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B. Whether Being Penitent as an Act of Virtue is Required for Deletion of Sin
127. About the second main point [n.83], namely whether ‘to be penitent’, as an act of virtue, is required for deletion of sin, I say not as an act of one determinate virtue; and, second, not as an act of any virtue, of this or that sort indifferently; and third, if as an act with the circumstances present simply perfectly, is it sufficient as formed or as unformed?
1. For Deletion of Sin ‘To be Penitent’ is not Required as an Act of any Determinate Virtue
128. The first is plain from what was aid, that ‘to be penitent’ suffices according to any of the four significations stated before - as is proved by the authority of Ezekiel 18.21-22, “In the hour the sinner laments, he will be saved” [in Gratian Decretum p.1 d.50 ch.14, Lombard Sent. d.17 ch.1 n.4, from Caesarius of Arles, sermon 70 n.2: “In the day the sinner will be converted, all his iniquities will be given over to oblivion”]. The first act and two others do not necessarily belong to the same determinate virtue, but the first to justice, the last to patience, the two in the middle to any appetitive virtue.
2. For the Deletion of Sin an Act as it is First Generative of Virtue can Suffice
129. I prove the second [n.127], that an act equally perfect as to all moral circumstances is equally accepted by God for deletion of sin; but it is possible for an act equally perfect as to all circumstances to be had without generated virtue, just as it is possible for it to be had now with generated virtue. For there can be, in accord with a perfect dictate of intellect about any doable thing, a perfect choice, conditioned by all the circumstances, that is first generative of the virtue; and consequently, a right act perfectly circumstanced (which is required for deletion of sin), does not have to be an act of virtue as coming from a virtue now inwardly present, but it can come from an act of virtue as this act is first generative of the virtue.
3. Whether for Deletion of Sin is Required a Human Act that is Unformed or Formed
130. About the third [n.127] I say that the requirement of some human act for deletion of sin can be understood in two ways: either as a disposition preceding it or as one concomitant with it.
131. In the first way an unformed act is sufficient; indeed it is always unformed, because a disposition previous to deletion of sin is always without the grace and charity by whose inherence and inclination to act alone is an act said to be formed.
132. In the second way [n.130] I say that a formed act is required, because in the instant in which sin is deleted charity is present, and consequently, if an act as concomitant is required, a formed act is required.
133. To understand this one must note that when a sinner is in a state of sin (in the way stated in the preceding question, the first article, that sin remains after the act [nn.28-34]), he is able, using his natural powers with their common influence, to reflect on the sin committed as it is offensive to God, and contrary to the Divine Law, and turning away from God, and impeding reward, and inducing punishment, and under many such ideas. The will too can, under any of these ideas, detest the sin thus considered, and its motion can be continued and intensified before infusion of grace.
134. This detesting can also be conditioned fully with its due moral circumstances. For it is not likely to be necessary that any act concerning the committed sin be, because of the remaining sin within, defective in any moral circumstance. Thw whole movement here is called attrition, and it is a disposition, or a merit by congruity,12 for the deletion of mortal sin, which deletion follows at the last moment of the time during which the attrition endured.
135. And it is not certain whether God wanted such attrition, if it not be perfectly morally conditioned, to be a disposition for justification. At any rate, if there is some circumstance not conditioned in proper order, such attrition is not a disposition for justice, because it is actually then offensive. But if it is lacking some due circumstance only because of inconsideration or omission by the will as to that circumstance, then there is doubt whether it be a sufficient disposition for justice.
136. However, if the attrition has all the circumstances in the class of morals perfectly, the disposition does seem to be an altogether sufficient disposition for acquiring justice at the term of the attrition - at the term, I say, which God has prefixed should be the term of the motion of the attrition that he wants to be continued up to that point. For either one must say that a sinner is justified without any disposition on his part that is sufficient by congruity (and it is consequently difficult to save the fact that there is with God no acceptance of persons, as was said in Ord. II d.7 n.47ff. [Rep IVA d.7 qq.13]).13 Or that there can be no disposition more sufficient for this justification than this attrition perfectly circumstanced in the class of morals, and that then in the final instant (or in some instant up to which God has determined the attrition should last so as to be a merit by congruity for justification), grace is infused and sin is then simply destroyed.
137. And if the movement against sin remain the same in being of nature and of morals as it was before, the same motion that was attrition before becomes, in that instant, contrition as well, because in that instant it becomes concomitant with grace and so is a formed act, because it has charity along with it, which is the form of the act as we are here speaking of it.
138. One must, however, distinguish moments14 of nature there: between the act as it is the sort of thing it is in being of nature and of morals, and between charity, and between the act as it is formed - because in the first moment of nature an act of the above sort is there; in the second there is charity; in the third an act formed by a charity now inclining inherently from within. And in this way does attrition become contrition without any real change in the act itself.
