Article 1: Is guilt forgiven by the absolution of a priest?
Quodlibet IV
There were questions about divine things and about human things.
The first questions on divine things were about the divine essence. The second were about the divine persons.
The first question on the divine essence was about God’s knowledge. The rest were about God’s power.
Question 1
Article 1
The question about God’s knowledge was: Does God have multiple ideas?
It seems so:
1. In his book of Eighty-Three Questions, Augustine says that God created every single thing from its own notion,1 a human being from one notion, and a horse from another. But the notions of things in the divine mind are called ideas, as Augustine makes clear in the same place.2 Therefore, God has multiple ideas.
2. Things are distinct to the extent that God knows they are distinct. But God knows they are distinct in God. Therefore, God has a multiplicity of distinct ideas of distinct things.
But to the contrary: Every word that applies to God is either essential (e.g., “God”), or personal (e.g., “Father”), or notional (e.g., “begetter”). But the word “idea” is neither personal nor notional, since it does not apply to the three persons. Hence, the word is essential. But there is no multiplying anything essential about God. Therefore, we cannot say that God has multiple ideas.
Answer: There are two kinds of multiplicity. One is the multiplicity of things. In that sense, there are not multiple divine ideas. For “idea” refers to an exemplar form, and there is only one exemplar for everything: the divine essence, which everything resembles to the extent that it exists and is good. The other kind of multiplicity is in the ways of thinking about a thing. In that sense, there are multiple divine ideas. For although everything resembles the divine essence to the extent that it exists, not everything resembles it in exactly the same way but, rather, in different ways and at different levels. Thus, the divine essence is the proper notion and idea of a particular creature to the extent that a creature can resemble it in a particular way, and the same goes for every other creature. In that sense, there are as many divine ideas as there are ways of thinking about the divine essence, given the different relationships that things have to it by resembling it in different ways.
But these relationships are thought about not only by created intellects but also by God’s own uncreated intellect. For God knows, and has known from all eternity, that different creatures resemble the divine essence in different ways. In that sense, from all eternity the divine mind has had multiple ideas as the proper notions of the things thought about by God. For the word “idea” implies that there is a form thought about by an agent who intends to produce an external object that resembles it. A builder, for instance, first has the form of a house in mind, which is a sort of idea of the house to be made out of matter.
1. So, to the first objection: Augustine means that there are different notions given their different relationships, as we just said.
2. To the second objection: The statement “Things are distinct to the extent that God knows they are distinct” has two possible meanings, since the phrase “to the extent that God knows” can refer to God’s knowledge either with respect to the thing known or with respect to the knower. If it refers to God’s knowledge with respect to the thing known, then the statement is true. For then its sense is that things are distinct in the way that God knows them to be distinct. But if it refers to God’s knowledge with respect to the knower, then the statement is false. For then its sense is that the thing known has the same distinction in God’s intellect that it has in itself. But that is false, since things are essentially distinct in themselves, but not in God’s intellect, just as things are essentially material in themselves, but immaterial in God’s intellect. And this second objection is based on the latter sense of the statement.
To the objection made to the contrary: That argument only works for a multiplicity of things, which does not apply in the case of essential words; in their case, all that applies is a multiplicity of ways of thinking about a thing.
Question 2
The next questions were about God’s power. The first was: (1) Does God have power? The second was about a certain effect of God’s power: (2) Are there waters above the heavens? The rest were about the extent of God’s power.
Article 1
We turn, then, to the first question. It seems that God does not have power:
As the Philosopher says in book I of On the Heavens, power is a thing’s maximum ability.3 But God’s ability has no maximum, since it is infinite. Therefore, God does not have power.
But to the contrary: Every unmediated source of activity is a power, for every activity results from some power. But God has an unmediated source of activity, since God does some things without an intermediary. Therefore, God has power.
