Dist. 5, 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/5/q/bon-sent-IV-d5-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the power of forgiving sins was given to Christ.*

Secondly it is asked concerning this, whether the power of forgiving sins was given to Christ. And that it was so, it seems.

1. For *before the resurrection* He says, in Matthew nine: *But that you may know that the Son of Man has the power of forgiving sins*; and after the resurrection He also says, in the last [chapter] of Matthew: *All power is given to me* etc.

2. Likewise, it seems *by reason*: because Christ is the redeemer, according as He is man, and the mediator, as is said in the third book of the *Sentences*, distinction nineteen; but it is greater to redeem the human race than to forgive sins: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, human nature is united to the divine in the unity of person, therefore much more strongly in the unity of operation: therefore, although it belongs to God alone, it nevertheless belongs also to Christ the man to forgive sins.

**On the contrary:** 1. He alone can forgive sins who can vivify souls; but to vivify souls belongs to God alone, and not to another, as Augustine says: therefore etc. *Fundamenta.*

2. Likewise, although that man is united to God, nevertheless He is man and a creature, therefore of finite power; but to recreate the soul, since it has been made *nothing* through sin, is [a work] of infinite power: therefore Christ cannot [do] that, according as He is man.

> **Conclusion.** To Christ, according as He is man, belongs the power of forgiving sins dispositively *or by way of merit*, but not effectively.

**I respond:** It must be said that, if this is understood of the *effective* power of forgiving sins, then it belongs to God alone, not to man, because Christ baptizes interiorly not according as He is man, but according as He is God. But if [it is understood] of the *dispositive* power, namely by way of *merit*; then Christ merited for us the forgiving of sins both as to *punishment* and as to *fault*. Hence, because *God gave gifts to men* and condoned the fault; and because [as] *innocent man* He *received* in us *gifts*, that is, He merited that we should receive [them].

Now Christ merited for us the remission of fault and the relaxation of punishment by His passion, which was most pleasing to God and in itself was most bitter, in no way from His own offense, but rather on account of debts to be paid for us, and in this Christ has [the power] *to excel*, inasmuch as He is man, in the power of forgiving punishment, because by Himself He can condone the whole; just as He also did to the woman caught in adultery, and even now He can [do it] without any key. But if other men can [do it], this is by a power through which the Lord committed to them the treasure of His passion and merit to be dispensed, as it were to guardians of the treasure. Therefore the power of forgiving sins is attributed to Christ, even according as He is man, in a fuller mode of nobility than to others; not that He Himself *blots out the fault*, as the reasons show, because, as was proved in the first book and in the preceding problem, such a blotting-out comes about through the infusion of grace and through creation, and this is an act of infinite power: but a creature is not capable of infinite power, nor through *finite* power can it be made continuous with the power of an agent [acting] by an infinite act: and therefore in no way does the power of baptizing interiorly or of remitting sins *effectively* belong to any creature, whether united [to God] or not united, but only *dispositively*, and this belongs to the merit of Christ; or only *formally*, and this belongs to the grace which Christ obtains [for us].

1. From these things the objections are plain. For what is said in Matthew is understood according to the *communication of idioms*, not that, according as He is man, He could [do] this.

2. To that which is objected concerning the redemption, it must be said that in the redemption there are two things: for there is the *payment of the price* for which we were obligated, and the *gift of grace* through which we are reconciled. The first indeed is of lesser power, the second of greater; and by reason of the first He is called Redeemer, namely by reason of His humanity, by reason of the second as to His divinity; nor would the humanity have sufficed, had it not been united to the Deity.

3. To the other [it] must be said that the unity of operation does not follow the unity of *person*, but of *nature*. And because the nature of the Father and of the Son is one, although there are two persons, therefore they have one operation. But because the humanity and the divinity in Christ are diverse natures, therefore they have diverse operations.