Dist. 15, Part 2, 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/4/d/15/q/bon-sent-IV-d15-p2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the manner of satisfying in general.*
### Question I. *What satisfaction is.*

Concerning the first [matter] one proceeds thus.

Augustine defines [it], and it is had in the text: "To satisfy is to cut away the causes of sins and not to grant entry to their suggestions."

1. First, this definition or description seems *superfluous*, because to cut away the causes of sins and not to consent to the suggestions are absolutely the same.

2. Likewise, it seems *deficient*, because this whole is truly said of one who ceases from sin: therefore according to this, ceasing from sin has the complete account of satisfaction: therefore it is not necessary to do anything further.

3. Likewise, it seems *false*, when it says: "to cut away the causes of sins," because this belongs to God alone; for he it is who blots out sins.

4. Likewise, it seems *implicative of falsehood*, when it says "the causes of sins"; for "sin is nothing": therefore it has no causes, because "a cause is that whose being

another follows." If you say that it does not have an efficient cause, but a deficient one; but then, since such a [cause] is nothing but our will, it seems that the will must be cut away; but not the will-as-power, because this is impossible; not the will-as-affection, because this is by the grace of God; not the will-as-act, because that is the very sin. If you say that the causes are the same as the occasions; on the contrary: it is not in our power to avoid the occasions; and again, granted that one does not avoid them, yet so long as one does not sin, one satisfies.

Likewise, Anselm defines [it]: "To satisfy is to render to God the honor due." — It is asked, therefore, how these definitions differ.

> **Conclusion.** Augustine's definition is explained in this sense, that it touches present amendment for past fault and the purpose of avoiding future [fault].

**I respond:** For the clarity of the aforesaid it must be noted that this description is expounded in a threefold way:

in one way, so that the following part be an exposition of the preceding, so that the sense be: to satisfy is to cut away the causes of sins, that is *the motives and occasions*; and this indeed is not to grant entry to their suggestions; for then they are cut away, when they are in no way admitted. — In another way it is expounded, that the motives to sin are twofold: some *within* us, and these are to be cut away, such as proneness to evil and difficulty toward good, or also the roots of sins; some *without*, and these *are not to be introduced*; and as to these two kinds he sets down two differences.

But nevertheless the first exposition is opposed by [the charge of] triviality; the second is opposed by the reference of [the word] *their*. — And therefore in a third way it is said that for complete satisfaction two things are required, namely present amendment for past fault and a firm purpose in avoiding future [fault]; and these two he touches in this description. As to amendment for the fault perpetrated he says: to cut away the causes of sins. For amendment cannot better be made for a fault than by cutting away from oneself with sorrow and pain those things by which one sinned in following [them] with love. As to the firm purpose concerning the future he says: and not to grant entry to the suggestions.

1. And by this the response to the first objection is clear, [namely] that it is not *triviality*; and further, what the difference of the definitions is: because this definition touches withdrawal from evil, that of Anselm approach toward good.

2. To that which is objected secondly, that this whole agrees [with] *ceasing from sin*; it must be said that to cut away the causes of sins is in two ways: in one way by *declination* alone, in another way by *struggle and violence*. In the first way he opposes [it], in the second way he here takes cutting away the causes of sins through penalties assumed contrary to them, by which they are violently cut away.

3. To that which is objected, that God alone cuts away; it must be said that there is a certain cutting away by *caution and prevention*, and there is a cutting away by *removal of the cause* in [its] effect. The first can be done by man, the second only by God.

4. To that which is objected, that sin does not have a cause etc.; it must be said that he here calls the causes *occasions*. Now the occasions are twofold: some *proximate*, as a splendid supper is the occasion of gluttony; some *remote*, as the invitation to a good supper. And whoever wishes to satisfy well must needs cut away the proximate occasions; and such are in our power, but the remote ones are not.