Dist. 20, Part 1, 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/4/d/20/q/bon-sent-IV-d20-p1-a1-q3
----------------------------------------
### Question III. *Whether the pain of purgatory is voluntary.*

Thirdly it is asked whether that pain is voluntary. And that it is, it seems:

1. Because every wise person wills that without which he cannot attain what is desired — whence one desiring health wills to be cut and burned — but the souls in purgatory are not unwise, and they desire glory and know that they cannot attain it except through the endurance of the pain: therefore etc. If you should say that this is not to will it *absolutely*, but *under a condition*; it is shown that they will it absolutely. He has an upright heart who conforms his will to the divine will, as Ambrose and the Gloss on the Psalm say, as was held in the first [book]; but the just in purgatory have an upright heart, and God wills them to be there: therefore they too will themselves to be there and to suffer.

2. Likewise, everyone who is truly penitent wills to make amends, whether by acting or by enduring; but a soul which dies truly penitent does not lose penitence: therefore it wills to make amends. But it cannot do so by acting, therefore by enduring: therefore it wills to suffer that pain.

3. Likewise, everyone who suffers some pain and does not will to suffer it is judged impatient, and is disobedient to the one who inflicts it: therefore, since the just men in purgatory suffer pain, if they are unwilling to suffer it, they are impatient and disobedient.

**On the contrary:**
1. «The voluntary is that which is in the one who knows the singulars»: therefore what is not from an intrinsic principle, but from an extrinsic one and from necessity, not from liberty, does not have the character of the voluntary; but such is the pain of purgatory: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, nothing from which one desires and asks to be freed is voluntary; for if it were voluntary, one would will to persist in it; but the just who are in purgatory ask and desire to be freed from it: therefore etc. The minor is known from many revelations, as can also be proven from the fourth [book] of the *Dialogues*.

3. Likewise, the more bitter a pain is, if it is voluntary, the more glorious the martyrdom; but the pain of purgatory is most bitter, as was shown above: therefore if it is voluntary, it seems that all who pass through purgatory are to be judged martyrs.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** The pain of purgatory has the character of the voluntary to the least degree, because it is from a will that indeed tolerates, but that desires the opposite.

**I respond:** It must be said that a pain is called voluntary in three ways: in one way, because it is assumed by a *commanding* will, as is penitential pain; in another way, because it is endured by an *accepting* will, as is the pain of the Martyrs, because it so pleases them that they would not will to be freed from it; in a third way there is a certain pain which is endured by a *tolerating* will, as for example the pain that is in patience, such that its opposite is in desire, as when one loving and desiring health falls sick: he indeed endures the sickness as a pain divinely inflicted, yet he procures to be freed from it; and that has the character of the voluntary to the least degree. — In this way the pain of purgatory is voluntary in the just men, who voluntarily endure it and vehemently desire to attain the homeland, and to offer help to others.

According to this the response to each side is clear, since the reasons for the first side prove that pain to be voluntary in this *third* way. But the reasons to the opposite prove that it is not voluntary in the *first* way, or in the *second*; which is clear by running through them individually. For all the first reasons proceed according to the *tolerating* will, which conforms itself to God, since it is even permitted to desire something for oneself which God too would will it to have, insofar as it is in itself. The following reasons proceed according to the *commanding* will, which is from within; or according to the *desiring* will, which would not will to be separated from what is willed, and which delights so much the more, the more it desires the voluntary [good] which it obtains.

---