Answer: However it is used, “power” means a thing’s full ability. Hence, each thing’s power is what makes it good and makes its acts good, as it says in book II of the Ethics.4 For a thing’s full power is displayed when both the agent and its action are good and complete. Yet God’s ability is the best and most complete. Therefore, God has the most power of all. Hence Wisdom 12 says: You show your power when you are not believed to have absolute power.5 And the Psalms say: Great is our Lord and great is his power.6
So, to the first objection: Sometimes powers are defined, not by reference to their essence but by reference to their aim, which is the source of their specific nature. Augustine, for instance, says that faith is believing what you do not see.7 Yet such belief is not faith itself; it is the act at which faith aims. That is how the Philosopher defines power when he says that power is a thing’s maximum ability,8 since a thing’s power is recognized from its aim at the maximum of which it is capable. As he himself says in the same place, the power to lift a hundred pounds does not consist in lifting ten, but in lifting the maximum possible—viz. a hundred.9 Thus, each thing’s power is recognized not from one of the things of which it is capable but in view of the whole of which it is capable. Hence, God’s power cannot be recognized from any one act, since no such act could equal God’s power, as if God could not do even more. Instead, God’s power is recognized from the whole of which God is capable. Yet that whole is infinite, since God is able to do an infinite number of things. Hence, God’s power is also infinite, which is its maximum—the ability to do an infinite number of things—just as a finite power’s maximum is its ability to do a determinate number of things.
Article 2
We turn, then, to the next question. There seem to be waters above the heavens with the true nature of the element of water:
Human beings are called a microcosm because they resemble the macrocosm. But in the human body we see that the brain (which has the nature of water) is above the heart (which has the proper character of fire as the source of natural heat). Therefore, there is water above the other elements in the macrocosm as well. This seems to be Augustine’s reasoning in book XI of The City of God, where he says that some people are struck by the weight of the elements, and do not think that there could be water in the upper parts of the world because of its natural fluidity and weight. If they could have made human beings according to their own plans, they would not have filled our head with mucus (called phlegm in Greek), which corresponds to water among the elements of our body.10
But to the contrary: The world’s parts are arranged in the best order by their own natures. But water is naturally heavy, and hence sinks naturally below the lighter bodies of fire and air. Therefore, there is nothing with the true nature of water above the heavens.
Answer: Sacred scripture—which cannot lie—says explicitly that there is water above the heavens. Genesis 1 says that God separated the water below the firmament from the water above the firmament.11 And the Psalms say: Let all the water above the heavens praise the name of the Lord.12 Hence, as Augustine says in book II of his Literal Commentary on Genesis: However and whatever kind of water is there, we can have no doubt that it is there. For the authority of this scripture is greater than anything of which the human race is capable.13
But, as Augustine says in book I of the same work: It is very shameful and dangerous and most to be avoided for any nonbelievers to hear a Christian talking such nonsense about what our Christian literature is supposed to say on these things (viz. natural things) that they can hardly contain their laughter, seeing how wildly mistaken it is. What is so disturbing is not that a mistaken person should be laughed at, but that outsiders should think that our authors believed such things, and then condemn and reject them as idiots, to the great detriment of those whose salvation we are so concerned about.14 That is why (as he goes on to say) Augustine offered a number of interpretations of the words of Genesis, so that one interpretation could be taken up without prejudice to another, which might be better.15
Accordingly, the statements about there being water above the heavens can be taken in a number of ways. One way is for us to take the firmament and heavens there, not as the firmament or heavens where the stars are, but as the air where the birds fly.16 For water rises above the air as vapor and then turns into rain. In book II of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine says of this interpretation: I consider this a very praiseworthy suggestion. For it says nothing contrary to the faith, and is easy to believe once it is explained.17
But if the firmament or heavens there are to be taken as the firmament where the stars are located, then realize that there have been different opinions about this firmament.
Some have held that this firmament is composed of the four elements. This seems to have been the opinion of Empedocles.18 On this opinion, nothing keeps us from saying that above the starry heaven there is elemental water, which is simpler, and then above that there is the fire that gives the empyrean heaven its name.
Others are of the opinion that this heaven either has the nature of fire, as Plato held,19 or is not composed of the four elements, but has a higher nature, as Aristotle held.20 On either of these opinions, it seems inappropriate for elemental water to be naturally positioned above the firmament. As Augustine says in book II of his Commentary on Genesis, now is the time for us to ask how God has established the natures of things, not what God may wish to do to them or with them by a miraculous use of divine power.21 Nevertheless, there could still be some way for there to be water above such a firmament.
