Dist. 39, 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/39/q/bon-sent-II-d39-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether synderesis can be extinguished by sin.*

Secondly it is asked whether synderesis can be extinguished by sin. And that it can, it seems.

1. On that text of the Psalm: *They are corrupt and are become abominable*; the Gloss: « deprived of every rational power »; but synderesis is a rational power: therefore by the magnitude of sin synderesis can be deprived, at least as to its act.

2. Likewise, on that text of the Psalm: *From the height of the day*
*I shall be afraid*; the Gloss: « Stupor is that which does not feel »; and afterward it is added: « Foolish arrogance is like stupor, when someone, presuming on himself, neither fears nor takes heed »: therefore just as through stupor it comes about that the body is rendered insensible with respect to a bodily illness, so too the soul comes to be rendered insensible with respect to a spiritual illness. If, then, synderesis murmurs against a spiritual illness, it seems that synderesis can sometimes be extinguished.

3. Likewise, heretics endure death for their error without any remorse of conscience: if, then, synderesis is to murmur against evil, and in them it does not murmur in any way; it seems that in them it is wholly extinguished.

4. Likewise, the fomes stands opposed to synderesis; but the fomes can be totally extinguished, as is clear in the Blessed Virgin: therefore it seems that synderesis can likewise be extinguished by a multitude of sins.

**On the contrary:**
1. In the Gloss cited above on the first chapter of Ezekiel: *The face of an eagle*, etc.; the Gloss: « The spark of conscience is not extinguished in Cain »: if, then, Cain was a great sinner, it seems that it cannot be extinguished by sin.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the second book of the City of God: « So great is the force of probity and chastity that human nature, all or nearly all of it, is moved by praise of it, nor is it so vicious in baseness as to lose entirely the sense of honesty »: therefore if this sense of honesty is synderesis, it seems that it cannot be extinguished by sin.

3. Likewise, things that are present naturally are inseparable; but synderesis is present in us naturally: therefore it seems that we cannot lose its act entirely through sin, since « vice, as Augustine says, does not destroy the last vestiges of nature ».

4. Likewise, if it ought to be extinguished in any, it would most of all be extinguished in the damned; but in the damned synderesis is not extinguished, because the remorse of conscience is from the act of synderesis; and this remorse is most vigorous in them, since *neither their fire shall be extinguished, nor their worm die*: therefore, etc.

### Conclusion.

> Synderesis as to its act can be impeded for a time, but it cannot be extinguished, namely as to its every act and every time.

**I respond:** It must be said that synderesis as to its act can be *impeded*, but cannot be *extinguished*. It cannot be *extinguished* for this reason: since it bespeaks something natural, it cannot be wholly taken away from us. Hence too the Gloss says on that text of Luke, chapter ten: *They departed, leaving him half-dead*: « They can strip away immortality, but they cannot wholly abolish the sense of reason, such that a man may still be wise and know God », « nor does vice ever destroy the last vestiges of nature ».

But although its act cannot be wholly taken away or extinguished, it can nonetheless be *impeded for a time*, whether on account of the *darkness of blindness*, or on account of the *wantonness of delight*, or on account of the *hardness of obstinacy*. — On account of the *darkness of blindness* synderesis is impeded, so that it does not murmur against evil, for the reason that the evil is believed to be good: as is the case in heretics, who, dying for the impiety of their error, believe that they are dying for the piety of faith; and therefore they do not feel remorse, but rather a certain feigned and empty joy. — On account of the *wantonness of delight* it is likewise impeded; for sometimes in carnal sins a man is so absorbed by the act of the flesh that remorse has no place, because carnal men are carried along by so great an impetus of delight that reason then has no place. — On account of the *hardness of obstinacy* synderesis is also impeded, so that it does not goad toward the good, as in the damned, who are so confirmed in evil that they can never be inclined toward the good. And therefore synderesis, as to its *instigation toward the good*, has an everlasting impediment; and on that account, as to *that* act, it can be said to be extinguished; yet it is not extinguished *simply*, because it has *another use*, namely that of *murmuring*. For according to that use, according to which synderesis has to *prick* and to *murmur against evil*, it will be most vigorous in the damned; and I say this insofar as the murmuring against evil holds the character of *punishment*, not insofar as it holds the character of *justice*, because that murmuring will be for commending the divine justice, but will not be for eliciting fruitful penitence. Hence synderesis in the damned will murmur against *fault*, yet in relation to *punishment*.

And thus it is clear that synderesis as to its act can be impeded, yet can never be extinguished universally as to every act and as to every time, as the reasons prove which are adduced for the second part; and therefore they are to be granted.

1. To that which is objected from the Gloss, that through evil it comes about that one is deprived of every power of reason; it must be said that *reason* is taken there for the deliberative power and the power that moves *by way of deliberation*, which in some is wholly turned toward evil. But synderesis, as was shown before, does not bespeak the power of the rational soul as moving *by way of deliberation*, but as moving *by way of nature*; and therefore that Gloss does not bear on the point. Nor is it to be understood that that Gloss means to say that through sin a deprivation comes about as to the power, but as to the *rectitude* of the power.

2. To that which is objected, that a man is made stupid through sin; it must be said that that likeness is regarded so far as it is on the part of the deliberative power, according to which there is in us a foolish arrogance. — Yet it could be said that stupor does not take away sense *simply*, but takes it away only *for a time*; and it may well be that for a time the soul is so bent down toward sin that it feels no remorse at all, whether on account of the intensity of delight, or on account of blinding, when one believes evil to be good.

3. To that which is objected concerning heretics, the response is already clear. For I concede that it does not have its use, so as to murmur against the *evil of error* into which they have fallen; yet it is not extinguished, for the reason that it murmurs against *other evils*, and against those things which heretics believe to be evils.

4. To that which is objected concerning the fomes, it must be said that it is not similar, because the fomes is a viciousness beyond nature, and therefore can be totally removed, even while nature is preserved; but it is not so with synderesis. For it is present according to the first institution of nature; and therefore, nature being preserved, it cannot be wholly taken away. — There is also another reason, because there is some grace or gratuitously given gift of grace which directly opposes the fomes and which removes the corruption of the flesh. But vice and sin do not have their being about the act of synderesis; and therefore, however much a man may have sinned, there remained nonetheless in him both conscience and synderesis.

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