Dist. 35
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/35/q/bon-sent-II-d35-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXXV.

#### Chapter I.

#### *What sin is.*

After these things it must be seen what sin is. — Sin is, as Augustine says, "every word, or deed, or desire, which is done against the law of God." The same, in the book On the Two Souls: "Sin is the will to retain or to pursue what justice forbids." In each definition there is treatment of actual and mortal sin, not venial. From the first description it is shown that sin is an evil will, or a depraved speech and action, that is, an evil act both interior and exterior; but from the other it is shown to be only an interior act; for the will, as has been said above, is a motion of the mind — it is therefore an interior act. Ambrose too, in the book On Paradise, says: "What is sin but the transgression of the divine law and disobedience to the heavenly precepts?" "Therefore in the one transgressing there is sin, but in the one commanding there is no fault." "For sin would not exist if there had been no prohibition. But if sin did not exist, not only would there be no malice, but perhaps no virtue either, which, unless there had been certain seeds of malice, could neither subsist nor stand out." — Behold, Ambrose defines sin to be the transgression of the law and disobedience.

#### Chapter II.

#### *On sin.*

Wherefore, on the occasion of this diversity of words, very many have thought diverse things about sin. — For some have said that only the evil will is sin and not the exterior acts; others, the will and the acts; others, neither, saying that all acts are good and are from God and from God as author, but that evil is nothing, as Augustine says on John: "All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing, that is, sin, which is nothing; and men become nothing when they sin." Above, also, Augustine said that evil is the privation of good or the corruption of good; which also in the book of the Eighty-three Questions he says: "The highest evil has no measure, for it lacks all good; but measure is something of good: therefore it is not, since it is contained under no species, and this whole name of 'evil' is found from the privation of species." The same is said in the Ecclesiastical Dogmas: "That evil or malice was not created by God, but invented by the devil, who himself also was created good." The same also, in the book against the Manichees, shows what it is to *sin*, saying: "What else is it to sin, but to err in the precepts of truth or in truth itself? But if sinners do not act by will, they are unjustly judged." What, therefore, in this great variety is to be held, and what is to be said?

Soundly it can be said, and ought freely to be handed down, that sin is an evil act, interior and exterior, namely an evil thought, speech, and action; chiefly, however, sin consists in the will, from which, as from an *evil tree*, evil works proceed as *evil fruits*.

#### Chapter III.

#### *Whether an evil act, insofar as it is sin, is a corruption or privation of good.*

But some, diligently attending to the words of Augustine, which he uses above and in other places of Scripture, not unlearnedly hand down that an evil will and evil acts, insofar as they *are*, or insofar as they are *acts*, are good; but insofar as they are *evil*, are sins; who say that any will and act whatever is a good nature of God, insofar as it is *act* or *will*, and is from God as author; but insofar as it comes to be in a disordered way and against the law of God and lacks its due end, it is sin, and so, insofar as it is sin, it is nothing. For it is no substance, it is no nature.

But that every will and action is good, insofar as it is, they prove from this, that Augustine says in the book of the Eighty-three Questions: "God is the cause of good only; wherefore He is not the author of evil, because He is the author of all things which are, which, insofar as they are, to that extent are good." The same, proving that nothing happens by chance in the world, says in the same place: "Whatever happens by chance, happens at random; whatever happens at random, does not happen by providence. If, therefore, some things happen by chance in the world, the whole world is not administered by providence; if the whole world is not administered by providence, there is some nature or substance which does not pertain to the work of providence. But everything that is, insofar as it is, is good. For that good is supremely, by participation in which other things are good; and everything that is mutable is good, not of itself, but by participation in that good, insofar as it is — which we also call divine providence. Nothing therefore happens by chance in the world." — By these testimonies they rest their proof that everything which is, insofar as it is, is good. Whence the same Augustine, in the first book On Christian Doctrine, says: "He is supremely and primarily, who is altogether immutable; and the other things which are cannot be except from Him, and they are good to that extent in which they have received that they be."

From the foregoing it is gathered and inferred that, if an evil will and an evil action is, then insofar as it is, it is good. But who is there who denies that there is an evil will and an evil action? Therefore an evil will or action, insofar as it is, is good, and insofar as it is will or action, it is likewise good; but from its defect it is evil, which defect is not from God nor is it anything. Which Augustine seems to have noted in the book of the Eighty-three Questions, saying: "Defect belongs to the will, by which a man is made worse; which defect is far from the will of God, as reason teaches." — From this place they prove that the will, insofar as it is vitiated, is not from God; and insofar as it is vitiated, it is sin; and it is sin, as they say, insofar as it does not have its due order and end. So too the action, insofar as it proceeds from evil, both lacks order and tends toward evil.

Likewise they prove also in another way that every act, interior or exterior, insofar as it is, is good; because there would be no evil act unless there were a good thing, for there is no evil thing unless the same thing be good. Whence Augustine in the Enchiridion: "Every nature is good, nor would any thing be evil, if the thing itself, which is evil, were not a nature. There cannot therefore be evil except some good. And although this seems to be said absurdly, yet the connection of reasoning compels us to say this." — From the premised testimonies they assert that all acts, insofar as they are, are good things, nor is anything evil, that is, sin, unless the same be also good according to something; and of all things which are, insofar as they are, they proclaim God to be the author, and that by His will all things are whatever they are, which, insofar as they are, are natures.

