Dist. 46, Art. 2, Q. 4
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-q4
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### Article II. Question IV. *Whether God can reward anyone purely out of justice, or purely out of mercy.*

Fourth it is asked whether God can *reward* anyone purely out of justice, or purely out of mercy, so that these two are separated. And that this is so, it seems:

1. Because Hugh of St. Victor says that if God were to remit the whole punishment, he would not on that account be unjust: therefore if mercy should will to remit the punishment, justice too does not oppose it; it is plain, etc.

2. Likewise, it seems *by reason*: because God is supremely just and supremely merciful; but "that is whiter which is less mixed with black": therefore, since mercy tempers justice, and justice mercy, that belongs to supreme mercy which has nothing of justice, and conversely: therefore if God is supreme in both, he can do a work of justice in which there is no mercy.

3. Likewise, to so great a fault so great a punishment is due; it is asked therefore whether God *can* inflict so great a one. If *not*, then he is not omnipotent; if he *can*, then this also would be of pure justice: therefore he can do a work of pure justice; and in like manner it is concluded that he can do a work of pure mercy.

4. Likewise, a man can punish a man only as much as he has deserved, and he can also remit the whole: therefore if God is more just and more merciful than man, much more strongly can God do this.

**Contra:**
1. In the second chapter of the Second Letter to Timothy: *He is faithful and cannot deny himself*: if therefore he cannot act against himself nor deny himself, he cannot act without punishing; and so forth.

2. Likewise, it is proper to God to have mercy; but what is proper cannot leave behind that of which it is proper: therefore it is impossible that he should reward anyone without acting mercifully.

3. Likewise, it is a fault to prosecute a fault to the full, and it is a fault to leave an evil unpunished: therefore, just as God cannot lie, because it is an evil, without fault; so neither can he punish wholly justly nor spare wholly mercifully.

4. Likewise, just as God creates inasmuch as he is one, true and good; so he governs and rewards inasmuch as he is merciful and just; but it is impossible for God to make an effect which does not have measure, species and order, which correspond to unity, truth and goodness: therefore it is impossible that he should repay without repaying in that effect something of justice and something of mercy.

### Conclusion

> *In every retribution of God mercy and justice are so joined together that it is impossible for them to be separated from one another.*

**I respond:** It must be said that in every retribution of the Lord mercy and justice are so joined together that it is impossible for them to be separated from one another. — And the ground of this is: because, just as among us *some* virtues are such that their perfection is measured by approach to an extreme, as for instance charity; *some* by approach to a mean, as justice and mercy; hence he is not called *supremely just* by an excess of severity, nor *supremely merciful* on account of an all-encompassing remission of fault; but because he has mercy just so much as is fitting, and likewise punishes just so much. — And the ground of this is that justice and mercy are chiefly spoken of in respect of *our acts and merits*.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that which Hugh says, that he can remit the whole punishment; it must be said that this is true of power taken *simply*, but it is not true of power *ordered to merits*. — Or it is to be understood of the punishment that *follows*, not of the punishment *accompanying the fault*, because, as is said in the first book of the Confessions, "it is impossible that the disgrace of sin should be without the beauty of justice."

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that he is supremely just; it must be said that he is not called *supremely just* by a withdrawal from mercy toward severity, but by a withdrawal from injustice.

*To 3.* To that which is asked, whether he can inflict so great a punishment on this man; I say that he cannot, and this because mercy opposes it, and he cannot deny his own mercy, for this is a *not-being-able*; hence, just as *not being able* to be too rigid does not sound as a defect but as a nobility; so it is to be understood in the case proposed. — It could also be said that, by reason of the offence, which is against the infinite God, a sufficient punishment could not be assessed, nor would the sinner be capable of it; hence the defect is on the side of the *nature receiving*, not of the *nature inflicting*.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that a man can spare the whole; it must be said that there is the man to whom it belongs to *have mercy*, as is he who has received the injury, and this one cannot punish wholly without exceeding; and there is the man to whom it belongs to *punish*, as is the judge, and this one cannot wholly dismiss without exceeding. And since God bears this twofold person, namely of him who is offended and of him who judges; since he cannot exceed, he does both.

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