Dist. 34, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/34/q/bon-sent-III-d34-p2-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether servile fear is expelled when grace comes.*

Thirdly there is inquiry concerning servile fear in comparison to the completion of grace, and the question is whether servile fear is expelled when grace comes. And that it is so, it seems:

1. First, by the authority of Augustine, which the Master adduces in the text: "Fear prepares a place for charity, but when charity has come, the fear which prepared a place for it is driven out"; but it is established that this is understood of servile fear: therefore servile fear is driven out when grace supervenes.

2. Likewise, the spirit of liberty is repugnant to the spirit of servitude; but the spirit of grace and charity is the spirit of liberty, whereas the spirit of servile fear is the spirit of servitude: therefore when grace supervenes, servile fear is driven out.

3. Likewise, no one having grace and charity principally regards punishment, because he more principally regards the divine good-pleasure; but servile fear principally makes [one] regard punishment: therefore servile fear cannot stand together with grace.

4. Likewise, as love which is before grace stands to the love which is from grace, so servile fear stands to gratuitous fear; but gratuitous love is other than acquired love, or love freely given: therefore initial fear is other than servile fear. If therefore servile fear cannot become initial, it seems that it cannot remain when charity supervenes.

Likewise, on the contrary it seems that servile fear is made pleasing [to God] when grace is infused.

2. Likewise, grace which makes [one] pleasing stands farther from nature than it stands from a gift of grace freely given: but supervening grace does not exclude nature, but rather perfects [it]: therefore since servile fear is a gift of grace freely given, it seems that it is not expelled, but rather perfected, when charity comes.

3. Likewise, by servile fear punishment is feared, by initial fear punishment and the offense of God are feared: therefore initial fear stands by a certain addition to servile fear; but what stands by an addition to another contains that [other] in itself and yet more besides: therefore in initial fear servile fear is contained; and if this [is so], servile fear is not expelled by the advent of charity.

4. Likewise, grace, of itself, is repugnant only to sin, or to that which draws its origin from sin, as is a vice and its sequel; but servile fear is not a sin, nor is it drawn from sin: therefore grace is not repugnant to it; and if this [is so], then it does not seem to be expelled by grace.

**On the contrary:** 1. As unformed faith stands to formed faith, so servile fear stands to gratuitous fear; but unformed faith is formed, according to what was held in the preceding [discussions]: therefore

> ### Conclusion.
> Servile fear does not remain together with grace, except as to that which in it was material.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that concerning this there is a twofold manner of speaking. For one manner of speaking is that when I say servile fear, I say two things, as was touched on before, namely the gift itself and the defect of deformity annexed to that gift, not by reason of the gift itself, but by reason of that in which it is. When therefore grace supervenes, it expels it as to the annexed defect of deformity, but not insofar as it is a gift divinely and freely given, as was said in the preceding [discussions] about unformed faith.

But another manner of speaking is that servile fear is altogether expelled when grace comes, not only as to that which it has of *servility*, but as to this which it has of *aptitude*. — And the reason for this is that to this fear servility is in a certain way essentially annexed. For it has its rise more from love of self than from love of God. Hence too this fear makes [one] principally regard punishment. And therefore, just as faith is voided into glory on account of the repugnance of the enigma annexed to it, when [glory itself] supervenes; so the habit of servile fear is expelled when charity supervenes. And to this manner of speaking the word of Augustine seems to accord, by which he says that servile fear stands with respect to the charity to be introduced as the bristle stands with respect to the thread.

