Dist. 17, 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/17/q/bon-sent-IV-d17-p1-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether for justification confession is necessary.*

Fourth, it is asked whether for justification confession is necessary. And that it is, seems to be the case:

1. Proverbs twenty-eight: *He that hideth his sins shall not prosper, but he that shall confess and forsake them shall obtain mercy*; but justification is nothing else than spiritual direction, since "justice is the rectitude of the will": since therefore no one can be directed unless confession precedes, no one can be justified without prior confession.

2. Likewise, Isaiah forty-three: *Tell, if thou hast anything, that thou mayest be justified*; as Ambrose and Origen expound, this is understood of the recounting of fault, which is in confession: therefore this is necessary for justification.

3. Likewise, John Chrysostom: "No one can receive grace unless he has been purged from every sin by confession": therefore confession is necessary.

4. Likewise, Ambrose in the book *On Paradise*: "No one can be justified from sin before confession": therefore confession necessarily comes first.

5. Likewise, it seems by reason: because everyone having grace and justice enters into the kingdom of heaven, nor can anyone shut the gate, justice and grace remaining intact; but no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven except through the doorkeeper Peter, since the key has been given to him, from which no one is exempt: therefore no one can obtain grace nor have remission of fault unless he have it by the authority of the supreme Pontiff and of those who share in this. But no one is absolved by a priest without prior confession: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, penance is a Sacrament necessary for salvation, therefore its parts are necessary; but the first, that is contrition, is necessary for the justification of the ungodly, as has been seen: therefore by parity of reason confession is necessary.

**On the contrary** it is objected, as the Master objects:

1. First by the authority of the Psalm: *I said, I will confess* etc.; Cassiodorus: "Great is the mercy of God, that He forgives sin at the mere promise. For the vow is judged in place of the deed."

2. Likewise, Augustine upon that same passage: "It is clearer than light that sins are forgiven by the contrition of the heart, not by the confession of the mouth"; but justification is there, where there is the remission of sin: therefore justification is without confession, and so etc. — To this also there are authorities of the Master in the text.

3. Likewise it seems by reason: because God is more inclined to have mercy than to condemn; but by the act of the consenting heart alone He withdraws grace: therefore much more powerfully by an act of the heart does He forgive sins.

4. Likewise, "God has not bound His power to the Sacraments": therefore whenever a man does what is in him, God does what is in Him: therefore if anyone grieves over his fault, even if there be no confessor, or confession be lacking outwardly, God does what is in Him: therefore He justifies.

> ### Conclusion.
> *Justification can be without confession.*

**I respond:** It must be said that if justification be called the infusion of justice, confession is not necessary, as those reasons which have been adduced expressly show. Hence only these four things are necessary, namely the infusion of grace, the motion of free choice, contrition, and the expulsion of sin. For according to the right order, as will be made clear, confession follows contrition in time and in nature; and if it follows contrition, since contrition itself is not without justification, nor conversely, justification itself can be without confession.

To that, then, which is objected on the contrary from those authorities, it must be said that, as Augustine says, "although someone can be justified without the Sacraments, yet no one is justified who despises the Sacraments." Since therefore confession is imposed upon sinners, it is impossible for anyone to be justified who does not have confession in deed or in intention. For if he despise confession, however much he grieve, he does not acquire justice. But if he have confession in intention, since God reckons the good will and intention in such matters as a deed, if it be truly good and effective, then, if grief be present, he can be justified. Therefore so far the authorities of the Saints and the aforesaid reasons say that confession is necessary for justification. For they call the will of confessing "confession," and this is clear by going through them one by one.

1. For as to what is said first: *He that hideth his sins*; it is settled that it speaks of the hypocrite, since he not only lacks the intention of confessing, but rather has the malice of concealing and excusing.

2. 3. 4. To that likewise which is said: *Tell thou thine iniquities* etc.; it must be said that when a man wishes to obey this command, he disposes himself congruously toward grace; and the most abundant divine mercy, when it finds the soul disposed, bestows grace, as if it had confessed by speech. — But the other two authorities are to be understood thus: either, if they be understood of the act of confessing, then they take confession for the recognition of sin, which is inwardly between the soul and God, and so they do not conclude.

5. To that which is objected, that no one enters without the power of the keys; it must be said that to enter without the power of the keys can be understood in two ways: either without the power, in such a way that it be understood contrarily, as one despising the key of Peter; or without the power, in such a way that it be privatively: and this still in two ways: either simply privatively, in such a way that he does not have the effect of absolution either in act or in devotion or in desire; or in such a way that he has it in devotion and intention, and so in a certain manner has it. In the first and second way he neither enters nor is justified, but in the third way he enters and in some manner through the key, although not as does he who is actually absolved.

6. To that which is objected, that penance is a necessary Sacrament; it must be said that no Sacrament is so necessary but that faith and devotion supply its place, as is clear in baptism; and therefore salvation can belong to someone without the Sacrament of penance. — And as to what is objected concerning contrition, that it is necessary; it must be said that it is not necessary insofar as it is part of the Sacrament of penance, but insofar as it is an act of the virtue of penance; and that is the first virtue, without which there is no salvation for an adult sinner, and that virtue is at once in act and in habit in the very infusion, because it finds free choice in an act conformed to itself in justification, as has been seen. Moreover, granted that penitential contrition, insofar as it is sacramental, were necessary, it does not follow on this account regarding confession, which is an exterior act, superadded to contrition.