On the guilt of punishment

St. Thomas, q. 87.

You will ask 1° whether sin entails liability to punishment.

I answer. Affirmatively. Thus Scripture expressly in various places. Exod., XXXII, 35: The Lord struck the people for the guilt of the calf. Psal. XXXI, 10: Many are the scourges of the sinner. Matth., XXV, 41: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire. Matth., V, 22: Whosoever shall say (to his brother), fool, shall be guilty of the fire of gehenna. Rom., II, 9: Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil. And elsewhere.

It is proved by reason. Right reason demands that he who has violated the order and equality of justice restore and re-establish it by a kind of compensation of punishment²; which is observed in those very injuries done to men. But he who sins violates the order and equality of divine justice, indulging his will more than he ought, acting against the commandment of God. Therefore. ² Here q. 87, a. 6, o.

You will ask 2° what liability to punishment is.

I answer. Liability to punishment is not an ordination, whether active or passive, to punishment, but it is the condignity or due of punishment to be undergone on account of sin: both because sin is first worthy of punishment before it is ordained to it; nay, it is not ordained to it except because it is worthy of it, as an act of virtue is first worthy of reward before it is ordained to it, nor is it ordained to the reward except because it is worthy of it: and because, even if God did not ordain the sinner to punishment, nevertheless the sinner would be worthy of punishment: and finally because ordination to punishment is good and from God, but God makes no one liable to punishment.

You will ask 3° whether liability to punishment remains after sin remitted.

I answer. Sin being remitted, there can remain the liability to some temporal punishment¹. This is against the Lutherans and Calvinists dogmatizing that with guilt the whole punishment is always remitted, and thence doing away with indulgences, satisfactions and Purgatory. ¹ Ibid.

I say. God indeed can remit all things; but ordinarily, in remitting guilt and constituting man by grace heir of glory, he remits only eternal punishment, and changes it into temporal satisfactory punishment.

That this is so Scripture openly testifies. For Adam himself, whose guilt, it is agreed, was remitted, Sap., X, 2, yet underwent various punishments, not as medicinal against future sins, as the heretics will, but in vindication of past guilt. For it is said Genes., III, 17: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof, etc. Moreover death and the miseries of this life are punishments of original sin, yet they are incurred also by those to whom it has been remitted. Likewise David, II Reg., XII, 14, after obtaining pardon for his adultery, was punished by the death of his son, not as a safeguard against the future, but in vengeance for the past; for Nathan said to him: Because thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing, the child that is born to thee shall surely die. So in many other places; and thus it was defined by the council of Trent, session VI, chapter 14 and canon 30; session XIV, chapter 8 and canon 12. Of which more in the third part of the Summa, at q. 86.