The bountiful pity of God does not halve pardon.
Are we able to make satisfaction for the punishments for sins?
§ 121. From these ideas we draw the further conclusion that the truly penitent and believers in Christ can make satisfaction to God neither for sins nor for the punishments for sins since people are sold or held under sin [Rom. 7:14]; since through faith they become partakers of the utterly perfect satisfaction which Christ provides, something we shall prove from the following chief supports. (I) Scripture describes our reconciliation with God in this way: that God will no longer remember our sins (Jer. 31:34) but casts them behind His back (Isa. 38:17); He blots them out like a cloud (Isa. 44:22); He casts them into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19); He “does not impute them but covers them” (Ps. 32:1[–2]). Therefore He does not call them back for sentencing, nor does He demand punishments for them from the reconciled. For if God still punishes sin, He certainly is imputing them; if He avenges them, He is remembering them; if He calls them to judgment, He does not consider them covered; if He investigates them, He is not casting them behind His back; if He searches into them, He is not blotting them out like a cloud; if He airs them, He is not casting them into the depths of the sea.
Augustine (on Psalm 31, enarr. 2, not far from the beginning): “Our sins have been buried, covered over, wiped away. If God covered up our sins, He did not want to see them. If He did not want to see them, He did not want to blame them. If He did not want to blame them, He did not want to punish them, did not want to acknowledge them, preferred to overlook them. Why did He say that our sins were covered? That He might not see them. For what did it mean for God to see sin except to punish sin?” Jerome (on the same psalm): “What is covered is not seen, not imputed. What is not imputed is not punished.” In the old canons and glosses this is stated in the verses:
The bountiful pity of God does not halve pardon.
As you weep He will grant either nothing or everything.
This is taken from that statement of Prosper: “He will give pardon wholly and not by halves.”
** Augustine (or whoever else was the author of the book De vera et falsa poenit., ch. 9, vol. 4, p. 514): “To hope for partial pardon from Him who is just and justice is an impiety of faithlessness.” Thomas ([ST,] part 3, q. 86, art. 3, from Augustine): “God remits all sins simultaneously and completely.” **
(II) The total remission of sins cannot stand along with a debt of satisfaction for punishment that is still to be rendered. For anything that still demands satisfaction has not yet been forgiven fully. This is clear from the example of a creditor who still demands to be satisfied by his debtor. No one ever says that he has forgiven his debtor the full amount. In turn, when the entire debt is paid, the obligation to pay even the smallest part of the debt is removed. Chrysostom (on Psalm 50): “Where there is mercy, there is no place for punishment.” Therefore if God still demands satisfaction for sins, those sins have not yet been fully forgiven.
(III) The free forgiveness of sins cannot stand together with one’s own works of satisfaction. For no one will say that what we have obtained with our merits and satisfactions is given to us freely. But now, all of Scripture bears witness that God forgives us our sins from His free mercy without any merit of our works and for the sake of Christ our Mediator. Therefore satisfaction has no place here. If He demands no satisfaction, then He has reserved no punishment for which we must still make satisfaction.
(IV) In Christ’s parable in Matt. 18:27 there is an illustrious example of how God forgives sins to believers in Christ; there not only the debt is paid for the slave who owes, but the punishment of prison is also forgiven.
(V) It is the same for all who are justified before God and are reconciled to Him, as the apostle shows in Romans 4, where he concludes the general doctrine of justification on the basis of Abraham’s example. But now, the thief on the cross was taken straight up into heaven by the power of the satisfaction which Christ provided and which he had apprehended through faith without the intervention of any satisfaction of his own [Luke 23:43].
(VI) We pray for the forgiveness of sins daily. Therefore we are acknowledging that we cannot make satisfaction for them. “Forgive us our debts” (Matt. 6:12). Note here that we call our sins “debts,” for by the law of nature we owe obedience to God our Creator. If we do not obey Him, we owe punishment. From this it is clear that sins are called debts not only with regard to fault but also and especially with regard to punishment. Thus when we petition for the remission of our debts, we are asking for the forgiveness not only of fault but also of punishment; and we are acknowledging that we cannot make satisfaction for either of these.
(VII) Divine justice is infinite and does not suffer itself to be satisfied except through an equivalent price. For this reason it was also necessary for Christ the Mediator to be the God-man so as to be able to offer an equivalent redemption price for our sins. But now, the good works of the saints are not of an infinite value and price. In fact, they are imperfect and in many ways contaminated, as will be taught more fully in its own place [On Good Works (Commonplace XX), §§ 62–81; cf. On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), §§ 181–202]. Therefore they do not have the power to make satisfaction.
But some people argue that our works do have the power to make satisfaction due to Christ’s Passion. But this is asserted without Scripture. Indeed, this detracts part of the glory from Christ the Redeemer, who “trod the winepress alone” (Isa. 63:3), who “made a purification for our sins” (not by giving our works the power to satisfy and merit, but) “through Himself” (Heb. 1:3).
(VIII) Whatever good we do is all already owed to God beforehand by right of creation, redemption, and sanctification. God has given us all the members of our body, all the powers of our soul. Therefore we are bound to give all of these to the service of God by right of creation. The Son of God has freed us from Satan’s power and has brought us over to the kingdom of His grace. Therefore we are bound to serve Him in His kingdom with all our might. The Holy Spirit has given us new birth and has renewed us. Since good works are the fruits of the Spirit, they establish us as debtors to God rather than make God a debtor to us. Also if we do any good, we do it not of ourselves but of God’s grace. Therefore we cannot make satisfaction of ourselves. “If you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unuseful servants; we have only done what we owed’ ” (Luke 17:10).
