A note for the reader. While I have been writing my series on Penal Substitution (first article, second article), I realized that many of the qualifications I gave and would continue to apply to that topic fall on deaf ears due to common errors vis-a-vis purgatory. Therefore, I thought that it would be helpful to make a few points of correction on this exact point. If you would like to follow along on future articles, please consider subscribing for free below!
Introduction
For many Protestants, one of the most difficult Catholic dogmas to accept is purgatory. They object to the claim that someone whose sins have been forgiven may still owe temporal punishment, and that this punishment must be discharged before he enters heaven. A familiar apologetic argument attempts to get around that objection. The apologist asks whether everyone who dies in God’s friendship is already completely sanctified. The Protestant says no. He then asks whether anyone in heaven is imperfectly sanctified. The Protestant again says no. There must, therefore, be a change by which the person becomes perfectly fit for heaven. The apologist triumphantly announces that the Protestant has conceded purgatory and needs only to accept the name.
In reality, he has conceded no such thing, for a number of different reasons. First, what is essential and fundamental to purgatory is that a person who owes temporal punishment after death is punished in proportion to this debt. If someone were to concede “purgatory” and deny such a punishment, he would not concede the Catholic dogma. Second, the conclusion assumes an imperfect enumeration of the cases. No argument can be made that necessarily ties the sanctification of a person to post-mortem purgatorial punishments. In fact, when Catholic authors specifically treat questions related to purging the disorder with which we die and the acquisition of necessary virtues, very few of them even explain these by the mechanism of purgatory or purgatorial punishments. Indeed, in certain cases, it is actually impossible to distinguish traditional Protestant accounts of this mechanism from the accounts given by certain Catholic authors.
Many Catholic authors explain the extinction of all vicious inclinations by an act of contrition immediately following upon death. Clearly, a Protestant could affirm that such an act of contrition occurs at the particular judgment without admitting the need for purgatorial punishments of any kind (since he denies that the debt or reatus of temporal punishment continues after death). Other Catholic authors explain the complete bestowal of virtues as an effect of beatitude that occurs upon one’s entrance into heaven, which clearly does not require the admission of purgatory.
Further, this line of argumentation, if it were in any way legitimate, would provide serious difficulties for Catholics as well. Consider the cases of the baptized and of martyrs. As the Council of Florence dogmatically teaches, the entire debt of punishment is remitted for the baptized. Now, let us say we have a case in which a newly baptized adult dies immediately, before committing any other sin. This individual, who likely has certain habitual vices and a lack of growth in many virtues, will immediately go to heaven and not to purgatory. If we are to prove the necessity of purgatory from these habitual vices and this lack of growth in the virtues rather than from the debt or reatus of temporal punishment, then we would have to admit that the newly baptized would need to be purified in purgatory. The same can be drawn from the common doctrine concerning the case of martyrs, who are also said to have the entire temporal debt forgiven, yet can continue to have these indispositions and imperfect virtues. The same point is made by Suárez in relation to plenary indulgences, which do not require a complete lack of moral indispositions or a perfection of virtues, yet remove all impediments to an immediate entrance into heaven.
This point vis-à-vis martyrs and the newly baptized is made by St. Robert Bellarmine (hardly a Protestant sympathizer):
Nevertheless, we do not posit Purgatory on account of habits of this kind either. For otherwise it would follow that adults who are baptized after acquiring many bad habits and immediately die, or indeed are killed for Christ, could not be saved except through Purgatory, because neither Baptism nor martyrdom dissolves such habits. For we see that baptized people still have the same bad propensities they had before, and that they must gradually remove such habits by contrary acts. (De purgatorio II.9)
Suárez gives an analogous example which shows the fallaciousness of this reasoning. Ignorance is the privation of knowledge. Now, just as in heaven there will be no imperfection of virtue, so also will there be no imperfection of knowledge. Yet we die with various ignorances. Nevertheless, we are not able to conclude from this fact that all souls who die ignorant must go through a temporary schooling before ascending to heaven. There can obviously be an immediate infusion of knowledge upon death without positing some “educational state” to remedy our ignorance. This should be obvious from a consideration of the matter:
Objection: To obtain beatitude it is not enough to be free from every fault and liability to punishment; one must also be free from bad habits and inclinations.
Reply: I answer that there is no need to imagine any detention on this account. For whatever of this kind is in the sensitive appetite is laid aside in death itself, together with the body in which the appetite exists. Habits existing in the will, however, are either removed at the very instant of death, through contrary acts produced by divine power or through the withdrawal of the conserving divine influx; or else, at the first entry into glory, by reason of that state all virtues, even natural virtues, are infused in an accidental manner (per accidens), and these expel the incompatible habits, just as general kinds of knowledge also are infused, which expel all ignorance. (De poenitentia XLVII.I.5)
Unfortunately, while this is clear from a study of Catholic theologians, apologists have ruined the notion of such things in the popular mind. Therefore, in this article, I want to treat the various positions taken by Catholic theologians on such questions, discovering the specific mechanisms that they set forward, in an effort to clarify better what is essential in the dogma of purgatory and what the state of the question is in our disputes with Protestants.
In order to treat this question properly, I will divide my treatment into two parts: first, concerning the guilt of venial sins; second, concerning the habits of the virtues.
On Guilt and Punishment
What remains after a sin
Sources: St. Thomas, Summa III.86–87 and De malo 7.11; Bellarmine, De purgatorio II.9; Durandus, IV.21.1; Peter of Palude, IV.21.1.2; Gabriel Biel, IV.16.5.I; Mastri, Disputationes theologicae V.IX.IV–V.
When a man sins, the act has a beginning and an end; the act does not continue forever. Yet, when we consider the act of sin, we realize that there are remnants of this sin that continue on. A man who sins may be punished, or he may be forgiven, or he may be corrected. Each of these notions supposes a continuing remnant of sin beyond the act. Yet the questions that arise as to the continuation of each of these aspects are different. While certain Catholic theologians have identified in reality one or more of these remnants (especially Scotists and Nominalists), the point remains that these are at least distinct as to concept. Yet this is something that must in some sense and to some degree be affirmed as existing in reality as well. For example, a man may sincerely repent of a fault while retaining a bad habit. If we use “stain” or “remnant” for each of these without distinguishing what we mean, we can make different doctrines appear identical.
In the Thomistic account (to which I adhere), mortal guilt involves the privation of sanctifying grace and the will’s aversion from its last end. Its remission restores the person to God’s friendship by the infusion of sanctifying grace (since a form removes its privation). On the other hand, venial sin does not destroy that friendship. Further, we are aware that there is also a punishment due to both mortal and venial sin. The punishment due to mortal sin is commuted to temporal punishment when sanctifying grace comes, while the punishment due to venial sin is of itself only temporal. On this earth, God has graciously appointed means for removing this obligation to punishment, especially satisfaction, which continues as long as we are able to merit. God graciously accepts these small afflictions, compared to what we owe, and allows us to merit by these voluntary afflictions done in charity. Yet after this life there will no longer be “satisfaction,” by which we can merit an increase of beatitude, but only “satispassion,” in which we will suffer the punishment due to our sins.
