Dist. 33, 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/33/q/bon-sent-II-d33-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether the first parent could make satisfaction for his posterity, just as he could vitiate them by his own fault.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the first parent could make satisfaction for his posterity, just as he could vitiate them by his own fault. And that he could, it seems.

*To the opposite.*

1. Anselm, *On the Virginal Conception*, chapter twenty-four: « If Adam had not been able to produce justice in those whom he was going to generate, he could in no way transmit injustice to them »: if therefore this is true, it follows that, if Adam was able by his fault to render his sons culpable, by his satisfaction he was able to render them excusable.

2. Likewise, all sinned in Adam, because they were in Adam when he sinned: therefore by parity of reasoning, if all were in Adam when he made satisfaction, it seems that all made satisfaction in him by a place from the like.

3. Likewise, this same [thing] seems [to follow] by reason. « If the opposite is the cause of the opposite, then the proposed is the cause of the proposed »; but Adam's transgression was the cause of our corruption: therefore it seems that his justification and satisfaction was the cause of our reparation. As therefore we sinned in Adam, so it seems that we made satisfaction in the same. — And these three reasons are taken by a place from the like.

4. Likewise, this same [thing] is shown by a place from the lesser. God is more inclined to have mercy than to condemn; but the divine justice, for Adam's transgression, condemned the whole posterity with the penalty of mortality: therefore much more strongly ought the divine mercy, for Adam's satisfaction, to have rendered the grace of justification.

5. Likewise, grace is more powerful in good than fault is in evil; but Adam's fault was able to infect the whole posterity and render it odious to God: therefore much more

strongly was the grace, which was conferred on Adam, able to repair the whole posterity and render it pleasing to God.

6. Likewise, according to human laws a guardian is rather able to better the condition of his ward than to worsen it. If therefore the divine law is of much greater benignity than the human, it seems that rather our condition in the first parent could be made better from a worse [state] than [be made] worse from a better: therefore if by transgressing he was able to transfuse fault, much more strongly by making satisfaction was he able to transmit justice.

**On the contrary:**

*Fundamenta.*

1. As soon as Adam sinned, he fell from immortality into the necessity of dying: therefore if supervening grace does not take away the immutability of the divine sentence, he remained, then, mortal after grace. But a mortal of necessity generates a mortal: therefore however much Adam might make satisfaction, he would generate his sons subject to death. But no rational creature is subject to death except on account of fault: therefore he could never make satisfaction without transmitting fault.

2. Likewise, original justice consists in a certain integrity of mind and flesh; but since virginity bespeaks an incorruption of mind and flesh, once it is lost it can never be recovered by satisfaction: therefore by parity of reasoning neither is the gift of original justice recovered by satisfaction. If therefore original fault is in us from the privation of that justice, it was impossible that Adam should make satisfaction for his posterity.

3. Likewise, every satisfaction of a sinner is founded upon sanctifying grace; but sanctifying grace can never pass from one human to another, as was proved in the first book, but grace is given immediately by God alone: it seems therefore that the human race could not make satisfaction in the first parent.

4. Likewise, in each one his own faith and grace are more efficacious for himself than for another; but Adam could not make satisfaction for himself, but it was needful that the Son of God should suffer, as Anselm shows in the book *Why God [Became] Man*: therefore it does not seem that he could derive the justice of satisfaction unto others.

### Conclusion.

> It was impossible for Adam to make satisfaction for his posterity.

**I respond:** It must be said that, when it is asked whether the whole posterity could make satisfaction in Adam, just as it could be vitiated in him, this can be understood in three ways: either thus, that Adam should communicate to his posterity both fault and satisfaction at once; or thus, that he should communicate satisfaction, but not fault; or thus, that he should make satisfaction in himself and for himself, in such a way that he should not communicate fault to his posterity. *(Conclusion 1.)* — The first two modes are not only impossible, but also unintelligible, because they enclose in themselves two opposites. For if Adam had communicated to his posterity at once fault and satisfaction, they would be at once culpable and would be making satisfaction: therefore they would be at once just and unjust. — Likewise, if he should communicate satisfaction, and not fault: then the innocent would be making satisfaction; and this likewise is not intelligible, for satisfaction is not made except for an offense; and if Adam should not communicate fault to his posterity, they would have complete innocence; and if so, no satisfaction would have place in them; for to make satisfaction for an innocent [person] is not intelligible. — *(Conclusion 2.)* But the third mode of speaking, namely that Adam should so make satisfaction for his fault that by his satisfaction the transfusion of original fault should be impeded, although it is intelligible, was nevertheless impossible for Adam himself.

And the reason of this will be better rendered in the third [book], when treatment is made of the mode of human redemption. But for the present let it suffice to have said this, that Adam could not so make satisfaction that the transfusion of original fault into his posterity should be impeded. *(A threefold reason.)* And the reason of this is taken both on the part of *Adam* himself, and on the part of *grace*, and on the part of *the corruption of the nature*. On the part of *Adam*, because he himself was a debtor of death and worthy of penalty and misery; and therefore, whatever death or penalty he might sustain for his transgression, he could not sufficiently make satisfaction to God. — But on the part of *grace*, by which he made satisfaction, the reason is taken because that grace was a penitential grace, which indeed regarded the will itself of the *person*; and therefore through it the disease of concupiscence was not cured, which was rooted in the flesh; and on that account, however much he might make satisfaction, the *nature* remained corrupted, and thus the necessity of transfusing original fault. — But on the part of the *nature* the reason is taken because, since the whole human nature was vitiated in him, that corruption of nature was weighed at as much as the whole human nature is worth in price; and therefore whatever Adam might do would be far inferior to what God demanded for the recompense of so great a corruption and damnation; and therefore for it he could not make satisfaction.