To which it is objected: if all things which are, insofar as they are, are good and are natures: therefore adultery and homicide and the like, insofar as they are, are good and are natures, and come to be by God's willing. And if this is so, then those who do them act well; which is utterly absurd. — But to this those men respond thus: they say indeed that adultery, homicide, and the like do not signify acts simply, but the defects of acts; and that the acts themselves of adultery and homicide, insofar as they are, or insofar as they are acts, are from God and are good natures; but not insofar as they are adultery and homicide. And therefore they say it does not follow, if the acts which are homicides and adulteries are from God, that homicides and adulteries are from God.

Likewise in another way it is objected to them: if nothing is evil that is not a nature or a good thing, how then are these sins, not to believe in God, not to go to church, and the like, since these are not natures, nay, are altogether not? For not to go to church, or not to believe, and the like, is not anything or any thing. — To which they say that, by these and suchlike expressions, which seem simply to denote privations and to posit nothing,

#### Chapter III (continued).

because they are spoken by way of negation, truly something is posited, and acts are signified by them. For *not to believe* in Christ they call incredulity, and by the name of *incredulity* an evil act of the mind is signified. So too, when it is said that *not to go to church* is evil, the contempt of the one not going is signified, that is, an evil will or purpose; for this is to *turn away from good*, and therefore it is evil, just as, conversely, to *turn away from evil* is good. As, therefore, *turning away from evil* posits something, namely the will and purpose of avoiding evil — for that cannot be good which is altogether nothing — so *turning away from good* signifies something that is, namely the will and purpose of evil. And according to this, that general description of mortal sin which Augustine set down above is true.

It can also be asked by the same men, since sin is, as has been said above, the privation or corruption of good, and every evil act is sin, whether it is the privation or corruption of good insofar as it is sin, or not. For if, insofar as it is sin, it is the corruption of good, since the corruption or privation of good is a penalty to man, then insofar as it is sin, it is a penalty. And if this is so, then, insofar as it is sin, it seems to be good and to be from God. But if *not*, insofar as it is sin, it is corruption, then it is asked according to what it is corruption. For if it is corruption, and not insofar as it is sin; since there is nothing but good, except in that which is sin: therefore insofar as it is good, it is corruption or privation of good. — To which those same men also say that an evil act, not insofar as it is nor insofar as it is good, is the privation or corruption of good, but insofar as it is sin; yet not, insofar as it is sin, is it a penalty, or anything that is from God. For, as is gathered from the premised words of Augustine, sin is called corruption or privation *actively*, not *passively*. For evil or sin is called the corruption of good for this reason, that it deprives a good nature of some good. For if it does not deprive of some good, it does not harm, as Augustine says above; but it does harm: therefore it takes away good. But it does not harm except insofar as it is sin: therefore insofar as it is sin, it deprives of good. And so insofar as it is sin, it is privation or corruption of good.

#### Chapter IV.

#### *How sin can corrupt good, since it is nothing.*

But since it is nothing, insofar as it is sin, how can it corrupt or take away good? Augustine teaches you this in the book On Nature and Grace, saying: "To abstain from food is not any substance; yet the substance of the body, if it altogether abstain from food, grows faint and is broken; thus sin is not a substance, yet by it the nature of the soul is corrupted."

But sin, that is fault, is properly the corruption of the soul. — But if it is asked in what the soul can be corrupted; it becomes clear in the parable of him who fell among robbers, who despoiled and wounded him. For man falls among robbers when through sin he is *handed over into the power of the devil*; and then through sin he is *despoiled of the gratuitous goods*, that is, the virtues, and is *wounded in his natural goods*, which are reason, intellect, memory, and wit and the like, which through sin are darkened and vitiated. Through sin also he is deprived of that good by participation in which the other goods are; and he is deprived of it the more, the more he removes himself far from it.

#### Chapter V.

#### *How man removes himself far from God.*

Now man removes himself far from God through sin, not by distance of place, since He is everywhere whole and present to all, and "all things are in Him, as Augustine says in the book of the Eighty-three Questions, and He Himself is not a place. Yet the place of God is, by misuse, called the *temple of God*, not because He is contained by it, but because He is present to it and inhabits it; and this is understood to be a clean soul." Through sin, therefore, one becomes far from God, not according to place, but he becomes far in this, that he recedes from His likeness, and so much the farther, the more dissimilar he becomes. "But those, as Augustine says in the book of the Eighty-three Questions, which by participation are like God, receive dissimilarity. But likeness itself can in no way and in no part be dissimilar. Whence it comes about that, since the Son is the likeness of the Father, He can in no part be dissimilar to the Father, by participation in whom whatever things are like God are like; and those things can receive dissimilarity." But there is nothing that makes a man so dissimilar to God as sin does. And since sin is the corruption or privation of good, which is in the soul, it is also the privation and corruption of the *good of the body*, just as the body of man was deprived of the benefit of that immortality and impassibility which it had before sin.

#### Chapter VI.

#### *Whether penalty is the privation of good.*

It is usually asked whether *penalty* too is the privation or corruption of good. — To which it can easily be answered, if the foregoing be recalled to memory. For we said above that the privation or corruption of good is taken *actively*, or *passively*, that is, according to efficiency, or effect. And therefore the privation or corruption of good is called both sin and penalty; but sin according to efficiency, because it deprives or corrupts good; and penalty according to effect, that is, according to the passion which is the effect of sin. For one thing is fault, another penalty; the one is of God, that is, penalty, the other of the devil or of man, that is, fault.

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