To clarify a few technical terms that are commonly used by Catholic theologians: by culpa I mean guilt or fault; by reatus poenae, the liability or obligation to punishment. By reliquiae peccati I mean the remnants of sin, a wider expression that may include an unpaid debt, an unforgiven venial fault, a bad habit in the will, or an inclination connected with the body. Macula, the stain, does not have one undisputed analysis in every school, which is further complicated by the conflicting accounts of whether there is even such a thing as macula in the case of venial sin. Therefore, it is better for us to speak in terms of culpa when referring to venial sins. This culpa is understood in one of two ways. First, some theologians consider venial culpa as a disorder that remains in the justified man, to be retracted by a contrary act of the will. Second, other theologians consider venial culpa as simply the obligation to pay the debt of temporal punishment. This is important to clarify, since it is possible to interpret certain authors who identify the payment of the punishment in purgatory with the remission of venial culpa as saying the exact opposite of what they are actually saying (i.e., that the payment of the debt is to be taken “morally,” when in reality they mean that culpa is to be taken “punitively”).
Biel gives the latter account in plain terms. He reports two opinions and calls this first one the more intelligible:
The first is that the remission of venial guilt is nothing other than the payment of the temporal punishment due for it. Proof: what remains after the passing act of venial sin is nothing but liability to the punishment due. But that liability is only to temporal punishment. Consequently, by the very fact that temporal punishment is paid, here or in purgatory, venial guilt is forgiven. (IV.16.5.I)
I would like to emphasize that this is not the same as the modern claim that “punishment” is simply a medicinal and morally corrective act and that the “debt of punishment” is a moral disorder (dissolved as soon as moral correction takes place). Such a notion was completely unknown to the medieval theologians who intricately disputed over this question of the constitutive of culpa. To read a notion akin to that of modern Western liberal jurists back into the scholastics is criminally negligent. In reality, the position taken by certain medieval theologians tended in the opposite direction.
If I may go on an aside, the entire absurdity of reading this notion back into the scholastics is verified by the asking of the question in the first place. If they had identified the “debt of punishment” with a simply moral disorder and “punishment” with a medicinal remedy, asking whether purgatory removes the culpa of venial sin would be an absurd question, since to remove the reatus of temporal punishment would be to remove the culpa. The same goes for the concept of indulgences, which supposes the remission of culpa with the continuation of the reatus poenae. We see that they were so far from such a ridiculous notion that the only ones who identified the concepts were the aforementioned theologians who completely denied that culpa was a disorder within us, simply identifying it with the obligation to undergo the entire temporal punishment. Those theologians who affirmed that culpa is a disorder within us rejected such a view and explained its removal in a distinct way (mostly as an instantaneous effect of an act of contrition). How much further could these modern theologians stand from any continuity with these generations of theologians? Their resolution of the matter is absent from these authors, and where anything like it appears, it appears in the opposite sense, denying any “medicinal” or “sanctifying” aspect to the removal of culpa.
Merit and Satisfaction After Death
Sources: St. Thomas, IV.21.1.3 and De malo 7.11; Capreolus, IV.21.1; Soto, IV.15.2.2; Suárez, De poenitentia XLVII.II; Tanner, Universa theologia scholastica IV.VI.IV.V; Mastri, V.IX.V.
Another point that was mentioned above concerns “merit” and “satisfaction.” It is a common axiom among theologians that death ends the wayfarer’s capacity to perform new meritorious (or demeritorious) acts; by extension, this same axiom is applied to satisfaction. Therefore, an obvious difficulty arose, which was the occasion for asking the question concerning venial culpa in the first place. If no merit or satisfaction can be performed, but only the suffering of punishment (whether temporal or eternal) or the gathering of reward, how can we consistently affirm that venial culpa is remitted after death?
As we will see below, this vexing problem is what led some theologians simply to reject that venial culpa is remitted after death. Certain authors held that a final grace at the moment of death removed venial culpa, so as to avoid placing the remission after death. Others held that a refusal to repent of venial culpa was a mortal fault! The aforementioned theologians who simply reduced culpa to the reatus poenae found their most significant point of defense in accusing the other accounts of inconsistency on this point, at times claiming that they refuse satisfaction after death yet practically reduce to the same.
To avoid this implication about merit after death, a number of solutions were given. First, some argued that this must be an effect of merit (since they defined merit as any benefit connected to a previous act); therefore, they held that it was an effect of merit from this life rather than something having any relation to acts after death. Second, others made a distinction as to merit itself; they rejected the notion that the axiom was meant to reject every connection between acts and benefits after death, holding only that there is no essential increase in reward after death. Therefore, they explained the removal of venial culpa as an effect of contrition, as an act naturally incompatible with venial culpa which removes a certain impediment to the remission of venial culpa. Some referred to this as “accidental merit.” Even St. Thomas states that “after this life there cannot be merit with respect to the essential reward; but with respect to some accidental reward there can be, as long as a person remains in some way in the wayfarer’s state.” (IV.21.1.3, ad 4) Yet this terminology was uncommon and is better rejected (although it can be explained in a good sense). St. Thomas makes the classical statement of the matter in his De malo:
To the second it must be said that in the future life there is no essential change of the will, namely, as regards the end, or as regards charity or grace; nevertheless, there can be some accidental change through the removal of an impediment. For what removes a hindrance is a mover accidentally, as is said in Book 8 of the Physics. (De malo 7.11, ad 2)
It must be said that remission of venial guilt does not bring about spiritual progress of itself, namely, as regards an increase of spiritual good, but only accidentally, namely, as regards the removal of an impediment. (Ibid., ad 5)
The same is expressed by St. Bonaventure, who writes that the soul “is in a state in which it can be disposed for entrance into glory through the removal of an impediment, although it cannot merit.” (IV.21.I.II.1)
Further, the term “satisfaction” was commonly rejected (although used in a broad sense), and in its place satispassio was used. “Satisfaction” refers to a voluntary work done in payment of a debt, which occurs in this life. Satispassio refers to the suffering or payment of the punishment owed. Whether this satispassio was at all involved in the remission of venial culpa was hotly disputed. For the authors who took culpa as the obligation to the full payment of the reatus poenae, the answer is quite obvious; in such a case, satispassio is simply the removal of culpa, since culpa is just the obligation to pay the full penalty. Most other authors found no connection whatsoever, placing the remission of culpa immediately after death, whether in virtue of our merit on earth or in virtue of an act of contrition immediately elicited after death. Yet there was a group that held to a certain indirect connection. While they refused to collapse the notions of culpa and reatus poenae, they held that satispassio indirectly achieves the remission of culpa insofar as the fire acts quasi-sacramentally as an instrument of God in order to induce the holy souls to make acts of contrition, which remit the venial culpa.
With these distinctions, we are able to consider what essentially differs in each theory and which details merely concern the accidental details of the system. Since the question here concerns the culpa of venial sin, the essential question is how the culpa of venial sin is removed. There are ultimately four answers to this, although I will treat them below under five headings, since the third admits of two accidentally different forms. First, some hold that venial culpa is removed at the end of this mortal life by a final grace. Second, others hold that the remission of venial culpa occurs in virtue of our merits on earth. Third, others hold that the remission of venial culpa occurs in virtue of a non-meritorious act of contrition, whether immediately after death or mediately by the infliction of punishment (the third and fourth accounts below). Fourth, others hold that there is no distinct remission of venial culpa, due to the identity between the full payment of the reatus poenae and culpa (the fifth account below).
