Note 380 — Chapter IV

Cp. the passages from Occam, d’Ailly and Biel in Denifle-Weiss, 1², p. 591 ff. To the texts there quoted from Occam must be added those from 3 Sent., q. 8, A., where, “de necessitate habituum supernaturalium,” he establishes three conclusions: 1. Their necessity cannot be proved by natural reason. 2. The necessity of these habits cannot be inferred from the article of faith, that eternal salvation is bestowed on man on account of his merits. 3. We can in addition to each supernatural habit possess also a natural one corresponding to it and which impels us to similar acts. Yet, as he says in concluding, the passage 1 Cor. xiii. 13: “Nunc autem manent fides,” etc., teaches that the habits exist in the righteous and remain in the next life. But at the letter D he returns to the subject: one who is not baptised and receives instruction can arrive at the love of God: “dilectio non infusa, igitur acquisita”; the acts of the will which we produce are natural ones, therefore the habit also is natural which they induce: “non obstante quod sit in voluntate habitus supernaturalis propter auctoritatem [scripturæ], adhuc oportet ponere habitum naturaliter acquisitum.” Finally, under T, after again recognising the “fides infusa, propter auctoritatem scripturæ,” yet, as a matter of fact, he says, though the habits might be acquired naturally, they are frequently infused by God, and therefore called rightly “dona Dei” and “habitus infusi.” The same habit, however, cannot be merely naturally acquired, but also as such “habere effectus eiusdem speciei vel rationis”; the supernatural habits might nevertheless appear absolutely superfluous (“viderentur totaliter superfluere”) were it not for biblical authority; “non sunt ponendi propter aliquam rationem evidentem.” Thus, on the one hand, the strongest attempts to abolish the habits, and, on the other, a holding fast to the teaching of the Bible. Nothing is more incorrect than to accuse Occam of a simple surrender of the supernatural qualities and a direct destruction of the supernatural order. Even the index to Occam’s Commentary on the Sentences shows under the word habitus how strictly he distinguishes between habitus infusus and habitus acquisitus, and how he accepts both and teaches, for instance, that the natural habits may remain even after the destruction of the supernatural.