In his small, but excellent work, Infant Perdition in the Middle Ages (https://archive.org/details/infantperditioni00coul/page/n3/mode/2up), George Coulton details how the teaching of the Roman Catholic church has varied on the point of infant damnation. It is now commonly held among Roman Catholics, as has been the case since Peter Abelard, that those infants dying with only original sin will suffer only from punishment of loss rather than from both punishment of loss and sense.
Punishment of sense (or poena sensus): “Exists partly in the anxieties of the conscience, partly in the other torments of mind or body that unrepentant people will undergo in this life or in the one to come.” (Synopsis, Disputation 16). As the synopsis defines it, it can be used of the inner grief and torments (including what is often called the “worm of conscience”) or the external pain inflicted upon the senses.
Punishment of loss (or poena damna): “Punishment of loss…consists in a total privation of all the happiness he was made capable of” (Body of Divinity, The Miseries of Hell). This may be used to speak of the loss of the Beatific vision (as we will see Thomas limits it to) or the loss of both the beatific vision as well as all natural happiness (as Willard is defining it here).
The position put forward by Thomas Aquinas, which now seems to be the majority position, is that infants will not suffer from pain of sense, but will only incur pain of loss, specifically of the beatific vision alone, although they will not be aware of this and so they will continue in a state of perfect natural happiness.
A large part of Coulton’s work is simply a translation from Bellarmine’s De Amissione Gratiae. In a very rare move on his part, Bellarmine actually sides with the Reformed, partially, and against Thomas Aquinas on this issue. I say “in part” because Bellarmine held, with Lombard, that while infants will suffer internal grief, they will nevertheless not suffer from any external pain inflicted upon the senses such as hellfire.
Bellarmine, when enumerating the different positions on the issue, explains the Pelagian position as follows:
The next is indeed rather less liberal, yet very mild. It is that of those who, though excluding unbaptized infants from the Kingdom of Heaven,and from the blessed life promised to the saints,yet did grant them eternal life, and a natural happiness without any uneasiness or pain [naturalem beatitudinem sine ulla molestia aut dolore] outside the Kingdom of Heaven,and far away from the prison of the damned ; that is, midway between hell and heaven; which place can scarcely be imagined elsewhere than this terrestrial globe. St. Augustine, in chapter 85 of his book Of Heresies, teacheth that the Pelagians of old held this opinion : "For," saith Augustine, "even to the unbaptized they promise a sort of life of their own, outside the Kingdom of God yet happy and everlasting." . . . Thus the Pelagians promised to unbaptized infants not everlasting life in its simple sense [of Heaven] but, as Augustine saith, “a sort of everlasting life of their own." The nearest approach This error seems to have been made [among Catholics] by Ambrosius Catharinus in his book Of the State of Children that die unbaptized,by Albertus Pighius in his first Controversy, and by Jerome Savonarola in his Triumph of the Cross. For these teach that unbaptized infants, after the Last Judgment, shall be happy with a natural happiness [beatos naturali beatitudine], and that they will live in perpetual felicity in a sort of Earthly Paradise.
He then explains Thomas’s position as follows:
The third opinion,somewhat more severe,teacheth that infants dying unbaptized are condemned to eternal death in hell [damnari apud inferos aeterna morte], but that they are thus punished by the lack of the Vision of God, which is called the penalty of loss [poena damni], so that they suffer no pain whatsoever, whether outward or inward. So St. Thomas teaches in his De Malo (Q.V.,art.1,2 and 3) and not only he but some other scholastic doctors in their commentaries on [Peter Lombard ' s] Sentences, Bk.II, dist. 9
It is, of course, not in Bellarmine’s interest to point this out, but I ask the reader, what exactly is the difference between these two positions? Look at what Augustine says, “even to the unbaptized they promise a sort of life of their own, outside the Kingdom of God yet happy and everlasting.” And yet it is precisely Thomas’s position that the damned infants will live a happy and everlasting life of perfect natural happiness. In this way, although Thomas does not promise to unbaptized infants the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision, he nevertheless does posit “a sort of everlasting life of their own.”