Before we begin, it is important to note that the second position can be taken in two senses. For nearly every position holds (in a way) that the remission of venial culpa happens in virtue of our merits on earth. Yet the other positions hold that the earthly merit operates through some distinct medium, i.e., it merits the final grace at the moment of death, the charity that issues forth in contrition, etc. The second position properly holds that the merit immediately removes the venial culpa. Therefore, there are many authors who speak of “merit” yet do not hold to the second position.
Further, it is also important to note that there are two distinct positions under the third, which differ only accidentally and whose authors often call each other’s view probable. It matters very little whether we hold that the first act or the last act is that contrition which removes venial culpa, since the medium is identical in each. Those holding to the immediate view give very many arguments from fittingness in order to establish that their view is the more probable, while those holding the non-immediate view argue that their view is more in conformity with the teaching of various Fathers and recent statements of the magisterium. Yet the demonstrative theological arguments given by each side do not differentiate the positions, but merely prove that contrition is that medium.
Lombard’s Position
Before we begin, I would like to make a few notes of importance on Lombard’s position on this matter, since he sets the stage for the later medieval positions that become the classical articulations of this doctrine. It should be noted first that Lombard does not stand to the medievals in the way that St. Thomas stands to the later scholastic tradition. Lombard’s discussions were seen primarily as an occasional discussion setting the state of the question, rather than as an authoritative account from which one should depart only begrudgingly.
His locus classicus on this matter occurs in Book 4, Distinction 21 of his Sentences, which is where the later scholastics comment on this same issue. The question on which Lombard gives a determination is whether venial culpa exists after this life. It was indisputable that poena can exist after this life, to be inflicted upon us by purgatorial punishments, but it was not as clear to the scholastics that any culpa existed after this life to be purified. Therefore, the question needed to be posed. As we will see, certain authors, considering the lack of merit after death, thought that culpa (both venial and mortal) had to be remitted before death. Yet Lombard takes the opposite position, holding that both culpa and the reatus poenae can be remitted after death.
The idea of venial culpa is usually described simply as “venial sin” among authors of this era. While this may seem confusing, there is a reason for it. When we look at the reatus paid in purgatory, it is NOT simply the reatus of venial sin or the reatus of mortal sin, but the reatus of temporal punishment, whether this temporal punishment is due to remitted mortal sin, remitted venial sin, or non-remitted venial sin. Therefore, it is inaccurate to label the reatus as “venial,” but it is accurate to label the culpa as “venial,” since mortal culpa is ALWAYS remitted in the just (which is not the case with the other categories).
He adheres to the following conclusion: “Here it is plainly indicated that those who build with wood, hay, and straw carry with them certain combustible structures, that is, venial sins, which are burned up in the corrective fire. Hence it is established that certain venial sins are effaced after this life.” (IV.21.2–6)
How should we classify Lombard? His account is naturally compared with the fourth account, in which fire assists the removal of what remains, yet it is not as developed as later versions of it.
First account: a final grace removes venial guilt at the end of life
Sources: Summa Halensis IV.15.3.3–4, §2; Alexander of Hales, De iudicio; Glossa on IV.21; St. Albert the Great, Summa II.XVIII.114.4.5; St. Bonaventure, IV.21.I.II.1; Vásquez, In III.87.1.II; Suárez, De poenitentia XI.IV; Gonet, De poenitentia IV.IV.
The first account takes the easiest approach to solving this problem. If we cannot merit or satisfy after death, then we should explain the removal of venial culpa as occurring in virtue of some final grace, whether during or immediately after death. While the option of “immediately after” may be confusing, seemingly akin to the account that places it immediately after death in virtue of an act of contrition, there is a stark difference. For this view, the already present grace is what removes venial culpa, rather than a distinct act of contrition (i.e., the third account). It argues that grace is already present, yet the concupiscence and disorder of the flesh prevent the full dominion of grace; therefore, when the body is put off, grace takes full dominion, and venial culpa is consequently expelled.
Many theologians reject this solution insofar as it places the remission of venial culpa at the last instant of our earthly lives, since such could not occur simultaneously with death. An example of this can be found in St. Bonaventure’s account of the matter (which is almost identical to the account given in the Summa Halensis):
It must be said that some masters, who understood these matters well, held the opinion that no sin is forgiven after death, because the exercise of free choice with respect to merit or demerit ceases altogether. Hence they say that venial sins are entirely forgiven either through penance or through final grace, if there is no opportunity for penance—for example, if a just man dies overtaken by death. For when the soul is separated from the flesh, the propensities and disturbances that were in the soul from the flesh withdraw, and the powers of the soul become tranquil and subject to grace. In this way venial sins are wiped away, whether they are in the rational part of the soul or in its sensitive part. Thus no venial sin is forgiven after this life, but at that point at which one can say: this is final grace, which claims dominion for itself and expels every fault. (IV.21.I.II.1)
There are a number of different arguments given by the supporters of this position, although its strongest claim is that it does not require an affirmation of merit after death, since the final grace that eliminates venial culpa is merely a continuation after death of what was already present before death. This position is strong (in my opinion, much stronger than most other accounts) insofar as it seems that sanctifying grace is sufficient (when not impeded) to completely sanctify the soul from all of its indispositions, including venial culpa.
Yet the position cannot be held, for a simple reason. The mere lack of the fomes peccati in the casting off of the body does not lead to the consummation and full actualization of the effects of sanctifying grace. While it is certainly true that such a full flowering of sanctifying grace would remove the venial culpa, it is false that such occurs in us before the beatific vision. Lastly, venial culpa is founded in its opposition to actually tending to God, just as mortal culpa is founded in its opposition to habitually tending to God. Therefore, just as mortal culpa is extinguished by the infusion of a certain habit (i.e., sanctifying grace), so also is venial culpa extinguished by a certain contrary act (i.e., contrition). As Gonet points out:
This account lacks probability and is refuted by the fact that grace not yet consummated through the beatific vision, such as that with which a person dies at the first instant of the soul’s separation, is not incompatible with or opposed to venial sin; otherwise even in the present life it would not allow it to coexist with itself. For being at the first instant of the soul’s separation, or being the final grace of this life, adds nothing to grace outside the state of beatitude except conjunction with death, which certainly is not a remedy against venial sin. Therefore this remission does not take place through the habit of grace alone, but through some act of it. (De poenitentia IV.IV.83)
This critique was not lost on its author, who draws a horrific conclusion: that actual contrition must be united to the final grace removing the fomes. Therefore, the individual who dies while persevering in a venial sin without contrition for it will have this venial culpa turned into mortal culpa, leading to the damnation of the man dying in venial sin:
Next it is asked whether grace alone suffices for the erasure of venial sin, namely grace without interior penance or contrition.
