4. Four Queries about Sin and their Solution

52. From this solution [nn.46-51] is made plain a solution to the queries raised about sin: first, whether the per se idea of sin is more a matter of aversion from [God] or of conversion to [creatures]; second, how mortal sins can be specifically distinct if the formal idea of sin lies in aversion; third, how one mortal sin can be more serious than another if they are aversions from the same good (for pure privation does not seem to admit the more and less, according to Anselm On the Virginal Conception ch.24). [Fourth query n.63.]

a. To the First Query

53. To the first [n.52] I say that aversion from the ultimate end can be understood in two ways: formally or virtually.

54. Formally either by contrariety or by negation, such that the will refuses the end, or does not wish something when it should wish it; and such refusing is hating while not wishing is to omit the precept [Deuteronomy 6.5, Matthew 22.37], “Love the Lord thy God etc.”

55. Virtually, such that when something is necessary for attaining the ultimate end, the will, having turned away from that necessary thing, thereby turns away virtually from the end (in the way the intellect, when it denies the conclusion,a turns away virtually from the principle of itb).

a. a[Interpolation] some conclusion that follows from some principle.

b. b[Interpolation] and in the way a sick man is said to turn away from health when he turns away from a bitter drink without which health cannot be had.

56. The first aversion [aversion formally, n.54] is, in itself, of the same idea [sc. aversion both by contrariety and by negation]; nor is it included formally in every sin whatever; for hatred of God is a specific sin, and omission of the precept “Love the Lord thy God etc.” is another specific sin.

57. In the second way [virtually, n.55] aversion is common to every mortal sin, because in every such sin the will is disposed in disordered way with respect to something necessary for the end. - Where does this something necessary come from? From the divine will prescribing it to be observed, “if you wish to enter into life” [Matthew 19.17-19]; not from another practical syllogism (for the need here is not to inquire into the doctrine of the philosophers but into the precepts of God in Scripture).

58. This sort of aversion from God is the essential idea of any sin whatever; for as the formal idea of rightness is the proper end in an act about some being that is for the end, so too the proper lack of such rightness is the proper lack of virtue that comes from the end, because it is the proper formal aversion from that which is proper for the end; and in this way aversion is nothing other than disorder of will about something ordained for the end by divine precept, about which thing the will ought to be ordered.

b. To the Second Query

59. From this the second query is clear [n.52], because since privations are made distinct in species by the distinction in species of the opposed positive states, then lackings of rectitude in acts are diverse in species the way that distinction belongs to privations and numbers, by the number of rightnesses in acts that would have to be held to be diverse.a And so sins are not distinguished by the way they turn toward their objects (which are not bad save materially), but their formal idea is distinguished by reference to the specifically different rightnesses that ought to have been present in them.

a. a[Interpolation] and sins that are diverse in number from the numerical distinction of the positive states, these sins, which are certain privations namely privations of the rectitude that should be present in acts, are distinguished formally by the distinctions of such rectitude - as that, since specifically diverse rectitudes ought to have been present, the lackings of these rectitudes are specifically diverse.

60. Thus too there can be several sins of the same species present, and these sins are the privations of the numerically several actual aptitudes that ought to have been present in the successive diverse acts.

c. To the Third Query

61. As to the third [n.52], it is also clear that that sin is more serious in kind which is opposed to a better rightness; now the rightness is better which, ceteris paribus, is more immediate to the end. This point is plain from a likeness in principal premise and conclusion, for the error is greater and more false which redounds more on the premise, or by which a truer conclusion, and one nearer the premise, is denied.

62. But, speaking of the same kind of mortal sin, that sin is more serious where the will sins with greater lust - because the more the will strives, the more perfect the act it would cause, and it is bound to give the act a rightness with the same proportion, if the act is capable of rightness or, if the act is not capable of rightness, it is bound to guard itself from that act more than from another act less repugnant to rightness; and so, by failing to do so, it sins more. An example of this is if the intellect, when erring about one conclusion, has a more necessary object than when erring about another conclusion, then the error of the intellect in the first case is the worse the more the true (opposed) act ought to have been more perfect.

d. To the Fourth Query

63. From this is also easily made plain that, if sins could be continued infinitely, nothing unacceptable would follow; for the sins would corrupt the good infinitely - not by the corruption that is a change, but by the corruption formally that is a privation, and this not privation of a good that was present [n.46] but of a good that ought to have been present. Now infinite goods or infinite right acts are due from the will if it is conserved infinitely, and therefore, without any diminution of the will or of any first act in it, an infinity of such goods can suffer privation.

64. And if it is objected against this way [n.63] and in favor of the other two [n.35], which posit that nature or grace is corrupted:

The proof [Aquinas, Lombard] that nature is corrupted is from Luke 10.30, “and having beaten him with blows [sc. the man journeying to Jericho], the thieves departed,” where the gloss [Nicholas of Lyra] says, “sins wound man in his natural powers” -which would not be true if sin took nothing away from the perfection of nature but only prevented such perfections from existing in second act.

The proof [Aquinas] that grace is corrupted is that grace is destroyed by mortal sin; because if sin were not formally corruptive of grace, then grace could stand along with it, which is absurd.

65. To the first proof I reply that the wounded traveler lost no part of his nature, although its continuity was broken and thereby rendered less fit for its operations, or rather deprived of good use of itself; thus nature “while remaining in its integrity” (according to Dionysius Divine Names ch.4) is wounded when it is made unfit for right use, which is done by repeated lack of actual rightness.

66. To the second proof I say that sin cannot corrupt grace causally [n.42] but only by way of demerit, so that the will naturally averts itself [sc. from rightness] prior in nature to God’s ceasing in nature to conserve grace; now it is necessary that every privation be formally the privation of some positive state, with which the privation cannot stand; sin therefore is not formally the privation of grace, and it destroys grace not by incompossibility but by demerit.