30. The sin of malice
Sin
to obtain it-for instance, it might want it without meriting it-or perhaps for other reasons, all of which one need not bother with here.
Probably in one of these ways, then, the will of the angel went to excess; Either by wanting happiness as a good for him rather than loving it as a good in itself-that is, wanting a good, like the beatific object, to belong exclusively to himself, rather than to be in another, such as in his God. And this would be the supreme perversity of the will, which-according to Augustine ... -is to use as means what is to be enjoyed as an end, and treat as an end what is to be used as a means. Or the angel could have failed in the second way, wanting at once what God wished him to have after a period of probation. Or it might have been in the third way, by wanting to possess happiness by natural means rather than by earning it by grace, since God wished him to merit it.
As for the second problem-which he discusses in answer to an objection-Scotus shows how the blessed in heaven might well wish or desire happiness, not just by reason of an affection for the advantageous, but even out of an affection for justice.
To want an act to be perfect so that by means of it one may better love some object for its own sake, is something that stems from the affection for justice, for whence I love something good in itself, thence I will something in itself.
And thus the good could have wanted happiness so that, by having it, they could love the highest good more perfectly. And this act of wanting happiness would have been meritorious, because they are not using what is to be enjoyed as an end, but are enjoying it, for this good that I covet for myself, I desire in order that I may love that good in itself [i.e., God].
The Latin original is a corrected text of the Ordinatio II, dist. 6, q. 2, supplied to the author by the courtesy of the Scotistic Commission some years ago. It may not be identical in every respect with what is eventually published in the Vatican edition, volume VIII.
30. The sin of malice Scotus seems to admit that, while the elicited act of the will is always free, if it elicits an act it must elicit it in accord with one of its two inclinations. Either it wills the good as an intrinsic value in itself or it seeks the good as something advantageous for self or nature. He also admits that even when confronted with the beatific vision, the will is not necessitated in its action by reason of this particular end, and uses other ways to explain why the soul of Christ or the blessed in heaven could not sin (Prentice, 1972, pp. 328-42). Nevertheless,
Scotus does seem to hold that the will is limited in some way, namely, in that if it elicits an act in regard to a good it is free only to love it or abstain from loving it, but not to hate it qua good. Similarly, in the