Gregory of Rimini

English

Concerning the first part of the seventeenth distinction, in which the Master shows that the Holy Spirit is the charity by which we immediately elicit the act of love meritoriously, and that no infused habit of created charity concurs in such an act — I ask whether it is possible for someone to love God meritoriously without having in himself an infused habit of created charity.

And it is argued that it is not, thus. It is impossible for someone to be dear to God and accepted to eternal life, in the state in which he now is, without a created charity supernaturally infused; therefore it is impossible for someone to love God meritoriously without charity of this kind. The consequence is plain, since it follows: someone lacking charity loves God meritoriously, therefore he is dear to God, and so on. But if the consequent is impossible, the antecedent is impossible too. The antecedent is proved: because if it were possible for someone without charity to be dear to God in this way, it would be far more possible for someone without faith to be dear to him; but this is against the Apostle to the Hebrews, who says that without faith it is impossible to please God.

It is confirmed: because by whatever reasoning someone could be dear to God without a supernaturally infused habit of charity, by the same reasoning he could be dear to him without any supernatural habit at all, and consequently could be worthy of eternal life out of his natural powers alone — which was the error of Pelagius.

On the opposite side stands the Master in the text.

I answer. This question can be understood both of God's absolute power and of his ordained power, which is made known to us by the authorities of holy scripture and of the church. There will therefore be two articles to the question. The first: whether, by God's ordained power — that is, according to the ordinance and law established by God — it is possible for someone to love God meritoriously without having a habit of created charity supernaturally infused in him. The second will be whether this is possible by God's absolute power.

As to the first article, the Master's opinion was that it is. For he held, as is clear in the present distinction, that no supernatural habit of created charity concurs in the meritorious act of loving, but that the Holy Spirit himself works it with no habit of virtue as a medium — which is not so with the acts of faith and hope, for those he works by means of supernaturally infused habits, namely faith and hope. This opinion is strengthened by authorities of Augustine, of which the first is On the Trinity VIII […]

And from this it must consequently be said, on this opinion, to the article in question, that it is possible, and in fact is the case, that a man can love God meritoriously without such a created habit of charity.

But although the opinion just recited is a solemn one, on the Master's authority, the doctors commonly hold the opposite. And I, together with them, think the opposite is true. What moves me to this are the Apostle's words in 1 Corinthians: If I speak with the tongues of men, and so on — where he says that all the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and their acts and works, profit a man nothing, and consequently are not meritorious, unless they have charity. And if it be said that the Apostle was speaking of the uncreated charity which is the Holy Spirit, without whom the rest do not profit — that, even if it could be maintained brazenly, does not seem to be the Apostle's intention. For there he speaks of charity as of a certain virtue, setting out its necessity and its excellence over the other virtues; whence at the end of the chapter […]

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

Latin

Gregory of Rimini, Lectura super primum Sententiarum d.17 q.1, in Gregorius de Arimino In primum sententiarum nuperrime impressus, 1520, fo. lxxxvij, leaf n171 (archive.org bub_gb_wJ9iOd1WEQwC) · pd

Notes

On the dissenting bench by tradition, and against the Master by conclusion — the combination this page needed to show. He divides the question de potentia ordinata and de potentia absoluta, gives the Master a fair hearing under the first with his own Augustinian dossier, and then breaks: communiter tamen doctores oppositum opinantur, et ego una cum eis puto oppositum esse verum. His reason is 1 Cor 13, and he refuses the obvious escape from it — that Paul meant uncreated charity — as something that could be maintained only proterviter, brazenly. The elision […] is the Augustinian dossier, which runs to the foot of the column and is the Master's case, not Gregory's. ⛔⛔ Read the Pelagius sentence for what it is: it stands in the OPENING ARGUMENT (Et arguitur quod non … Confirmatur …), before Ad oppositum, and is not Gregory's determination. He divides the question and answers only its ordained-power half here. Article 2 — de potentia absoluta, which is Ockham's question — runs on at n172–n177 and is unread; Capreolus cites it by reference (1 Sentent., dist. 17, q. 1, art. 2) and reports Gregory arguing there that God CAN so accept without a created habit. Do not let this witness carry a verdict on the absolute-power question. It belongs to crux 4.

Threads

• ← contests · John Capreolus
  Capreolus answers Gregory by name and by reference, and the reference is to the article Gregory announces on the leaf rostered here: Contra primam et secundam conclusiones insimul arguit Gregorius (1 Sentent., dist. 17, q. 1, art. 2). Gregory's own words for that article are Secundus erit utrum hoc sit possibile de potentia absoluta dei. Capreolus's answer: negatur maior, loquendo de charo et accepto formaliter, non solum extrinsece. ⛔ Gregory's three arguments themselves are on this page only as Capreolus reports them, and they are not a witness for Gregory; his article 2 is unread from his own print (n172–n177).
• ← parallel · Gabriel Biel
  Both divide the question by God's two powers, and both put the absolute-power case second. Gregory: ista quaestio potest intelligi tam de potentia dei absoluta quam de potentia dei ordinata … secundus erit utrum hoc sit possibile de potentia absoluta dei. Biel reaches the same place by conclusions rather than articles, his second holding de lege ordinata and his third — this witness — holding the absolute-power case. Neither cites the other here, though Biel names Gregory elsewhere in this distinction.
• → contests · Bonaventure
  Gregory states the Master's thesis in the Master's own terms before rejecting it: Circa primam partem decimae septimae distinctionis, in qua Magister ostendit quod spiritus sanctus est charitas qua immediate elicimus actum dilectionis meritorie, et quod ad huiusmodi actum non concurrit aliquis habitus charitatis creatae infusus. He then breaks with him by name: communiter tamen doctores oppositum opinantur, et ego una cum eis puto oppositum esse verum. The divisio carries Lombard's own text on this page, so the contest is drawn to it.
• ← contests · William of Ockham
  Both texts make Pelagius the decisive charge on this question, from opposite directions. Gregory's page: qua ratione aliquis posset sic esse carus sine habitu charitatis supernaturaliter infuso, eadem ratione posset esse carus sine omni habitu supernaturali, et per consequens ex solis naturalibus posset esse dignus vita eterna: qui fuit error Pelagii — which describes Ockham's thesis. Ockham: et sic ista propria opinio maxime recedit ab errore Pelagii, because on his account it is the created form, necessitating God, that repeats what Pelagius did with the natural act. Neither cites the other. ⚠ The qualification belongs on the wire, not in a footnote: the Pelagius sentence stands in Gregory's OPENING ARGUMENT (Et arguitur quod non … Confirmatur …), before Ad oppositum est Magister in littera — it is not his determination. He accepts that argument's conclusion only de potentia ordinata, which is the whole of his article 1 and the whole of what is read here. His article 2 asks the absolute-power question, and Capreolus, quoting it by reference (1 Sentent., dist. 17, q. 1, art. 2), reports him arguing the other way: possibile est aliquem, de potentia Dei absoluta, esse Deo charum et acceptum, non habendo charitatem habitualem creatam. On Ockham's own question these two may not be opposed at all. See crux 4.
• ← parallel · Gabriel Biel
  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.