Augustine's Definition of Sin and How Sins Are Distinguished (ST I-II q.71 a.6 – q.72 a.2)

Orientation #

He refers back to “the previous article” (q. 71, a. 5) as the basis of the first objection of a. 6, and to the Compendium of Theology passage on the three graces of Christ and the reasons for Christ’s death, which he says he was reading “with my grandchildren” (prev. lecture). He says that the question of law and the natural law “we’ll see again later on.” The previous class worked through q. 71, a. 5 on whether every sin requires an act; the next continues q. 72 from a. 3.

The class, in order #

1. Objections 1–2 to Augustine’s definition (“each objection is against one part of the definition”) #

He reads q. 71, a. 6, objections 1 and 2, and flags the pedagogy: Thomas takes a celebrated definition (the book’s note says it comes from Augustine’s Contra Faustum) and aims each objection at one part, so the student thinks about that part by itself and understands it distinctly.

• Obj. 1: “said, done or desired” implies an act, but not every sin implies an act (from the previous article), so the definition does not include every sin.
• Obj. 2: Augustine elsewhere says sin is the will of retaining or pursuing what justice forbids; will falls under concupiscence taken broadly for every desire; so “desired” suffices and “said or done” was unnecessary.
• His parallel exercise on defining reason as “the ability for large discourse”: objection “that leaves out small discourse” — reply: the ability to lift 200 lb includes the ability to lift 100 lb; objection “that leaves out distinction” — reply: before-and-after already includes distinction; objection “reason is only fully capable of small discourse” — reply: an ability is defined by the utmost it can do, not by what it does most easily (California Chrome is measured by his record time, not the slowest race he could come last in).
• He stresses: the Summa is for a beginner in theology, not in the life of the mind, and the exercise makes one appreciate the effort needed to understand a definition — “not just any jerk’s definition” but Boethius, Augustine, Aristotle: “think twice, thrice.”

2. Objection 3: no mention of aversion from the end (“the business of the teacher to confuse the issue”) #

Obj. 3: sin properly consists in turning away from the end, since good and bad are chiefly by the end; Augustine, De libero arbitrio I (he notes English translations render it “free will”; “free judgment” is significant), says to sin is to neglect eternal things to follow temporal ones, and in the Eighty-three Questions that all human perversity is in using what should be enjoyed and enjoying what should be used; the definition says nothing of aversion from the due end.

• Aside: his old teacher Casarec said it is the teacher’s business to confuse the issue; a priest during Holy Week complained of “confusing Gospels from St John” — the Gospels are not confusing, we are confused.
• Aside (Compendium of Theology): Thomas’s three graces of Christ — grace of the hypostatic union, grace of Christ as individual man, grace as head of the Church — are ordered exactly as the opening of John: “the Word was made flesh”; “we saw his glory… full of grace and truth”; “of his fullness we have all received.” Christ did not merit the union, but is full of grace because of it: the closer to God, the more one is cause of what comes after, and nothing is closer than the hypostatic union. The grace of union is infinite because it joins to a divine person; the grace of Christ as man is infinite in three ways, though simply speaking a created thing cannot be infinite — “I can’t ever get off that text.”
• Aside: his “Lady Wisdom” dialogue with the grandchildren (theology is knowledge of God; God is simple; universally perfect), and the little shepherds keeping sheep off plants.

3. Objections 4–5 and the sed contra (“the authority of Augustine suffices”) #

• Obj. 4: not all sins are bad because prohibited; some are prohibited because bad; so “against the law of God” should not be in the common definition. He calls this the Socratic question: driving on the left is bad because against the law, not the reverse; eating from the tree was bad because prohibited — it was not a poisonous tree.
• Obj. 5: sin is a bad act of man, and the bad of man is to be against reason (Dionysius, Divine Names 4); so sin should be defined as against reason rather than against the eternal law — the ethics teacher’s definition: a good human act is a reasonable act.
• Aside: he and Brother Mark would confine a professor in a cell, drop in the objections one day and let him stew; disputed questions have fifteen or twenty objections, the Summa cuts them down.
• Sed contra: the authority of Augustine suffices. He notes John Paul II’s encyclical on Augustine and how often the Catechism quotes him. “Do you see how dependent the mind is upon belief?” — unless you believe a man of such authority you will not make the effort to understand him.

