Dist. 31, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/31/q/bon-sent-III-d31-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the duration of charity in relation to the sin opposed to it.*
### Question I. *Whether charity once had can be lost.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether charity once had can be lost. And that it cannot, the Master adduces many *authorities* in the text; and this same thing is shown by *reason*.

1. For this is true of itself: love unites, therefore the greater love unites the more: but the love of charity is a more excellent love than natural love is: therefore it unites more excellently. But natural love unites indissolu-

bly, because no one ever hates what he naturally loves: therefore much more strongly does the love of charity unite indissolubly: therefore he who has charity cannot be deprived of the bond of charity.

2. Likewise, charity in the good is stronger than any sin is in evil: but the more strong cannot be destroyed by the less strong: therefore charity cannot be expelled by sin; nor has it anything else by which to be expelled: therefore once had it cannot be lost.

3. Likewise, every sin has its origin either from *fear* wrongly abasing, or from *love* wrongly inflaming; but in him in whom charity is, there is neither fear wrongly abasing nor love wrongly inflaming, because Bernard says: « Charity is never without *fear*, but a chaste one; never without *desire*, but an ordered one »: therefore it seems that in him in whom charity is, there can be no fault: it seems therefore that charity, once it is had, is never lost.

4. Likewise, free choice in choosing always follows the predominant affection; but in every man having charity the affection of charity predominates, since it makes him love God for his own sake and above all things: therefore free choice, once it has charity, is never moved against charity. But it never loses charity unless it be moved against it: therefore once charity is in a man, it seems that it cannot be lost or separated from him.

5. Likewise, everyone who has charity has Christ for a foundation and the Holy Spirit for a help; but nothing can shatter the firmness of the foundation nor overcome the power of the divine help: therefore it seems that nothing can expel charity from a man.

But against this it is shown: 1. First, by *examples of the Old Testament*. For it is established that Saul had charity, since it is written of him that *there was not a better man in Israel than he*; likewise David too had charity, since the Lord says of him: *I have found a man according to my own heart*; and it is constant that each lost charity, because each sinned mortally: Saul in persecuting David, but David in committing adultery and homicide: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, this same thing is shown by *examples of the New Testament*: because the disciples of the Lord had charity, both the Apostles and the other chosen disciples; but *many of the disciples went back*, according to what is said in John the sixth; many also of the Apostles doubted in the faith, according to what is held in the last chapter of Matthew, and likewise in the last of Mark, and likewise in the last of Luke: therefore they lost the charity they had had: therefore charity once had can be lost.

3. Likewise, this same thing is shown by *authorities*: because it is written in the first to the Corinthians, the tenth chapter: *Let him who stands see that he fall not*; and Apocalypse the second: *I have a few things against thee, that thou hast left thy first charity*: therefore charity once had can be lost and destroyed.

4. Likewise, this same thing is proved by manifest *experience*: because little ones who are baptized have grace, and so charity and the other virtues; and yet, when they come to adult age, they lose charity by sinning, as is plain: therefore charity, after it is had, is lost.

5. Likewise, this same thing is shown by a *rational argument*. It is easier to fail than to advance, and to fall than to rise again; it is also easier to lose charity than faith, because, when faith is lost, charity is lost, but not conversely; but it is possible that a man who does not have charity acquire charity, it is also possible that a man having faith withdraw from faith: therefore much more strongly is it possible that a man having charity fall from charity.

### Conclusion.

> It is error and madness to say that charity once had cannot be lost.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that, as the Master says in the text, the opinion and judgment of certain men was that charity once had is never lost; and this they held on account of the perfection of that bond and the ardor or fervor of that *love*. For they believed that that *bond* was of such perfection that by no agent could it be dissolved; and that that *love* was of such fervor that in no way could it be extinguished, on account of the dignity and excellence of charity itself. And this they strove to affirm by manifold authority, as the Master says clearly enough in the text itself. — But this position is not an opinion nor a rational judgment, but rather is to be called *error* and *madness*, because it is repugnant to *sacred Scripture*, repugnant to the *experience* of our faith, repugnant nonetheless to *right reason*. It is repugnant to sacred Scripture and also to experience, as has been shown in the objecting. And it is dissonant from *right reason*, if one attends, for the reason that right reason dictates that the charity of the wayfarer does not take away from free choice the changeableness toward evil, just as desire does not take away the aptitude for good. Therefore changeableness and charity stand together; but where there is changeableness, there can be fault; and where there can be fault, there both charity and grace can be absent: it remains, therefore, that according to the dictate of right reason charity can be lost in the state of the wayfarer. — Hence the reasons adduced for this side are to be conceded.

1. To that, then, which is first objected, that the love of charity unites more excellently than natural love: it must be said that it is true; but yet from this it does not follow that it unites more indissolubly, because the *excellence of union* is not weighed so much according to the *inseparability of union* as it is weighed according to the *dignity of the uniting habit* and of the object or term. Hence that reason is not valid. But *if you ask* whence this is, that natural love unites inseparably, and the love of charity does not; it must be said that this is because *charity* is a habit regulative and directive of the deliberative will, which is toward opposites according to the state of the wayfarer. But *natural* love regards the very *inclination of nature*, which is determined toward one thing. Therefore what is loved out of charity can become hateful on account of the changeableness of the will, although what is naturally loved is always lovable on account of the determination of nature itself. Hence the case is not the same on the one side and the other.

2. To that which is objected, that charity is stronger than sin; it must be said that the loss of charity is not because sin acts upon it, expelling it, as one natural form expels another: but this is because, since the *being* of charity depends on two things, namely on God infusing it and on free choice receiving it; when free choice turns itself away from God, charity fails in itself. And because free choice does not turn itself away except by sinning, hence it is that charity is said to be expelled by sin, not on account of the strength of the sin itself acting, but on account of the failing of free choice itself receiving.

3. To that which is objected, that every sin is from *love* wrongly inflaming, or *fear* wrongly abasing; it must be said that this can be understood in two ways: either that those two roots precede in *time* every sin perpetrated outwardly, or that they precede in *origin*. If they precede in *time*, so it need not be generally true, because before the first sin none of these was in the first man. If they precede in *origin* the very perpetration of sin, so it has truth, because no one perpetrates sin except by the evil affection of love, or by the evil affection of *fear*. But although affections of this kind are not in a man having charity in *act, they can* nevertheless be present, because free choice, which is right through charity, can be bent through desire.

4. To that which is objected, that free choice in choosing follows the predominant affection; it must be said that there is an affection predominant *in habit*, and there is an affection predominant *in act*. When, therefore, it is said that free choice follows the predominant affection; this is not understood of the affection predominant *in habit*, but of the one predominant *in act*. But although in a man having charity the affection of charity predominates *in habit*; it nevertheless happens that a carnal affection predominates *in act*; because frequently a man who is in grace, forgetful of the things that are God's, *thinks wholly the things that are of the world*; and so is affected as though he were not a citizen of that supernal Jerusalem; and while he follows that affection, he falls into the precipice and loses the gift of grace and the habit of charity.

5. To that which is objected last, that to him who has charity Christ is a foundation, and the Holy Spirit is for a help; it must be said that it is true; but Christ is a *foundation* in such a way that he sustains only one willing to *lean* upon him, and the Holy Spirit does not *govern* in gratuitous *being* except one willing to *cooperate* with him. And therefore, although that *foundation* be immovable, and that *help* be invincible, nevertheless, because free choice out of its own defectibility refuses to *lean upon that foundation* and to *cooperate with that help*, by sinning it fails in itself, and through this is deprived of the gift of charity on account of a defect on its own part, not on account of a defect on the part of the foundation, or of the help.