But from these two manners of speaking a third manner can be elicited, as it were mixed of both and holding a middle between the two. For it seems very difficult to say that that habit, by which someone was apt for ceasing from fault, should at once withdraw when grace supervenes, since experience itself dictates the contrary of this. It also seems difficult to say and to maintain that servile fear simply remains when grace comes, since it is another difference of fear than initial fear, nor does it seem to draw its origin from the same [source], and the words of Augustine seem sufficiently to contradict [it]. — And therefore we can say that servile fear has three conditions: one as *material* and substrate, and this is to fear eternal punishment; another as *formal* and completive, and this is principally to regard that punishment; a third as *annexed*, and this is to have a deformed will conjoined. When therefore the gift of grace is superinduced, servile fear, as to this which was *material* in it, that is, insofar as it made [one] apt for fearing punishment, remains together with grace, because it is not repugnant to grace. But as to the other two conditions, namely as to the *completive* and as to the *annexed*, it is driven out by grace itself; because, when grace supervenes, it neither principally regards punishment nor has an annexed evil will. And thus it can be held that the gift of servile fear, as to something of itself, is driven out when grace comes, and as to something it remains. — And this seen, the reply to the question is plain; the reply to the objections on both sides is also plain for a great part, because neither side simply concludes the truth; therefore it is fitting to reply on the one side and the other.

1. To that which is first objected concerning the authority of Augustine, by which he says that servile fear is *expelled* when charity comes; it must be said that he does not say this, that it is totally driven out, but that the dominion of servility, by which it principally regards punishment, is taken away from that fear when charity comes.

2. To that which is objected, that the spirit of servitude is repugnant to the spirit of liberty; it must be said that it is true as to that which is in it of servitude; but servile fear has something in which it communicates with initial fear, and by reason of that it is not necessary that it be expelled.

3. To that which is thirdly objected, that it belongs to servile fear principally to regard punishment; the reply is already plain: because as to that condition it is to be expelled, by which namely it principally regards punishment; but on account of this it does not follow that it should be expelled totally.

4. To that which is objected, that as the love of the sinner stands with respect to gratuitous love, so servile fear with respect to chaste fear; it must be said that it is not alike: because, as was held in the preceding [discussions], charity cannot become unformed, but fear can well become unformed; as is plain, when someone falls from charity, and nevertheless after the fall there remains to him a fear of eternal punishments. And if you object that love is the root of fear, therefore they ought to run at an equal pace; it must be said that it does not hold, because it is likewise the root of hope, and yet hope can be unformed and formed; and the reason for this was assigned above. — And thus it is plain that these reasons do not conclude that fear is totally expelled.

5. But to that which is objected, that it simply remains by the likeness in unformed and formed faith too; it must be said that it is not alike on this side and on that: because unformed faith assents for its own sake and above all things to the same [object] and in all things to which formed faith consents; but it is not so concerning servile fear

and concerning initial fear, because servile fear principally regards punishment, but initial fear does not principally regard punishment, but principally regards the divine offense.

2. To that which is objected, that nature is not driven out by grace; it must be said that it is not alike: because natural things are inseparable and are as it were given for always; and therefore they are not taken away when grace supervenes; but certain things are freely superadded, which are given only for a time and for a determined state, and therefore they are driven out and cease when that state withdraws. And so it is to be found in the matter at hand.

3. To that which is objected, that initial fear adds beyond servile [fear]; it must be said that one [kind of] addition is simply completing, another is an addition that distracts. Initial fear adds beyond servile [fear], and this indeed not only by completing, but also by distracting, because, as was said, it takes away from it the concomitant defect, which indeed is a deformed will, and also the completing condition, which indeed was, according to that state, principally to regard punishment, as was touched on above. And therefore it so adds beyond it that it diminishes and expels something of it.

4. To that which is objected, that grace is repugnant only to sin, or to that which has its origin from sin; it must be said that it is repugnant not only to this, but to that which has sin annexed. But servile fear has sin annexed; and on account of this, as to this, that it has punishment and dreads future punishment, it was introduced from fault; and therefore it is no wonder if in some manner it is driven out when grace comes. Yet because it does not have to be introduced totally from fault, but also from the gift of God as to something of itself; hence it is also that it is so driven out that it is not totally destroyed. — And according to this the authorities and reasons which are introduced on the one side and the other can be answered plainly enough.