Dist. 33, 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/33/q/bon-sent-II-d33-a3-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether little children dying in original [sin] alone are punished with any interior sorrow.*

Second it is asked, whether little children dying in original [sin] alone are punished with any interior sorrow. And that they are, it seems:

1. By that [saying] of John Chrysostom, who says: « To be excluded from eternal goods, and to be made alien from those things which are prepared for the just, generates so much torment, so much sorrow, that even if no punishment from without were to torture [them], this alone would suffice ». Therefore if little children will be excluded, just as adults: it seems that they will be tormented in the highest degree with interior sorrow and groaning.

2. Likewise, whenever someone desires something and is deprived of it, it is necessary that he be saddened and grieve; but all humans naturally desire beatitude: therefore if the souls of little children are deprived of eternal beatitude, it seems that from this they are necessarily saddened.

3. Likewise, the soul of a little child, while it is united to the flesh, contracts concupiscence; when therefore it is separated from the body, that contracted infection remains in it, and it can go forth into act; this is established: therefore it can be concupiscent. But concupiscence is always either with delight, or with punishment: with delight, if it has what it desires; with punishment, if it does not have [it]: therefore if the souls of little children will be deprived of delights, it seems that they will be afflicted interiorly with sorrows.

4. Likewise, little children dying with original [sin], and the ancient Fathers existing in limbo, both were deprived of the divine vision: if therefore little children, who had guilt, ought to be punished with a fuller punishment than the Fathers, who had no guilt; it seems that from the very lack of the vision of God the souls of little children have some sadness.

5. Likewise, there is greater sorrow for someone when he is deprived of some good without cause, than when he is deprived from some cause: therefore by parity of reason the sorrow ought to be greater when one is deprived from a lesser cause than when one is deprived from a greater. If therefore the souls of little children are deprived of the divine vision from a lesser cause than the souls of adults, it seems that they grieve more interiorly.

6. Likewise, the souls of little children have affections by nature; but affections must either be quieted, or the soul be afflicted through them — for the unquiet of affections is no small affliction — but the affections of little children will not be quieted, otherwise they would already be in a certain beatitude — for God alone is he who quiets the desire of the soul — therefore it seems that if the soul will be in a variety and unquiet of affections, it will be continually in sorrow and in affliction.

**On the contrary:**
1. The Master in the text: « Little children will feel no other punishment of material fire, or of the worm of conscience, except that they will lack the vision of God forever »: therefore it seems that they do not have internal sorrow.

2. Likewise, original [sin] is in the soul from the union with the flesh: therefore if the soul ought to be tormented with any sorrow by the merit of original sin, it ought especially to be tormented with that which is in the soul according to the flesh. If therefore the flesh will not be burned with material fire, it seems that the soul will not be tormented with spiritual sorrow.

3. Likewise, if little children dying in original [sin] will grieve after this life, either they will grieve over guilt, or over loss. If they will grieve over guilt, then they will be just. If they will grieve over loss, since that loss and the punishment of the lack of the vision of God is just, and he who grieves over what is just is unjust; it seems that in souls dying with original [sin] there is not only original guilt, but also actual.

4. Likewise, if little children will grieve over the loss of that highest good, since they themselves do not have the virtue of patience, and he who grieves over some evil, lacking the virtue of patience, murmurs against the one punishing or inflicting: therefore it seems that the souls of little children murmur against God. But no one can murmur against God except wickedly and unjustly: therefore it seems that after the departure from the body the souls dying in original [sin] are made more wicked than before; which is impossible.

5. Likewise, if they grieve, either they believe that they will have that good, or they are certain that they will never have [it]. It is established that they do not expect to have that good, since they do not have hope. If therefore they have sorrow over the lost good with the certainty of never having [it], it seems that they have despair; but despair is the most bitter of all the infernal punishments: therefore little children would be punished with the most bitter punishment; which it is impious to say.

6. Likewise, if they grieve, either they grieve in the highest degree, or not. If they grieve in the highest degree, then they are punished most bitterly. If they do not grieve in the highest degree: then in the course of time they can grieve more and more, since that sorrow has its origin from interior affection: therefore, with the guilt remaining in the same disposition, it seems that the punishment increases in them; which two things are incompossible.

### Conclusion.

> Little children dying in original sin will lack interior sorrow, but not cognition.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it is to be noted that, because concerning this question neither does Scripture speak expressly, nor do the Saints expressly determine it; therefore the doctors of theology here hold contrary opinions.

For some wish to say that little children will lack both cognition and sorrow. They will lack cognition, justice demanding it; they will lack sorrow, mercy demanding it. For justice demands that there not be given to them after this life any gift of cognition which they did not have in this life. Whence just as those who died before the use of reason lacked the cognition of faith and every kind of intellective cognition; so also will they lack [it] after this life; nor will they learn by the length of time, just as neither do the *moriones*, who know nothing more when they die than when they are born, even if they have lived a long time. Mercy demands that they not have the punishment of actual sorrow, since they did not have the stain of actual guilt; and therefore by his just judgment God deprives them of all cognition of those things which could bring sorrow upon them. For it is better to be ignorant of such things than to know [them], just as for a sinner prone to sin it is better to be ignorant than to know those things which incline him to sin.

