Dist. 50, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/50/q/bon-sent-IV-d50-p1-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the subversion of the will of the damned.*
### Question I. *Whether the damned will that they had sinned.*

As to the first, then, one proceeds thus, and it is shown that the damned would will that they had sinned:

1. Because Augustine *On the Faith, to Peter* says that "they shall in no way be able to have a good will"; but to be unwilling to have sinned is [the mark] of a good will: therefore they will not be able to have this: therefore if they shall consider their sin, since they cannot be unwilling, they must needs will [it].

2. Likewise, the will of man after death is unchangeable, like the will of the evil angel; but the evil angel wills that he had sinned: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, malice inclines the will to evil, as grace does to good; but malice will remain in the damned, as grace also does in the Blessed: therefore, just as the Blessed always will the good things which they once willed, so the damned always will evil things.

4. Likewise, that anyone should give up the act of sinning in the present cannot be without grace freely given, much more [is this so] concerning the will to sin: therefore if no grace is given to the reprobate themselves, neither is their nature bettered; therefore they never lose the will to sin.

**On the contrary:**

1. Wisdom, chapter five: *They shall say within themselves, repenting* etc.; and it is agreed that this is the consideration of deliberating reason: therefore it seems that they will not to have sinned.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the book *Of Eighty-three Questions*: "We see," he says, "that the wildest beasts abstain from the greatest pleasures through the pain of punishments"; but the damned do not desire more ardently than savage beasts, and they are tormented in the highest degree: therefore their appetite is drawn back, and so etc.

3. Likewise, sin was not pleasing because it was sin, but on account of the lustful delight; but in the damned every lustful delight is excluded: therefore no sin pleases them.

4. Likewise, an evil will, by the very fact that it is evil, is against God, and by the very fact that it is against God, is deserving of punishment: therefore they always merit punishment, and so their punishment ought always to be increased, and thus to infinity. But it is not so said: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, an evil will, by the very fact that it is evil, is disordered: therefore when it goes forth into a new act, it is newly disordered; but God can leave nothing disordered: therefore if sin is not set in order except in punishment, and there is a new disorder; therefore [there is] a new punishment, and so it would always be increasing.

6. Likewise, granted that liberty of sinning were given to the damned, they would never fornicate; if they returned to their bodies and had opportunity, it is agreed that they would be unwilling to sin, since they dread so great a punishment more than they love the delight of sin: therefore it seems etc.

### Conclusion

> *The damned are unwilling to have sinned, speaking of the act, but not of the habit of the evil will.*

**I respond:** It must be said that an evil will is spoken of in two ways, namely as *act* and as *habit*. I say, then, that servile fear does not take away from *sinners* the *habit* of an evil will, but takes away the *act* — for such a man does not will to be lustful, because he fears to be punished — yet from the will itself it does not take away the habit; which is plain, because, if impunity were hoped for, he would certainly will to be lustful. — So it is to be understood in the *damned*, that penal grief takes away from their will the *act* of willing to sin, because in truth the damned do not desire to be lustful nor to dominate, on account of the punishments which they feel themselves to have incurred from those acts; yet they have the *habit* of an evil will, through which they would desire to sin, if they did not believe that they would be punished for it. — If, then, you ask whether the damned are unwilling to have sinned; I say that they are unwilling, not because sin displeases them as unjust, but because the just punishment displeases them. And therefore they have an evil will in willing this, and therefore the will of sinning still lives in them, although it is impeded by the grief of punishments from going forth into its act.

**To the arguments for the affirmative side:**

*To 1.* And thus the answer to the first is plain.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that the will is unchangeable; it must be said that this is true of the will as regards the *habit*, in which a full turning takes place; but it is not true of changeableness as regards the *act*.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that malice inclines as grace does; it must be said that it is not alike: because the motion of grace is rewarded in what is like and fitting, but the motion of lust in what is unlike, namely in grief; and therefore it is impeded, whereas the motion of grace is brought to completion.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that to abstain from the will of sinning is not without grace; it must be said that, speaking of the will-as-habit, it is not without grace; but in the will-as-act a distinction must be drawn: for either one abstains from the evil act because it is *against God* and because it is *iniquitous*; and this is not without grace freely given — for this prepares [one] for further grace — or because this is *harmful*, as when someone gives up fornicating or getting drunk because he is losing his sight; and such a man is [acting] by pure nature. Likewise I say that the damned shrink back on account of the fear of punishment.

**To the arguments for the negative side:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected on the contrary, that they have repentance; it must be said that it is true; but that repentance is a *goad of remorse*, not a *correction of the will*; hence if liberty of sinning were given, such that complete impunity were hoped for, I say that they would sin; but if they were to be punished in the same way for the other things they would do as for those which they have done, they would never will to sin.

*To 5.* To that which is asked, whether they have any actual disorder of the will; it can be said that they do; but that disorder has been turned into punishment for them, as for the Blessed a good will [is turned] into glory; hence just as the latter do not merit further by a good will, so neither do the former demerit by an evil one; and this Augustine says, and it is had in the text.