Dist. 36, 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/36/q/bon-sent-II-d36-a2-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether punishment can be in anything without preceding guilt.*

Secondly it is asked, whether punishment can be in anything without preceding guilt. And that it cannot, it seems:

1. First, by the authority of Jerome; for he says thus: *To the opposite.* « Whatever we suffer, our sins have merited ».

2. Likewise, Gregory in a certain collect: « No adversity shall harm them, if no iniquity holds dominion over them »: therefore if dominion of guilt has not preceded, it seems that the chastisement of punishment can in no way follow.

3. Likewise, Augustine in the first [book] of the *Retractations*: « Death and life are from the Lord God; but life as from one giving, and death as from one taking vengeance »: if therefore death is from God as from one taking vengeance, by parity of reasoning so is every other punishment. But all vengeance regards the merit of preceding guilt: therefore it seems that in no one is there any punishment, but that in him there first was the guilt meritorious of that punishment.

4. Likewise, punishment, as far as concerns itself, denotes some evil; for evil is divided into the evil of guilt and the evil of punishment: therefore just as the evil of guilt denotes the privation of some good and of some order, so also does the evil of punishment: therefore just as the evil of guilt needs to be ordered, so also the evil of punishment. But just as the evil of guilt is ordered through the following evil of punishment, so the evil of punishment [is ordered] through the prior evil of guilt: therefore just as guilt cannot be without punishment, so neither punishment without guilt.

5. Likewise, all punishment, as such, is an effect of divine justice: but justice, as such, considers the exigency of merits; but there is no merit of punishment except sin: therefore it is impossible that anyone be punished except in him in whom the stain of sin has preceded.

**On the contrary:**

*Fundamenta.*

1. Job, seventeenth [chapter]: *I have not sinned, and yet my eye abides in bitterness.* And likewise Job, sixth [chapter]: *Would that my sins, by which I have merited wrath, and the calamity that I suffer, were weighed in a balance; this would appear heavier than the sand of the sea:* therefore it seems that the punishments which were in Job were not by the merit of preceding sins.

2. Likewise, John, ninth [chapter]: *Who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?* there it is said: *Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents;* and Augustine explains that this is not said because they did not sin, but because the blindness was not the punishment of sin: therefore the same as before.

3. Likewise, for original sin one merits only to die once; and Lazarus was dead not only once, but twice: therefore it seems that either the first death, or the second, was inflicted on him without the merit of sin.

4. Likewise, all day we see that the impious afflicts the just; and of this also the prophet complains, Habakkuk, first [chapter]: *Why are you silent, while the impious tramples down one more just than himself?* But the Prophet's complaint would not be just, if the just man were punished for his own sins: therefore it seems that many punishments are inflicted which are not inflicted by the merit of sins.

5. Likewise, Christ was slain by the Jews; and it is plain that in him there was no sin whatsoever; and that death was a punishment, this is established: therefore it seems that punishment can be without preceding guilt.

### Conclusion.

> Punishment can be in anything without guilt on account of the ordination which it has toward a subsequent good, which can be elicited from it.

**I respond:** It must be said that the evil of punishment can be ordered in two ways: in one way to the *evil* of guilt, which it orders by punishing; in another way in comparison to a *good*, which God elicits from that punishment. *(The twofold ordination of punishment.)*

I say therefore that if some punishment be inflicted whose ordination consists principally in comparison to evil; this necessarily requires that the evil of guilt have preceded, and not only that it have *preceded*, but also that it in some way be inseparably *concomitant*. *(Conclusion 1.)* For punishment is either directly ordered to *punishing*, or is ordered principally to *excluding evil*. *(Subdistinction.)* In the first way is infernal punishment, and in the second way is purgatorial punishment. And in the first way punishment requires the *presence of guilt* according to *deformity and stain*; in the second way it requires the presence of guilt according to *liability and sequel*.

