Summa I-II q.74 a.6-10: Morose Pleasure, Consent in Higher and Lower Reason, and Mortal vs. Venial Sin

Orientation #

He opens: “we’re up to question seventy-four, Article Six,” and recalls “this has been said”: sin is in reason insofar as it directs human acts. He does not announce next time. The previous class treated the earlier articles of q. 74 (will, members, sensuality, reason as subjects of sin); the next begins q. 75 on the causes of sin.

The class, in order #

1. Article 6, objections: morose pleasure not in reason (“morose pleasure is not in reason”) #

Point: three objections argue pleasure cannot be in reason.

1. Pleasure implies an emotion of the appetitive power; reason is a grasping power. Aside: another text of Thomas says appetitive acts, especially desire, are like motion while knowing is like rest — so “grasp” is holding at rest, desire goes out in search; the emotions are well named from motion, not only for the bodily motion.
2. From the object one knows the power (color → eye); morose pleasure is sometimes about sensible goods, not goods of reason.
3. Morosum is said from length of time, and length of time does not assign an act to a power. Sed contra: Augustine, De Trinitate XII — consent to the illicit when one is content with the pleasure of the thought alone is like the woman alone eating the prohibited food; the woman is lower reason. He calls this “a strange text” and “obscure enough.”

2. Article 6, body and replies: reason directing the inward passions (“not only directs exterior acts”) #

Point: reason directs the inward passions as well as exterior acts, so failure there is sin in reason. Two ways it fails:

• Commands illicit passions: a man by deliberation provokes anger or concupiscence in himself. He notes Thomas picks these two “for the vehemence.” Asides: Shakespeare’s wrath/love metaphor; Thomas treats mildness (moderating anger) alongside temperance because both handle strong emotions; Samuel Johnson’s anger, Boswell comparing it to a mountain about to erupt, Johnson good to every man “except an American”; Coriolanus, who cannot control his anger once it starts; men gaining power tend to use anger to frighten subordinates.
• Does not repress an illicit motion: after deliberating that the motion is disordered, one dwells on it and does not expel it. This is the sin of morose (“dwelling”) pleasure. Replies: (1) pleasure is in the desiring power as proximate beginning, in reason as first mover — actions not going into exterior matter are in their beginnings as in a subject. Student: wouldn’t this be true of all sins? He: yes, he doesn’t know why it is raised with pleasure in particular; reply 2 gets at it. (2) Reason has its own elicited act about its own object, but direction over all objects of the lower powers that can be directed; so pleasure about sensible objects pertains to reason. (3) “Morose” is not from remaining in time but from reason deliberating and not repelling what, as Augustine says, ought to be rejected at once when it attacks the soul. Aside: Benedict, and St Francis too, jumping into the bush.

3. Article 7, objections: consent in the act not in higher reason (“consent in the act of sin is not in higher reason”) #

Point: four objections, then the sed contra from Augustine’s Adam-and-Eve likeness.

1. Consent is an act of the desiring power; reason is vis apprehensiva — he notes Thomas says “apprehending, grasping,” not knowing.
2. Higher reason aims at the eternal reasons in inspiciendis (looking upon them in themselves) and in consulting them (for the sake of the lower); but a man does not always think of divine things when he consents.
3. As eternal reasons rule exterior acts, so interior pleasures; yet consent in pleasure without setting it to be fulfilled is of lower reason (Augustine). Aside: “all the trouble Augustine got us into” with this distinction.
4. Higher reason excels lower as reason excels imagination; a man moves hand or foot from imagination without deliberation; so lower reason may consent without higher. Student: didn’t know moving your foot was a sin. Aside: the sudden jerk of the arm just after falling asleep; Thomas on the beard — did Thomas have a beard? (paintings show none); a student’s story of a stained-glass window of the Finding in the Temple with Newman in front and Aquinas in the back looking astonished. Sed contra: Augustine, De Trin. XII — if sin completed by the body is discerned in the consent, the woman is understood to give the food to the man, who signifies higher reason. Aside: his old pastor, an auxiliary bishop, preached that if Adam had not gone wrong with Eve we would not have inherited original sin — so if Adam is higher reason, “his consent was what really done us in.”

4. Article 7, body: the last sentence belongs to the highest judge (“the last sentence pertains to the supreme judging power”) #

Point: consent implies a judgment, and the final judgment belongs to the supreme judging power, hence to higher reason.

