Dist. 46, Art. 2, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Article II. Question III. *Whether in every work of the Lord there are mercy and truth, according as they are properly taken, or whether they are sometimes separated.*

Third, granted that in *every* work of the Lord there are mercy and truth according as they are said *most broadly*, it is asked whether, according as they are taken *properly*, they are sometimes separated. And it seems that they are not.

1. On that passage of the Psalm: *Mercy and judgment*; the Gloss: "In the first coming, mercy; in the second, justice"; but the first coming is for justifying: therefore nothing concurs there except *mercy*.

2. Likewise, we ask that God not repay us sinners according to our merits — so the Church prays — but justice repays according to merits: therefore in the justification of the impious there is no *justice*; otherwise, if we there ask for justice, then we ask not to be justified.

3. Likewise, justification belongs to a sinful man, who is not worthy of bread: therefore, if he has merited nothing before God, and the justice of which we speak has regard to merits, then there is no justice there.

4. Likewise, justification comes about through grace; but if grace is from merits, *then it is no longer grace*: therefore either there is no justice there, or there is no grace there. But there is grace: therefore not justice.

**On the contrary:**

1. *All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth*: therefore if justification is a way of the Lord, then there are mercy and justice there.

2. Likewise, in the Psalm: *The Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all* etc.; and elsewhere: *His mercies are over all his works*: therefore in every work mercy and justice concur.

3. Likewise, Augustine: "He who created you without you will not justify you without you": therefore justification is not wholly from God, but something is contributed on our part; but mercy has to do with nothing but misery: therefore what further has to do with it there belongs to justice.

4. Likewise, it seems so *by reason*: because mercy consists in the remission of fault and punishment; but he remits fault and punishment to no one entirely; which is plain, because we cannot live without penalties: therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** *In the work of justification there are mercy and justice, yet not according to the same respect.*

**I respond:** It must be said that in the work of justification there are mercy and truth, yet not according to the same respect. — And this is plain thus: because the impious man by sin offends God and is worthy of eternal punishment, and so there are there an *offense* and a *liability to punishment*; and *mercy* lies in remitting the *offense* and the *liability to eternal punishment*, whereas *justice* lies in binding him to *temporal punishment only*; and although baptism frees from the *eternal and satisfactory* punishment, it does not free from *every* punishment — rather, penalties remain in body and soul.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected, that in the first coming there is mercy: it must be said that this is not said *precisely*, but *by appropriation*: because, although in both there are mercy and justice, yet here mercy shines out more, there justice more.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that we ask that he not repay according to merits: it must be said that we do not ask that he repay in *no* way according to merits, since we ought to will to be punished; but that he not repay *wholly* according to merits.

*To 3 and 4.* To that which is objected, that God justifies gratuitously: it must be said that, as regards *the conferring of grace*, there is only mercy, not justice — unless justice be called *the befittingness of goodness*; but as regards *the exacting of punishment*, I say that it is *properly* justice.

**To the argument on the opposite side:** To that which is objected on the opposite side, it must be said that either it is understood of justice as it is the befittingness of goodness, or, if properly, it is understood of the justice belonging to the punishment joined to justification.

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