I answer: it must be said, without prejudice, that because venial sins are in some way voluntary, they are not erased without a movement of the will, actually and habitually wishing not to have done them, or grieving for the venial sins committed, either generally or particularly... To make this clear, it must be understood that there are three kinds of sin: original sin, actual mortal sin, and venial sin... The third, however, which is voluntary in some way, is erased when free choice consents to grace and dissents from sin, or wishes not to have sinned...
But if an objection is made concerning a just person who has some venial sin together with charity and dies while sleeping, as mentioned above, it can be said that, when he fell asleep, he either repented of the venial sin specifically or generally, and did so actually or habitually, or in purpose, or he did not. If he did, that venial sin is erased by final grace. If he did not repent actually or habitually, or in purpose, specifically or generally, but remained in an actual or habitual will to persist in it without a purpose of repenting, it has already become mortal through complacency, in the way Augustine says that no sin is so venial, etc. For that lust, I believe, is mortal which brings about so much complacency that a person wills to remain in it without the purpose and will of repenting. (IV.15.3.4)
Vásquez (In III.87.1.II) argues that those authors who represent this view as holding that the remission occurs before or during death interpret Alexander of Hales (its main exponent) wrongly. The exponents of this first position teach that this remission is the result of final grace immediately after death, not that it results before or during death. When “before” is used, it indicates when the grace is given, and when “during” is used, it is meant to express the immediacy with which this remission follows death. Therefore, refutations based on timing are not persuasive, both insofar as they seem to misinterpret the author, and insofar as they critique this view on the basis of an accidental detail in the exposition.
Beyond this, Alexander of Hales seems to have a more subtle view than has been imputed to him in previous generations. For Alexander, there seems to be a distinction between actual culpa, which consists in actual complacency in a slight pleasure, and the habitual disorder that involves the habitual complacency in creatures (which is described not as culpa, as in later authors, but as “something following upon culpa”). The former is described as “culpable impurity,” while the latter is described as “penal impurity.” When he speaks of the dominion of grace removing the fomes, joined with actual contrition for these sins, he seems to be shutting off the actual culpa, whose occasion is the fomes and whose form is actual complacency. Then, when describing the removal of the habitual complacency in creatures, he actually does concede that this occurs through the punishments of purgatory, which is closer to the fourth account taken by other authors of the 13th century. He writes the following in his De iudicio:
Grace is opposed without qualification to fault insofar as it is fault; therefore grace removes venial and mortal fault. It does so either in the present or in the future. But it does not do so in the future, since justification from fault pertains to merit. Hence this justification comes from merit through grace. But grace merits only insofar as it informs free choice in the present. Merit, therefore, exists only in the present. Thus faults are not removed by grace in the future, but in the present. Therefore all fault is removed in the present and none in the future. Consequently that purification through fire after death is not purification of fault.
That purification, therefore, is from something which follows upon fault. It is therefore asked: from what? For what follows upon fault is liability to punishment, or punishment itself, or some consequence of fault. But punishment, as such, is not opposed to punishment. Therefore punishment is not removed through punishment, and thus there is no purification from punishment there. Likewise, liability to punishment is not purified there, since what is to be removed through purifying punishment must be an impurity. But no impurity remains in a soul departing in charity, since the soul’s impurity comes from mortal or venial fault, and it has been established that justification from any fault whatever takes place through grace in the present. Therefore none remains in the soul after death, provided it departed in charity. Thus no liability or anything of that kind is purified in it after death. If it is said that some consequent effect, a consequence of fault, is purified, it has impurity by its nature....
When, therefore, it is asked what properly undergoes purification, it must be said that there is purification from the liability itself which follows upon fault. And if it is objected that purification is always of something impure, whereas there is no impurity once fault is removed, it must be said that there is the impurity of fault, or culpable impurity, and this is removed through grace in the present. But there is another impurity, a penal impurity, namely, one following from the former; this remains in the soul after the first has been removed. This impurity is the inability to see God on the part of the intellect, and the inability to turn fully toward God on the part of the affective power, whose turning toward God is through the affection of love. This impurity, therefore, is removed there. Hence it must be said that penal impurity remains in the soul, in intellect and affective power; it is removed by that fire as something combustible before the judgment, and it is a habitual delight which the soul has contracted from delight in earthly things. This is the fire’s fuel: although actual delight is removed through grace, nevertheless a certain disposition or impurity still remains in the soul from its failure to turn toward God. Hence it is still not as that soul which turned wholly toward God in this life. This impurity is removed, and with it the liability to punishment with which the soul passes over. And to state the same thing more clearly: the materiality already spoken of is itself removed, and it is itself the disposition according to which the soul receives suffering from the fire. For when I say materiality, I say two things, namely, a certain impurity and suffering. Passibility itself, then, is the disposition in the soul to receive passibility from the fire. The impurity itself, however, is what is removed and what is combustible by fire, and what is called the fire’s fuel; together with it liability, or obligation to punishment, is removed. Therefore Augustine says in The City of God that “grief must burn as much as love had clung.” Hence, just as temporal delight had proceeded from this temporal good, so temporal sadness and affliction proceed from that fire.
It is to be noted that practically no author (to my knowledge) after Alexander of Hales holds this position except St. Albert the Great in his Summa II.XVIII.114.4.5. It is also said that William of Auxerre and Praepositinus hold to the same account, but I have not verified this claim. Suárez claims that John Mair (d. 1550) teaches this, but I have not been able to confirm this attribution, and his text seems to teach a different position (although, as with St. Albert and many others, authors change positions on such issues).
Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain the other works of Alexander that possibly discuss this question, i.e., the Quaestiones disputatae de peccato veniali et de conscientia and the Quaestiones disputatae de novissimis. It seems that this description from Alexander can shed light on the scope of the medieval dispute. Alexander’s position was rightly censured for his insistence that actual culpa be removed by a final grace, yet he seems to approach the other accounts when pressed on the topic of penal impurity, allowing for it to be removed after this life (even gradually!). Another point of difficulty concerns the authorship of the Summa Halensis, where the most controversial statements about the final grace occur. When we read his Glossa on the Sentences, he speaks more in conformity with the De iudicio and seems to speak contrary to the positions imputed to him in the Summa Halensis.
Ultimately, due to the lack of clarity and the mutually contradictory accounts (not all of which I have presented to you, since this does not enter into the scope of this article), we can be glad to proceed to read the clearer accounts of others, who write with a more developed and uniform terminology, in debates whose terms have already been set.
Second account: God remits guilt in view of merits acquired during life
Sources: Bl. Scotus, IV.21.1; Mastri, Disputationes theologicae V.IX.IV–V; Brancati, IV.II.XV.XIII; Fabri, Disputationes theologicae XLII; Almain, IV.21.1; Bl. Denys, IV.21.1; Suárez, De poenitentia XI.IV.
The second account avoids the problem of merit after death by conceding that venial culpa is removed by meritorious acts, but denying that such meritorious acts occur after death: they are the meritorious acts of this life. These authors argue that meritorious acts may be performed at a different time from their effects. Therefore, it is reasonable that meritorious acts of this life may effect the remission of venial culpa after death. Bl. Scotus provides two ways of explaining this. First, it may happen that an obstacle was present which prevented the effect from occurring during this life (e.g., actual complacency in a venial fault). Second, it may happen that God reserved the effect of the meritorious acts until after death.