The only material difference, if any, is that Thomas’s position speaks of the loss of the beatific vision as a punishment and a form of damnation. But what is this except a necessary use of words in order to maintain orthodoxy when the infants, being destitute of any knowledge of such a loss, continue to enjoy the same natural happiness that the Pelagians promised? Augustine’s words, “Let no man promise unto unbaptized infants any sort of intermediate place of any rest or any happiness whatsoever, between damnation and the Kingdom of Heaven; for it was the Pelagian heresy which permitted this” is precisely applicable to Thomas’s position on damned infants in this regard (I also point out the implications that this quote has for any supposed patristic support of purgatory).
Bellarmine, for his part, seems to have realized this and seen that the many quotes from the fathers that he was racking up against the Pelagian view applied equally as well to Thomas’s. Thus he argues against Thomas’s view saying:
But St. Augustine denieth that [such] infants have any place of rest or happiness whatsoever; yet if, [as St. Thomas and others assert], they were touched by no pain or grief whatsoever, whether inward or outward, whether of body or of mind , then certainly they would enjoy rest, both great and perfect.
Though he would never put it in such a clear way, it seems obvious why Bellarmine takes the position that he does. Thomas has accepted a materially Pelagian conclusion, indeed one which, as Cardinal De Noris shows, would have been considered denying an essential article of the faith among the 6th-century church in Africa! (Page 16, 30-31).
As Coulton goes on to argue, infant damnation in the full sense of the term (including hellfire) was the position of the Christian church up until the time of Abelard, whose position Lombard would take up and from there became the dominant opinion among the scholastics. Indeed, insofar as the scholastics between Abelard and Thomas (such as Lombard, who Bellarmine follows), taught that infants still suffered from internal grief, “It should be noted, however, that this poena damni incurred for original sin implied, with Abelard and most of the early scholastics, a certain degree of spiritual torment, and that St. Thomas was the first great teacher who broke away completely from the Augustinian tradition on this subject, and maintained, at least virtually, what the great majority of later Catholic theologians have expressly taught,that the limbus infantium is a place or state of perfect natural happiness" (Pg. 17). As an aside, later proponents of the Augustinian view include, famously, Gregory Rimini and John Driedo, as Colton notes (I had a list of more names, but it seems I have accidentally deleted it). I also suspect that Juan Morillo (a member of the council of Trent who later became Reformed) may have held to this view as well as Girolamo Seripando, who, while holding that God in point of fact saves all infants (Franciscus Junius also held this view, by the way), was otherwise quite strong on concupiscence and quite faithful to Augustine (and, I might add, the soundest and most orthodox Romanist of his time), but of course, I am only going off “vibes” at this point.
I cannot do justice to Coulton’s work, so I recommend one click on the link at the beginning of this post and read from page 16 onwards. He very skillfully demonstrates that the now dominant position of the Roman Church very much lacks any catholicity.
I will now briefly respond to Thomas’s most substantial arguments in favor of his view on the penalty of original sin from a Reformed perspective.
I will group these arguments together, drawing from both De Malo V and the Appendix to the Supplement to the Summa.
Privation of the vision of God is a fitting punishment of original sin. And to prove this, we should consider that although two things seem to belong to something's perfection, one of being capable of a great good or of actually possessing it, and the second of needing no or little external help, the first condition outweighs the second. For it is far better to be capable of a great good although needing much help to attain it than to be capable of only a little good that can be attained with little or no external help. For example, we say that the body of a human being is better disposed if it could attain perfect health albeit with much help from medicine than if it could attain only imperfect health without the help of medicine. Therefore, rational creatures surpass every other kind of creature in being capable of the highest good in beholding and enjoying God, although the sources from their own nature do not suffice to attain it, and they need the help of God's grace to attain it. And we should note regarding this point that every rational creature without exception needs a particular divine help, namely, the help of sanctifying grace, in order to be able to attain perfect happiness, as the Apostle says in Rom. 6:23: "The grace of God is eternal life." But in addition to this necessary help, human beings needed another supernatural help because of their composite nature. For human beings are composed of soul and body, and of an intellectual and a sensory nature. And if the body and the senses be left to their nature, as it were, they burden and hinder the intellect from being able freely to attain the highest reaches of contemplation. And this help was original justice, by which the mind of human beings would be so subject to God that their lower powers and their very bodies would be completely subject to them, nor would their reason impede them from being able to tend toward God. And as the body is for the sake of the soul, and the senses for the sake of the intellect, so this help whereby the body is under the control of the soul, and sense powers under the control of the intellect, is almost a disposition for the help whereby the human mind is ordained to see and enjoy God. And original sin takes away this help of original justice, as I have said before." And when persons by sinning cast away the means whereby they were disposed to obtain a good, they deserve that the good that they were disposed to obtain be taken away. And the very taking away of the good is a fitting punishment for the sin. And so the fitting punishment of original sin is the taking away of grace and thereby of the vision of God for which grace ordains human beings.
