Dist. 12, 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/3/d/12/q/bon-sent-III-d12-a2-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether Christ had or assumed the power of sinning.*

Secondly it is asked whether Christ had or assumed the power of sinning. And that he did seems so.

1. Damascene: «All the things that God planted in our nature, the Word of God assumed»; if therefore God from the beginning planted in us the power by which we sin and do well, it seems that the Word of God assumed it in time.

2. Likewise, the same Damascene: «He assumed the whole of me, that he might redeem the whole of me»; therefore [he assumed] our whole substance and the whole potency of our substance; but the power of sinning is a rational potency of the soul, which cannot be found except in a very noble creature: therefore it seems that Christ had it.

3. Likewise, the power of sinning is a rational potency, and that is toward opposites; therefore it is the same potency as the potency of doing well: if therefore it is nothing other than free choice, and Christ assumed free choice, then [he assumed] also the power of sinning.

4. Likewise, only that has been healed in us which was punished and afflicted in Christ; but in us the power of sinning most needed to be healed, since it is that which is sick through fault: therefore it seems that in Christ it suffered and was afflicted; and if so: therefore it was had and assumed by Christ.

**On the contrary:**

1. Christ according to his human nature had full liberty, just as also full grace; but «the power of sinning, added to liberty, diminishes it»; as Anselm says in the book *On Free Choice*: therefore the power of sinning was not in Christ.

2. Likewise, by every potency someone is able [to act]; therefore if in anyone there is a power of sinning, that one can sin; but Christ could not sin, as was shown before: therefore neither [could he] have the power of sinning.

3. Likewise, the power of sinning is a principle of fault; but in whatever it happens to find a principle, it is possible to find that which is caused from that principle: therefore if Christ had the power of sinning, he could have had sin: therefore he could have been damned and an enemy of God. But if this is impossible, it remains that the first [is impossible] also.

4. Likewise, Christ according to his soul was most like to God among the other creatures, since his soul was supremely deiform; but God does not have the power of sinning: therefore it seems that Christ neither had it nor assumed it.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** Christ assumed the power of sinning, that is, the potency by which one sins, yet not the power of sinning ordered to the act of sinning.

**I respond:** It must be said that the power of sinning is spoken of in two ways. In one way it is called the power of sinning, that is, the potency by which one sins; and so the power of sinning names free choice itself as created, which indeed can [tend] toward the good when aided by grace; and because by its own nature it is defectible, hence it is that this potency or faculty can be called both the potency of doing well and the potency of sinning; for no one sins except through it. — In another way the power of sinning is called a potency ordered toward sinning, such that the potency names something intermediate between the substance and the act of sin, through which that substance can go out into the perpetration of sin.

If therefore the power of sinning is spoken of in the first way, then without doubt it was in Christ. And in this way proceed the arguments to the first part, which show that Christ had the power of sinning, because he assumed our nature integrally and every potency of it. And therefore those arguments can be conceded, because they proceed by the right way and conclude what is true. — But if the power of sinning is called a potency as ordered toward perpetrating sin, then it is not to be conceded that Christ had the power of sinning, for the reason that he could not sin; and such an ordering, indeed disordering, diminishes the fullness of liberty.

**To the arguments for the negative part:**

*To 1.* And through this the response to the first objection to the contrary is plain.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that by every potency someone is able [to act]; it must be said that it is true, if the potency states an ordering to the act; but if it states only a natural aptitude, it does not hold true, because it can be impeded through its opposite, just as one able to walk has a natural aptitude for walking, and a blind man for seeing; yet one able to walk who is maimed cannot walk. And thus the damned have a potency for meriting, but nevertheless they cannot merit, because the ordering of that potency, or its going out into such an act, is impeded in them. And so it is to be understood in the matter at hand, because for the soul of Christ to go out into the act of sin is impossible, although it has the same potency that a sinner has, and this on account of the perfection of grace not allowing such a going-out or defect.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the power of sinning is a principle of fault; it must be said that it is true; but this is insofar as it is defective, or insofar as it is left to itself. In Christ, however, it cannot be left to itself on account of the inseparable union with the divinity: and therefore it cannot perpetrate fault, since it is not in Christ under that account by which it has [the role] of being a principle. And therefore it does not follow that any fault could be in Christ.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that Christ according to his soul was most like to God: it must be said that although the soul of Christ was more like to God than the other creatures, nevertheless it stands disproportionately distant from God; since God, being supremely powerful in himself, through himself and from himself, cannot fail nor have a potency of failing, neither as to ordering nor as to root. But the soul of Christ is a creature, just as the other souls are, and from this very fact by its own nature it is changeable and defectible and has a potency of failing; but that it does not fail, this it has by the benefit of him who stands far distant from all defect. And therefore it does not follow that the soul of Christ lacked all power of sinning, but that it lacked the ordering to such an act or defect through that gift which made Christ to be most like to God.

---