One way would be for us to take water as the whole of bodily matter, which is how Augustine interprets the water at the beginning of Genesis.22 Taken this way, there being water above the starry heavens just means that there is some bodily matter above those heavens (which is also compatible with the claims of recent philosophers, who think that there is another sphere without stars above the eighth sphere where the stars are). Augustine gives this interpretation in his Commentary on Genesis Against the Manicheans.23
Another way would be to say that just as the empyrean heaven is called fiery, not because it has the nature of fire but because of its brilliance, so too the water above the heavens is so called, not because it has the nature of water but because it is transparent like water. Thus, the highest heaven (the empyrean) is completely brilliant, the second (called watery) is completely transparent, and the third heaven (called starry) is partly shiny and partly transparent.
On each opinion, then, the truth of sacred scripture can be saved in various ways. Hence, there is no need to restrict the sense of sacred scripture to any one of them.
So, to the first objection: Human beings resemble the macrocosm in a certain respect: they consist of a bodily and spiritual nature like the universe as a whole. They do not resemble the universe in every respect: for the order among a human being’s parts is not based on their own nature but, rather, on the nature of their end. The heart is in the middle so that our vital activities can easily extend from the heart to the whole body. Whereas the brain is at the top so that our animal activities (which are somehow performed there) are not impaired by our various bodily processes. The same is true of the order of human knowledge, which does not follow the natural order of knowable things but, rather, our own way of knowing them. Yet Augustine does not say that to assert it himself, but to confront those who interpret the scriptures incorrectly.
Question 3
The next things to consider are about the extent of God’s power.
There are two questions about this: (1) Can God reduce something to nothing? and (2) If something were reduced to nothing, could God bring the numerically same thing back into existence?
Article 1
We turn, then, to the first question. It seems that God can reduce something to nothing:
The distance between the nonexistent and the existent is equal to the distance between the existent and the nonexistent. But God can make something out of nothing. Therefore, God can make nothing out of something.
But to the contrary: God cannot cause a lack. But a cause that makes something tend toward nonexistence causes a lack. Therefore, God cannot reduce something to nothing.
Answer: We have two ways of talking about God’s power. One way involves considering God’s power absolutely. The other way involves considering it in relation to God’s wisdom or foreknowledge.
So, if we are talking about God’s absolute power, God can reduce the whole of creation to nothing. The reason is that creation is not only brought into existence by God’s agency, but also kept in existence by God’s action, as indicated by the verse of Hebrews 1: Upholding all things by the word of his power.24 Hence in book IV of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine says that if God’s power ever stopped directing the things of creation, they would immediately stop being what they are, and all their kind would disappear.25 Yet just as God produces things by choice without any necessity of nature, so God also sustains things by choice. Hence, God could withdraw the action that keeps things in existence, and as a result everything would vanish into nothing.
But if we are talking about God’s power in relation to God’s wisdom or foreknowledge, then things cannot be reduced to nothing, since God’s wisdom does not include that happening. For God created all things to exist, as Wisdom 1 says,26 and not to fall back into nothingness.
Hence, we grant the first argument, insofar as it concerns God’s absolute power.
To the objection made to the contrary: There are two ways for something to cause a lack. One way is intentionally, as when someone causes darkness by putting out the light. This way of causing a lack does not require the cause to lack anything itself. This is how God can cause a lack, such as blindness or hardness of heart, or even annihilation, if God wanted. The other way of causing a lack is unintentionally, which always requires the cause of the lack to be lacking itself, since it is the agent’s own lack that keeps it from causing its effect as completely as it intended. But God could not possibly cause a lack in this way, or a tendency toward nonexistence.27
Article 2
We turn, then, to the second question. If something were reduced to nothing, it seems that God could not bring the numerically same thing back into existence:
In book II of On Generation and Corruption, the Philosopher says that things whose substance is destroyed do not return numerically the same.28 But the substance of things reduced to nothing is destroyed. Therefore, they cannot return numerically the same.
But to the contrary:
1. In book XXII of The City of God, Augustine says: If human flesh were completely destroyed, and none of its matter remained hidden anywhere in nature, the Almighty could still bring it back however he wished.29 But none of a thing’s matter would remain if it were destroyed by being reduced to nothing. So, even if something were reduced to nothing, God could still bring the numerically same thing back into existence.
2. Difference is the cause of number, as Damascene says.30 But nothingness would not make a thing any different than it was, since nonexistent things have no species or differences, as the Philosopher says.31 Therefore, God could bring back something numerically one and the same, even if it had been reduced to nothingness.