139. To the contrary: therefore guilt is not destroyed by contrition, because there is only contrition in the third moment of nature, and guilt is destroyed in the second moment; nor even is it destroyed by this contrition as by merit, because it follows the deletion.
140. One can say, therefore, that God disposes to give, through attrition over time (as through a merit by congruity), at some instant grace; and he justifies for that attrition, as for a merit, in the way it is the merit of justification. And although the act concerning the sin not be continued the same as before in genus of nature and morals, yet in that instant grace would be infused, because now sufficient merit by congruity has preceded. For let it be that in the final instant the intellect and will cease from the act just done by turning themselves to some other inappropriate act, why will he not be justified in that final instant as someone else will be who in that instant has the act he had before? For he who has the act in that last instant is not justified in that last instant by that sort of act, but by the act as it has gone before in time, and in this way did the former have that act.
141. And one would, according to this, say that it is not necessary for deletion of sin that some act of penitence is concomitant, neither formed nor not formed, but only that an unformed act of penitence precedes in time up to that instant.
142. But what if in that or some other moment he put an obstacle in the way? For just as he can have an inappropriate act then, so can he have an opposite one.
143. One would say that he cannot put an obstacle in the way, because he has already merited that in that instant grace be given to him.
144. But this is nothing, for although one could not put an obstacle in they way in the instant of being rewarded after merit by congruity, namely one cannot demerit in the instant of death (for then impeccability must be rendered for his merit), yet he who has merited by congruity can put an obstacle in the way in the instant in which he would receive the term of merit if there were no obstacle; and just as in the term of merit by congruity he is able not to have that which he did not merit (because he puts an obstacle in the way), so it is likely that unless he continue in that instant an act in the class of morals of like sort, he will not have that for which such an act by congruity meritoriously disposes him.
145. And therefore the first way [n.138] seems more reasonable, namely that by an unformed act of penitence but one that is fully or half fully circumstanced in the class of morals, sin is deleted as by preceding disposition and merit by congruity. And by an act of penitence that is formed and is called ‘contrition’ sin is deleted as by concomitant act [nn.130-132].
146. And when it is argued that contrition as contrition follows deletion of sin [n.139], I reply: the act that is contrition is, in the same instant of time, prior in nature to the deletion, even though as contrition, that is, as formed, it follow the deletion of sin in order of nature. And thus should it be conceded, in the sense of division, that by the act that is contrition sin is destroyed as by an altogether proximate disposition; nor is it unacceptable, rather is it acceptable, that the proximate disposition exist at the same time as the form for which it is the disposition.
147. If a question be asked about the four acts above stated [nn.62; 57, 120-126], by comparing them with each other as to which is simply a disposition more fitting for deletion of sin - I reply: the more an act is elicited from more virtues and from virtues more perfect, the more is that act better; therefore if the first act be elicited by justice alone, mediately or immediately, and if the second act and the third be elicited by a more perfect virtue, that is, by charity, it is plain that the second or third is more excellent than the first. The same way of understanding must be taken about the fourth; for it is simply most imperfect, both because it has less of the idea of the voluntary and because it is from a less perfect virtue [sc. patience].
148. But if justice, when commanding an act in the first way, be moved to give its command by an act of charity, as is above said to be possible [n.120], then the first act has a double goodness: both from the justice proximately commanding the act and from the charity remotely commanding the act. Similarly, if justice in the first way command the use of charity as proximate cause with respect to sadness, the act of charity is thereby more perfect (because coming from two virtues) than if it come from one alone.
149. But if it be asked which of these acts is more efficacious with respect to the inhering of sadness, I reply: the last two presuppose a sadness already inherent. And the other two can be mutually excellent in inducing sadness. For sometimes, from love or contemplation of God, there is at once present a certain detestation of sin, and there follows a very strong sadness when still no act of justice with respect to sadness is in place. And sometimes the first act of justice is present and intense in itself, and yet the proximate causes (namely the intellect in considering and the will in detesting) are not efficaciously moved by command of justice, perhaps because they lack the habits that would be the principles of perfection in their acts. And although these are sometimes moved, sadness does not follow, because, although this could be for many causes, it is sometimes for this cause, that just as the intellect is conformed in us to the sense part, so too the intellective appetite, as far as concerns being easily delighted or saddened, is conformed to the sense appetite. Therefore, his will is not easily saddened whose sense appetite is not of a nature to be saddened or grieved.
150. And from this follows that there is someone who has a very great act of penitence in the first way and yet no or little effect; and some others, without any act of penitence in the first way, have an effect very great, an effect of the same idea as that which is of a nature to be the effect of penitence. And the fact that the effect is greater or lesser is indeed an excellence in the order of deletion of sin. But greater simply is the excellence of act over act, on which acts follows the sadness on this side and on that, because the act causative of sadness destroys sin meritoriously more than does the sadness itself.