Dist. 46, Art. 2, 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/46/q/bon-sent-IV-d46-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether in the same work of the Lord there are mercy and truth.*

Secondly it is asked whether in the *same* work of the Lord there are mercy and truth. And it seems that there are not:

1. Because in us one is the effect of mercy, namely *to spare*; another the effect of justice, namely *to punish*: therefore if this is transferred from us to God, it seems that it is similarly so in God, since this is not repugnant to the divine simplicity.

2. Likewise, even if in God mercy and justice are, according to their *principal signification*, the same, nevertheless the *account of predication* is one and another; this therefore will be on the side of the *connoted*: therefore mercy connotes a different effect than justice does. But if it connotes the same, then there is no difference either on the side of the connoted or in itself.

3. Likewise, it seems *from reason*: because mercy acts *against* merits, as when good comes to one who has deserved ill, whereas justice acts *according to* merits; but the same work cannot be done *against* merits and *according to* merits: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. On that verse of the Psalm: *All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth*; Cassiodorus says: « These two are together in every work of the Lord, even though they do not appear to us together ».

2. Likewise, Augustine, *On the Concord of the Evangelists*: « God, who cares for human affairs, cares for them justly and mercifully, so that mercy does not shut out justice, nor justice exclude mercy ».

3. Likewise, it seems *from reason*: because God rewards someone beyond what is condign; it is established that this is one work, and it is not of mercy alone, since he deserved to be rewarded, nor of justice alone, since he did not deserve to be rewarded so much: therefore it is at once of mercy and of justice.

### Conclusion

> *In the same work of God there are together mercy and truth according to three modes, but not according to the same accounts.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *mercy* is spoken of in three ways, and likewise *justice*. In one way mercy is spoken of most broadly as *the affluence of the divine goodness*; but commonly it is called *kindness in the superabundant bestowal of goods*; while strictly it is called *pity in the relieving of evils*. — Likewise *justice* is spoken of most commonly as *the befittingness of the divine goodness*; but commonly it is called *liberality in the rendering of rewards*; strictly, *severity in the punishment of evils*.

According, therefore, to these three modes they run together in the same work. For in the *first* mode *mercy*, the affluence of the divine goodness, and *justice*, the befittingness of the divine goodness, are in the same work, and this in such a way that they are in every work, because he does all things out of an affluent goodness and does nothing out of an affluent goodness except what befits his own goodness. — Likewise in the *second* mode *mercy*, which is kindness in the superabundant bestowal of goods, and *justice*, which is liberality in the rendering of rewards, concur together, because, when he renders good things, he renders them only to one who merits and beyond what he has merited. — Likewise in the *third* mode *mercy*, which is pity in the relieving of evils, and *justice*, which is severity in the rendering of evils, run together, because he never punishes so severely but that he remits some debt of the penalty. — Thus therefore it is plain that mercy and truth are *most commonly* in the same work, because they are in *every* work of God; but *commonly* they are in every work of *the rendering of goods*; *properly* they are in *the rendering of penalties* and punishments. — Yet they are in the same work according to one and another condition: for insofar as he renders what one has merited, it is *justice*; insofar as he renders above, or below, it is *mercy*.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1 and 2.* From these things all the objections are plain, because in the same work there necessarily concur the *being* of mercy and of justice; and they differ in what is *connoted*, and therefore not by reason of diverse *works*, but by reason of diverse *conditions* in the same work.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that mercy acts against merits; I say that it is not called *mercy* on that very account, because it acts *against* merits, but because it acts *above* them; and this stands together with justice.

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