CHAPTER ELEVEN

What sinning and making satisfaction for sin are.

A. Therefore, we must ask on what basis God forgives men their sins. To do this more clearly, let us first see what sinning and making satisfaction for sin are.

B. It is up to you to explain and up to me to pay attention.

A. If angels and men always rendered to God what they ought to, then they would never sin.

B. I cannot contradict this.

A. Therefore, to sin is nothing other than not to render to God what is due.

B. What is the debt which we owe to God?

A. The will of every rational creature ought to be subordinate to the will of God.

B. Nothing is truer.

A. This is the debt which angels and men owe to God. No one who pays this debt sins; and everyone who does not pay it does sin. This is the justice-of-will, or uprightness-of-will, which makes men just, or upright, in heart (i.e., in will).1 This is the sole and complete honor which we owe to God and which God demands from us. For only such a will, when it is able to act, does works which are acceptable to God; and when it is not able to act, it alone is acceptable in itself, since without it no work is acceptable to God. Whoever does not pay to God this honor due Him dishonors Him and removes from Him what belongs to Him; and this removal, or this dishonoring, constitutes a sin. However, as long as he does not repay what he has stolen, he remains guilty. But it is not enough for him merely to repay what has been stolen; rather, because of the wrong which has been inflicted, he ought to repay more than he has stolen. For example, if someone who injures another's health restores it, his doing so is insufficient payment unless he also gives some compensation for the painful wrong that was inflicted. Similarly, he who violates another's honor does not sufficiently repay this honor unless, in proportion to the injury caused by the dishonoring, he makes some restitution which is acceptable to the one whom he has dishonored.

We must also note that when someone repays what he has unjustly stolen, he ought to return that which could not be exacted from him had he not stolen what belonged to another. Accordingly, then, everyone who sins is obliged to repay to God the honor which he has stolen. This [repayment of stolen honor] constitutes the satisfaction which every sinner is obliged to make to God.

B. Since we have proposed to follow reason, I have nothing which I can say against you on all these matters, even though you alarm me a bit.