4. The body: matter and form of the definition (“the rule of the human will is twofold”) #

1. Sin is nothing other than a bad human act.
2. An act is human by being voluntary — either elicited by the will (willing, choosing: acts of the power itself) or commanded by the will (exterior acts of speaking or doing) — “words and deeds.”
3. A human act is bad from lacking a due measure (mensura; he links “measure” to mens, mind; the measure in food and drink as examples). Every measuring is by comparison to a rule, deviation from which is being unmeasured.
4. The rule of the human will is twofold: the near and homogeneous rule, human reason (reason is the ruler; our acts should be reasonable); and the first rule, the eternal law, which is as the reason of God. Conclusion: Augustine’s definition lays down two things — what pertains to the substance of the human act, as matter (“said, done or desired”), and what pertains to the notion of bad, as form (“against the eternal law”). “That’s all you need.”

5. Replies 1–3 (“the first cause of sin is in the will”) #

• Ad 1: affirmation and negation reduce to the same genus, as in divine things “generated” and “ungenerated” reduce to relation (Augustine, De Trinitate V: the Father is unbegotten); as in logic ignorance is reduced to the category of quality where knowledge is. So “said” covers “not said,” “done” covers “not done.”
• Ad 2: the first cause (prima causa) of sin is in the will, which commands all voluntary acts, in which alone sin is found; hence Augustine sometimes defines sin by will alone. But exterior acts also pertain to the substance of sin, being bad in themselves (murder), so something of them must be in the definition. Wanting to kill is as bad as killing, the same root; and if I go so far as to actually kill, my will has become more inclined and intense.
  • Aside: the depressing modern play — the husband pushed his wife off the dock; asked why, “it just seemed the thing to do,” and the audience burst out laughing, wanting comic relief.
• Ad 3: the eternal law first and chiefly orders man to the end (the first commandment: love God above all), and consequently to things toward the end; so “against the eternal law” touches aversion from the end and consequently the rest. “The defect is not in the definition but in your understanding of that part of the definition” — the objection makes you clarify it.

6. Replies 4–5: positive law, and how sciences define (“different sciences have a different way of defining”) #

• Ad 4: “not every sin is bad because prohibited” is true of prohibitions by positive law (law laid down: driving on the right is not in the nature of things). Referred to natural right — contained first in the eternal law, second in the natural judgment of reason — every sin is bad because prohibited, since from being disordered it is repugnant to natural law. He recalls his earlier question: are you like God because you are good, or good because made like God?
• Ad 5: theologians consider sin especially (praecipue) as an offense against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reason; so Augustine defines more suitably by the eternal law, especially since by it we are ruled in many things exceeding human reason.
• His development: the way of defining differs by science. Aristotle, Physics II (“Natural Hearing”), distinguishes natural philosophy, which defines with sensible matter (and motion), from mathematics, which abstracts from matter and motion — is a geometrical sphere hard or soft? would it bounce or shatter thrown at a wall? what is its melting point? The modern mathematical atom is a “middle science,” mathematics applied back to nature: “the modern atom consists of no stuff at all.” Aristotle also speaks of a kind of matter in mathematics, continuous extension; wisdom deals with what is altogether immaterial, and it is hard for the mind to rise to that. Theology defines by reference to God: later Thomas will define the natural law as a partaking of the eternal law in man, where Aristotle would speak of nature. It is not appropriate for the philosopher to define by God, because God is not the subject of wisdom but the cause of its subject, being and one (Metaphysics IV) — Aristotle calls wisdom theology only because it ends by talking about God — whereas in revealed theology God is the subject and everything else is treated in relation to him as beginning or end.
• Aside: “chew on that definition” or get mental indigestion — or, a student adds, mental constipation.