1. Consent implies judgment about that to which one consents; as looking reason judges understandables, practical reason gives a sentence about things to be done.
2. In every judgment the last sentence belongs to the supreme judge; in speculative matters the last judgment on a proposition is by resolution to first beginnings. Digression: he wanted to catch a student with “does reason go from beginnings to conclusions, or conclusions to beginnings?” Answer: both — in the via inveniendi from beginnings to conclusion, in the via iudicandi back from what is found to the beginnings; “a kind of circle in the mind.” His own experience with Euclid: after following the argument, resolving the conclusion back into what is more known. So long as a higher beginning remains, judgment is suspended, the final sentence not given. Aside: sententia as in the Lombard’s Sentences, like “opinions.”
3. Human acts are ruled by human reason (taken from created things naturally known) and further by divine law; since divine law is superior, the ultimate sentence pertains to higher reason.
4. When many things fall to be judged, the final judgment is on what occurs last; in human acts the act is last, pleasure is the preambulum leading into it. Conclusion: consent in the act properly to higher reason, the preambular judgment about pleasure to lower reason — though higher reason can also judge pleasure, since what is subject to the inferior judgment is subject to the superior, not the reverse. Aside: Thomas calls philosophy preambula to theology. He adds what Thomas does not explain here: in the prima pars higher and lower reason are not two powers but the same reason looking at the eternal or at the temporal, just as looking and practical reason are one reason. Aside: he links this to St Paul’s soul and spirit — anima looks toward the body (soul defined as act of a natural body composed of tools), spirit is the part “not immersed in the body,” reason and will; the Magnificat uses both (“my soul magnifies… my spirit rejoices”).

5. Article 7, replies (“consent can be attributed to both will and to reason”) #

(1) Consent is an act of the desiring power not absolutely but consequent on reason deliberating and judging; the will tends to what reason has judged, so consent is attributed to both. (2) Higher reason consents by not directing acts according to divine law, whether or not it thinks of the eternal law: thinking of it, contempt; not thinking, neglect by omission. Augustine: sin is not efficaciously perpetrated unless the intention of the mind, which has the highest power of moving or prohibiting the members, gives way. Aside on Augustine’s and Thomas’s plain Latin versus the formal style of dedicatory epistles; why he says “looking reason” rather than speculative. (3) Before higher reason’s judgment, as soon as sensuality proposes pleasure, lower reason deliberating by temporal reasons may accept it — consent in pleasure is lower reason’s; if after considering eternal reasons one perseveres, it is higher reason’s. He notes consent ought to consult the eternal reasons but sometimes does not. (4) Imagination’s grasp is sudden and can cause an act before either reason has time; lower reason’s judgment takes deliberation and time, in which higher reason can also deliberate — so not preventing the act is imputed to it.

6. Article 8, objections and sed contra: is consent in pleasure mortal? (“consent in pleasure is not a mortal sin”) #

Point: six objections say venial; the sed contra says mortal.

1. Consent in pleasure is lower reason’s, which does not attend to eternal reasons and so cannot turn from them; mortal sin is turning away (Augustine’s definition).
2. Consent is bad only because its object is bad, “and each thing that more, or at least not less” (a student’s “favorite phrase”); pleasure without the deed is only venial.
3. Pleasures differ as their operations (Ethics X — he notes Aristotle takes pleasure before happiness); interior thinking differs from the exterior act of fornication; thinking is not mortal.
4. Fornication is mortal by the disorder of the act, not by the pleasure (also in the marital act); one consenting in the pleasure does not thereby consent in the disorder. He: “brilliant… it would take somebody like St. Thomas to think a reason for that.”
5. Homicide is graver than fornication, yet consenting in pleasure at the thought of homicide is not mortal. Aside: ISIS beheadings; seminary lessons on confession; a colleague’s remark that a confessor under thirty “is just not worth it.”
6. The Lord’s Prayer is said daily for the remission of sins (Augustine says “much less a sin” than if set to be fulfilled). Aside: that morning’s Gospel from Luke gave a shorter Our Father than the Sermon on the Mount. Sed contra: Augustine a little later — the whole man is damned unless things thought alone, with the will though without the will of doing, are forgiven through the mediator; none is damned but for mortal sin. Asides: most of the saved go to purgatory; a priest telling his mother never to stop praying for his father; the California girl declared brain-dead yet moving and healed from surgery (“corpses don’t heal”), a priest on Fox News saying “the doctors said she’s dead, therefore she’s in heaven” — a presumption; brain death and organ harvesting; John Paul’s remark that a truly dead body decomposes within days.