Therefore we draw the following conclusion. If we were able to make satisfaction for our sins or for the punishments of them, it would have to happen either through works done according to the norm of the Law or through self-chosen service. Yet we cannot make satisfaction through either of these. In fact, works in conformity with the divine Law are already beforehand owed to God in many ways, and self-chosen services do not please God. Augustine (Meditat., bk. 1, ch. 38): “I know this: that since You have created me, I owe You my entire being. But since You have redeemed me and given Your blood as the price for me, I owe You more than myself, as much more as You are greater than I, for whom You gave Yourself.”
** Ephraem (vol. 1, p. 142): “Even if I were to live on earth for a thousand years, I would be unable to return the equivalent nor give worthy thanks to Him for even one stroke by any means, as would be proper.” Macarius (Homily 15): “If someone could happen to live from the day the world was created until the very last day of judgment and would not only work through all this time but also would suffer all the great torments for God, his labors and tortures would not yet be worthy of being that which paid the reward of eternal life.” Augustine (on Psalm 129): “A person could sell himself, and having been sold he could be under sin, but he cannot redeem himself from his iniquities. The one who could redeem himself is the One who could not sell Himself. He who did not commit sins is the Redeemer from sin. He Himself redeemed Israel from his iniquities.” Bernard (on Song of Songs, sermon 38): “Your sins are exceedingly great and far too many. By no means are you sufficient to make satisfaction for so many and such great sins, not even if you cut out your own heart.” Again: “What will you be able to repay worthily to your Benefactor? He gave you yourself when He created you to exist. As provisions for your journey [viaticum], lest you fall along the way, He gave you His body and blood and Himself, true God and true man. What will you repay if you cannot repay in turn for the fact that He gave you yourself when He created you? Finally, what will you repay for the fact that He has given you Himself? Surely if you could give yourself back a thousand times, what would you be in comparison with God? Nevertheless pay back as you can; pay back your entire being to Him who gave and again gave Himself wholly to you, and, not content with these, also gave Himself wholly for you” (Tract. de pass. Domini, ch. 30, col. 1635). **
Anselm (Cur Deus homo, bk. 1, ch. 20): “All that you have and are and can and ought to be, etc.; if I can be or do anything, even when I do not sin, I owe it to You not to sin. What shall I give back in return for my sin?” Again: “It is true that my conscience has deserved damnation and my repentance is not enough for satisfaction, but I am sure that Your mercy surpasses my every offense” (De miseria hominis).
** Chrysostom (De B. Philogonio): “I bear witness, and in faith I command, that it will happen that if any one of us who are guilty of sins departs from his former evils and promises God wholeheartedly and truly never again to return to them, God will require nothing else for further satisfaction.” **
Bernard again (De verb. Orig.): “No one ever gives God back what he owes since our sins against Him are very great and many, so that you are insufficient to make satisfaction for so many and such great sins, not even if you cut out your heart.”
Lyra (on Matthew 18): “The sinner does not have the means to make satisfaction for sin.”
** Basil (on Isaiah 1): “There is one expiation for sin, namely, the blood shed for the salvation of the world.” Landsperger (Ench. Christ. mil.): “Do not plan to do works of penance for your sins, for how trifling do you think are these works of yours? There are far too many heaps of sins! All your works that you know are less than enough to make satisfaction for your sins.” **
The Carmelite Antonius Marinarius (Orat. ad patres Conc. Trid.): “Now” (the flesh and Satan) “are recounting the very serious things committed in our earlier life, sins for which” (Christians) “could not have provided worthy satisfaction. However, they respond: ‘Because we were unable to make satisfaction, our sins were forgiven us freely through Christ. There is no point in thinking that we are such by paying, lest we detract from the dignity of Christ’s death.’ ”
** Cassander (Consult., art. 12, under the title De confess.): “There will be no great opportunity to complain about this satisfaction if, on the basis of the church’s statement, it is taught in this way: that only the sufferings and death of the only-begotten Son of God are the satisfaction and propitiation for our sins, either for that which we contracted originally or for those we committed out of the weakness of our flesh before or after regeneration. The ministry of the Gospel—that is, the Word and sacraments—offers and applies this satisfaction to us; and faith, the gift of God, receives it.” **
(IX) The examples of those who are reconciled to God through true conversion bear witness that they had their sins remitted without any satisfactions of their own and that the punishments for their sins were forgiven. Ambrose (bk. 10, on Luke 22, cited in Ius canon., dist. 1, c. 1): “I read of the tears of Peter, but I read not of satisfaction.”
(X) If our satisfactions are required for our reconciliation with God, we shall never be able to be certain about reconciliation. Instead, we shall have to be agitated by a constant flood of doubts, for we can never know when God is sufficiently satisfied for the punishments. But the apostle declares the opposite in Rom. 4:16: “Therefore it is from faith, freely, that the promise may be firm.” Rom. 5:1: “Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(XI) Finally, we are commanded to “forgive each other, if anyone has a complaint against another. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive” (Col. 3:13). Yet we must forgive our neighbor not only the fault but also the punishment. So much the more, then, will God, who is love itself (1 John 4:16), forgive the reconciled both fault and punishment.