For the understanding of this account, two things must be noted. First, Bl. Scotus and the Scotists do not posit that this is the view; rather, they simply hold that this is a probable view that can be defended (especially on the supposition that the full payment of the reatus poenae is not the same as culpa). Second, this view is not unique in invoking the merits of this life; rather, it is unique simply in positing these as immediately achieving the effect, rather than through the medium of some other merited gift.
Bl. Scotus argues here on the supposition that the culpa of venial sin must be opposed by some act. With this in mind, he concedes the principle and then argues that the act does truly remove the culpa of venial sin, yet not at the time it is performed, but in a delayed manner, once the act of venial sin ceases immediately after death:
Although the works of one dying in charity are not referred by him after death to the remission of the venial sin in which he dies, nor does he have any new meritorious act through which the venial sin is erased, nevertheless those works previously done can be referred by God to remission of this venial sin after death. It occurs in this way: a cause capable of being impeded does not produce its effect while impeded, but produces it when not impeded. Yet the merits of this person dying in charity would be a sufficient cause of the erasure of his venial sins, either referred by him or accepted by God in relation to this. They are impeded while he lives if he always remains actually in venial sin; but after death they are not impeded, because he then does not commit an act of venial sin. Therefore through them venial sins will be erased after this life. (IV.21.1.8)
On the point of timing, however, it is to be noted that Bl. Scotus and the Scotists are a bit loose in their descriptions. Ordinarily, they speak of such a remission occurring “at the instant of death” (ibid., n. 9), but they will also speak of both “after death or at the instant of death” (Frassen II.III). One of the reasons why they speak of such occurring “at the instant of death” is to avoid certain inconveniences that may follow from holding that it must occur after death. Therefore, Brancati gives the following example:
If a martyr, for example, should die while taking complacency in some venial sin up to the instant of death, he would certainly ascend to heaven, and the venial sin would be remitted neither after death nor before it; therefore, at the instant of death... for nothing prevents a just person, however holy, from persisting with venial sin up to the instant of death, unless by a special privilege of God he is immune even from venial sin. A martyr could, however, expose himself to death with fervent charity and a desire for martyrdom, and meanwhile sin venially and suddenly be killed. Then the remission of the venial sin would take place neither in purgatory nor before death; therefore, at death. (IV.II.XV.XIII.504–505)
This instance matters for the same reason we explained in the introduction. In cases where we have individuals who “skip” purgatory due to their lack of reatus (whether by baptism, martyrdom, or indulgence) while possessing venial culpa, we have to account for the removal of their culpa without any appeal to purgatory, whether temporally or causally. The Scotists therefore hold that death itself is the penitential operation that removes the venial culpa. This is possible due to the character of meritorious causality, which is able to bring about its effect at some moment other than when it is performed.
In response to the second account, various objections have been brought forward by the supporters of the other opinions. Jacques Almain (d. 1515) objected that this account does not adequately consider the case of a man who dies without any meritorious works. In the case of a man who is baptized and then sins venially continuously until death without any meritorious works, such a man is not healed in virtue of his meritorious acts, since he has none. In response to this, it may be replied that the removal of culpa takes place in virtue of the merits of Christ rather than the personal merits of the individual. Yet this supposes that meritorious acts can merit the forgiveness of a future fault without the mediation of an act retracting this fault. While a meritorious act can immediately merit an essential reward, it can hardly be assumed that it can immediately merit the forgiveness of a fault. With this consideration, the Scotistic position appears ad hoc and hardly able to stand when considered in light of the fact that present works may merit future rewards, but they never merit the forgiveness of future faults.
Besides this, the Scotistic position places the removal of culpa in the genus of acts wrongly and superficially. Since venial culpa is placed in the man as a certain actual disorder, the reason why the act of contrition expels venial culpa is the formal opposition that stands between the motion of the will and the actual disorder; therefore, it is not sufficient simply to indicate some relation to an act; rather, the act must be considered terminatively, in the very motion that formally opposes the actual disorder. This appears quite starkly in the case of a man who dies with actual complacency in a venial fault, which cannot be formally opposed except by a certain motion retracting such complacency, rather than by the simple application of merits. Therefore, the meritorious act before death must be considered terminatively and with a motion that is formally opposed to the actual disorder, which is simply to teach that the act of contrition is infused into the soul of the departed in virtue of the meritorious acts of this life—which is the Thomistic position. Or, if it is simply considered in itself and not as it terminates in some motion of contrition in the believer, then it is false to say that it formally opposes venial culpa, which will still remain.
Third account: an act of charity retracts the fault before paying its punishment
Sources: St. Thomas, De malo 7.11; Suárez, De poenitentia XI.IV; Lugo, De poenitentia IX.II.34–42; Vásquez, In III.87.1.II; Coninck, De poenitentia II.XVII; Tanner, Universa theologia scholastica IV.VI.IV.V; Reding, Theologia scholastica VII.IVII.IV; Mezger, Theologia scholastica IV.XVIII.XL.I.IV; Henriquez, Summa theologiae moralis IV.15.9; Salmanticenses, In III.87.4.6–12; Sylvius, In III.87.1.I–II; Gonet, De poenitentia IV.IV; Hugon, De novissimis IV.III.VI; Hurter, Compendium III.826.9; Pesch, Praelectiones IX.598; Zubizarreta, Theologia IV.788–790; Lépicier, De novissimis V.III; Palmieri, De novissimis 22; Sagüés, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IV.250; Durandus, IV.21.1; Peter of Palude, IV.21.1.2; Almain, IV.21.1; Capreolus, IV.21.1; Gotti, Supplementum III.I.42–44; Doronzo, De poenitentia, art. 62; Billuart, De peccatis VII.IV.II; Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis XI.III.I.
As mentioned above, this position and the next differ in an accidental mode. Both positions hold that venial culpa is remitted in the same manner as in life (i.e., by a motion of charity), yet the third account holds that this is performed by a single act of charity immediately elicited after death, while the fourth account holds that this is performed by multiple acts of charity, with the purgatorial punishments concurring. Yet even these differences are simply common rather than proper to the positions. If one denies the instrumentality of the purgatorial punishments in the remission of venial culpa, it is possible to hold that the requisite contrition occurs immediately, or in a number of acts, or even after all of the punishments are completed. Further, if one holds to the instrumentality of the purgatorial punishments in the remission of venial culpa, it is equally possible to do something similar, holding that such occurs immediately upon the apprehension of the punishments (which St. Thomas denies), or gradually in the process of suffering the purgatorial punishments, or even at the end, once the purgatorial punishments have been paid. These are tertiary differences.
Personally, the account that I find the most convincing (which is the position of St. Thomas and the Thomists) is that the act of contrition is made immediately upon entrance into purgatory. I also prefer to explain this in relation to the particular judgment, as an act of contrition proceeding from charity, retracting each of the sins for which he will be punished and accepting this punishment for the removal of the reatus of temporal punishment. I do not dare, however, to claim anything beyond fittingness and probability.
