Summa I-II Q.72 aa.3-6: Sin by cause; against God, self and neighbour; mortal and venial; omission and commission

Orientation #

He opens with “So up to Article Three, I guess, in Question Seventy Two,” taking up where the articles on species by object left off (“as we said in the earlier article”). He says nothing explicit about next time; he stops mid-discussion of a. 6. The previous class worked through I-II q. 71–72 on the definition of sin and species by object; the next continues q. 72 on commission/omission, thought/word/deed, and excess/defect.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3 objections: sins by their causes? (“the sins are distinguished in species according to their causes”) #

The point: he reads the three objections and the sed contra of a. 3, pausing on the scriptural divisions of sin.

• Obj 1: a thing has its species from what gives it being; sins have being from causes; so species from causes.
• Obj 2: the material cause seems least to pertain to species; the object is as material cause in sin; yet sins are distinguished by objects; so much more by the other causes.
• Obj 3: three divisions all by causes: Augustine on Psalm 79 — every sin is from fear badly humbling or love badly inflaming; 1 John 2 — concupiscence of the flesh, of the eyes, pride of life; Gregory, Moralia 31 — seven capital vices.
  • Spiritual reading of Psalm 8: beasts = concupiscence of the flesh, birds = pride of life, fish = concupiscence of the eyes (“the fish that go off the world”). The three vows are tied to these three.
  • “The world” names lovers of the world; hence in Shakespeare a girl marrying says “I’m going to the world.”
• Sed contra: then all sins would be one species, since caused by one cause — Ecclesiasticus, “the beginning of every sin is pride”; 1 Timothy, “the root of all evils is cupidity.”

2. Article 3 body and replies: only the final cause (“four genera of causes, matter, form”) #

The point: motions and operations are specified by agent and end, but in voluntary acts only the end specifies.

1. Four genera of causes; form and matter regard substance (my body and soul make up my substance), so substances are distinguished in species and genus by them.
2. Agent and end regard motion (imperfect act) and operation (perfect act); these are distinguished in species by such causes — but with a difference.
3. Natural active principles are determined to one act (Shakespeare: “Nature not being able to be more than one thing”), so natural acts are specified also by active principles: heating and cooling by hot and cold.
4. Active principles in voluntary acts have no necessity to one: from fear badly lowering a man can steal, kill, or desert the flock committed to him; the same from love.
5. Conclusion: sins differ in species not by active causes or motives but by the final cause, for the end is the primary object of the will, and human acts have species from the end (shown above).

• Aside: the Dominican maxim “never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish” — annoying, “no truth to it.”
• Ad 1: undetermined active principles produce a human act only when the will is determined to one by the intention of the end (Metaphysics IX); so from the end both being and species of sin are perfected.
• Ad 2: objects compared to exterior acts are “matter about which”; compared to the interior act of the will they are ends and so specify; even as matter about which they are limits (termini) from which motions are specified (Physics V, the book dividing motion into species; also Ethics X), yet limits specify motions only as having the ratio of end.
• Ad 3: those divisions are given not to distinguish species but to manifest the diverse causes, which one wants to root out — you taking three vows root out three causes; “people like me in the world” suffer them.
• Aside: a colleague called every Shakespeare play “this book” to say there is more in it than appears; likewise “the whole lecture’s on a little tiny paragraph” of Thomas.

3. Article 4 objections: sin in God, in oneself, in neighbor (“I can sin against myself, or against my neighbor”) #

The point: is the threefold division suitable? He reads the objections and Isidore’s sed contra.

• He is suspicious that the article titles (“utrum”) go back to Thomas, as with chapter titles in the Contra Gentiles and the Compendium of Theology, where one seems to contradict the text.
• Obj 1: what is common to every sin should not be a part of its division (“a good solid logical principle, wouldn’t you say, Joshua?”); sin against God is in the very definition; so not a part.
• Obj 2: every division is by opposites (tragedy/comedy, virtue/vice); these three are not opposed, for whoever sins in his neighbor sins in himself and in God (“to thine own self be true… thou canst not then be false to any man”). “I give up, Thomas.”
• Obj 3: the extrinsic does not give species; God and neighbor are outside us.
• Sed contra: Isidore, On the Highest Good: a man sins in himself, in God, in his neighbor. Note the oddity of “in” with the accusative — “sin upon / into.”

4. Article 4 body: threefold order in man (“threefold order that ought to be in man”) #

The point: sin is a disordered act; three orders ought to be in man, so three genera of sin by objects.

1. Order to the rule of reason: all our actions and passions to be measured by reason (“I drunk enough wine now. What would reason say?”).
2. Order to the rule of divine law, by which man is directed in all his acts (“in omnibus” — he notes it, as the objections earlier raised).
3. If man were solitary, these two would suffice; but man is political and social (Politics I), so a third order to other men with whom he must live.