7. Question 72, prologue: nine questions (“about the distinction of sins or vices”) #

He reads the nine: by objects; spiritual vs. carnal (the prostitutes enter before the Pharisees; “wait till you get rid of your spiritual sins”); by causes; by those against whom one sins; by diversity of guilt; omission and commission; by the diverse proceeding of the sin; by abundance and defect; by circumstances.

8. Article 1: sins distinguished by their objects (“the disorder… per accidens to the intention”) #

• Obj. 1: acts are good or bad chiefly by the end, so sins should be distinguished by ends more than objects. Obj. 2: evil is a privation (a lack — “you’re sadly lacking, students”), and privations are specified by their opposites. Obj. 3: if by objects, the same species could not be about different objects; but pride is about spiritual and bodily things (proud of knowledge or of good looks; Gregory, Moralia 34) and avarice about diverse genera.
• Sed contra: things said, done, desired are distinguished by objects, since acts are. His illustration: one thinking is distinguished from another by what it thinks about — body, soul, angels, God, “and that’s the end”; most people think about the game (priests: “watching other people play”); Bellarmine has a work on the ladder.
• Body: 1. two things concur in sin: the voluntary act and its disorder (bad = unreasonable, disordered, unmeasured). 2. The voluntary act is per se to the sinner, who intends such an act in such matter; the disorder is per accidens to his intention, since no one acts intending evil but always a good or apparent good (Dionysius, Divine Names 4). 3. Each thing has its species from what is per se, not per accidens. Conclusion: sins are specified by the voluntary act, hence by their objects. He notes: the disorder is not accidental to its being a sin, but accidental to the man doing it.
• Ad 1: the end chiefly has the notion of good (Aristotle), so it is the object of the first act of the will in every sin; so end and object come to the same (against Kant, who will not admit that the good will wills the good).
• Ad 2: sin is not a pure privation but an act deprived of due order — a disordered act. Reason orders and measures (Anaxagoras, “last night”). If distinguished by opposite virtues, this comes to the same, since virtues are specified by objects.
  • Aside on “learning is recalling”: discourse goes from what you know to what you don’t, so you recall what you already know and learn through it — “we can defend our master Socrates”; repetitio mater studiorum.
• Ad 3: nothing prevents one formal ratio of object in things differing in species or genus: pride seeks excellence about diverse things, avarice abundance of things accommodated to human use. Is Obama proud? Chairman Mao (biography at his son’s house): buried people alive, let an army be destroyed to consolidate power — “makes Stalin look innocent.”
  • Aside: Fr Hardon refused Fr Fessio’s request for a blurb for von Balthasar’s book on hoping all be saved: he could not believe that in two thousand years nobody is in hell.

9. Article 2: spiritual and carnal sins (“twofold is pleasure”) #

• Objections: all sins are works of the flesh (Galatians 5) and whoever sins walks according to the flesh (Romans 8 — he connects to the Compendium’s second reason for Christ’s death, to lead us from the death of the flesh to the spirit; why the cross is raised up); “spirit” means reason (Ephesians, per the gloss) and every carnal sin comes from reason by consent, so all are spiritual; only fornication is “in one’s own body” (1 Cor 6), yet Ephesians 5 numbers avarice among carnal sins.
• Sed contra: Gregory, Moralia 31 — of the seven capital sins five are spiritual and two carnal; “he’s going to defend Gregory.”
• Body: sins are specified by objects; every sin is a disordered desire for a changeable good and consequently delight in something had. Pleasure is twofold: spiritual, consummated in the apprehension alone of something had according to desire (delight in human praise); carnal, perfected in bodily touch. Sins perfected in spiritual pleasure are spiritual; those in fleshly pleasure are carnal — gluttony (gula), pleasure of food; luxury, pleasure of venereal things (2 Cor: “stain of the flesh and of the spirit”). St Paul is on Gregory’s side — “maybe Gregory on the side of St Paul.”
• Ad 1–2: “flesh” there stands for man living by himself (Augustine, City of God XIV); every defect of reason has its beginning in some way from some fleshly sense. Aside: the Word is said to be made flesh — he took what was weakest and went all the way down, corresponding to the sin, which is spiritual but occasioned by the sensible.
• Ad 3: carnal sins include an act of reason, but are named from their end, the pleasure.
• Ad 4: in fornication the soul especially serves the body — a man can think of nothing but that woman; gluttony does not overcome reason as much; or, an injury is done to the body. Avarice in Ephesians is put for adultery, the unjust usurpation of another’s wife; or, the miser delights in something bodily and so is counted carnal, but the pleasure belongs to the spirit, so per Gregory it is a spiritual sin — “in between the two.”
  • Asides: Chesterton’s Father Brown found the thief because a thief is small-minded, fixed on something material — the greedy have small minds; yet the rich who keep making money they don’t need are in a way spiritual, seeking self-sufficiency and dominance, and are disciplined, not given to sense pleasure; the “trophy wife” as part of the wealth; Timon of Athens a comedy before Shakespeare made it a tragedy; a student cites Belloc, The Four Men, on being chased to death by the money beast.

