gratuitous gifts.

But the position of others was that fallen free choice, deprived of all grace, could resist no temptation, for the reason that it is fallen and in its fall is so weakened and made crooked that, unless the gift of divine mercy be present, it is bent down to every evil that is suggested and offered to it. And they rely upon that Gloss which says on that passage of the Psalm: *Sending [evils] by evil angels:* "The devil has power over the sinner as over his own beast." And from this they argue that, unless divine help be present, he will make it rush of its own will from sin into sin. And again another Gloss on Habakkuk 1: "I did not know that he had received such great power that no one could resist his strength." This is to be understood as said of itself, without the help of divine grace. And if you object to them that then man would not be blameworthy, they answer by what is said in the Gloss on Romans 7: *It is not I who work, but the sin that dwells in me;* there the Gloss: "Is it the case that, because he says man sins unwillingly, he ought to seem free from crime? By no means; for through his own vice and desire these things were begun. For because he handed himself over by assent to sin, it rightly has dominion over him."

But because it seems very harsh to say that free choice in such a state could resist no temptation, since it has a natural faculty of judgment and a certain natural instinct murmuring against evil, and is not confirmed in evil: therefore there is a third way, holding the mean between these two extremes, namely that free choice, deprived of all grace, neither could resist every temptation, nor would it have to succumb to every temptation. It could not, I say, resist every one because of its instability and weakness, according to that of Lamentations 1: *Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore it has become unstable;* and the Gloss on that passage of Lamentations 3: *The mercies of the Lord,* etc.: "Man cannot long stand against the assaults of the devil, unless he be helped by the mercy of the Lord." Hence if it should happen that a man resists one temptation, they could be multiplied so much that, unless divine help were present, the man would have to be cast down, as the example is given of the holes in a ship, through which water enters. An example can also be given in a boxer who, when he covers himself on one side against a blow and as it were uncovers himself on the other, is wounded by a more expert fighter. So too the devil frequently does to many, to whom he holds out the temptation of lust; and from the fact that they do not consent, he makes them leap forth into pride; nor can man ever avoid falling into some temptation, and this because of his instability. — Because of his weakness too he would have to fall into some temptation. For since he is darkened by ignorance and bound by the concupiscence of the flesh, he could not escape the temptations of the flesh and of unbelief without sometimes consenting to them, unless he were helped by some gift of divine grace.

By what has now been said the answer to the question proposed is clear, and the answer to the objections is in part clear too. For those reasons which first prove that one can resist temptation, if they concluded about temptation in particular, would have to be granted; but because they conclude that one can resist every temptation without grace, therefore they must be dissolved.

**To the arguments for the affirmative:**

1. To that, then, which is first objected, that the devil conquers only the one willing; it must be said that it is true; yet there are some things which we will in such a way that our will is necessarily inclined toward them because of the corruption of original fault, unless there be present some gift of grace by which it may be relieved and directed; and therefore, although he conquers the one willing, it does not nevertheless follow that man can resist without grace.

2. To that which is objected, that free choice cannot be compelled, the answer is already clear. For there is no coercion there, but so great is the inclination to evil and the proneness of the will that, unless there were something else sustaining it, it would have to fall sometimes into evil by the motion of the will.

3. To that which is objected, that the good is more powerful than the evil; it must be said that it is true, speaking absolutely; but when the good subjects itself to the evil, the evil then works through the power of the good and subjects the good to itself; and in this manner sin comes to reign in man, as the Apostle says: *Let not sin reign in your mortal body.*

4. And by this the answer to what follows is clear, which is objected about the willing of nature and the willing of vice. For the willing of vice presupposes the willing of nature, and by disordering nature itself it is made more powerful than the willing of nature itself, as we see in some disease which clings to a natural power.

5. To that which is objected, that the changeableness of nature is stabilized without the gift of superadded grace; it must be said that it is not similar; because, although nature on account of defect is changeable into non-being, nevertheless the whole of what is in it naturally and determinately desires to be. And because God conserves a thing according as it desires: therefore the divine presence alone, through their proper nature, conserves creatures. But fallen free choice indifferently desires things lawful and unlawful, and forbidden and permitted, and with great impetus tends to evil: therefore, in order that it be stabilized, some gift of grace is necessary for it.

6. To that which is objected, that free choice is intact: it must be answered, as was being said in the objecting, that this is understood as to the essence of the powers, not as to the perfection of the consequent capacities. — And if it be further asked whether it can resist, or not; it must be said that of some temptation it cannot of itself; if nevertheless it should consent, it is not immune from fault, because the help of grace is at hand for it, if it should will to receive it; and also because by its own fault it came into that necessity. And this is what Augustine says, that "because man was unwilling to avoid sin while he could, it was inflicted on him that he cannot, even when he wills." This too the Master says above in distinction 25, that "after sin, before the repair of grace, free choice is pressed by concupiscence and overcome; and therefore it can sin and cannot not-sin, even damnably." — And so it is clear that the reasons concluding that free choice can of itself resist temptation do not compel of necessity.

**To the objections for the negative:**

1. To the reasons for the opposite, by which it is shown that it cannot resist temptation; it is easy to answer. For if they conclude that it would have to fall sometimes; they are plainly to be granted. But if anyone should wish through them to argue concerning free choice that it would succumb in every temptation; it can be answered to the first, concerning the prayer, that it is asked, not because it cannot resist some temptation, but because it cannot resist every one of itself.

2. To that which is objected, that by free choice evil is chosen, grace withdrawing; it must be said that that is not understood always, but sometimes.

3. To that which is objected, that the willing of nature is always overcome; it must be said that this is not understood as if in every temptation man departs from the natural rectitude of the will, but because that rectitude is not of such power that it can without God's grace rescue man from the servitude of sin.

4. To that which is objected about the necessity of dying, it must be said that the necessity of dying is not in man on account of the sin that is present, but on account of the sin that was present. Hence that does not conclude that it is necessary for man to sin, but that it is necessary for man to sin, or to have sinned.

5. To that which is objected, that free choice follows the predominant affection; it must be said that the affection does not predominate in man with respect to every evil that is suggested, as is clear, when to the miser the squandering of his goods is suggested, or to the prodigal the retention of his goods; and therefore it does not follow that he consents to every sin. Moreover, he who is affected toward something in habit can from some consideration be more affected toward its opposite in act, as a man frequently is angry over a thing which he greatly loves.

6. To that which is objected about the limping of the foot, it must be said that it is not similar, because the act of walking can never be separated from the disposition of limping in a lame foot. But it is not so concerning the act of affection with respect to the disorder which is in free choice, because of the multitude of motions and affections which arise in us from the diversity of considerations, as was touched on, by which a man is moved now to one thing, now to its opposite, and therefore sometimes by a straight motion, sometimes by a crooked one. By these things, however, which have been said, the answer to the objections is clear, and also to similar ones which can be objected in this matter.

But to those two Glosses, which were adduced in the solving, by which it seems to be intimated that free choice without grace cannot resist every temptation; it must be said that they are to be understood, not as if the devil had full power over man as to the act of tempting, and that man could in no way resist him; but this is understood as to this, that he has the power, in man's death, to drag [him] to infernal punishments, with nothing hindering, so that man cannot resist his strength.