Answer: There is a difference to note among the things that can be reduced to nothing.
There are some things whose continuous duration is essential to what makes them one (as is obviously the case with change and time, for instance). Hence, the interruption of such things is directly contrary to their being numerically one. But whatever implies a contradiction lacks the nature of an existent, and is thereby excluded from the number of things possible for God. Hence, if such things were reduced to nothing, God could not bring them back numerically the same, since that would mean making contradictory things true at the same time (if, for instance, a change were supposed to be one and yet interrupted).
But there are other things whose continuous duration is not essential to what makes them one (as with the oneness of permanent things), though it may be accidental to it, if their existence is subjected to change. For such things are then measured by time, and their existence is one and continuous insofar as time is one and continuous. Now, since a natural agent cannot produce such things without change, a natural agent could not bring them back numerically the same if they were reduced to nothing, or if their substance were destroyed. But God can bring such things back without change, since God has the power to produce effects without intermediary causes. Hence, God could bring them back numerically the same, even if they fell into nothingness.
That makes the reply to the first two objections clear.
To the second objection made to the contrary: Nothingness would not make a thing any different than it was, but being reduced to nothing would interrupt the continuous existence involved in what makes change and the things that follow from change one.
Question 4
The next questions on divine things were about the divine persons, and related to the person of the Son. The first touched on his divine nature. The second touched on his assumed nature.
There were two of the first questions: (1) Does the Father utter himself and creation by the same word? and (2) Does his sonship distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit?
Article 1
We turn, then, to the first question. The Father does not seem to utter himself and creation by the same word:
1. Only the Father utters himself, as Augustine says in book VII of On the Trinity.32 Yet the whole Trinity utters creation. For everything related to creation applies to the whole Trinity, as Dionysius makes clear in chapter 2 of The Divine Names.33 Therefore, the Father does not utter himself and creation by the same word.
2. God produces creation voluntarily, but produces the Son—the Word by which the Father utters himself—naturally. As Hilary says in his book On the Councils: The will of God gave all creation its substance; but birth gave the Son his nature.34 Therefore, the Father does not utter himself and creation by the same word.
But to the contrary: In book II of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine says that he spoke and they were made—i.e., he begot the Word, in whom creation was to be made.35 Therefore, the Father utters himself and creation by the same word.
Answer: As Augustine says in book XV of On the Trinity, the Word of God is somehow represented by the word of our intellect, which is just our act of conceiving of our knowledge. When we conceive of what we know by actually thinking about it, that is our intellect’s word, which we signify with an external word. But our minds never actually conceive of everything we know; we pass from one thought to another. Hence, we do not have just one mental word, but many, none of which equals our knowledge. But whatever God knows, God is actually thinking about. Hence, God’s mind does not have a succession of words one after another. And just as God knows himself and everything else with the same knowledge, God also utters himself and everything else with the same word. For God’s Word would not be perfect if there were less in that Word than in God’s knowledge, as Augustine says in the same book.36
Therefore, the Father must necessarily utter himself and creation by the same Word.
1. So, to the first objection: Taken properly, “uttering” means producing the Word, which only the Father does. Hence, if “uttering” is applied properly to God, then only the Father utters anything, since only the Father generates the Word. But this Word expresses whatever the whole Trinity knows, since all three divine persons have the same knowledge. That is why the Word implies a relation to creation, since it expresses the knowledge of creation that the Father shares with the other divine persons.
2. To the second objection: There is a difference between a word and what is uttered by that word: the word “stone” signifies a thing that is not itself a word but, rather, a body. Hence, nothing keeps God from voluntarily producing creation, and yet naturally producing the word by which creation is uttered.
Article 2
We turn, then, to the second question. Sonship seems to distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit:
The same thing constitutes a person and distinguishes it from others. But sonship is the personal characteristic proper to the Son, and thus constitutes the person of the Son. Therefore, sonship distinguishes the Son from the Holy Spirit.
But to the contrary: In his book On the Trinity, Boethius says that only relations in God multiply the Trinity.37 And in his book On the Procession of the Holy Spirit, Anselm says that the divine persons are only distinguished by their relative opposition.38 But the Son is not opposed to the Holy Spirit by the relation of sonship; he is only opposed to the Father thereby. Therefore, sonship does not distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit, but only from the Father.