According to the common opinion, original sin deserves only the punishment of loss, namely, privation of the vision of God, not punishment of the senses. And this seems convincing for three reasons. First, it indeed seems convincing because every person is an individual substance of a certain nature, and so persons of themselves are directly ordained for things that belong to that nature, and indirectly, by means of the nature, ordained for things superior to the nature. Therefore, it can be due to a fault of human nature or a personal fault that persons suffer harm regarding things superior to human nature, but it seems that it can be due only to a person's own fault that persons suffer harm regarding things that belong to human nature. And as is evident from what I have explained before, original sin is a fault of human nature, and actual sin is a fault of the person. And grace and the vision of God are superior to human nature, and so persons deserve privation of grace and privation of that vision both for their actual sins and for original sin. But punishment of the senses is contrary to the integrity of human nature and its right disposition, and so persons deserve punishment of the senses only for their actual sins.
Punishment should be proportionate to fault, according to the saying of Isaias (27:8), "In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it." Now the defect transmitted to us through our origin, and having the character of a sin does not result from the withdrawal or corruption of a good consequent upon human nature by virtue of its principles, but from the withdrawal or corruption of something that had been superadded to nature. Nor does this sin belong to this particular man, except in so far as he has such a nature, that is deprived of this good, which in the ordinary course of things he would have had and would have been able to keep. Wherefore no further punishment is due to him, besides the privation of that end to which the gift withdrawn destined him, which gift human nature is unable of itself to obtain. Now this is the divine vision; and consequently the loss of this vision is the proper and only punishment of original sin after death: because, if any other sensible punishment were inflicted after death for original sin, a man would be punished out of proportion to his guilt, for sensible punishment is inflicted for that which is proper to the person, since a man undergoes sensible punishment in so far as he suffers in his person. Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing that which his nature was unable to obtain. On the other hand, those who are under sentence for original sin will suffer no loss whatever in other kinds of perfection and goodness which are consequent upon human nature by virtue of its principles.
This, from what I can tell, is Thomas’s main argument. This line of argumentation is dependent upon Thomas’s assumption that the rectitude of the will (the privation of which is the concupiscence of original sin) is supernatural. I’ve addressed this issue here https://brandoncorleyschoo.wixsite.com/brandoncorley/post/whether-man-was-created-in-grace-a-comparison-of-reformed-and-thomist-argumentation and here https://brandoncorleyschoo.wixsite.com/brandoncorley/post/further-notes-on-nature-grace-and-original-righteousness and will not add much. The basic response from a Reformed/Ghentian perspective (not that Ghent actually made this argument, at least, not that I know of) would be: original sin/concupiscence is not only contrary to man’s supernatural end, but also to his natural end, so that it deserves not only the loss of supernatural, but of perfect natural happiness. That which is contrary to something deserves to lose that thing. Since the rectitude of the will/original justice is not a supernatural gift superadded to human nature, but rather a natural quality of it (hence Ghent’s line analogy), concupiscence is contrary to this and so is contrary to the natural end of man and not simply a supernatural end. Therefore man deserves to lose that perfect natural happiness of which he was by nature made for. Furthermore, since God is infinitely good, sin deserves the loss of all good, and so it is certain that those who are damned will possess no natural happiness and so will not simply miss out on the vision of God (and so the Synopsis says that “they are deprived of all happiness—which they call the punishment of damnation” and Samuel Willard says that “the punishment of loss…consists in a total privation of all the happiness he was made capable of”). Presumably, if Thomas held that integrity was not above human nature, he would concede that his argument fails to demonstrate here. (Note also that, as even Bellarmine says “we must hold, by the Catholic faith, that infants dying unbaptized are absolutely condemned, and shall forever lack not only heavenly but even natural blessedness”)
The next argument (if it may be called a single one, as I will soon elaborate on) was touched on a little by the above arguments. This one argues like so:
According to the common opinion, original sin deserves only the punishment of loss, namely, privation of the vision of God, not punishment of the senses. And this seems convincing for three reasons. First, it indeed seems convincing because every person is an individual substance of a certain nature, and so persons of themselves are directly ordained for things that belong to that nature, and indirectly, by means of the nature, ordained for things superior to the nature. Therefore, it can be due to a fault of human nature or a personal fault that persons suffer harm regarding things superior to human nature, but it seems that it can be due only to a person's own fault that persons suffer harm regarding things that belong to human nature. And as is evident from what I have explained before, original sin is a fault of human nature, and actual sin is a fault of the person. And grace and the vision of God are superior to human nature, and so persons deserve privation of grace and privation of that vision both for their actual sins and for original sin. But punishment of the senses is contrary to the integrity of human nature and its right disposition, and so persons deserve punishment of the senses only for their actual sins.
