Whether the guilt of punishment can be redeemed by good works.
Whether the guilt of punishment can be redeemed by good works.
§ 126. Bellarmine (in ch. 3) tries to prove that “by good works the guilt of temporal punishment can be redeemed, which sometimes remains after friendship with God has been restored.”
We respond. Just as singular punishments are imposed in this life for sins in such a way that they are not imposed on all the reconciled nor imposed equally, so also by God’s good counsel they are mitigated for some, some are completely freed from them, and some are forced to labor under them all the way to death. Consequently, in true repentance and humiliation the devout truly seek freedom from and mitigation of calamities. Nevertheless they subject themselves completely to God’s will and leave it free to God’s benevolent counsel whether and when He wants to free them from these. Therefore temporal punishments are mitigated or even wholly removed through true and earnest repentance not because its works are satisfactions or compensations for sins or the merits of reconciliation, but because God wants nothing else than to kindle true humility, arouse a hatred and loathing of sin, and mortify the old man by these chastisements. Consequently, when God sees such exercises of repentance, faith, and new obedience in the reconciled, He has what He usually seeks with these castigations. Therefore for the sake of Christ, the Mediator and Suppliant, He either removes these punishments or mitigates them (as Daniel says in his prayer, 9:17: “For Your own sake, Lord, hear us and look upon our exile”). But that does not always happen, nor does it happen in the case of all punishments. This is something which Bellarmine himself acknowledges. He writes: “The temporal punishments of this life sometimes cannot be redeemed but have to be endured steadfastly. Especially such is the punishment of death which no one, however just, could have averted with any pious work. Such was the punishment of David inflicted through the death of his son,” etc. The truly devout acknowledge this and therefore submit themselves wholly to God’s will in these paternal chastisements. They ask that God not enter into judgment with them but that He free them from or mitigate these chastisements or, if He wants them to remain, that He give them patience and a salutary way out.