• The first contains the second and exceeds it; the second contains the third and exceeds it. A footnote (Cajetan’s, he thinks) resolves the confusion: “first, second, third” here follow the nature of order, not the numbering in the text — divine law is most universal, then reason.
• Sin in God: things exceeding human reason, of faith, owed to God alone — heretic, sacrilegious, blasphemer. Sin in oneself: ordered by reason as regards ourselves only — gluttonous, luxurious (sexual excess), prodigal. Sin in neighbor: theft, homicide.
• Conclusion: since man is ordered to God, neighbor, self by diverse things, this is a division by objects, hence properly by species, not by causes. Sign: the opposed virtues differ so — theological virtues to God, temperance and fortitude to self, justice to neighbor.
• Aside: a book on Venetian art — three periods, two painters each (Bellinis; Titian and Giorgione; Tintoretto and Veronese); “I’m very happy with that.” Tintoretto named for tinting materials in his father’s shop; real name Robusti.

5. Article 4 replies: dividing by what exceeds (“not according to that one contained in the other”) #

The point: when one member includes another, the distinction is by what exceeds.

• Ad 1: sin in God as including every human order is common to all sin; as exceeding the other two, it is a special genus.
• Ad 2, the underlying principle: triangle is not divided against the quadrilateral in which it is contained (Euclid always divides quadrilaterals into two triangles) but against one separate; four is divided against the three that is “just three”; man against the animal that is just animal. His mother: “man is an animal” — “I don’t like that” — “he’s an animal that has reason” — “that’s better.”
• So sin against God is not what is common (against God’s law) but what is directed against God in particular: “I don’t believe Him” — Eve told “you’ll be like the gods.” Adam and Eve will have a hard time living down the jokes; hence a general judgment beside the particular, where the consequences of all my sins are seen (Karl Marx).
• Ad 3: God and neighbor are outside the sinner but not extraneous to the act; they are its proper objects (“if I murder you, you’re the object”).

6. Article 5 objections: species by the debt of punishment? (“divided according to venial and what mortal”) #

The point: three objections that mortal and venial differ in species, and the sed contra.

• Translation: reatus poenae — “debt of punishment” (he prefers this; “guilt of punishment” was the famous translation).
• Obj 1: what differs infinitely cannot be one species or genus; venial owed temporal, mortal eternal punishment; measure of punishment answers quantity of guilt (Deuteronomy 25, “the measure of the crime will be the mode of stripes”). Modus for Thomas is tied to measure. Measure for Measure: Angelo does what he condemned another to death for; eye for eye; “forgive us as we forgive.”
• Obj 2: some sins mortal from their genus (homicide, adultery), some venial (idle word, superfluous laughter).
• Obj 3: as virtuous act to reward, so sin to punishment; reward is the end of virtue; so punishment the end of sin; ends specify. He anticipates “a per se / per accidens distinction coming in” (ASR: “Parisian Pratchettian”).
• Sed contra: what constitutes species are differences; punishment follows guilt as its effect.

7. Article 5 body: two kinds of difference; per accidens (“a twofold difference is found”) #

The point: the debt of punishment is a consequent, per accidens difference, not a constitutive one.

• A vs. B: a difference constituting species (rational/irrational, ensouled/unensouled), never found except in diverse species; vs. a difference following on species, which may be in the same species — white/black in swan and crow, yet also black and white men.
  • Aside on names: Negro, black, people of color — “getting very hard to talk anymore”; Chesterton: never easier to say anything, exactly when man has nothing to say; “It is verboten”; Christ appeared to a woman first, to get the word out.
• Punishment is praeter intentionem, hence per accidens (Physics II), and the per accidens never constitutes species. “So I didn’t think I’d get caught”; the bank robber: “that’s where the money is.”
• Joshua’s remark on infinity (Physics III, second half): the Greeks held the beginning of things infinite and divine; Thomas goes back to that text for God’s infinity, one of the five attributes (simple, perfect, unchanging, one, infinite) — the mind moving toward God confusedly.
• Punishment is ordered to sin from outside, by the justice of the judge, who inflicts diverse punishments by diverse conditions; so the difference from the debt of punishment can follow diverse species but does not constitute them: an inordinate laugh doesn’t get your head cut off, adultery or murder does.

8. Article 5, the disorder itself, and replies (“twofold is disorder”) #

The point: mortal/venial follows the twofold disorder completing the definition of sin.

• Disorder removing the principle of the order vs. disorder with the principle saved: in the animal, disorder of complexion to destruction of the vital principle is death; disorder of humours with life saved is sickness.
• The principle of the whole moral order is the last end, as the indemonstrable principle in speculative matters (Ethics VII). Aversion from the last end, God, to whom we are united by charity: mortal sin; disorder without aversion: venial.
• Death is irreparable by nature, sickness reparable; likewise he who errs about principles is not persuadable (“I’ve met those”), he who errs with principles saved can be called back. So the mortal sinner has an irreparable lapse and is punished eternally; the venial sinner is reparable, “just a really long” punishment.
• Ad 1 (he calls it “pretty powerful”): they differ infinitely on the side of aversion, not conversion, which regards the object, whence species. The infinity comes from turning away from the infinitely good, not from the object. So the same species has both: the first motion of adultery is venial; an idle word, usually venial, can become mortal.
• Ad 2: mortal/venial from genus follows species, does not cause it, and is found also within one species.
• Ad 3: reward is in the intention of the one meriting; punishment is against the sinner’s will — “the distinction between the per se and the per accidens is important.”