These positions hold that the axiom concerning merit is to be taken as referring to the essential reward given after death, which is not at issue in the present case. It can even be said that such an effect may be referred to as a case of an “accidental reward,” which is the usage followed by Tanner and Henriquez. As John de Bassolis (one of Bl. Scotus’ greatest students) points out, such a manner of speaking is not unusual, as we frequently speak in a similar way of the blessed angels:
He can likewise merit such remission of venial guilt, although he cannot sin or merit anything further by way of essential reward or an increase of grace, just as it is said of the blessed angels that, by ministering to human beings daily and guarding them, they merit something by way of accidental reward. (IV.20–21.1.2)
Since satisfaction does not occur after death so as to eliminate the reatus of temporal punishment by voluntary acts, as on earth, it does not follow that this act of contrition removes the reatus of temporal punishment, which must be paid by satispassio. What has been said applies only to venial culpa. The reason for this removal concerns the entity of venial culpa, which an act of contrition, formally opposing it, physically expels (although other authors, e.g., Suárez, do not approve of this manner of speaking; yet, as the Salmanticenses teach, it seems that such an opposition is merely verbal). From this it can be clear why the act of contrition removes the venial culpa but not the reatus of temporal punishment; for the act of contrition either removes by some intrinsic opposition or it does not. If the former, then the effect naturally occurs, since a form cannot exist with its privation. If the latter, then it only follows in virtue of some extrinsic consideration (merit), which ceases after this life, giving way to punishment. This reasoning is followed by St. Thomas:
And therefore we must say that venial sins are remitted to them after this life even as regards guilt, in the same way as they are remitted in this life: namely, through an act of charity toward God, resisting the venial sins committed in this life. Nevertheless, because after this life there is no state of meriting, that movement of love in them indeed removes the impediment of venial guilt; but it does not merit release from or diminution of punishment, as it does in this life. (De malo 7.11)
The Salmanticenses explain in greater detail:
From this it is clear that the aforesaid act, as removing what obstructs, tears away the stain and is physically and morally incompatible with it, because of the retraction of the preceding will which it involves. But it exercises no such opposition toward punishment, which is not removed there by the exercise of grace. Thus it suffices to wipe away the stain and does not avail to exempt one from undergoing punishment. (In III.87.4.12)
While this principle is clear and demonstrative, what is less clear is whether the act of the soul after death immediately issues forth in an act of contrition that is sufficient to oppose the entirety of the venial culpa present in the soul of the departed. It must be noted that, according to these theologians, a maximally intense act of contrition is not required for the remission of venial culpa, but only one that is universal and true. Theologians admit that this conclusion is not demonstrative, but hold it to be highly probable for a number of different reasons. Suárez gives a summary of this, reasoning from the lack of the impediments that weaken our acts of contrition on this earth:
At that moment such a soul knows its state most fully and is unimpeded in acting; on God’s side it has most efficacious help according to the measure of its grace; and it itself immediately acts without delay, tends perfectly toward God, and turns away from all venial sins. Therefore that act suffices for all those sins immediately to be taken away as regards guilt. Thus it is clear that penance can remit these sins even after this life. Nor must acts be multiplied at that instant, as some have said, when the sins to be remitted are many and various, because, as was shown above, one efficacious and universal act suffices to take them all away. (De poenitentia XI.IV.13)
It is to be recalled that it is particularly fitting that this occurs in relation to the particular judgment. At the particular judgment, the soul entering purgatory is sentenced in particular to suffer punishment for the reatus of all those sins for which it has not satisfied on earth. Therefore, it seems quite probable that the soul will make an act of contrition for each of these sins and accept the punishment appointed for it, as Abulensis notes: “the soul, at that very instant, wills freely to endure all the subsequent punishment assessed by God.” (In Matthaeum 25, q. 722) This “willingness to endure” quite cleanly connects the act of contrition with the punishment to be suffered, without a causal account. It is for this reason that authors like St. Robert Bellarmine will use the language of “virtual penance.”
When we consider the nature of the opposition between the act of contrition and the culpa of sin, theologians explain this in a variety of ways. Lugo (who follows Suárez) describes it as follows:
It is required only as removing a hindrance, insofar as it takes away the positive indisposition and impediment previously obstructing pardon while the person does not come to his senses or acknowledge the offense. Therefore pardon is not given in consideration of that disposition as a merit, but as a condition necessary by the nature of the case, so that the sin may be remitted wholly gratuitously. (De poenitentia IX.II.36)
The Salmanticenses (who generally represent the Thomistic position, which seems also to be the position of Vásquez) describe it in a slightly different manner: “because the obstacle cannot coexist with what removes it, that act is said to exclude venial stain in the manner of an incompatible form or quasi-form.” (In III.87.4.9) As noted above, however, it matters little how one describes it, since the descriptions seem to reduce to the same.
Against these positions, the Scotists bitterly complain that we destroy the axiom concerning merit in sense while vainly holding to it in words. As Mastri argues, “this solution destroys itself, because it is wholly contradictory that the act of penance elicited in Purgatory should be justifying and not meritorious, since it cannot justify in any other way than meritoriously.” (V.IX.IV.266)
Yet if they were to consider the foundation of the axiom more than its bare words, they would see that we hardly oppose it, insofar as its principal concern is to exclude the acquisition of any further essential merit or demerit after death. Further, it is not clear that even accidental merit needs to be invoked when we consider an act simply removing an impediment as a condition (which cannot be a meritorious cause, insofar as conditions are not generically a cause), or if we consider it as inducing a certain form which is incompatible with the opposing privation (which does not influence as a moral cause, which places it outside the genus in which meritorious causes are found).
It is to be noted that theologians speak in various ways as to the particular timing of this act of contrition. Some speak of it as occurring “before purgatory,” while others speak of it as occurring “in purgatory,” as exemplified in the treatment of Gonet:
Some answer that such an act is elicited by the separated soul at the very instant of the soul’s separation from the body. For the soul, immediately upon being separated from the body, recognizes its faults as an impediment to glory and perfect intimacy with God; hence it immediately detests them and breaks forth into a fervent act of charity or contrition before it enters Purgatory, in which only the punishments left over from past sins are purged. This response and opinion is not without probability. Nevertheless, another opinion seems more probable...that the soul separated from the body elicits that act of charity or contrition by which it detests venial sins upon entry into Purgatory. (De poenitentia IV.IV.92)
Certain theologians who approve of this opinion even delay the effect of the act until purgatory, in order to connect the contrition for sin with the punishments of purgatory, e.g., Sylvius:
Although the soul elicits the aforesaid act immediately upon its departure, it is nevertheless not necessary that the abolition of guilt should take place at that very same instant, before it has descended into Purgatory. It suffices that it take place when the soul is in the place of Purgatory and feels its punishments, because the effect does not necessarily occur at the first instant at which the disposition exists; it is enough that it follows. (In III.87.1.II)
This position can hardly be reconciled with the authors of this account, due to the fact that the influence of the punishments on the act of contrition is specifically denied by the authors of this opinion. It is one thing to make an act of contrition in purgatory; it is another to make an act of contrition through purgatory, so that the act is motivated by the punishments experienced in purgatory, which seems to be admitted by Sylvius. It is to be noted, however, that the “initial” versions of the third and fourth accounts are sometimes quite difficult to distinguish.
