Dist. 44, Part 1, Art. 3, 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/44/q/bon-sent-IV-d44-p1-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether deformities rise again in the bodies of the damned.*

Secondly it is asked, whether deformities rise again in the bodies of the damned. And that they do, it seems:

1. By Augustine in the Enchiridion: «There ought to be no question about beauty, where there is certainty about damnation»; if therefore we are certain that the reprobate will be damned, we are certain also that they will not be adorned with beauty.

2. Likewise, from the bodies of the damned there will not be removed sluggishness nor passibility: therefore neither deformity, by like reasoning. *The first* is clear, because the bodies of the damned will be passible and heavy: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, that deformities be removed from the elect, this is [a matter] of grace; but no grace ought to be shown to the damned: therefore from them deformities ought not to be removed.

4. Likewise, the deformities of souls are not removed from souls: therefore neither from bodies, by like reasoning; nay rather *from the cause*, because the deformity of guilt is the cause of the deformity of punishment.

5. Likewise, a body is restored to damned souls not for the sake of perfection, but for the sake of greater punishment; but the deformity of the body redounds to the punishment of the soul: since therefore the punishment in them ought not to be diminished, but increased; their body ought not to be stripped of deformities, but reclothed [with them].

**On the contrary:**
1. Deformities in an effect come from the error of the producing power; but the bodies of the rising [dead] the divine power alone will restore: therefore if that [power] cannot err, it is impossible that they should have deformity.

2. Likewise, a craftsman who produces an effect with deformities is not called a *reformer*, but a *deformer*: therefore if God makes the bodies of the damned rise again with deformities, he ought not to be called a *reformer*, but a *deformer*. But this is to do insult to the craftsman himself, which must be set far from God: therefore in no way does he produce [them] with deformities.

3. Likewise, «it belongs to the best to produce the best»: if therefore God is the best craftsman, therefore he produces the best works of craft; but he is the craftsman in the resurrection, and deformed bodies are not well made nor ordered: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, there is an order of the parts in the whole, and an order of the thing to its end, and the first regards wisdom, the second regards goodness; but God, since he is good, cannot make a thing lacking an end or disordered from its end: therefore since he is supremely wise, he cannot produce a thing disordered as to the order which is of the parts in the whole: therefore neither deformities.

5. Likewise, from the damned there will be removed the deformity which is by diminution; whence if one lacks a hand, he will not lack a hand: therefore by parity of reasoning also the deformity which is from superfluity, and thus, as it seems, every deformity.

### Conclusion.

> *The bodies of the reprobate will rise again with their deformities.*

**I respond:** It must be said that Augustine in the Enchiridion leaves this question unresolved, as though it were not of great usefulness; nevertheless, since he assigns a reason why one ought not to labor over this, he grants us the determination of the question. For when he says that the inquiry about beauty ought not to trouble us, where there is certainty about damnation; if indeed they rise again for this, that they be damned, not that they be of a better, but of a worse condition; it manifestly appears that there will not be given to them a beauty which they did not have, nor will there be removed a deformity which they had. Whence God, as regards them, is a pure *reformer*, because he reforms according to the same form which nature gave them in their first generation. — In which reformation there appears God's *wisdom* and *justice*: *wisdom*, because he knows how to repair altogether in the same way as it was before; *justice*, that, just as he who merited in a beautiful body may be rewarded in its beauty, so he who sinned in a foul [body] ought to be tormented in its foulness; nor ought it to be removed, but rather confirmed. — And the reasons showing this are to be conceded.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected first, that [deformity] comes from the error of the power; it must be said that it is true in the operation of *nature*, which produces its effect as well as it can; but not so in the operation of *God*, who does not repair according to what is best possible, but according to what better befits their merits.

2. To that [which objects] that one producing a deformed effect is a deformer; it must be said that a deformed effect, once produced, can be considered in two ways: either *absolutely*, or *in comparison*. If *absolutely*, it is true; but if *in comparison* to merit, or to a preceding state, it is not true. And since the effect befits the merits of the damned, it befits nonetheless the past state; therefore such a repair ought to be called not *deformation*, but *reformation* and *conformation*. — And there is an example in a craftsman who makes an ugly picture of the devil; for he himself is not called a *deformer*, but a *conformer*, because he makes the picture conformed to the diabolical state, although in itself the picture is deformed. So too it is to be understood in the matter proposed.

3. To that which is objected, that it belongs to the best to produce the best; it must be said that it is true in [respect of] order, and a deformed body is best ordered in hell, just as a beautiful one in heaven.

4. To that which is objected concerning the twofold order, it must be said that the order of a creature with respect to its end is twofold: either with respect to a created end, or with respect to the ultimate end, which is God, who is the universal end. Likewise the order of *parts* is twofold, namely of parts in the whole, and of things in the universe. And just as a creature cannot be produced by God disordered from its ultimate end, such that it should have that disordering from God; so neither from the ordering which is in the universe; and although a deformed body is disordered in itself, it is nonetheless ordered in the world.

5. To that which is objected, that the deformity which is by diminution will be removed: therefore etc.; it must be said that this is on account of the perfect punishment of the will, which, since it was the ruler of all the members and willed to have them all, though it did not have [them]; therefore in all it ought to be punished and tormented.

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