*(A fourth reason is added.)* Nonetheless a reason could also be assigned on the part of the *divine offense*, which, since it was infinite by reason of this, that it is against the infinite, did not admit of recompense, unless someone should make satisfaction who was infinitely good. And therefore not unlearnedly do some say that not only satisfaction for the sin of Adam, but

also for any other sin whatsoever is founded upon the merit and satisfaction of Christ, in whose faith and Sacraments God spares whomsoever he spares. And therefore it comes about that all *receive of his fullness* and that he is called the *head of the whole Church*, both of the final and of the primitive [Church]. — It is clear therefore that, in whatever way it be said, it was impossible for Adam to make satisfaction for his posterity. Whence the reasons showing this are to be granted.

*Solution of the opposing [arguments].*

1. To that which is objected concerning the word of Anselm, that if he had not been able to produce justice... etc.; it must be said that Anselm there speaks of original justice, and says of it that Adam could both preserve it for his posterity and transfuse it. But this is to be understood *(To be noted.)* soundly, not as if some quality which was in the soul of Adam should descend to his posterity through multiplication, but because the innocent soul of Adam had been joined to pure and immaculate flesh; and, if he had stood [firm], the soul could have preserved that flesh both from the corruption of death and from the corruption of lust; and this rectitude was original justice. But if Adam had persisted in this, when he generated posterity, he would transfuse immaculate flesh. And likewise, while a soul created innocent by God should be united to such flesh, it could have that same [power] and the same rectitude which the soul of Adam had, and through this original justice. And to that extent original justice is said to be *transfused*, because, if the father has this, it is necessary that the son have this; and this is from the ground of the good disposition on the part of the flesh, which original justice concerns. It is not so with the justice of satisfaction, which regards the will, not the integrity of the flesh.

2. To that which is objected, that as we were in Adam when he sinned, so we were in him when he made satisfaction; it must be said that it is not similar, because the sin of Adam, in that it deprived [him] of that original justice, regarded not only the person, but also the nature. But because that satisfaction did not restore that innocence, it regarded the person, not the nature; and therefore satisfaction could not so redound upon the posterity as the transgression redounded there.

3. To that which is objected, that if the opposite is the cause of the opposite etc.; it must be said that this is *(To be noted.)* to be understood in those opposites, of which each is some nature, and in those things which are properly opposed, and according to that in which they are opposed. And *(Three conditions are lacking.)* by reason of this threefold condition that proposition does not have place in the matter proposed. First indeed, because fault does not bespeak any nature, but rather a privation. — Secondly, because the justice of satisfaction is not directly opposed to original fault, but rather original justice [is]; and if that original justice had been in Adam when generating, it would have been the cause of the opposite. — Thirdly, because the fault of Adam himself is opposed to satisfaction itself insofar as it corrupted the *person*, not insofar as it corrupted the *nature*; and insofar as it corrupted the *person*, it was the merit of eternal damnation; but insofar as it corrupted the *nature*, it was the principle of universal corruption. The justice of satisfaction therefore took away from Adam himself the merit of eternal damnation; and according to that it was opposed to it and was the cause of the opposite, namely of eternal beatitude by way of merit; but the vice of corruption it did not take away, nor did it cause the opposite of it, because according to that it was not opposed to it.

4. To that which is objected, that God is more inclined to have mercy than to condemn; *(To be noted.)* it must be said that this is true where *mercy* has place in such a way that it does not exclude *justice*. But justice required a greater satisfaction than Adam could make; and therefore *mercy*, for that slight satisfaction of Adam, ought not to have remitted the offense for the whole human race, but what was lacking to us and to him it was fitting that he should supply; which also he did, when *on account of his exceeding charity he sent his only-begotten Son in the likeness of sinful flesh*, and *when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together in Christ*.

5. To that which is objected, that grace is more powerful than fault; it can be answered in two ways: first, that this is to be understood with respect to that effect to which grace is ordained. But sanctifying grace, conferred on Adam himself, was not ordained to removing the *corruption of the flesh*, but the *disorder of the will*, because it was reformative of the image, not reparative of the flesh. Nevertheless in the reparation of the flesh it is in some manner more powerful than fault, while through grace the human merits the second stole. — *(Another solution.)* It can be said otherwise, that even if grace be more powerful than fault, it does not nevertheless follow that it should reform the whole which fault destroyed. For « it is much easier to destroy than to construct ». Whence one bad food sometimes corrupts the nature more than a hundred good medicines could repair it, although those medicines be very potent and efficacious.

6. To that which is objected concerning the law of wards, it must be said that Adam is not compared to his posterity as a guardian to wards, but as a father to sons. Whence just as a father can more easily squander and destroy his goods, and consequently devastate the inheritance of his sons, than he can repair it after the devastation and consumption; so also in the matter proposed it is to be understood to be.