right reason does not allow one to be disturbed on account of what one was unable to avoid; hence Seneca proves (Ep. lxxxv, and De ira ii, 6) that "a wise man is not disturbed." Now in these children there is right reason deflected by no actual sin. Therefore they will not be disturbed for that they undergo this punishment which they could nowise avoid.
Third, original sin does not deserve punishment of the senses because habitual dispositions never deserve such punishment. For example, persons are not punished because they are disposed to steal but because they actually steal. Nonetheless, habitual privations unaccompanied by any act deserve to lose things; for example, one who is illiterate is by that very fact unworthy of elevation to the episcopal dignity. And original sin indeed involves concupiscence by way of an habitual disposition that renders infants apt to desire inordinately, as Augustine says, and causes adults actually to desire inordinately. And so an infant who died with original sin does not deserve punishment of the senses but deserves only the punishment of loss, namely, that the privation of original justice render the child unsuitable to attain the vision of God.
Real quickly, regarding the first quote, our previous answer to the first argument is relevant here. But at this point you, of course, have noticed that I am lumping very different arguments together into one. The reason I list these arguments as one is because I think they reveal that Thomas is missing something about the proper and intrinsic sinfulness of habitual concupiscence and how we can speak of a personal responsibility in an intrinsic voluntariness. The difference between the Reformed and Rome is subtle here, but it basically amounts to the difference between concupiscence being intrinsically sinful, “in its own nature” as it is often said, and it being extrinsically sinful only in virtue of its cause (the will of Adam). For Thomas, as for the Medievals in general going back to Augustine, original sin is only called voluntary “not by the will of the person, but only by the will of the origin of our nature.” The Reformed certainly do not deny that in this sense original sin may be called voluntary in Adam, but they certainly go further here.
Voetius, for instance, in his disputation on the propagation of sin, after asking whether the Reformed and Rome are in agreement on original sin, goes on to point out a few differences. He makes this specific point explicitly saying:
“Moreover they want the defect of original justice and the destitute sensitive appetite considered according to themselves to have the nature of punishment only and not of guilt; but that according to an extrinsic denomination it somehow has the nature of guilt, insofar as this defect is referred to the first sin of Adam, by which it is produced through a vitiated origin. Thus Thomas 1.4. q. 82. Art. 4. Viguerius in Institutions chapter 18 verse 5. Verse 1. Folio 244. Which we do not concede.”
John Davenant argues this point against Bellarmine:
In fine, they say, that that must not be looked upon as the guiltiness of concupiscence, which arises from it, and is founded in it, as though he who is involved in it were guilty for being in that state; but they will have that to be guiltiness by which it has itself been produced, not what it produces; and they illustrate the matter by the following comparison : As if anyone who should cut off his own hand, might be said to be guilty of cutting off his hand, not because to have the hand cut off is always sin, or makes one guilty, but because the cutting it off from himself involves guiltiness; so to have concupiscence in oneself does not make man guilty before God, but to have it from the voluntary transgression of Adam. This cavil, however, is set aside by those very words of Augustine; who, if he had wished to have expressed that meaning, would have said, “Moreover such and so little an evil has arisen from the voluntary sin of Adam, that it would hold us under sentence of death, unless it were remitted”; but on the contrary he says, “Such and so great an evil,from the very fact of its being in us,would hold us, &c”. Therefore it is condemnatory by its very inhesion, according to Augustine, and not merely from the mode having it, as Bellarmine would fain make out.