9. Article 6 objections: commission and omission (“the sin of commission and omission differ in species”) #

The point: the objections that omission and commission differ in species.

• Aside: are they confessed separately in the Mass? (unresolved; “Ranshe” [unclear in recording]).
• Obj 1: delictum divided against peccatum — “dead in your delicts and sins”: delicts by omitting what is commanded, sins by doing what is prohibited; so omission vs. commission, divided ex opposito.
• Obj 2: it is per se to sin to be against God’s law; affirmative precepts (honor father and mother) are broken by omission, negative (robbery, adultery) by commission; so different species. Joke: the absent student is excused since he was honoring visiting parents — “but keep a tight watch upon him.”
• Aside: the Aramaic Our Father uses two words for “trespasses”; ask Father Elias.
• Obj 3: omission/commission differ as negation/affirmation; negation has no species, for of non-being there are no species or differences. “The medieval guys were really way ahead of us.”
• Sed contra: the avaricious man both steals (commission) and does not give his own to whom he ought (omission; “not supporting the church”).

10. Article 6 body: material vs. formal, negation on affirmation (“negation is founded upon some affirmation”) #

The point: they differ materially, not formally.

• Material difference: by the natural species of the acts; formal: by order to one proper end, the proper object. Materially diverse acts can be one species of sin: homicide by choking, strangling, stoning, perforating.
• Materially, omission and commission differ in species, speaking loosely, as negation or privation have species in a secondary sense; formally they do not, being ordered to the same thing from the same motive — the avaricious steals and does not give to gather money; the gluttonous eats too much and omits the fast.
• Principle: “always in things, negation is founded upon some affirmation, which is in a way its cause”; even logic draws no conclusion from two negatives.
• He asks for examples; the class gives: Peter denied the Lord because he loved his life; two is not odd because it is even (divisible parts — “you’re the mathematician”); I can’t be a woman because I’m a man; not a dog or horse because rational animal.
• He ends returning to sins: the gluttonous omits the fast because he wants to eat; the rich man doesn’t pay because he wants money (Ted Kennedy’s unpaid restaurant bills; a Secretary of the Treasury who didn’t pay his taxes). The class breaks off here.

His words #

• “matter, form, over, and end” [ed.: efficient/agent cause]; motion = imperfect act, operation = perfect act
• “matter about which” (materia circa quam) vs. object as end
• “limits” [ed.: termini] of motion
• “the first contains the second” — numbering by nature of order, not by textual order
• “sin in God / in oneself / in one’s neighbor”; “in” with accusative, “upon”
• “luxurious” = sexual excess; “prodigious man” [ed.: prodigal]
• “debt of punishment” (reatus poenae), against “guilt of punishment”
• praeter intentionem = per accidens
• “disorder of the complexion” (death) vs. “disorder in the humours” (sickness)
• “not persuasible” — the one who errs about beginnings
• delictum vs. peccatum: omission vs. commission
• material vs. formal difference of sins

Texts #

Read in class:

• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, ad 1–3)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 4 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 5 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 72, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, body; replies not reached)

Mentioned:

• Augustine on Psalm 79; 1 John 2; Psalm 8 (beasts, birds, fish); Gregory, Moralia XXXI; Ecclesiasticus (pride beginning of every sin); 1 Timothy (cupidity root of all evils)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics IX; Physics II, III, V; Ethics VII, X; Politics I
• Isidore, On the Highest Good; Deuteronomy 25; Ephesians/Colossians “dead in your delicts and sins” (inferred locus)
• Thomas, Contra Gentiles, Compendium of Theology (on chapter titles); Cajetan’s commentary (footnote)
• Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Hamlet (“to thine own self be true”) (inferred); Chesterton

His questions #

• Do sins differ in species by their active causes? No — a voluntary principle like fear can produce theft, murder, desertion; only the final cause specifies.
• Why give the divisions from fear/love, the three concupiscences, the capital vices at all? To manifest the causes of sin so they can be rooted out, as the three vows do.
• How can “sin in God” be a part of the division if every sin is against God? Divide by what exceeds, not what is contained — as four against just-three, man against just-animal.
• Is there confusion when Thomas says “the first contains the second”? No; first/second/third follow the nature of order (divine law most universal), per the footnote.
• Does the debt of punishment constitute the species of sin? No; punishment is outside the sinner’s intention, per accidens, imposed by the judge; it follows species.
• Why then do mortal and venial differ infinitely? On the side of aversion from the infinitely good God, not on the side of the object.
• Do omission and commission differ in species? Materially yes (loosely), formally no — same end, same motive.
• Can you give examples that negation is founded on affirmation? Peter’s denial from love of his life; two not odd because even; not a woman because a man.
• Are omission and commission confessed separately in the Mass? left open