Dist. 41
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XLI.

### Chapter I. *Whether every intention or action of unbelievers is evil.*

And since intention, as was said above, makes a work good, and faith directs intention, it can not undeservedly be asked whether every intention and every work of those who do not have faith is evil. For if faith directs intention, and intention makes a work good, where there is no faith, neither intention nor work seems to be good. — Which is asserted not unreasonably by certain men, who say that all the actions and wills of a man without faith are evil, which, faith being had, become good. Hence the Apostle says: *Everything that is not from faith is sin.* Which Augustine, expounding, says: «The whole life of unbelievers is sin, and nothing is good without the highest good; where the knowledge of eternal truth is lacking, virtue is false, even amid the best morals». And James in his canonical Epistle says: *Whoever shall offend in one,* namely in charity, *is made guilty of all.* Whoever, therefore, does not have faith and charity, his every action is sin, because it is not referred to charity. For what is not referred to charity, as Augustine recalled above, is not done as it ought to be done, and therefore is evil.

Not therefore does he keep the commandments who lacks charity, because without charity none of the commandments is kept. Hence Augustine on the Epistle to the Galatians says: «The Apostle calls keeping the law: not to be drunken, not to kill, not to commit adultery, and other such things pertaining to good morals, which cannot be fulfilled except by charity, faith, and hope». No one therefore fulfills any commandment, no one does any good work, who does not have faith and charity. For it is impossible, as the Apostle says, for anything *to please God without faith.* Therefore the things that are done without faith are not good, because everything good pleases God.

But against this is objected what Augustine said above, namely that in servile fear, even if a good thing be done, it is nevertheless not done well. «For no one does well unwillingly, even though what he does is good». For here he says a good thing is done, but not well, by him who does not have charity. For he who fears in a servile way is void of charity; of whom nevertheless he here says that he does a good thing, but not well. He who also, on that place of the Psalm: *The turtledove has found for herself a nest, where she may lay her young;* says that «Jews, heretics, and pagans do good works, because they clothe the naked and feed the poor, and such things: but not in the nest of the Church, that is, in faith; and therefore their young are trampled». — To whom those men respond, saying that such works as are done without charity are called good, not because they are good when they are so done — which Augustine plainly taught above — but because they would be good if they were done otherwise; which also in their own kind are good, but from affection become evil.

But others, who make a threefold distinction of acts, assert that all works which are done for the support of nature are always good. But that Augustine says they are evil, if they have evil causes, is not so to be taken as if they themselves were evil, but because those who do them with an evil end sin and are evil. Likewise, that other saying, namely «intention makes a work good, and faith directs the intention»; they determine, saying that there is called good that which is rewardable unto life, not that this alone is a good work, but rather also many others, although they are not good by that reason by which it is done.

### Chapter II. *In how many ways the good is spoken of.*

For the good is taken in many ways, namely for the *useful,* for the *rewardable,* for the *sign of the good,* for the *appearance of the good,* for the *lawful,* and perhaps in other ways; and only that intention is rewardable unto life which faith directs; but that alone is not good, as they say. For if some Jew or evil Christian should relieve the need of his neighbor, led by natural piety, he did a good thing, and good was the will by which he did it.

### Chapter III. *How that saying is to be understood: Sin is so far voluntary; and that one: Nowhere except in the will is there sin; and likewise: One sins only by the will.*

After these things it must be investigated how that is to be understood which Augustine says in the book *On True Religion*: «So far, he says, is sin a voluntary evil that it is in no way sin, if it be not voluntary». Augustine, disclosing the reason of this saying, says in the book of *Retractations*: «This definition can seem false; but if it be carefully examined, it will be found to be most true. For that is to be reckoned sin which is only sin, not what is also the *penalty of sin*», namely the first sin of man, which was sin and the cause of sin, but not penalty; «although even those things which are not undeservedly called *non-voluntary* sins, because they are perpetrated either by the unknowing or by the coerced, cannot in every way be committed without the will; since even he who sins unknowingly does by the will indeed what, although it ought not to be done, he thinks ought to be done; and he who, while the flesh lusts against the spirit, does not do the things that he wills, lusts indeed unwillingly, and in this does not do what he wills; but if he is conquered, he consents willingly to concupiscence, and in this does nothing but what he wills; and that which in little ones is original sin was contracted from the first evil will of man. Therefore it is not false that I said: So far is sin voluntary» etc. — Behold how that is to be taken, namely either of the first sin of man, or of all deadly sins generally, of which, although certain ones be called *non-voluntary,* namely those which are done through ignorance or through infirmity, by the same reasoning they can be called *voluntary,* because they are not committed without the will.

The understanding also of that is to be sought which he set forth in the book *On the Two Souls*, saying: «Nowhere except in the will is there sin». Which also in the book of *Retractations* he plainly determines, saying: «It can be thought that this sentence is false, by which we said that nowhere except in the will is there sin, since the Apostle says: *What I will not, that I do*» etc. «But the sin which is nowhere except in the will is principally to be understood as that which a just damnation has followed», that is, the first sin of man. In the same book *On the Two Souls* also he handed down another thing worthy of consideration; for he says: «One sins only by the will», and he defines the will itself, saying: «The will is a motion of the mind, with nothing compelling, toward either not losing or acquiring something». Disclosing the cause of this saying and unfolding its understanding, he says in the book of *Retractations*:

«This was said for this reason, that by this definition the *willing* might be distinguished from the *unwilling,* and so the intention might be referred to those who in paradise made the origin of evil, with nothing compelling, by sinning, that is, by free will, because they also knowingly acted against the precept; and that tempter persuaded that this should be done, he did not compel. For he who sinned unknowingly can not incongruously be said to have sinned *unwillingly;* although he too did willingly what he did unknowingly». «Thus neither could such a sin be without the will, but there was there the will of the *deed,* not the will of the *sin;* which *deed* nevertheless was *sin;* for this was done which ought not to have been done. But whoever knowingly sins, if he can resist without sin the one compelling him to sin, and nevertheless does not, certainly sins willingly; because he who can resist is not compelled to yield». «Wherefore it is most true that sin cannot be without the will». — From these things it is clear how the foregoing things are to be taken.

### Chapter IV. *That an evil will is voluntary sin.*

But if every mortal sin is voluntary, since an evil will is a mortal sin, it is established that it itself is voluntary sin. «For what, as Augustine says, is as much in the will as the will itself»? An evil will, therefore, is rightly called voluntary sin, which consists in the will. «For the will, as Augustine says in the same place, is the first cause of sinning; or no sin is the first cause of sinning, nor is there one to whom sin is rightly imputed except the one sinning. There is not, therefore, one to whom it is rightly imputed except the will». — But this is to be understood of actual and mortal sin. Nor by these words did Augustine wish to show anything else, as he himself says in the *Retractations,* except that «it is the will by which one sins and by which one lives rightly».

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