Dist. 4, Part 1, 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/4/q/bon-sent-IV-d4-p1-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether baptism removes every penalty.*

Secondly it is asked whether the Sacrament of baptism removes every penalty. And that it does seems [so]:

1. In Romans the eleventh: *The gifts of God are without repentance;* the Gloss: «The grace of God in baptism does not require groaning, or wailing, or any other work»: therefore it seems that one baptized is debtor to no penalty.

2. Likewise, Augustine *On the Flood*: «You have been baptized, you have been cleansed, your body has been restored to the state of the first man»: therefore if the first man was debtor to no penalty, it seems likewise that neither is the one baptized.

3. Likewise, God is more inclined to have mercy than to condemn, and the passion of Christ merited more

than the sin of Adam de-merited; but God, in the avenging of Adam's sin, inflicted manifold penalties upon us: therefore much more strongly, on account of the merit of Christ's passion, ought he to rescue [us] not only from guilt, but also from penalty — from every [penalty], namely, which he inflicted.

4. Likewise, the cause being removed, the effect ought to be removed: but the cause of our liability-to-penalty and mortality was guilt: therefore, innocence being restored, no liability-to-penalty or mortality ought any longer to last. *If you say* that guilt was the cause of mortality, [but] not in this way [is] innocence the cause of the contrary; *on the contrary:* «If the opposite is the cause of the opposite, then the proposed [is the cause] of the proposed»: therefore since guilt is the cause positing mortality, likewise innocence will posit impunity and immortality: therefore if baptism brings back innocence, it seems that it removes every penalty.

**On the contrary:**
1. We see that baptized infants, who have committed no guilt, are subject after baptism to many torments; and it is agreed that [this is] not unjustly: therefore baptism does not absolve from every penalty.

2. Likewise, it seems that it ought not to absolve from any penalty, because Augustine says: «Either God punishes, or man punishes»; and again, in second [Letter] to Timothy, the second [chapter]: *He is just, he cannot deny himself:* therefore since to let an evil go unpunished is to leave the universe disordered, [and] is also to act against justice; it seems that God in baptism ought not to absolve from every penalty.

3. Likewise, baptism is more a remedy against original [sin] than against actual; but it does not cure from the penalties contracted through original [sin]: therefore neither does it absolve from the penalties owed to actual [sin]: therefore it seems that [it absolves] from none. — *If you say* that [the penalty] is left for exercise; *on the contrary:* the exercise is greater in personal penalties than it is in natural [ones]: therefore it ought rather to remit those.

On account of this there is a question: since a good physician always intends to cure the root of the disease, and a good remedy is brought to bear on this; why does baptism leave rather the penalty of the tinder [of sin], which inclines toward sin, than the other penalties owed for sins?

> **Conclusion.** Baptism absolves from every eternal and assumed penalty, but not from every contracted [penalty].

**I respond:** It must be said that a distinction must be made among penalties. For some penalties are *eternal,* and some *temporal.* From every eternal [penalty] baptism absolves by blotting out every guilt. But in the temporal [penalty] a distinction must be made, because some are *contracted,* some are *assumed.* Now [those penalties] are *contracted* such as hunger, thirst, and the sufferings concomitant with [this] life. Some are imposed and *assumed,* as fasts and bodily and spiritual exercises and laborious works. — Baptism therefore absolves from every eternal penalty, [and] absolves none the less from every temporal satisfactory or assumed penalty: but not from every contracted [penalty], such as hunger, thirst, and infirmity and the other spiritual penalties.

Now the reason for this is that God did not ordain [baptism] for this very purpose. And the reason why he did not so ordain is that it was fitting that he should leave penalties of this kind in us, and this in order to manifest the equity of the divine judgment, to demonstrate the merit of Christ's passion, [and] to promote the merit of free will. — To manifest the equity of the divine judgment, so that that sentence, which he had pronounced concerning the death of Adam and of his descendants, might remain immovable: whence from it no one escapes. — To show the fruit of Christ's passion: because, if the Lord were to cure nature and the tinder [of sin], a son would be born immune from guilt and would not need to be regenerated by Christ; therefore, so that all might know they have need of his passion, power was given to the Sacrament from the passion, or [the Sacrament] was ordained for this, that it should remit personal penalties, not natural [ones], because the remedy regards the person, not the nature — to amplify the merit of free will; for penalties of this kind in manifold ways promote toward the good.

For they are given for *humility,* Job the sixth: *The arrows of the Lord war in me, the indignation whereof* etc. For the *striking-in of fear,* Job the sixth: *The terrors of the Lord war against me.* For the knowledge of oneself, Isaiah the twenty-eighth: *Vexation alone shall give understanding* etc. For *stimulation toward the good,* Micah the second: *Arise and depart, for you have no rest here.* For an *example of not sinning,* Zechariah the thirteenth: *Adam [is] my example from my youth.* For the *exercise of the virtues,* Judges the third: *These are the nations which the Lord left, that he might instruct Israel.* For this, that they might be a *sign of the adoption of sons,* to the Hebrews the twelfth: *If you be without discipline* etc. For this too, that no one should receive this as a *reward of retribution,* lest, namely, men should come to baptism on account of this. For if immortality were given there, on account of this more would come than for grace, «nor would faith then have merit, for which human reason supplies experience». — The first reason, then, which says that the bodily penalty remains, is to be granted.

**To the arguments for the affirmative side:**

2. But as to what Augustine says, that the body is restored to the state of the first man; it must be said that it is to be understood with respect to innocence, not with respect to nature.

3. To that which is objected, that God is more inclined to have mercy; it must be said that it so befits God to have mercy, yet so that the sentence of truth remains inviolable; and therefore it is plain that he ought not to retract the sentence passed against man, but, the sentence remaining, mercifully to apply a remedy. And the first he did as if compelled, but the second of himself. *Again,* the merit of Christ is not efficaciously ordained except for those who adhere to him, and so it regards persons.

4. To that which is objected concerning cause, it must be said that there is a certain *efficient* and *conserving* cause; [and] a certain *inducing* [cause], but *not conserving:* in the first way [the principle] holds true, in the second way not. An example of these is in the sun and light, the sword and the wound. In the first way guilt is not the cause of penalty, but in the second way [it is]. — As to what is objected, that if the opposite is the cause of the opposite etc.; it must be said that that is true where there is the whole cause. — None the less it can be said that innocence is not the *cause* of immortality; but *meritorious* [of it], just as guilt was meritorious of mortality; and although it merits [it], yet by divine dispensation, as has been said, it is not rendered at once.

**To the arguments for the negative side:**

2. To that which is objected, that either God punishes, or man; it must be said that man had a certain penalty when he sinned; a certain [one] when he is contrite; but the remainder Christ pays from his own [store], and so it does not remain unpunished.

3. To the other it must be said that baptism is a remedy regarding the person, not the nature; and the reasons for this have been stated. Therefore it remits the personal penalty, not the natural.

To that which is asked concerning the physician, that he cures the root; it must be said that God was able to cure in both ways; but yet he disposed rather to cure in this way, not that the whole race should be cured at once, but each one who would wish to be cured, and each in his own person; because [a man] was the more bound to God when he acknowledged this benefit; and the divine *justice* also demanded this as fitting and becoming. For if God had cured each one of us in the root, no one would so recognize the grace of God nor be so grateful for a benefit bestowed in another, as for one bestowed in himself.

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