Yet the issue of timing seems to matter little, insofar as there is no temporal duration that separates the moment in which the soul leaves the body and the moment in which the soul enters purgatory, as indicated by the Salmanticenses:
At the very entrance into purgatory, or, what is the same, at the very moment of the soul’s separation from the body, when it is true to say, It is now not in the body, and immediately before it was, an act of charity and detestation of all venial sins is elicited, or, if you prefer, also an act of penance and contrition. Through this all are expelled as regards stain, and the entire debt of punishment alone remains thereafter to be purged and discharged. (In III.87.4.12)
Fourth account: punishment assists grace in removing guilt
Sources: St. Bonaventure, IV.21.I.II.1–2; Breviloquium VII.2; St. Thomas, IV.21.1.3; St. Albert the Great, IV.21.1; Bl. Peter of Tarentaise, IV.21.II.II; Richard of Middleton, IV.21.II.1; Bl. Denys, IV.20.2 and 21.1; Soto, IV.15.2.2; Valencia, IV.VII.IV.I; Abulensis, In Matthaeum 25, qq. 719–724; St. Bellarmine, De purgatorio I.14; Minges, Theologia dogmatica specialis II.693–698.
This position differs from the third insofar as it connects the removal of the venial culpa with the purgatorial punishments inflicted in purgatory. Therefore, ordinarily, it holds that such a removal takes place successively (although, as we saw with Sylvius above, even some authors of this opinion still hold that it takes place immediately upon entering purgatory, insofar as the act of contrition takes place upon entering purgatory, or at some other time before the full discharge of punishment). This position is held by many medievals (e.g., St. Bonaventure) and by some of the post-Reformation period (e.g., Soto and Valencia). It is important to note that this is distinguished from two other considerations. First, this position is not the same as that of those who hold that habitual attachments are in some way discharged as distinct from venial culpa (e.g., Alexander of Hales). Second, this position differs from that of those modern authors who attempt to identify the penal discharge with the removal of venial culpa (this position identifies the removal of venial culpa as a response to the penal discharge, which serves as an instrument in the removal of venial culpa through the contrite acts of the will).
In identifying those who adhere to this position, we run into a number of difficulties, as mentioned above. This is especially difficult insofar as it is perfectly possible to hold to an initial remission of venial culpa and an ongoing removal of certain reliquiae peccati without a clear explanation of whether the initial act is done in virtue of the purgatorial punishments or whether the reliquiae peccati include venial culpa. In some cases, it is impossible to describe clearly the position taken.
The description of St. Bonaventure is the most precise articulation of this account, holding that it is grace (with the concurrence of the will and punishment) that is able to remove the venial culpa:
Therefore the position of others seems more correct: that fire both punishes and purifies by the same nature, because by punishing it assists grace. And grace, having the assistance of punishment and the concurrence of our will (which, although it does not assist, nevertheless does not impede) is able to purge away guilt and the dross of sin. Thus such purification comes from grace, with free choice concurring and external punishment assisting, in conformity with the remission of venial sins that takes place in this life. (IV.21.I.II.2)
He gives an analogy, stating that the punishment assists the removal of venial culpa in a similar way as a grave illness “makes the soul sober,” which is to say that it provides a certain occasion for the conformity of the soul with Divine Justice, i.e., “virtue brings this about, assisted in some way by punishment.”
Richard of Middleton provides a similar description, explicitly denying that it happens in virtue of the punishment, but only with its assistance and in response to it:
This is not to be understood as though they were consumed without penance through purgatorial fire, as the tarnish of silver is consumed through fire. Rather, souls are assisted through punishment in repenting of venial sins of which they did not repent in this life; and through the charity with which they departed from their bodies, their penance is informed and accepted, and thus their venial faults are forgiven them. (IV.21.II.1)
Similarly, St. Albert the Great says that “it must be said that punishment of itself frees only from punishment. But punishment in a subject informed by grace can also free from guilt; and those who are in purgatory are such subjects.” (IV.21.1)
It is to be noted how close this position is to the third account in its fundamental affirmations. St. Bonaventure himself (the chief exponent of this position) holds either position probable when discussing the time at which the venial culpa is discharged:
But if you ask whether, as soon as grace has that assistance, it wipes away guilt and purges away the dross, it can be said that either alternative is sufficiently probable: either grace is strengthened immediately, so as to wipe away venial guilt when it is assisted by punishment, and thereafter the person is punished on account of the outstanding liability; or it can be said that punishment disposes more and more, and afterward, once it has disposed sufficiently, grace itself wipes away the guilt in an instant, if any guilt is present. Whichever of these is said, it does not seem capable of being easily disproved. (IV.21.I.II.2)
This same refusal to judge is found in many other authors of this opinion. Soto, the most famous exponent of this position in the Thomistic school, does the same:
One of two accounts must therefore be given. Either all venial sins are remitted upon first entering purgatory through that elicited act of charity which lasts throughout the time in purgatory, even if the person died with complacency in them: for that charity is then, by reason of the state, firm, incapable of turning toward evil, and free of all concupiscence, and is thus virtual repentance for all venial sins... Or, much more plausibly, one should say that guilt is remitted through the act of charity and patience continued during the time when the venial sin is punished: for it is an act pleasing to God and most suited to remission. (IV.15.2.2)
Valencia does the same:
In precisely what manner are venial sins remitted in purgatory, if not properly through the payment of punishment? St. Thomas... intimates that they are remitted through the act of charity that the soul has when it first enters purgatory and afterward continues. Soto... considers it more likely that these same sins are remitted to the soul as regards guilt through the very act of charity and repentance by which it properly accepts and undergoes those punishments due to venial sins. Both accounts are probable, and I favor Soto’s opinion. (IV.VII.IV.I)
Another point of interest concerning this position is that the connection between the punishments and the remission of guilt allows these authors to avoid the objection that this position fails to account properly for how such an act is non-meritorious. As St. Bonaventure argues, the purgatorial fire acts like the sacrament of baptism, inducing its effect without any consideration of merit on the part of the recipient.
A Thomistic Change?
Sources: St. Thomas, IV.21.1.3 and De malo 7.11; Sylvius, In III.87.1; Gotti, Supplementum III.I; Lépicier, De novissimis V.III; Capreolus, IV.21.1; Salmanticenses, In III.87.4; Doronzo, De poenitentia, art. 62.
Some recent authors have glossed over the distinction between the third and fourth accounts when interpreting the text of St. Thomas. These authors interpret St. Thomas’ teaching as a somewhat mitigated account, similar to the one articulated above from Alexander of Hales, wherein there is an immediate discharge of venial culpa, but there are certain effects of sin that must be slowly purged.
