Summa I-II Q20 a.5–6 and Q21 a.1: Whether Consequences Add to an Act's Goodness, Whether One Act Can Be Both Good and Bad, and Rightness and Sin

Orientation #

He begins by saying “we’re up to Article Five here in Question Twenty” and ends by calling a break before going on (to q. 21 a. 2). He does not otherwise refer to last time. The previous class treated the earlier articles of q. 20 on interior and exterior act; the next continues q. 21 on malum, peccatum, culpa and merit.

The class, in order #

1. Opening aside: the Catena Aurea (“ninety-nine animals you know that are okay”) #

Before the text, he reports a reading from the Catena Aurea: one patristic reading of the lost sheep takes the ninety-nine left in the mountains as the angels (left in the high contemplation of seeing God) and the one lost as the human race; he thinks it was Gregory. A biography of Thomas he has been reading insists on the Catena Aurea as a masterpiece of selection, important for Thomas’s theological development.

2. Q. 20 a. 5, objections and sed contra (“adds to the goodness or badness”) #

The question: whether the event (result) following upon an act adds to its goodness or badness. Objections as read:

1. Effects pre-exist in virtute (in the power) of their cause; events follow acts as effects follow causes; a thing is judged good or bad by its power, for “virtue makes its haver good and its act good” (Aristotle, Ethics). So events add.
2. Goods that follow the preaching of the teacher redound to the merit of the preacher, as Philippians 4 shows (“my joy and my crown”). He compares the Psalm “see your children’s children”: not just being a grandfather, but those you teach teaching others. Aside: these objections are Dominican in flavour (O.P., Ordo Praedicatorum); he recalls Fr. Jacob Restrick, chaplain of the Dominican nuns in West Springfield, now in Hawthorne.
3. Punishment is not added unless guilt increases (Deuteronomy 25: the measure of the sin is the measure of the scourges); but the following event adds punishment: Exodus 21, the ox that gored the day before, whose owner was warned and did not lock it up, and it kills a man or woman — the ox is stoned and the owner killed; he would not be killed had the ox not killed. Aside: “pit bulls”.
4. One who strikes or gives a sentence that could cause death contracts no irregularity if death does not follow, but does if it follows. He notes the newspaper case: the person you assaulted now dies and you are in more trouble. Sed contra: the following event does not make a good act bad or a bad act good: alms given to a poor man who abuses them for sinning lose nothing to the giver; an injury borne patiently does not excuse the one who did it. (Aside about the beheaded saint who walked carrying his head — St. Denis, he thinks.)

3. Q. 20 a. 5, resolutio and replies (“foreknown or not”) #

The point: Thomas does not simply dismiss the objections; he distinguishes.

1. If the event is foreknown (praecogitatus), it manifestly adds: one who thinks many bad things can follow from his work and does not stop for that shows a will still more disordered.
2. If not foreknown, distinguish again: if it follows per se from such an act and for the most part, it adds; that act is manifestly better from whose kind many goods are apt to follow, and worse (peior) from which many bad things are apt to follow (his example: divorce, from which a lot of bad follows).
3. If it follows per accidens and ut in paucioribus (in fewer cases), it does not add, for judgment is given about a thing according to what is per se, not what is per accidens. He stresses the per se / per accidens distinction as “a very important distinction.” Replies:

• Ad 1: the power of a cause is judged by its per se effect, not the per accidens. Examples: on the firing range the shot ricochets and kills a man; I send you to the drugstore for medicine and you are shot in a hold-up — that does not make my sending you worse. His own story: sent to Assumption on a winter day when the school was closed, hit by a car on the way back, still held responsible.
• Ad 2: the goods from the preacher’s teaching are per se effects, hence redound to his reward, especially when intended beforehand (aside: unless you go up to preach out of pride).
• Ad 3: the event for which punishment is commanded follows per se from such a cause, and is laid down as something that ought to have been foreseen. Student: driving fast doesn’t always hit somebody. His answer: not per se on an open road, but speeding down a blind alley is different — his St. Paul example of the alley between rows of houses where milk deliverymen hit too many kids and were stopped; there it adds to the badness, and the judge comes down harder.
• Ad 4 (read after he notices they had skipped it): the argument would hold if irregularity followed the guilt; but it follows the thing done, on account of some defect of the sacrament. He explains irregularity as an impediment to a sacrament — orders, he guesses, and marriage.

4. Q. 20 a. 6, objections (“one act is able to be good and bad”) #

The question, which “sounds highly suspicious”: whether the same exterior act can be good and bad.

1. One motion is one that is continuous (Physics V, “Natural Hearing”); but one continuous motion can be good and bad: someone walking to church first intends vainglory, then to serve God.
2. Acting-upon and undergoing are one act (Physics III) — “my kicking you and your being kicked is the same thing”; but the undergoing can be good (Christ’s) and the acting bad (the Jews’). His gloss: you take being kicked well, as reparation for your sins; my kicking you is bad.
3. The servant is a tool of the lord, and the action of a tool is the action of the artist; the servant’s action can proceed from the good will of the lord and the bad will of the servant. Sed contra: contraries cannot be in the same; good and bad are contraries.

