I. Reply to the question
Ordinatio II, d. 44, q. un.
"Is the power for sinning from God?"
Concerning distinction 44 I ask whether the power for sinning is from God.
It seems that it is not:
According to Anselm in On Freedom of Choice 1, "the power to sin is neither freedom nor a part of freedom." Therefore, the power for sinning is not from God in virtue of the fact that free choice is from God. But neither is it from God in virtue of the fact that something other than free choice is from God. Therefore, it is not from God in any way.
On the contrary:
In the text the Master cites authorities for the claim that the power to sin is from God.1
I. Reply to the question
Reply:
"The power for sinning" means either (1) an immediate order to an act of sinning or (2) the foundation of this order, in virtue of which someone who has this foundation is said to have the power to sin.
If we take it in the first way (1), it is an order either (a) to the underlying act or (b) to the deformity that is in the act. If (a), that order is from God, as both extremes of the order are. And God too has power with respect to the underlying act, because he, and not only the created will, causes it, according to one view.2 If (b), that order toward sinning is nothing, just as its terminus is nothing, and so it is not from God.
1 Peter Lombard, Sent. II d. 44 c. 1 n. 3.
2 Namely, Scotus's own view. He holds that God acts along with created wills in all their acts, contrary to the view of Peter John Olivi, who held that a created will is the total cause of its own volition. Cf. Ordinatio
II dd. 34–7 n. 97, nn. 119–23.