Answer: The characteristics proper to the divine persons distinguish them from each other in the way that the substantial forms of natural things distinguish them into their kinds, although of course models taken from creatures are not altogether similar when applied to God.
Now, with natural things, there are two ways for the form of one thing to distinguish it from another. One way results from a direct opposition between their respective forms. This is the way that an opposing form distinguishes each natural thing from every other kind of thing in its genus, since a genus is divided by opposing differences. This is how a sapphire’s form, for example, distinguishes it from every other kind of stone. The other way for a natural thing’s form to distinguish it from other things results from them either having it or not. This is the way that a thing with one natural form is distinguished from everything without that form. This is how a sapphire’s natural form, for example, distinguishes it not only from other kinds of stones, but also from every kind of animal and plant.
Accordingly, sonship distinguishes the Son from the Father by the relative opposition of their sonship and fatherhood, while sonship distinguishes the Son from the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit does not have the sonship had by the Son.
That makes the reply to the objections clear.
Question 5
Article 1
The next question was about the Son’s assumed nature. The question was: (1) Was the body of Christ nailed to the cross numerically the same as the one lying in the tomb?
It seems not:
Things that differ in kind also differ in number. But the body of Christ hung on the cross and the one lying in the tomb differed in kind, in just the way that living and dead things differ in kind. Therefore, they were not numerically one and the same.
But to the contrary: Things belonging to one and the same subject or subsisting individual are numerically one and the same. But the body of Christ hung on the cross and the one lying in the tomb belonged to one and the same subject or subsisting individual, since the Word of God (a subsisting individual) was never separated from his body.39 Therefore, the body of Christ hung on the cross and the one lying in the tomb were numerically one and the same.
Answer: With this question we need to beware of two condemned heresies. One is that of the Arians, who held that Christ did not have a soul, and that the Word was united to his body in place of a soul. As a result, they held that the Word was separated from his body at death, which comes out clearly in a sermon of the Arians opposed by Augustine.40 The other heresy is that of the Galanites, which was condemned at the sixth council. They held that Christ had one nature composed of humanity and divinity, and that this one nature was absolutely incorruptible. Hence, they held that Christ’s body was absolutely free of corruption, not only the corruption of decay, which the Catholic faith holds (as that verse of the Psalms says: You will not let your holy one see corruption41), but also the corruption relating to the nature of death, which it is impious to hold, as Damascene makes clear in book III.42
To avoid the first heresy, we have to maintain the identity of the subject belonging to the body of Christ hung on the cross and to the one placed in the tomb. To avoid the second heresy, we have to maintain the true difference between life and death. Yet the first identity is greater than the second difference. Thus, the body of Christ hung on the cross was numerically the same as the one lying in the tomb.
So, to the first objection: That reasoning does not hold in the case of Christ’s body, because of the one subsisting individual.
Question 6
The next questions were about human things. The first were about grace, the second about the sacraments of grace, and the third about human acts.
Article 1
The first question was: Is God always making new grace?
It seems so:
In book VIII of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine compares the infusion of grace to illumination: Air does not become bright in the presence of light; it is being made so. If air became bright itself, rather than just being made so, then it would remain bright even in the absence of light. Similarly, a human being is illuminated in the presence of God, but remains in continual darkness without God, whose absence is not a matter of any spatial distance, but of the will’s own turning away.43 Yet the sun is always making new light in the air. Therefore, God is always making new grace in the soul.
But to the contrary: The more excellent the creation, the more excellent its existence. But grace is the most excellent creation, since it perfects the nature of rational creatures. Hence, its existence is the most excellent, and therefore does not just last for a moment. Thus, God is not always making new grace.
Answer: There are two kinds of action. One is performed with change, and thus always involves something new, since change always involves something ceasing to be and something else coming to be, given its retreat from one endpoint and its advance toward another. That is why the Philosopher says in book VIII of the Physics that every change is some sort of becoming and perishing.44 The other kind of action occurs without change, by a simple transfer of form, viz. when an agent impresses a likeness of itself upon a well-disposed receiver. Now, such action does in fact involve something new when it begins, since the subject acquires a new form. But it does not involve anything new as the action continues, since it is not connected to any change, but to a simple inflow or transfer. Hence, such action does not include anything new either.