5. Q. 20 a. 6, resolutio and replies (“one when it is considered in the genus of quantity”) #

“He’s always thinking out some distinction, this guy.”

1. Nothing prevents something being one in one genus and many as referred to another genus: a continuous surface is one in the genus of quantity, many in the genus of colour if part is white and part black (student: a cutting board).
2. So an act may be one as referred to the genus of nature and not one in the genus of morals: walking (ambulatio) is one act in nature, but many morally if the will of the walker changes, since the will is the source of moral acts. Your walk here today may have been one natural act and morally two or three.
3. Conclusion: taken as one in the genus of morals, an act cannot be good and bad; one by unity of nature but not by unity of morals, it can be both. Replies:

• Ad 1: continuous motion from diverse intention is one by natural unity, not by moral unity. Aside: mos means custom, and moral virtue is produced by repeated acts, i.e. by custom; but “in the genus of the customary” would not sound right — he remains “a little puzzled” how to translate, and uses “morally speaking / naturally speaking”.
• Ad 2: acting and undergoing belong to the genus of morals insofar as voluntary; voluntary by diverse wills, they are two morally, one good and one bad. A student connects this to the Passion: we are to blame because we did what was in our power to offend and kill our Lord. Aside: Physics III is where Thomas discusses the categories — action is named from the agent, passion from the undergoer, like stamping wax; a student suggests wax-and-stamp fits being made “to” the image (correspondence to exemplar) more than “in” the image.
• Ad 3: the servant’s act, insofar as it goes forth from the servant’s will, is morally not the lord’s act, but only insofar as it proceeds from the lord’s command; the servant’s bad will does not make the lord’s act bad in itself. Asides: St. Gertrude asking our Lord to protect the nuns and angels surrounding the convent to keep demons from the office; a story (Fr. Robert’s) of soldiers who declined to attack a convent because they saw armed soldiers on the roof.

6. Q. 21 prologue (“those things which follow upon human acts”) #

Four questions: whether a human act, as good or bad, has the ratio of (1) rectitude or sin, (2) praiseworthy or culpable, (3) merit or demerit, (4) merit or demerit before God. On translating ratio: Thomas is very free with it; Fr. Peter noted the Italian ragione as “account”, so “whether it should be accounted praiseworthy”. On the fourth article: you can do a good act and still go to hell — masons doing charity, selling Christmas trees. Aside from the biography: Thomas, sent to teach Dominican beginners in the Roman province with Lombard’s Sentences, found it too difficult for them and began the Summa Theologiae for them.

7. Q. 21 a. 1, objections and sed contra (“sins are monsters in nature”) #

1. Sins are monsters in nature (Physics II); but monsters are not acts but things generated outside nature’s order; art and reason imitate nature; so a bad act does not have the notion of sin. Student: is a born-handicapped or stillborn child a “monster” but not a sin? — he allows it, “missing all kinds of parts”.
2. Peccatum in nature and art (Physics II) is not arriving at the intended end; but the goodness of a human act consists most of all in the intention of the end and its carrying out; so badness of the act does not bring in sin. Aside: the same word occurs in the book on the places [ed.: Topics] — the definition that is “not what it should be”.
3. If badness induced sin, wherever there is bad there would be sin; but punishment is bad and not sin. Sed contra: the goodness of a human act depends chiefly on the eternal law, so its badness is discord with it; and this is the definition of sin: Augustine, Contra Faustum XXII, sin is something said, done or desired against the eternal law.

8. Q. 21 a. 1, resolutio (“the middle does not go out from the extremes”) #

1. Malum is said of more than peccatum: every sin is bad, not every bad is sin; likewise good is wider than rectum. (Translating rectum: “right”; cf. the new Mass response “right and just”.)
2. Any privation of good constitutes the notion of bad; peccatum properly consists in an act done for an end that lacks due order to that end.
3. Due order to an end is measured by a rule; in natural things the rule is nature itself, inclined to the end. When the act proceeds from the natural power according to that inclination there is rightness, “because the middle does not go out from the extremes” — borrowed from the definition of a straight line (sight down it and nothing rises above or below); we speak of a “straight thinker”, “straight shooter”.
4. When someone recedes from that rightness the act incurs the notion of sin. In voluntary things the proximate rule is human reason, the supreme rule the eternal law; the act to the end according to both is right; when oblique (“skewed”) it is peccatum.
5. So every voluntary act is bad by receding from the order of reason and the eternal law, and every good act is in agreement (concordia) with them; hence a human act, from being good or bad, has the notion of rightness or sin. Asides: translating concordia — dictionary gives “agreement”, though “concord” feels more obvious; the English translators use “concord/concordant”; Thomas calls the end of the state ordered agreement — a student: one can have disordered agreement, people agreeing to sin. He notes Thomas does not use “wrong”; the etymology of “wrong” would be interesting to study.

