Dist. 22, 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/22/q/bon-sent-IV-d22-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the return of sin.*
### Question I. *Whether forgiven sins return as to their stain.*

That they do return as to the stain, is [thus] shown.

1. First of Peter, chapter four: *Charity covers a multitude of sins*; but when the covering is removed, that which was being covered remains and appears: if therefore a subsequent sin removes charity, it seems that it makes the sins forgiven through it appear and be in the sight of God.

2. Likewise, as fault is disposed toward mortifying, so charity is disposed toward vivifying, and conversely; but subsequent charity vivifies its own mortified works: therefore by parallel reasoning a subsequent fault makes the evils previously blotted out return.

3. Likewise, the blotting-out of sin is an immediate effect of grace; but when the proximate and immediate cause is removed, the effect is removed: therefore, grace being removed, the blotting-out of the fault is taken away. If therefore sin deprives [of] the grace by whose act the blotting-out of sin comes about: therefore the prior sins remain unblotted-out.

4. Likewise, there are these two things which are constituted through fault, namely deformity and proneness; but it is possible for the prior sins to return as to deformity

and proneness: therefore etc. *Proof of the minor*: deformity consists in the disfigurement of the image, proneness in an inclination toward some act by way of excess; but proneness remains after the sin and can be intensified through a subsequent fault, and the soul deformed: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Nothing which passes wholly into non-being is repeated wholly the same; but fault, when it is blotted out, wholly is not: therefore it is impossible for the same fault to be renewed numerically through a subsequent act.

2. Likewise, nothing brings back something blotted out to *being*, except that which can make [it] *be*; but one act makes only one stain or fault in the soul: therefore it is impossible for several kinds of sins to return through one fault.

3. Likewise, a contrary does not bring back its contrary to *being*; but it is possible that someone who first sinned through avarice afterward relapses through prodigality: if therefore prodigality does not bring avarice back to *being*, it is clear etc.

4. Likewise, if forgiven sins return as to fault, then either [it is] because *man* does this, or because *God*. Not *man*, because he cannot sin twice with numerically the same sin; not *God*, because he can make no one a sinner: therefore in no way is this [so]: therefore etc.

> **Conclusion.** *Forgiven sins in no way return as to fault.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the opinion of some was that the prior sins would return, and the prior demerits, just as it was shown above that the prior merits return and revive through subsequent grace. For they said that goods and evils walk with equal step as to mortification and blotting-out and as to return and vivification, according to that which the Lord says in Ezekiel eighteen concerning the just man, that if he turns himself away from justice, none of his [acts of] justice will be remembered, and concerning the sinner rising again, that his iniquities are not remembered. — But nevertheless that does not seem intelligible, that the same charity, once lost, should return, if it is a created habit, nor that the same fault likewise; for if it is wholly blotted out, there returns not the same [fault] as before, but a new one.

And therefore there was a second opinion, somewhat more tempered, that sins do not return except through *four kinds of sins*, namely through fraternal hatred, through apostasy, through contempt of confessing, and through this, that one is grieved to have repented. Whence they made verses:

> *He hates [his] brothers, becomes an apostate, and scorns to confess,*
> *He is loath to have repented; the former fault returns.*

But their reason, besides the authorities which seem to say this and are touched upon in the [Master's] text, was this: that the Lord remits fault under a fourfold condition, namely if he himself forgive his neighbor, if he persevere in faith, if he confess the fault, if he perpetually detest the committed fault. And since the pact is broken when the condition does not exist, when someone sins by any kind of the aforesaid sins; they say the fault returns. — But neither ought this position to be held, although it was [that] of a great cleric, namely of Praepositivus, since it does not have a right foundation. For it is agreed that fault is not blotted out except through grace; it is agreed also that at the presence of grace the fault is wholly blotted out. For if grace is present, the fault is wholly blotted out; and if it is blotted out and now is not, there is none who could make it be in the soul; and therefore it does not seem probable that, on account of some failing condition, a forgiven fault should return again.

And therefore that is a probable and correct position, which the modern doctors hold, that forgiven sins in no way return as to fault. — And the arguments are to be granted as regards this part.

1. To that which is objected, first, concerning the removal of the covering, it must be said that it is one thing to be covered in the sight of man, another in the sight of God. In the sight of man something can be covered, yet in such a way that on account of this it does not cease [to be]; as a picture is covered by a cloth, not because it is not, but because it does not appear. But in the sight of God, from whom nothing can be hidden, *to cover is to make that it not be*; and in this way charity covers the prior sins by blotting them out; and therefore, since they now are not, once the covering is removed, they do not appear.

2. To that which is objected, that grace vivifies mortified works; it is answered to this, that it is not

alike, whether on the part of *grace*, or on the part of *goods*, or on the part of *divine mercy*. On the part of *grace*, because it itself is more powerful toward good than fault [is] toward evil. On the part of *goods*, because there is a connection in goods, and they remain in the unity of the mystical body; it is not so in evils. On the part of *divine mercy*, which «is more inclined to have mercy than to condemn». And therefore it does not hold. — But it can be said otherwise, that it is one thing for *good works to be mortified*, another for *sins to be blotted out*. For good *works* are mortified, not because they cease to be, but because they are reckoned unworthy of eternal reward on account of the sinner's guilt alone. But *for sins to be blotted out* truly means the expulsion of sin and the removal of such a vice from the soul. Whence just as charity, which is a habit of the soul, never returns the same, if it is lost; so neither can the same fault return.

3. To that which is objected concerning the immediate effect, it must be said that an effect can be compared to a cause in two ways: either as to [something] *introducing and conserving*, as light to the sun, and thus that maxim holds place; or as to [something] *introducing only*, and thus it does not hold place. For if a knife inflicts a wound, it is not necessary that, the knife being destroyed, the wound be destroyed. Thus in the matter at hand it must be understood that grace, at its first coming, makes the fault, which it finds in the soul, be no more.

4. To that which is objected concerning deformity and proneness, it must be said that *neither* returns numerically wholly the same. But although concerning *proneness* it can in some way be true; nevertheless *deformity* is not intended [here], which is in the privation of good, and the mark of displeasure cannot be the same; and this is fault, properly speaking, as is plain in the second book.