And Turretin, when considering whether every sin needs to be voluntary, points us to a way that habitual concupiscence may be said to be sufficiently voluntary for moral responsibility: “voluntary may be taken either strictly or broadly. In the former sense, it means that which is done by an actual movement of the will; in the latter, that which in any manner either affects the will and inheres in it or depends upon it.” In fact, Turretin, does not even once explicitly point to the extrinsic cause of original sin, the will of Adam. It is enough for original sin that it “either affect the will and inhere/adhere in it or depend upon it.”
Junius likewise says that original sin may be called actual (in the sense of first act) and (relevant to our purposes) voluntary insofar as it "in its first act it is sinning sin, acting inwardly and taking root, just as living is the first act of life by which we live. It is voluntary because it belongs to the will, which is as much sinful inwardly as it lives inwardly since our nature was corrupted."
That there is no sin unless it be voluntary must be understood like so: there is no sin except in relation to the will*. And yet disordered habitual concupiscence is related to the will, at the very least by adhering to it and depending upon it. Though the habit of concupiscence is not formally an act of the will, it is still a disorder in adhering to the will, disposing man to evil and contrary to good. If I can pull an illustration from an old article by John Frame that was very helpful to me in my thinking as a new Chrisitan:
If, as in my robot-machine illustration, someone is physically forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, then of course his bondage removes his responsibility for the act. Confronted with his “deed,” the person would have a valid excuse: “I couldn’t help it; I was physically forced to do it.” But imagine someone coming before a human judge and saying, to excuse himself of a crime, “I couldn’t help it, your honor; I was forced to do it by my nature. Since birth I’ve just been a rotten guy!” Surely there is something ironic about appealing to depravity to excuse depraved acts! If our defendant really is a “rotten guy,” then, far from being an excuse, that is all the more reason to lock him up! My point, then, is that although physical (and some other kinds of) bondage can furnish valid excuses for otherwise bad actions, moral bondage is not such an excuse. I can’t imagine anyone disputing that proposition once they understand it. (https://frame-poythress.org/free-will-and-moral-responsibility/)
A person who has a habitual sinful disorder is in himself sinful and the fact that he does not have the ability to have any contrary habit does not negate the sinfulness of the habit he has. He is a sinful person. Insofar as disordered habitual concupiscence may be said to affect the will, we may speak of a personal responsibility for one’s own depraved habit of original sin. The habit of original sin itself is sin, since it is contrary to the natural law which commands perfect habitual rectitude of man’s will. So Turretin says that “Although infants are not susceptible of law as to act, still they are as to habit (being rational creatures to whom the law prescribes every kind of holiness—habitual as much as actual). Hence original sin is rightly said to be against the law because it is a privation of the original righteousness which the law demands in man.” And Rutherford says that concupiscence is sinful “because this motion is contrary to the most intense disposition of loving God, which the Law requires.” The habit of original sin has both the form and the matter of sin, being both a voluntary (in the relevant sense per above) turning away from God and a consequent inordinate turning toward the creature (as we will discuss below).
*In fact, in this sense, it seems more precise not to follow (without qualification) Turretin and Rutherford ["Opposition to the Law of God is more essential to sin than something voluntary; nor is the voluntary essential to sin in general, because the powers, propensities and inclinations of the soul (which precede the voluntary) are defiled by sin; in which however the character of the voluntary has no place"] in substituting the voluntary for anomia to be the form of sin, as this might be taken to imply that God could issue commands which might result in sin being formally in the intellect (which I do not think Turretin or Rutherford would grant). Rather, we can just affirm that voluntary anomia is the form of sin, redefining voluntary as we have above. Only saying that the form of sin is “lawlessness” doesn’t seem to get at why only the will is capable of moral action. So why not just say the form of sin is voluntary (in Turretin’s sense) lawlessness?
The third argument is as follows:
Second, original sin does not deserve punishment of the senses because punishments are proportioned to moral fault. And so actual mortal sin, in which there is a turning away from the immutable good and a turning toward a transitory good, deserves both the punishment of loss, namely, the privation of the vision of God corresponding to the turning away from God, and punishment of the senses corresponding to the turning toward a creature. But there is no turning toward a creature in original sin and only a turning away from God, or something corresponding to such turning away, namely, the soul's forsaking original justice. And so original sin deserves only the punishment of loss, namely, the privation of the vision of God, not punishment of the senses.
