Dist. 41, Dubia
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/41/q/bon-sent-II-d41-dubia
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## DOUBTS CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I.

In this section there are questions concerning the text, and first it is asked concerning what he says, that *faith directs the intention*. For many who have faith have evil intentions: therefore it seems that the direction of intention does not come from faith. If you say that he is speaking of the faith *which works through love*, that is, of formed faith; then it rather seems that the direction of intention ought to have been attributed to charity rather than to faith.

Likewise, it is asked along with this, since the direction of intention is attributed in one way to faith and in another way to charity: why is it not likewise attributed to hope, since hope too is a theological virtue and regards the end, just as faith and charity do?

**I respond:** It must be said that, since the intention regards two things, namely the *eye of the intellect* and the *foot of the affection*, it needs a twofold directive: one to regard the gaze, and this is faith; the other to regard the affection, and this is charity. And therefore Bernard says that to the simplicity of the eye there concur both charity and truth. When, therefore, the Master says that faith directs the intention, he does not understand it of any faith whatever, but of the faith working through love, as has been objected. Yet he attributes the direction to faith rather than to charity, because *to direct* on the way pertains rather to the illumining light than to the assisting power, although both are necessary for a man to walk rightly: that he may both see the light and have a right foot. Through the defect of the first the *blind man* does not walk rightly, and through the defect of the second the *lame man* does not walk rightly.

To that which is asked concerning hope, it must be said that it does not belong to hope, properly speaking, *to direct*, but *to raise up*; because hope awaits after the manner of the future: whence it gives, as it were, a certain security, lest one fail on the way. But faith and charity direct in their works the powers in which they presently reside; because the one illumines and the other inflames; and therefore the one directs with respect to *truth*, the other with respect to *goodness*; and with respect to these two the rectification of the soul in its works is sufficiently attended to. And therefore it is not necessary that *direction* be attributed to hope, but only *raising up*, although that raising up can in a certain manner be called *direction*.

### Doubt II.

Likewise it is asked concerning what he says: *All the life of unbelievers is sin*. But on the contrary: unbelievers have works of the political virtues; but the political virtues are not evil habits, but good ones, because they are not vices, but gifts of God: therefore it seems that the works of those virtues are not sin. — Likewise, an unbelieving man can give alms, that God may reveal to him the way of truth; and in this he disposes himself, that God may give him the habit of faith. But in this, that a man disposes himself toward grace, he does not sin: therefore it does not seem that all the life of unbelievers is fault, or every action. — But the opposite of this holds, because *an evil tree cannot bear good fruit*: therefore if unbelievers have an evil will and a misdirected intention and lack faith and charity, then it seems that they do everything badly and nothing well.

**I respond:** It must be said that unbelievers do not sin in their every action; for when their action is not repugnant to faith nor to good morals, there is no reason why there should be sin in it.

What therefore is said in the text, that « all the life of unbelievers is sin »; it must be said that this is not said because every action which they do in their whole life is culpable and demeritorious, but it is said for this reason, that by no action which they perform are they freed from fault, so long as they persist in unbelief. And therefore the sense is: all the life of unbelievers is sin, that is, *not without sin*. — In like manner is to be understood the following authority, and others similar to it, when it is said that « where the recognition of truth is lacking, virtue is false »; not because that virtue is a *vice*, but because it *falls short* of the perfection of true virtue; for it is called true virtue because it leads truly to life. — To that, therefore, which is objected, that an evil tree cannot bear good fruit; the saying is to be understood *per se*, that is, if an evil will operates, insofar as it is evil, namely with an evil intention. But if it is not understood *per se*, the statement is not true, unless it is understood of the perfect good, which indeed is meritorious good; but then it does not follow: it does not bear good fruit, therefore it bears evil fruit; because between such good and evil there is a mean, as was shown above.

### Doubt III.

Likewise it is asked concerning what he says, that *the sins which are perpetrated by the ignorant or the coerced cannot at all be committed without the will*. For it seems to say something false: first, because the voluntary presupposes cognition, as the Philosopher holds: therefore what is done through nescience or ignorance is simply involuntary: therefore it is committed without the will. — Likewise, coercion induces violence; but violence excludes the will: therefore what is done by one coerced is not voluntary.

It is asked therefore: in what way does Augustine understand it, when he says that the things which are done through *coercion* and *ignorance* are not done apart from the will?

**I respond:** It must be said that there are nine grades of the voluntary, according to which sins are said to be done voluntarily according to more and less. — First and principally, that is called voluntary which is from the will with nothing inclining, neither exteriorly nor interiorly; thus the sin of Lucifer was voluntary. — In the second mode, that is called voluntary which is from the will, with something suggesting exteriorly, but nothing inclining interiorly; and thus the sin of the first man was voluntary. — In the third mode, that is called voluntary which is from the will, with something however inclining both exteriorly and interiorly; and such is mortal sin, which someone perpetrates from deliberation and intention after the fall of nature. — In the fourth mode, something is voluntary which is from the will not moving toward it directly, but moving toward something incompossible, as is the sin of omission, by which someone omits to rise for matins, because he voluntarily got himself drunk. — In the fifth mode, something is voluntary which is from the will not moving toward it directly nor desiring it, but fleeing something else, as is the sin which a man does through fear of death. — In the sixth mode, something is voluntary which is from the will not fully knowing what it does; and thus sin from ignorance is called voluntary. — In the seventh mode, something is called voluntary because it follows upon something which was done voluntarily by the same one by whom it is done; and thus the sins which follow upon drunkenness, into which a man knowingly induced himself, are said to be in some manner voluntary. — In the eighth mode, something is called voluntary because it is from one able to prohibit and not prohibiting; and thus venial sin, which is the first movement, is said to be voluntary. — In the ninth mode, something is called voluntary which was introduced by another's will as by a first cause; and thus original sin is called voluntary.

In all these aforesaid modes the account of the voluntary is in some manner preserved; *properly*, however, and principally in the first two modes. And therefore Augustine says that what he had said, namely *every sin is voluntary*, is to be understood of the sin of the first parent, not because that *alone* is voluntary, but because that, among the rest, is *purely* voluntary. For the others are in some manner voluntary, although not so fully, as is that which is done through nescience and through coercion.

But to that which is objected, that both coercion and ignorance exclude the account of the voluntary; it must be said that this is true where there is *complete ignorance* and *sufficient coercion*; but the will is never coerced by *sufficient coercion*; therefore coercion never takes away the account of the voluntary. But ignorance is sometimes through a complete privation of discretion,

et tunc tollit simpliciter rationem voluntarii; aliquando vero dicit privationem alicuius cognitionis determinatae, that is, the privation of some circumstance, with the cognition of the act and of the other circumstances nonetheless remaining; as is the case with one who fornicates not knowing that fornication is a mortal sin, knowing however that he is having relations with one not his own; and then it diminishes, but does not take away, the account of the voluntary; and thus the Master speaks in the text. — And through this those two objections are made clear.

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