Dist. 15, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/4/d/15/q/bon-sent-IV-d15-p1-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether satisfactory works done outside charity revive or are vivified when charity comes.*

Fourthly it is asked, whether satisfactory works, done outside charity, when charity comes, revive or are vivified and ought to be counted to one's account. And that they are, it seems.

1. Upon that text of Leviticus, chapter twenty-five: *If your brother be reduced* etc.; the Gloss explains that the fruits of good conduct ought to be reckoned to him from the time at which he sinned; and according to this it seems that, when charity comes, good works can be reckoned.

2. Likewise, baptism received by a feigning person outside charity begins to avail when charity comes: therefore likewise, since satisfaction is a sacramental work, it will be able to avail when charity comes. If you say that the case is not alike, because in baptism a character is imprinted; against this stands the case of restitution, which then avails unto salvation when charity comes, nor need it be repeated.

3. Likewise, it is easier in nature to vivify what has not lived than what has lived and is dead or mortified — for the first is natural, the second above nature — therefore, since mortified works, when charity comes, are vivified, much more are dead ones, or at least equally so.

4. Likewise, the good *of conduct* is nearer to grace than the good *of nature*; but *natural things* are vivified and informed by grace: therefore also *goods in their kind* done beforehand.

5. Likewise, the reason why God remits guilt and does not remit the penalty is, lest sin remain unpunished: therefore if this sinner has been punished before the coming of grace as much as he would have deserved to be punished after grace, or in part; he ought either to be punished in no way, or not so much: therefore good works are reckoned.

**On the contrary:**
1. What in no way lives nor is from a living principle does not have the *potency* unto life; but such is a work done outside charity: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, every satisfactory work is meritorious; but nothing is meritorious except from charity; but that work was not from charity nor can it be any longer, because it is impossible that it change its origin: therefore it is impossible for it to be counted among satisfactory works.

3. Likewise, the sinner before satisfaction is bound to an infinite penalty; but from the infinite nothing is taken away, and what is taken away effects nothing: however much therefore he afflict himself, he is held to an equal penalty: therefore such works ought not to be reckoned.

4. Likewise, a work proceeding from charity exceeds disproportionately a work done outside charity; but what exceeds another disproportionately does not grow by the addition of it: therefore however many works he has done before charity, they add nothing to the works after charity, just as a point adds nothing to a line: therefore they ought to be counted as nothing.

> **Conclusion.** It is probable that satisfactory works, done outside charity, when charity comes, revive as to the remission of penalty, not as to the merit of eternal life; but it is safer to hold that they are in no way vivified and reckoned.

**I respond:** It must be said that concerning this there has been a twofold opinion. — One indeed was that a satisfactory work, as far as belongs to its perfect formal character, merits the bestowal of glory and merits the remission of penalty: the bestowal of glory, because it is done *from charity*; the remission of penalty, because it is done *in charity*, inasmuch as it is sacramental; and therefore it suffices that it be done *in* charity, as to this; because through charity the penalty owed by the one making satisfaction becomes proportional to the penalty which he undergoes. They say therefore that for those works to be vivified as to *the merit or retribution of eternal life* is impossible, because they were not from charity, and it is further impossible for them to be from charity; but as to *the merit of the remission of penalty* — since there was no other defect, except that the penalty was not proportional — once this is set in charity, and the penalty made proportional, they are vivified as to this and ought to be reckoned to one's account. Hence they are vivified otherwise than mortified works, because the latter are vivified unto eternal retribution, these only unto the remission of penalty.

Another is the position that every satisfactory work is a work meritorious of eternal life, and must be done from charity moving by a conjoined command, or at least firstly; as is the case with one who goes to St. James; whence they say that such works are *in no way* vivified nor reckoned. — The first position is highly probable, but this one is safer.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected to the contrary before this, that fruits ought to be reckoned; it must be said that this is to be understood if immediately after the sin he began to be contrite, and then the satisfactory works were his from that time, even before he was absolved by the priest. — Or it must be said that the fruits are reckoned as to the surplus increase of *the usurer*, because by the merit of those fruits the devil did not drag him into many crimes.

2. To that which is objected concerning baptism, it must be said that it is a work *of God toward man*, and this is never dead, yet on account of the unfitness of the recipient it is deprived of its effect; and such is baptism. — There is a work *of man toward man*, and such is considered only outwardly, because man sees only those things which are outward; and such is restitution, and this need not be alive. — Another is a work *of man toward God*, and such can be dead, but it must be alive for this, that it be satisfactory, for otherwise it is not acceptable to God; and such is the work of satisfaction, by which man is reconciled to God. And therefore the case of baptism and of satisfaction is not alike.

3. To that which is objected, that to vivify what has never lived is easier; it must be said that this is true in those things which live because they receive *life*, but not in those things which can live because they *proceed from life*; and such are works.

4. To the other it must be said that the case is not alike concerning habits and potencies and acts, because the latter remain, the former do not, and can neither be informed nor vivified.

5. To that which is objected, that the cause of making satisfaction is, lest there be impunity of sin; it must be said that this is not the whole reason, but also this: that man is made a friend of God through grace and worthy at some time to be beatified; therefore he is bound only to a temporal penalty, and therefore, before he is a friend, he is bound to an eternal one. — Moreover, a work done from charity disproportionately, as was done in the objecting argument, exceeds a work done outside charity, and thus a penalty borne from charity and pure will exceeds a penalty borne without charity; and therefore God reasonably commutes the eternal penalty, to be borne eternally out of an evil will, such as is the case in the damned, into a temporal penalty to be borne out of charity; so much does such endurance please him. And therefore the other penalty, borne outside charity, as being altogether disproportionate, does not augment it; but God reckons that alone satisfactory whose endurance and undertaking is drawn from sincere charity, because he did not commute the penalty into another.

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