Thomas’s argument here is this: punishment of damnation corresponds to turning away from God (aversion), but punishment of sense corresponds to turning towards the creature (conversion). This principle is wonderfully explained here:
Punishment is proportionate to sin. Now sin comprises two things. First, there is the turning away from the immutable good, which is infinite, wherefore, in this respect, sin is infinite. Secondly, there is the inordinate turning to mutable good. In this respect sin is finite, both because the mutable good itself is finite, and because the movement of turning towards it is finite, since the acts of a creature cannot be infinite. Accordingly, in so far as sin consists in turning away from something, its corresponding punishment is the "pain of loss," which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i.e. God. But in so far as sin turns inordinately to something, its corresponding punishment is the "pain of sense," which is also finite. (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FS_Q87_A4.html)
So because there is no conversion in original sin, therefore it does not deserve punishment of sense. In the Summa, Thomas considers a possible objection to this argument:
Further, even as in actual sin there is aversion and conversion, so in original sin there is something corresponding to aversion, namely the privation of original justice, and something corresponding to conversion, namely concupiscence. Now the punishment of fire is due to actual sin by reason of the conversion. Therefore it is also due to original sin by reason of concupiscence.
To which his response is:
Sensible pain corresponds to sensible pleasure, which is in the conversion of actual sin: whereas habitual concupiscence, which is in original sin, has no pleasure. Hence, sensible pain does not correspond thereto as punishment.
And he repeats this line in De Malo:
the grief of sensible punishment corresponds to the pleasure of sin (Apocalypse 18:7): "As much as she hath glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her." But there is no pleasure in original sin, as neither is there operation, for pleasure follows operation, as stated in Ethic. x, 4. Therefore punishment by fire is not due to original sin.
The Reformed response, it seems to me, is rather simple here: reject Thomas’s principle that pain of sense corresponds to pleasure in sin. He does not, as far as I can tell, draw this principle from anything other than his interpretation of Revelation 18:7. But on other grounds, it seems reasonable to hold that there are a variety of factors that will increase one’s accidental punishment in Hell which do not have to do with the pleasure that one takes in sinning (i.e. a stronger obstinance in sin as for instance Daniel Chamier argues in response to this very same line of reasoning in his Panstratia Catholica, which I will not quote here because translating it a few months back was probably the worst translation experience I have ever had). What essentially matters here is simply that there be something corresponding to conversion in original sin. And there is: namely, a habit of disordered turning towards the creature. So it seems to me that the Reformed can simply dismiss Thomas’s further specific requirement of pleasure and hold simply to the principle that any sort of conversion is what corresponds to pain of sense.
Finally, I want to suggest that we can use Thomas to argue against Bellarmine’s “internal grief only” view and establish the common Reformed (and Augustinian) view that infants will suffer external pain as well. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes:
No reason can be given — so argued the Angelic Doctor — for exempting unbaptized children from the material torments of Hell (poena sensus) that does not hold good, even a fortiori, for exempting them also from internal spiritual suffering (poena damni in the subjective sense), since the latter in reality is the more grievous penalty https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm
Thomas argues this in multiple places:
…there seems to be no reason why we should deny that they suffer external punishment of the senses if we affirm that they suffer internal anguish, which is far more a punishment and more contrary to the mildest punishment that Augustine.ascribes to them. And so it seems to others, and with better reason, that the children experience no internal torment. https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Logic/Logic%20Course%20Material/Aquinas%20Texts/Aquinas%20(Newer%20PDFs)/Quaestiones%20Disputatae%20de%20Malo%20ENGLISH.pdf
Augustine says (Enchiridion xxiii) that the mildest punishment of all will be for those who are burdened with original sin only. But this would not be so, if they were tormented with sensible punishment, because the pain of hell fire is most grievous. Therefore they will not suffer sensible punishment.
Moreover the very same reason that impugns their being punished with pain of sense, as afflicting them from without, argues against their feeling sorrow within, because the pain of punishment corresponds to the pleasure of sin; wherefore, since original sin is void of pleasure, its punishment is free of all pain.
Thomas is correct in his conclusion that one who holds to poena sensus in the sense of internal grief, sufferings, etc. has no ground to deny poena sensus in the sense of external torture by way of flames. Both are species of the pain of sense, not essentially differing from it, and so it would be entirely arbitrary to divide the two. Thomas’s solution, of course, is just to completely deny that infants suffer from any poena sensus. But the Reformed and Augustinian position may be helped by this consideration to exclude a more moderate position like Bellarmine’s.
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