Dist. 22, Art. 1, Q. 2
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-q2
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### Question II. *Whether forgiven sins return as to the debt of punishment.*

Secondly it is asked whether forgiven sins return as to the debt [of punishment]. And that they do, it seems:

1. By the text of Matthew, chapter eighteen: *Wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt* etc.; and afterward: *He delivered him to the torturers, until he should repay* etc.; and afterward: *So also my Father* etc.: therefore the Lord again exacts the debt which He had forgiven: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, suppose that someone, before completed satisfaction, falls into fault; it is agreed that one cannot make satisfaction outside grace; suppose, then, that he dies: he carries the debt with him, and it cannot be discharged by a satisfactory punishment: therefore he is punished with eternal punishment.

3. Likewise, for as many sins as have been forgiven, for so many is he bound to give thanks, and for so many likewise is he bound continually to detest [his] sins; but when he sins by one sin, he omits to give thanks and to detest [his] sins: therefore he will be guilty of as many punishments as he was before.

4. Likewise, in human laws a manumitted slave is reduced back to servitude when he lays hands on his master with a bloody hand, or for another enormous offense: therefore, if those laws proceed from the eternal law,

it seems that God does likewise: therefore He continually reckons the one relapsing bound to punishment, just as He reckoned him before.

**On the contrary:**
1. *God does not judge twice for the same thing*, Nahum chapter one; therefore He does not punish twice: if, then, someone has repented and punished himself for a committed sin, it seems that he is no longer punished for it, however much he sins otherwise: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the debt of eternal punishment is inseparably annexed to fault; but fault cannot return: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, if the debt of preceding sins returns, then there is no usefulness in the world in the fact that someone has done well and repented; but this seems impious to say: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, *the gifts of God are without repentance*: therefore if God pardons something, He does not repent of the pardon: therefore the debt which God has forgiven, or from which He has released, cannot return.

> **Conclusion.** Sins wholly forgiven do not return through a subsequent fault, except as to the punishment of loss.

**I respond:** It must be said that some wished to say that preceding sins return as to the *debt*, because through the subsequent fault one is bound by as many debts to punishment as he was bound before. And the ground of this is touched upon in the [Master's] text. For they said that by as many sins as he had committed, by so many bonds was he bound, when he came to penitence, so as to detest past evils; and therefore, when he sins, he breaks all the bonds: and therefore he is guilty of as many debts as he formerly committed sins. — But that is nothing: first, because a single detestation suffices to detest the rest, nor is he bound to detest all separately at one and the same time: therefore in [the] one he does not sin except by a single omission.

The opinion of others was that prior sins return through relapse as to *equivalence*, for the reason that ingratitude, which is a condition of sin, so aggravates the sin that he is as guilty as he had been guilty through all the preceding sins. — But that still does not seem [right]: first, because ingratitude is weighed according to the magnitude of the benefit; but God confers a greater benefit in preserving innocence than in calling back to penitence: therefore he sinned more gravely when he first lost innocence than when he afterward relapsed: therefore ingratitude does not bring it about that the sin is as grave as the preceding ones. — Moreover, that ingratitude is a *circumstance* of the sin on the part of the *sinner*; but *lust* or the *kind* of sin aggravates the sin more than a *circumstance* aggravates: therefore never on account of ingratitude will one sin, light according to its kind, be equivalent to preceding grave and enormous sins.

And therefore it must be said otherwise, that the debt is an obligation to punishment, and the punishment of sin is twofold, namely the punishment of *loss* and of *sense*. We can therefore speak of the debt of sin in two ways: either as to the punishment of *loss*, or as to the punishment of *sense*. If, however, as to the punishment of *loss*; thus, because *he who sins in one is made guilty of all*, it is to be believed that forgiven sins return. But if we speak as to the punishment of *sense*; then it must be distinguished: because certain sins are *wholly* forgiven as to punishment and fault, and such in no way return; but certain [others] have been forgiven *in part*, and concerning such satisfaction is to be made. And since the subsequent fault takes away the power of making satisfaction, so long as it remains, by this very fact that person is bound to eternal punishment, not by reason of *itself principally*, but by reason of *the annexed [fault]*; and thus it is to be understood that sins return. — Yet it is true that the preceding remission in some way aggravates the subsequent fault, because there is there a contempt of the benefit conferred, yet not so as to make equivalence.

*To 1 and 2.* To that which is objected from the authority of Matthew, it must be said that it is to be understood in one or the other of these ways. And likewise the following objection is clear, because it concludes truly.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning temptations, answer has already been given through interception, because he is not bound by so many temptations, but by that sole temptation by which he is bound to be contrite.

*To 4.* To that which is objected concerning the manumitted slave, it must be said that in human laws this is done for caution and terror; and therefore it need not be found thus in the divine law. — But the reasons to the contrary, by which it is shown that the debt does not wholly return, conclude truly.

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