His words #

• sin: “nothing other than a bad human act”; matter = “said, done or desired,” form = “against the eternal law.”
• elicited vs. commanded acts of the will: acts of the power itself (willing, choosing) vs. exterior acts of speaking or doing.
• measure / mensura: linked by him to mens, mind; a bad act “lacks a suitable measure.”
• rule of the will: near and homogeneous = human reason; first = eternal law, “the reason of God.”
• positive law: “the law laid down,” as against natural right.
• praecipue: “especially” — how theologians consider sin, as offense against God.
• “Natural Hearing” [ed.: Physics].
• middle science: mathematical science of nature.
• prima causa: the will as first cause of sin.
• disordered / unmeasured act: his glosses on “bad act.”
• repetitio mater studiorum: repetition is the mother of studies.
• gula: gluttony; luxury [ed.: luxuria, lust].
• spiritual pleasure vs. carnal pleasure: in apprehension alone vs. perfected in bodily touch.

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 71, a. 6 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, prologue
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 1 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 2 (whole article)

Mentioned

• Augustine, Contra Faustum (source of the definition, from the book’s note); De duabus animabus; De libero arbitrio I; Eighty-three Questions; De Trinitate V; City of God XIV
• Gregory, Moralia 34 and 31
• Dionysius, Divine Names 4
• Aristotle, Physics II; Metaphysics IV
• Galatians 5; Romans 8; Ephesians (spirit of your mind; ch. 5 on avarice); 1 Corinthians 6; 2 Corinthians (stain of flesh and spirit); John 1 (Word made flesh, fullness)
• Thomas, Compendium of Theology (three graces of Christ; reasons for Christ’s death)
• John Paul II, encyclical on Augustine; Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Bellarmine, work on the ladder; Chesterton, Father Brown story; Shakespeare, Timon of Athens; Belloc, The Four Men; biography of Mao; von Balthasar’s book on hoping all be saved

His questions #

• Does “said or done or desired” leave out sins of omission? No: affirmation and negation reduce to the same genus, as “ungenerated” reduces to relation.
• If knowledge is in the category of quality, where is ignorance reduced? To quality.
• Is driving on the left bad because prohibited, or prohibited because bad? Bad because prohibited — positive law; the tree in Eden likewise.
• Are you like God because you are good, or good because made like God? left open (recalled from earlier as a puzzle).
• Is a geometrical sphere hard or soft; would it bounce or shatter? Neither — mathematics abstracts from sensible matter and motion.
• Why is God not the subject of philosophical wisdom? Its subject is being and one; God is the cause of the subject; in revealed theology God is the subject.
• Is the disorder accidental to sin? Not to its being sin, but to the intention of the sinner, who aims at an apparent good.
• Is avarice carnal or spiritual? Bodily in its thing, but the pleasure is of the spirit, so per Gregory spiritual — “in between.”