Yet that is how God causes grace in the soul. For as long as grace lasts in the soul, God is affecting the soul by causing such grace in it. But that does not mean that God is always making new grace, and that the previously existing grace is destroyed from moment to moment. Rather, it means that God is always affecting the soul by preserving the grace that was first infused into it. Of course, that is hard to understand for people who cannot turn their attention away from actions that occur with change, which always involve something new, as we said.
So, to the first objection: Light is always being made in the air, because the sun’s act of illuminating the air is always preserving the light in it. But it is not as if new and different light is always being made.
Question 7
The next questions were about the sacraments of grace.
The first was about the sacrament of penance: (1) Is guilt forgiven by the absolution of a priest? The second was about the sacrament of marriage: (2) Can a man go on crusade if his wife cannot go with him and he is afraid that she will not remain continent?
Article 1
We turn, then, to the first question. Guilt seems to be forgiven by the absolution of a priest:
1. In his book On the Sacraments, Hugh of St. Victor says that the judgment of heaven follows the judgment of Peter.45 But the judgment of heaven concerns the forgiveness of guilt. Therefore, the forgiveness of guilt follows the judgment of Peter, which is made by the priest giving absolution.
2. The sacraments are medicine for sins. But medicine heals wounds and illnesses. Thus, the sacrament of penance heals the illness or wound of sin. But the sacrament of penance is completed by the priest saying: I absolve you, just as baptism is completed by him saying: I baptize you.46 Therefore, guilt is forgiven by the absolution of a priest.
But to the contrary: Only contrition forgives sin. As the Psalm says: I said, I will confess my iniquities to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.47 But contrition happens before the absolution of a priest, since a priest is only allowed to absolve a person that he judges to be contrite. Hence, the forgiveness of guilt happens before the absolution of a priest. Therefore, guilt is not forgiven by the absolution of a priest.
Answer: The sacraments work in two ways. One way is by actually being administered. The other way is by being desired. The reason for this is that the sacraments are instruments of God’s justifying mercy, and God sees the human heart. As 1 Kings 16 says: Men see the outward appearances, but the Lord looks on the heart.48 Hence, even though natural things have no effect without being presently employed, the sacraments have an effect just by being desired. But they have their fullest effect when the sacraments are actually administered.
This comes out clearly in the case of baptism. An adult catechumen who desires baptism has already received baptism’s effect of cleansing sin and conferring grace, the proper cause of which is God. Yet a person who is actually baptized receives the sacrament’s effects more fully, since the person is also marked and forgiven all punishment. But someone who does not desire baptism before actually being baptized (which is often the case with children) receives the grace that forgives sin and all the other effects of the sacrament at the time of baptism. This can even happen to an adult, if the desire for baptism begins when the person is baptized.
The same is true of the sacrament of penance, which is completed by the dispensation of the minister giving absolution. A person who is actually absolved receives the fullest effect of the sacrament. But one who desires the sacrament before being absolved has already experienced the power of the keys and received the forgiveness of guilt by intending to submit to the Church’s keys. If a person begins to be contrite and to desire the Church’s keys while being absolved, then the person’s guilt is forgiven by the grace of the priest’s absolution, since grace is poured out by this sacrament, as by all the sacraments of the New Law. Hence, those who are not completely contrite will sometimes receive the grace of contrition by the power of the keys, as long as they do not put an obstacle in the Holy Spirit’s way. The same goes for the other sacraments of the New Law, which all confer grace.
Of course, baptism and penance would still seem to differ, since the sacrament of penance is always administered to adults, who are usually contrite before the time of their confession and absolution, whereas baptism is most often conferred on children, who do not desire baptism first. But if baptism were always administered to adults, then the two would appear to be completely alike.
1. So, to the first objection: Hugh’s words should not be taken to mean that the judgment of Peter made by the absolving priest is temporally prior to the judgment of heaven (i.e., of God) forgiving guilt, but that the judgment of Peter is confirmed by the judgment of God.
2. To the second objection: The medicine of the sacrament works not only by being administered but also by being intended. That is why the wound is sometimes healed before sacramental absolution.
To the objection made to the contrary: True contrition is not possible without desiring the Church’s keys, insofar as one is sorry for past sins and intends to avoid future sins. That is why contrition forgives guilt.