But if punishment be inflicted principally on account of the order which it has toward a good which is elicited from it; then either it is on account of a *proper* good, or on account of a good *of another*. If on account of a *proper* good, then it requires that in that subject guilt have *been* at some time, and that it be able to *be* in the future. *(Conclusion 2.)* But if on account of a good *of another*, then it suffices for the punishment that guilt have been in another than in him who is punished, namely in him for whom that punishment is borne; in which manner it was in Christ, whose death and passion were ordained to redeeming the human race and freeing and repairing it from the lapse into which it had fallen by the sin of the first parent. *(Conclusion 3.)*

And thus it is clear that all punishment in some way regards guilt; but some [punishment regards it] as *present in itself*, such as infernal punishment; some as *past in itself*, but *present in liability and sequel*, like purgatorial punishment; but some only as *past*, and this in him who is punished; and such is all the punishment of the just, Christ excepted; but some regards guilt not *in itself*, but *in another*, as is clear in Christ. *(Epilogue.)*

— When therefore it is asked, whether all punishment is caused by guilt; it must be said that if it be understood of a meritorious cause of condignity, then it does not hold true; but if it be understood of a cause without which not, then it holds true in some manner. For there would be no punishment in the human, unless guilt had preceded. — And by this is clear the response to the question proposed, namely by which it is asked, whether punishment can be in anything without preceding guilt; or by which it is asked, whether punishment can be separated from guilt. *(Corollary.)* For it must be granted that it can, on account of the ordination which it has toward a subsequent good, which is elicited from it. *(General conclusion.)*

*Solution of the opposing [arguments].*

1. To that therefore which is objected concerning Jerome, it must be said that Jerome does not there take *to merit* for the merit of condignity, but rather for the merit of congruity, which indeed is like a preambular disposition. And it is true, as has been said, that unless there had been in us original sin, there would not have been contracted in us a penal condition, whence there would be some affliction of punishment; and as for what was in Christ, this was solely voluntary.

2. To that which is objected concerning Gregory, it must be said that force must be put on what he says: *no adversity shall harm;* for the adversity which is not inflicted on the human by the exigency of the merit of preceding sin is not to his harm, but rather to his profit, according to that [word] of the Apostle: *To those who love God all things work together unto good.*

3. To that which is objected, that death is from God taking vengeance, and so the other punishments; it must be said that into the work of justice there mingles much the work of mercy. *(To be noted.)* And therefore, although the first disposition to punishment was vengeance, yet many punishments follow upon that disposition which are rather benefits of divine mercy and of divine visitation than instruments of wrath. When therefore it is said that death is from God taking vengeance, this is understood of the very necessity of dying; but from this it does not follow that every other punishment is from God's vengeance; rather, as has been touched upon, it can be from God's mercy, which *instructs and scourges every son whom he receives*. For thus it befits the present state.

4. To that which is objected, that punishment is ordered to guilt, as conversely [guilt to punishment]; it must be said that it is not similar. For punishment has to be ordered, as has been said, in two ways: not only to what is *prior*, but also to what is *posterior*. But sin, as such, has to be ordered only to what is *posterior*, namely to punishment; and therefore guilt always denotes disorder, unless punishment be present at the moment; but punishment, on account of its ordination to a posterior good, can be ordered and useful, even if there be no guilt in him who is punished meritorious of that punishment. For that evil is recompensed by a greater good which is elicited from it, as is clear in the man born blind and in Job and in Lazarus and in every just man. But how many goods are elicited therefrom, will be found determined in the fourth [book], in distinction fifteen.

5. To that which is objected last, the response is already clear; for, even though punishment be from divine justice, nevertheless it is for the most part from divine mercy. For as Augustine holds in a certain sermon,

which he makes about the scourging of Pharaoh: when God sent scourges upon Pharaoh, he bestowed the benefits of mercy, because he stirred his heart toward conversion; but when he withdrew [them], this was from the rigor of justice, which, on account of Pharaoh's own sins, while it withdrew those scourges, permitted him to be hardened; and to that extent Scripture says that his heart was hardened.

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