Question Two
What punishment is owed to children dying in original sin
It is doubted with what punishment children who die without baptism and with original sin alone are punished in limbo.
To this it is answered that the fitting punishment of children who have died with original sin alone in limbo is the subtraction of grace and, consequently, the lack of the divine vision to which a human being is ordained through grace.
But perhaps you ask whether such children in limbo feel any sorrow or interior affliction from the lack of the divine vision.
It is answered that certain persons say regarding this that such children in limbo feel no interior affliction from the lack of the vision of God. They assign this reason: where there is no knowledge or thought of a good made for oneself, there is no affliction. But the souls of children dying with original sin alone are established in such great darkness of ignorance that they do not know that they were made for beatitude and do not think anything about beatitude. Therefore they say that those children suffer no affliction.
But this reasoning, Thomas says, is not valid.
First, because natural knowledge flourishes more vigorously in a separated soul than in a soul joined to the body here. Therefore, since there is no personal sin in those children, it is not owed to them that they should suffer any detriment in natural things, namely in natural knowledge.
Likewise, according to this position, those who are in hell would possess better knowledge with respect to the intellect than children in limbo. For those who are in hell are not in the darkness of ignorance of natural things, but according to those persons the children are; and thus the damned would possess better knowledge than the children. For there is no one, as Augustine says, who would not prefer to suffer pain with a sound mind rather than rejoice while insane.
And therefore another reason is assigned why children in limbo have no interior sorrow or affliction from the lack of the divine vision. It is this: a twofold knowledge of beatitude can be had, namely natural and supernatural.
The souls of infants in limbo do not lack the natural knowledge which is owed to a separated soul according to its nature. Indeed, their natural knowledge is increased when they enter upon the mode of knowing possessed by separated intellects. Therefore they naturally have great knowledge of God and creatures, greater than any philosopher in the world ever possessed.
For they know naturally that they were made for beatitude and that beatitude consists in the attainment of the perfect good, but not that such a good is the glory which the saints possess in heaven. That which is possessed through nature, however, is possessed without sorrow. From this aspect, therefore, the children in limbo do not grieve.
There is also another knowledge of beatitude which is possessed supernaturally and is planted in us here through faith. It concerns the glory and fruition of the saints in heaven, “which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it naturally ascended into the heart of man,” 1 Corinthians 2, and which God has revealed to us through the Holy Spirit, Romans 1. This revelation is possessed through faith planted in us here in the sacraments or in repeated Christian acts.
But the children in limbo neither possessed faith concerning beatitude in act, nor received the sacraments of faith, nor possessed it through revelation. Therefore neither do they grieve over its absence. For no one grieves over that of which he does not know himself to be deprived, or over the loss of something which does not touch or pertain to him.
For a peasant or artisan does not grieve if after the king’s death he does not obtain or possess the kingdom, because he knows that it does not pertain to him. But the king’s son would indeed grieve and be displeased if he did not obtain it, because he knows that it belongs and is owed to him after his father’s death.
So it happens with the children existing in limbo. They do not grieve over the lack of the vision of God and the privation of the glory of the blessed, because they have not known these things and know that this glory does not pertain to them.
Nevertheless, because the children in limbo are not prevented from a perfect natural knowledge of the first cause, of God, and of other things by immersion in and affliction from the punishments of sense, fire, the worms of conscience, and demons, as occurs in the damned, therefore they possess some degree of delight from such a natural knowledge of God himself and of creatures. For everyone naturally delights in the knowledge of truth.
Hence in this delight the children praise God, the cause of causes of all the things naturally known by them, and after their bodies have been reassumed they will praise him. This does not and will not occur with the damned, because their worm lives and will not die, demons will never be absent from hell, and the fire there will not cease to burn for eternity.
These things are from Thomas in the disputed questions On Evil and in Book II of the Sentences, distinction 34, question 2; Saint Vincent in his sermons; Lord Henry of Hesse upon Genesis; and the Decrees, On Consecration, distinction 4, chapter Firmissime.
The opinion of certain sorceresses and foolish women, who say that the souls of children dying without baptism wander through the world until the day of judgment or afterward, is ridiculous and supported by no Catholic foundation.
Addition
Biel writes many things concerning the punishments of children in Book II, distinction 33, the sole question; Paul Cortesius in Book IV, distinction 3; Saint Bonaventure in Book IV, distinction 45, article 1, question 1; and Thomas of Strasbourg in the same distinction in Book IV.