Gabriel Biel

English

[No one can be dear to God unto eternal life] … not, that is, under the ordained law, without having in himself some infused quality which is charity or grace.

This conclusion cannot be proved by natural reason, because it cannot be concluded by natural reason that there is any infused habit at all. It can, however, be shown by manifold authority of scripture and of the saints, as is also had below at distinction 4, question 1, of the fourth book, on the virtues infused in baptism.

And one authority of the Apostle suffices, 1 Corinthians 13: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, and so on. From which it is clearly had that the virtues and any gifts whatever of the Holy Spirit do not suffice for life, without […]

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by · published at bonaventure.wrootpress.com. This page quotes it; that is its home.

Latin

Gabriel Biel, Collectorium circa quattuor libros Sententiarum I d.17 q.1, in Commentarij doctissimi in 4. Sententiarum libros, Brescia: Petrus Bozola, 1574, p. 202, leaf n297 (archive.org bub_gb_BBOVAlqWQBUC) · pd

Notes

Biel's own conclusion, and the sentence that makes this bench worth having. He affirms what Bonaventure, Thomas and Capreolus affirm — an infused quality is required — and then says what none of them says: haec conclusio naturali ratione probari non potest. The created habit survives as a truth of revelation with its demonstration withdrawn. His one sufficient authority is 1 Cor 13, the same text Gregory rests on. The opening clause runs back onto the foot of the preceding column; the marginal rubric supplies its subject and is given here in brackets.

Threads

• → echoes · William of Ockham
  Biel takes Ockham's question almost verbatim, differing in one word — Ockham: Utrum propter spiritum sanctum necesse sit ponere charitatem absolutam creatam animam formaliter informantem; Biel: Utrum praeter Spiritum sanctum necesse sit ponere charitatem absolutam creatam animam formaliter informantem — and reproduces Ockham's definition of being dear to God with the same baptised-infant example, adding only the adult in mortal sin. He also carries over Ockham's Pelagius sentence and its marginal rubric: Et hoc dictum maxime recedit ab errore Pelagij. Verbatim reuse without a name at this point, so echoes; but Biel names Ockham three leaves on (Vide ad idem Ockam in centilogio, in conclusione xij.), so the reuse is not anonymous.
• → parallel · Gregory of Rimini
  Both rest the same conclusion on the same text, neither attributing it. Gregory: ad hoc autem movent me verba Apostoli prima ad Corinthios, Si linguis hominum loquar etc., ubi omnes virtutes et dona spiritus sancti … dicit homini nihil prodesse. Biel: et sufficit auctoritas una apostoli, 1 Cor. xiij, Si linguis hominum loquar et angelorum, charitatem autem non habeam … ex qua clare habetur quod virtutes et dona quaecunque spiritussancti non sufficiunt ad vitam. ⚠ Parallel names the absence of a citation for this proof, not ignorance of the man: Biel names Gregory inside this same distinction — Et addit Grego. distin. xiiij. quaest. j. — on another question.
• → contests · Thomas Aquinas
  Biel affirms the Thomist conclusion and withdraws its demonstration: haec conclusio naturali ratione probari non potest, quia non potest concludi ratione naturali quod sit aliquis habitus infusus. Thomas's article is the fullest natural-reason argument for the created habit on this page — its corpus turns on what an act of the will requires of the power that elicits it — so the denial that any such argument can reach the conclusion is drawn to it. The contest is over the proof, not the thesis: they agree on the answer.