Dist. 21, Part 1, 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/21/q/bon-sent-IV-d21-p1-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the purgation of venial sins in this life.*
### Question I. *Whether venial sins can be destroyed without grace.*

And that they can be destroyed without grace is seen:

1. *Because* every fault [that is] remitted is wholly punished, in proportion to what it itself demands; but a venial fault is worthy of temporal penalty alone: therefore, since everything temporal has an end, it is possible that someone existing outside grace be sufficiently punished for that fault: therefore it is possible that it be remitted without grace. The first proposition is manifest, because no one is so severe in justice that he should punish beyond what he who has sinned has deserved: therefore when God punishes sufficiently, he punishes no further; but a fault cannot exist without a penalty: therefore, the penalty ceasing, the fault ceases.

2. Likewise, a venial fault does not denote a deformity of the image, but only a proneness toward a changeable good; but a proneness can be abolished without grace, since one who is prone to avarice can without grace become prodigal and prone to prodigality: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, in small ailments nature does not need medicine, but only when the ailment has been magnified; but venial [sins] do not lay nature low, nay rather they leave it in its vigor: therefore, apart from the medicine of grace, a venial [sin] can be cured by nature.

4. Likewise, the less connection and likeness ailments have, the more specially can one be cured without the other; but a venial [sin] has greater agreement with another venial [sin] than with a mortal one; but one venial [sin] can be destroyed while another remains: therefore much more strongly can a venial [sin] be destroyed while a mortal one remains: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, if a venial [sin] cannot be destroyed without grace; suppose that someone die in a venial [sin] alone, that [sin] will never be destroyed, but as long as it endures, it will be punished: therefore he is punished eternally by his very self: therefore it does not differ from a mortal [sin].

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine, *On the City of God*, [book] twenty-one: «*Neither great nor small [sins] can be remitted to us, unless we ourselves remit [them] to our debtors*»; this is for no other reason than that, while a man does not remit, he is always in sin: therefore no sin can be remitted to a man so long as he is in mortal sin: therefore if grace alone frees from sin, a venial [sin] is not remitted without grace.

2. Likewise, if something destroys something else, it has some opposition to it; but neither penalty nor nature has opposition to fault: therefore venial [sins] are destroyed neither by penalty nor by nature, unless grace be present.

3. Likewise, every sin harms and takes away, as Augustine holds in the *Enchiridion* and in many places: therefore a venial [sin] takes away something of spiritual good and of rectitude; but God alone can restore good to the soul, just as he alone could create it, and this is through grace: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, God punishes for a venial [sin], this is established: therefore he finds something of displeasure in a venial [sin]; but nothing whatever removes the displeasure of God, except that which finds favor and pardon; but grace making-pleasing alone is that which makes [one] pleasing to God: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, it is more perfect to be free of a venial [sin] than of a mortal one: therefore it is the act of an equally noble gift, or of an equally perfect, or more perfect, [act] to destroy a venial [sin] than to destroy a mortal one; but a mortal [sin] cannot be destroyed except by the gift of grace making-pleasing: therefore etc.

> **Conclusion.** Venial sins are not destroyed without grace making-pleasing.

**I respond:** It must be said that the position of some was that venial [sins] can be destroyed without grace making-pleasing, through gratuitously-given grace [*gratia gratis data*]. And they wished to show the reason for this, namely for this, that a venial sin does not conflict with grace making-pleasing, but [only] with gratuitously-given [grace]; nor does it offend the divine Majesty, because there nothing is loved above God, but [something is loved] somewhat inordinately under God. And therefore, just as a mortal [sin] can be destroyed by grace, because it conflicts with it, and because grace reconciles [the man] to the offended God, and because it makes [the man] love the contemned God above all things; so a venial [sin] can be destroyed by gratuitously-given grace, which removes that slight inordinateness and takes away from the soul itself that occasion of loving God less; nor is it necessary that there be there a grace elevating the soul to the love of God above all things, because through a venial [sin] nothing is loved above God.

But this position, although it seems probable, nevertheless deviates from the truth, if one examines it. For every sin, by the very fact that it is a sin, in some way defiles the soul and in some way disorders it, and from this it is necessary that it in some way displease God. Since therefore the least mark of displeasure that can be cannot be taken away without a habit which leads back to complacency and to friendship; it is to be held altogether, concerning every sin generally, that nothing whatever can be destroyed without grace making-pleasing. For thus the divine mercy has decreed to heal us; and this the Saints say, and Scripture sounds forth, which especially posits that grace is necessary for the destroying of sins.

1. To that, then, which is objected, that sufficient punishment absolves from fault; it must be said that if that be understood in the face of men, who judge according to outward things, it can have truth. But in the face of God, who considers the inward face of the soul and the beauty of his own image, however great the penalty be, he cannot wholly absolve the sinner, unless the inner deformity be removed; and therefore in the court of God it is impossible for a sin to be sufficiently punished as to time, unless it be destroyed through grace.

2. To that which is objected, that a venial [sin] denotes only a proneness; it must be said that it is false, nay rather it denotes besides a certain mark of displeasure; and so it always remains in the soul, even if a proneness to the opposite should come, unless charity intervene, which covers a multitude of sins.

3. To that which is objected, that in small ailments nature does not need medicine; it must be said that it is true; and likewise it is so in spiritual things, if the transfer of the likeness be rightly made. Nature therefore has in

itself a *foundation* of health, namely the *natural virtues*, governing the complexion and expelling harmful things; but the governance of *spiritual health* is nothing but grace *making-pleasing*: and therefore, just as, the natural power being corrupted, a *bodily* ailment cannot be destroyed; so neither, grace being absent, can a *spiritual* ailment be destroyed, however small it be. Therefore grace [acts] not as *medicine*, but as a *governing virtue*; but outwardly the *Sacrament* is as *medicine*, of which grace does not necessarily have need, yet it is expedient for it for the curing of a venial [sin], especially when that sickness is habitual.

4. To that which is objected, that there is greater connection of a venial [sin] to a venial [sin]; it must be said that a venial [sin] can be destroyed without [another] venial [sin], because neither overturns the foundation of the life-giving and healing virtue, namely grace; but a *mortal* [sin] uproots grace; for it does not stand together with life. And since no fault can be destroyed without grace, therefore no ailment, even the smallest, can be destroyed without every mortal fault being destroyed; but it is not so in a venial [sin], for this [reason], that each stands together with grace.

5. To that which is objected concerning one who departs in a venial [sin] alone; it must be said that the position is impossible; and therefore it is no wonder if the impossible follows. If, however, someone should depart with an *original* and a *venial* [sin], or with a *venial* [sin] and any other *mortal* one; he will be punished for the venial [sin] with a certain penalty intensively; but by reason of the *adjunct* that penalty will be eternal, not by reason of the venial fault itself.