9. Q. 21 a. 1, replies and closing digressions (“ignorance or being what deceived”) #

• Ad 1: monsters are called peccata naturae — a striking phrase, since we use “sin” more narrowly — insofar as they exist in the act of nature. Digression on agnoia (from last night’s reading of Topics VI on extrinsic places, and the Posterior Analytics): the Greek word means both not knowing and being mistaken; English “ignorance” seems to name only the privation, though it can be the cause of mistake; “mistake” and “error” are English and Latin for the same. “Agnostic”: popularly many agnostics are really atheists, only less on the warpath; Chesterton’s joke that science means knowledge, so how does knowledge make people ignorant. His true/false exam on Socratic principles: blank, one point off (ignorance); wrong, two points off (also thinking you know what you don’t); a student adds “the only thing worse than ignorance is error”. Where is folly? Shakespeare’s “fond” = foolish; one acts foolishly over a girl or in anger, but as blindness is lack of sight in the eye, folly is in the reason/judgment, the emotion only its cause.
• Ad 2: the end is twofold, last and proximate. In the sin of nature the act fails of its last end (the perfection of the generated thing), not of every proximate end, since nature does form something. In the sin of the will there is always a defect from the last end, since no bad voluntary act can be ordered to beatitude, though it may not fail of some proximate end which the will intends and achieves; the intention of that end, as ordered or not to the last end, is where rightness or sin is found. Digression on providence: something can be ordered to another and other things to it (intermediate ends, as Aristotle says) — headache → aspirin → drugstore; logic → natural philosophy → wisdom. The bad cannot be an end, so God orders nothing to it, but orders it to something else: the humbling of the sinner or His justice — “a nice distinction he sees”.
• Ad 3: each thing is ordered to its end through its own act, so sin, a deviation from the order to the end, is properly in the act; punishment regards the person sinning. He calls a break.

His words #

• in virtute — “in the power” of the cause.
• praecogitatus — foreknown.
• per se / per accidens — as such and for the most part vs. by chance and ut in paucioribus (in fewer cases).
• “Natural Hearing” — [ed.: Aristotle’s Physics].
• acting-upon / undergoing — his rendering of action and passion [ed.: actio/passio].
• genus of nature / genus of morals — “naturally speaking / morally speaking”; mos = custom, he is unsure how to translate.
• ratio — “notion”, “aspect”, “character”; via Italian ragione, “account”.
• rectum — “right”; rectitudo — rightness, straightness.
• malum — “bad”; peccatum — sin, but generic (also of nature and art); peccata naturae — “sins of nature”, i.e. monsters.
• oblique — “skewed”.
• concordia — agreement / concord.
• agnoia — ignorance, or being mistaken/deceived.
• “fond” (Shakespeare) — foolish.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 20, a. 5 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 20, a. 6 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 21, prologue and a. 1 (whole article) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Ethics (“virtue makes its haver good and its act good”); Physics II (monsters, sin in nature and art), III (action and passion one act), V (one motion is continuous)
• Aristotle, Topics (“book on the places”), VI, extrinsic places; agnoia; Posterior Analytics on agnoia (inferred loci)
• Philippians 4; Deuteronomy 25; Exodus 21; a Psalm (“see your children’s children”)
• Augustine, Contra Faustum XXII (definition of sin)
• Catena Aurea (lost sheep); a biography of Thomas (author garbled, likely Weisheipl (inferred)); Thomas on friendship/concordia; Thomas on divine providence (no locus); St. Gertrude; Chesterton on science and agnosticism

His questions #

• Does my sending you to the drugstore make my act worse if you get shot in a hold-up? No — that is per accidens; the power of a cause is judged by its per se effect.
• Does driving fast necessarily hit somebody? (student) Not on an open road, but down a blind alley it is per se enough to add to the badness.
• What is an irregularity? An impediment to a sacrament — orders, and marriage.
• Is walking to church one act or many? One in the genus of nature, possibly two or three in the genus of morals if the will changes.
• How does mos, custom, become “moral”? Moral virtue is produced by repeated acts, so by custom; but he is still puzzled how to translate — left open.
• Is a stillborn or handicapped child a monster but not a sin? Yes — monsters are peccata naturae, “sin” here taken more widely than in English.
• Does “ignorance” in English mean being mistaken? He thinks not; it names the privation, which can be a cause of mistake, whereas Greek agnoia has both senses.
• Where is folly — in the emotions or in reason? In reason/judgment; anger or concupiscence is its cause, as blindness is in the eye.
• How does God order a bad thing? He orders nothing to it, but orders it to something else: the sinner’s humbling or His justice.