Dist. 39
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXXIX.

### Chap. I. *Why the will is called sin, since it is among the natural things, of which none other is sin.*

But here arises a question quite necessary, drawing its cause from the foregoing. For it has been said above that the will is in man naturally, just as intellect and memory are. But the things which are natural to man, however much they may be vitiated, nevertheless do not cease to be good, because vice is not able utterly to consume the goodness in which God made it; so that, for example, the intellect or reason and natural disposition and memory, even if they be obscured and corrupted by vices and sins, are nevertheless good, nor are they called sins; as Augustine clearly shows concerning reason, which is the image of God, in which we were made, in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*: «This, he says, is the image in which men were created, by which they are set over the other animals; which creature, the most excellent among created things, when it is justified by God, is changed from a deformed form into a comely form. For even among vices the nature was good». But this image is reason or intellect. Since, therefore, the will is among the natural things, why is it not always good, even though it sometimes is subject to vices? — To this they easily respond who say that all things which are, insofar as they are, are good; because they assert that the will itself also, insofar as it is, or insofar as it is will, as we set down above, is good, but insofar as it is disordered, is evil and sin. — Here it can reasonably be asked of them: if the will, insofar as it is disordered, is sin, why then are intellect, reason, and natural disposition and the like, when they are disordered, not sins? And they are disordered, just as the will is, when they do not tend to the right end, and their acts become transgressions. — To which they say that by the name of *will* sometimes is signified the power, namely the natural power of willing, sometimes the *act* of that power. But the power itself, naturally implanted in the soul, is never sin, just as neither is the power of remembering or of understanding; but the *act* of this power, which is also called *will*, is then sin, when it is disordered.

### Chap. II. *Why the act of the will is sin, if the acts of the other powers are not sins.*

But it is still asked why the act of this natural power is sin, if the acts of the other powers are not sins, namely of the power of remembering, whose act is to remember, and of the power of understanding, whose act is to understand. — To which they themselves also say that that act of the will is of another kind than the act of memory or of intellect. For this act is for the obtaining, or not losing, of something, which cannot be concerned with evils without being evil. For *to will* evils is evil, but *to understand* or *to remember* evils is not evil; although some of them not without reason sometimes assert that even these acts are evil. For sometimes one remembers an evil in order to do it, and seeks to understand the truth in order to know how to attack it. — Behold how the foregoing question is solved by those who hold that all things are good insofar as they are. But those who say that evil wills are sins and in no way good, respond more briefly, saying that the act of the will is not among the natural things, but the power itself and the faculty of willing, which is always good

and is in all, even in little ones, in whom there is not yet its act.

### Chap. III. *In what sense it is said that every man naturally wills the good.*

Moreover it is wont to be asked how that is to be understood which Ambrose says, expounding that word of the Apostle: *For the good which I will, I do not, but the evil which I will not, that I do.* For he says that «man, subject to sin, does what he wills not, because he naturally wills the good. But this will is always without effect, unless the grace of God assist and free». If man is subject to sin, he indeed wills and works evil, because he is a servant of sin and willingly does its will, as Augustine said above; how then does he naturally will the good? Is it the same will, that is the same motion, by which he willingly serves sin, and by which he naturally wills the good? If it is not the same will, which then of these is it which, when man is justified, is freed from the servitude of sin? For as we discussed above, the grace of God frees and assists the will of man, which prepares the will of man to be assisted and assists it once prepared. But which is that will? Is it that which naturally wills the good, or that which willingly serves sin, if indeed there are two wills? — A profound question has been proposed, which is determined by various ones with a varied exposition. — For some say that there are two motions: one, by which he wills the good naturally. Why is it called naturally and why natural? Because such was the motion of human nature in the first condition, in which we were created without vice, which is properly called nature. For man was created upright in will. Hence in the *Ecclesiastical Dogmas* it is written: «Hold most firmly that the first men were created good and upright with free choice, by which they could, if they willed, sin by their own will; and that they sinned not by necessity, but by their own will». Rightly therefore is man said naturally to will the good, because he was established in a right and good will. For the higher *spark of reason*, which also, as Jerome says, «could not be extinguished in Cain», always wills the good and hates the evil. — But they say there is *another* motion of the mind, by which the mind, having abandoned the law of the higher [part], subjects itself to sins and delights in them. This motion, as they say, before grace is present to anyone, dominates in man and reigns and depresses the other motion; yet each is from free choice. But when grace comes, that evil motion is struck down, and the other, naturally good, is freed and assisted, that it may efficaciously will the good. But before grace, although man naturally wills the good, nevertheless it ought not absolutely to be conceded that he has a good will, but rather an evil one. — But others say that there is one will, that is one motion, by which man naturally wills the good and from vice wills the evil and delights in it; and insofar as he wills the good, he is naturally good, insofar as he wills the evil, he is evil.

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