But since it is difficult to understand that a separated soul should not have the use of reason and not know at least those things whose cognition is naturally implanted in it, since on the part of the body it has no impediment;

therefore others hold otherwise, that the souls of little children will both have cognition and will also have sorrow. For they will know on account of what they were made, and they will know that they have been deprived of that good by the merit of original guilt; and on this account they will have sorrow, and the affections of sorrow will alternate in them. Yet they will not have a sorrow which would deserve to be called a worm, because they will not have remorse that they lost that good through their own negligence and contempt; and to that extent their sorrow will be much milder than the sorrow of adults.

But since several unfitting things seem to follow, if it is held that they grieve, as was shown in the objecting — both on account of this, that that sorrow is without patience and without hope, and so with murmuring and despair; and also because the sorrow of the soul redounds upon the flesh; and if such sorrow proceeds from deliberation, it does not seem to be without actual obligation: on account of these things and things like these there is a third way of speaking, namely that the souls of little children will lack actual sorrow and affliction, yet they will not lack cognition. — And that can be understood reasonably enough in this way. For those dying in original [sin] alone hold as it were a mean between those having grace and actual guilt; and since the state of retribution ought to correspond to the state of the present life, the souls of little children ought to be placed in such a state that they hold as it were a mean between the Blessed and those tormented in eternal fires. Since therefore the Blessed lack the evil of sensible punishment and with this have the vision of God, the damned on the contrary are in darkness and are punished with sensible punishment; little children, according to the right order of divine equity, ought to share in one thing with the damned, and in another with the Blessed. But they cannot share with the Blessed in having the divine presence, because then they would share in nothing with the damned; for the presence of the vision of God does not stand together with sensible punishment. Therefore with the Blessed they share in this, that they lack all exterior and interior affliction; but with the damned in this, that they are deprived of the vision of God and of corporeal light. Little children therefore, thus by just divine judgment constituted as it were in the mean between the Blessed and the simply wretched, know this, and since on the one part the consideration generates desolation, on the other consolation; thus by an even balance, by divine judgment, their cognition and affection is weighed and perpetuated in such a state, that neither does sadness cast [them] down, nor does joy refresh [them]. And in this the marvelous order of divine wisdom is shown, which knows how to dispose all things in their places and to order [them] to its own glory. For just as in the Blessed mercy is most especially manifested, and in the damned justice most especially shines forth; so in these mercy and justice are manifested together. And from this it appears that God does not make in vain the souls which he knows will depart from the body before the reception of baptism. For God makes all things to manifest his glory.

Whence if you ask what little children do, whether they learn, or confer, or exercise some other work; I respond briefly that the equity and immutability of divine justice in the same state as to the body and as to the soul, that is, as to the cognitive and as to the affective [power], perpetually consolidates them, so that they neither profit nor fail, neither rejoice nor are saddened, but always remain so uniformly, that they are matter for praising the divine judgment, which is so equitable and just that no good remains unrewarded, no evil remains unpunished, and it most perfectly holds the mean between the excessive and the deficient. — According to this position therefore the reasons are to be granted which show that little children will not feel spiritual sorrow.

1. But to that which is objected to the contrary concerning John Chrysostom, it must be said that he understands [it] of those who are excluded by the merit of actual sin, who are going to have the worm of conscience and remorse, and therefore it has no place in little children.

2. To that which is objected, that sadness necessarily follows when desire is not fulfilled; it must be said that it is true, when it is neither fulfilled in itself, nor is recompense made according to the estimation of the one desiring. But when according to the estimation of the one desiring some recompense is made, it is not necessary to be saddened; just as many who would wish to be in paradise are well consoled concerning the state of the present life, because they are content with the things which they have, although they have little. So also in little children it is to be understood that their state suffices for them; nor do they raise their eyes to the riches which they cannot have.

3. To that which is objected, that the soul of a little child has concupiscence; it must be said that just as in this life it neither was concupiscent nor desired anything which it ought not [to have], so also neither [will it] in the future life; but they themselves by divine sentence will be placed between flight and appetite, so that neither will dominate them; and therefore they will have neither actual joy nor actual torment; for the one is repressed by the other.

4. To that which is objected concerning the holy Fathers, it must be said that the holy Fathers had hope and certitude concerning the future glory to be had, and they also had grace, through which they knew the Lord in some manner; and therefore it does not follow that they would be punished equally, like little children, for the reason that they had more of consolation.

5. To that which is objected, that there is greater sorrow for someone when he is deprived without cause; it must be said that little children will well know that they have been deprived from a cause. But because they did not have that cause from themselves, but contracted it from elsewhere; therefore they will have neither sorrow nor remorse. But the aforesaid word is understood in an unjust punishment, and in which the one punished murmurs back against the one punishing; but it is not so in the case proposed.

6. To the last it must be said that the affections of little children are stabilized by the judgment of divine equity; yet they are not totally quieted, like the affections of the Blessed in the fatherland. Whence just as the immunity from passion or from the sense of punishment differs in little children and in the Blessed, because in the Blessed there is the dowry [of glory], in little children there is not, as has been said; so it is to be understood concerning the quieting on the part of the affections of the soul.

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