However ingenious this account may be on intrinsic grounds, it is not the position taught by St. Thomas in his Commentary on the Sentences. Rather, he seems simply to teach the fourth account, wherein the purgatorial fire takes a “sacramental” role in the removal of venial culpa by inducing the soul to make contrary acts:
We must say that in one who dies with grace, venial guilt is forgiven after this life through the fire of Purgatory, because that punishment, being voluntary in some way, will have, by the power of grace, the power to expiate every guilt that can coexist with grace. (IV.21.1.3)
When we compare such statements to other authors of the era, e.g., St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, Bl. Peter of Tarentaise, Richard of Middleton, etc., his sense is quite obvious. He explicitly retracts this earlier position concerning the instrumentality of fire in the remission of venial culpa later in life, in his De malo, by affirming the immediacy of the act of contrition without reference to the instrumentality of the purgatorial punishments, which he proves from a consideration of the charity necessary to remit venial culpa:
Purgatory effects the remission of venial sin regarding punishment, and human beings by suffering the punishment of purgatory discharge the debt they owe, and so their punitive liability ceases. But regarding moral fault, punishment does not remit venial sin insofar as one actually undergoes punishment, since punishment is not meritorious. Nor does punishment remit venial sin insofar as one reflects on the punishment, since it would not be a movement of charity for one to detest venial sin because of the punishment; rather, it would be a movement of servile or natural fear. Therefore, the power of grace remits venial sin in purgatory regarding moral fault both as grace is habitual, for then it is compatible with venial sin, and as grace issues in an act of charity detesting venial sin. (De malo 7.11, ad 9)
Still less can such an account be quoted in favor of the novel theory which holds that purgatory should be considered as a medicinal cleansing, so that venial culpa and the reatus poenae are identified. In this section, St. Thomas explicitly teaches that the reatus poenae has no foulness in itself, but only in relation to its cause: “The obligation to punishment, although it does not carry any foulness in itself, nevertheless is related to foulness by its cause.” (IV.21.1.3.2, ad 1) Further, this clearly contradicts what St. Thomas says of those who remove all venial culpa before death by an act of contrition, yet suffer purgatorial punishments after this life.
Certain authors interpret St. Thomas’ text as referring to certain disordered effects and indispositions that follow from sin. Yet, if we recall that “venial sin” was used in such passages by the medievals to refer to venial culpa, then the sense of such passages is clear:
It should be said that some venial sins adhere more than others, according as the affections are more inclined to them and are fixed upon them more strongly. And because the ones that adhere more take longer to purify, for this reason some people are tormented in purgatory longer than others, according as their affections were more steeped in venial sins. (ibid., 3)
Fifth account: the remaining venial guilt consists in liability to the full temporal punishment
Sources: Bl. Scotus, IV.21.1; Biel, IV.16.5.I.2 and III.2; Mair, IV.21.1; Almain, IV.21.1; Mastri, V.IX.IV–V.
As noted above, this fifth account relies on the position that identifies venial culpa simply with the obligation to the full discharge of the reatus poenae. Therefore, it follows from this that the very completion of the suffering of temporal punishment is the remission of the venial culpa, since culpa is identified with the full discharge of penal liability. This position was defended by a minority of theologians after the 13th century (especially Scotists and “Nominalists”), usually as an alternative account set alongside the second account.
The proof of this position relies solely, in the words of Bl. Scotus, on the position that identifies venial culpa with the full discharge of the reatus poenae:
After the passing act the guilt that remains is nothing other than liability to the punishment due. But this liability for venial sin is only to temporal punishment...consequently, once the temporal punishment for this venial sin has been paid in Purgatory, by that very fact the venial guilt itself has been remitted. (IV.21.1.7)
This position is often connected with the thesis that venial sin is remitted in hell, as Mair teaches: “I embrace that way, because in my judgment it is much more probable that venial sin is forgiven in hell. I therefore say that for venial sin to be wiped away in purgatory or hell is nothing other than enduring the punishment due to venial sin.” (IV.21.1)
Yet Mastri clarifies a certain subtle point, due to the commutation of punishment (which I have often indicated by adding qualifications such as “full” or “entire”). According to the Scotists, there still remains a distinction between the liability of guilt and the liability of punishment, insofar as it happens that God may commute the liability of punishment into some lesser punishment when the liability of guilt is removed (e.g., in the case of mortal sin, or when satisfaction is accepted). When they speak of the two as identical, they only mean to say that “guilt in our opinion formally consists in obligation to the whole temporal punishment deserved by and equal to the fault committed.” (V.IX.V.273)
It is to be noted, however, that there is a distinction among the authors who hold to this position. Some may be (rightly) horrified by the idea that venial culpa can be remitted for those in hell simply because there has been a discharge of the full temporal punishment. Most theologians flatly deny that either a discharge of temporal punishment or a remission of venial culpa is possible in hell. Yet the Scotists commonly distinguish between the discharge of temporal punishment (which they hold to be possible) and the remission of venial culpa, since for the latter they require that there be an acceptance on the part of God of the temporal punishments suffered in order to remit the venial culpa.
What these disagreements establish against the apologetic shortcut
Sources: Tournély, De Deo, XII.II; St. Bellarmine, De purgatorio II.9; Suárez, De poenitentia XLVII.I.
As we have seen, there are many points of disagreement on the definition of guilt, on what rectifies the will, on when that rectification occurs, and on what role punishment has in it. While I have classed these into five accounts, as we saw throughout this exposition, the combination of these positions and additional inquiries can further distinguish how we articulate this matter. None of these concern issues of dogma, but only of theological inquiry. Yet what cannot be denied without an error in faith is that there remains an obligation to temporal punishment which must be remitted in purgatory by purgatorial punishments:
The manner in which venial sins are remitted to the just in purgatory (namely, whether at death or after death; whether through repentance or through the fervor of charity and virtual displeasure; whether through the gift of perseverance or through satisfaction or punishment) is not a matter of faith and has not been defined by the Council of Trent. What has been defined is only that guilt is not remitted and liability to eternal punishment blotted out without some liability to temporal punishment remaining, to be discharged either in this age or in the age to come, in purgatory, before freer access to the kingdom of heaven can lie open. (Tournély, De Deo, XII.II)
The point always to be held by divine and Catholic faith is that we retain an obligation before Divine Justice to suffer purgatorial punishments. Whether and how one articulates the remission of venial culpa or the rectification of bad dispositions matters little for the dispute. One can hold any position that pleases him, yet we must hold the dogma concerning temporal punishment.
Contemporary authors will frequently identify the reatus of temporal punishment with the effects of sin upon the soul. If that pleases them, then that is their prerogative, since the entity of the reatus and its foundation has always been a point of dispute among Catholic theologians. While I find the position to be novel and groundless, theologians are permitted novelty on disputed points. On the other hand, what they cannot deny by this identification is that this reatus is a true reatus, founding an obligation to punishment before Divine Justice. Theologians of other traditions often judge something similar in articulating an account that permits the effects of sin to be removed after death in a period of “purification.” Yet, unless they affirm that these effects place a true reatus before Divine Justice and are removed by way of punishment, they hold to a heretical position. It is one thing to say that the effects of sin are discharged after death and a completely different thing to say that the effects of sin constitute a true reatus and are discharged by punishment after death. Some outside the Catholic tradition will even inch closer by describing the process of removal as “painful,” yet even this does not necessarily articulate the dogma. There are many painful experiences which remove bad dispositions that are not “punishments.” To stay within the bounds of dogma, one must hold that such afflictions are inflicted upon the faithful departed in the manner of a punishment, inflicted by Divine Justice.
NOTE. The next section concerns the removal of vicious inclinations and the increase of the virtues in purgatory. It still remains as a “rough draft.” Therefore, I am putting it behind a paywall.