7. Article 8, body: two opinions, pleasure in the thinking vs in the thing thought (“someone thinking about fornication can be pleased about two things”) #

Point: the more common and truer opinion is that it is mortal, but with a distinction.

1. Every pleasure follows an operation (Ethics X) and has an object; so it is compared to the operation it follows and to the object.
2. An operation can itself be the object of pleasure (the desiring power returns on its own act as good — delighting in one’s thinking); or a thought has another operation as object, and the pleasure follows the affection toward the operation thought about.
3. Thinking about fornication: pleasure in the thinking is not mortal in genus — venial when useless thinking, none when useful (to preach or dispute); so consent in it is not mortal. Here the first opinion has some truth.
4. Delighting in the act thought about comes from the affection being inclined to the act; no one delights except in what conforms to his appetite; deliberately choosing that one’s affection conform to what is in itself mortal is peccatum mortale. So the second opinion holds. He reads two condemned propositions of Innocent XI: that a son may rejoice in the parricide of his parent committed in drunkenness because of the inherited riches (a student: “that shouldn’t be condemned” — joke); that with due moderation one may without mortal sin be sad at another’s life and rejoice at his natural death, desiring it by efficacious affection for temporal emolumentum. Discussion: is it a sin to think one would have money if one’s father died? The class: those goods are real, but dwelling on them approaches the serious; the question is whether you rejoice in the good coming to you or in the death — like “is it okay to pray when I’m smoking or smoke when I’m praying? what’s your primary attention?”

8. Article 8, replies (“the imperfection of the act”) #

(1) Consent in pleasure can be of higher reason too; and lower reason, though it does not rule by the eternal reasons, intends to be ruled by them and can turn away — acts of lower powers and even exterior members are mortal by lacking that order. (2) Consent in what is venial in genus is venial (vain thought of fornication); pleasure in the act itself is mortal in genus, venial before consent only through the imperfection of the act, which deliberate consent removes. He finds the wording “a little strange.” (3) That objection concerns pleasure whose object is the thinking. (4) Pleasure whose object is the exterior act cannot be without agreement to the act in itself, even if not set to be fulfilled because of a higher prohibition; so the pleasure is disordered. His gloss: pleasure joins one to the thing even more than desire, being in the presence of the thing — taking pleasure in torture is worse than wanting to torture. (5) Consent in pleasure at the thought of homicide is mortal, not consent in pleasure at the thinking about it. He: “I don’t know how relevant that is in hearing [confessions]. Don’t think about it.” (6) The Lord’s Prayer is against mortal sins too.

9. Article 9: venial sin in higher reason as directing (“in higher reason there cannot be a venial sin”) #

Objections: (1) higher reason adheres to eternal reasons, mortal sin is turning from them; (2) higher reason is the beginning of spiritual life as the heart of bodily life, and infirmities of the heart are mortal; (3) venial becomes mortal by contempt, and deliberate consent of higher reason is always with deliberation of divine law. Student: “so saying an idle word involves contempt of the divine” — “maybe in a state of original justice.” Sed contra: consent to a venial act is venial. Body: higher reason adheres to eternal reasons in conspiciendis (looking at their truth) and consulting (judging and ordering others by them) — “another text” giving the difference noted earlier. The disorder of a venial act is not contrary to eternal reasons (no turning from the last end) but apart from them; so consenting is venial. Replies: (2) twofold infirmity of the heart — in its substance, changing its natural complexion (mortal), or a disorder of its motion or surroundings (not always mortal); likewise in higher reason. (3) Deliberate consent is contempt only when the sin is contrary to divine law. Aside: St Alphonsus is tough on those who habitually confess the same venial sins without improving — don’t absolve, they don’t need it; the point is to change one’s attitude.

10. Article 10: venial sin in higher reason about its own object (“the motion of sudden infidelity is a venial sin”) #

Objections: (1) a power is deficient only by disorder about its object; higher reason’s object is eternal reasons, disorder there is mortal; (2) reason is deliberative, and deliberate disorder in things of God is mortal; (3) sudden sins are venial and deliberation makes them mortal by running back to a higher good, but higher reason has nothing higher to run to. Sed contra: the motion of sudden infidelity is venial and belongs to higher reason by itself. Body: higher reason is carried to the objects of the lower powers only by consulting the eternal reasons, i.e. by deliberation, so there it always sins mortally when the acts are mortal in genus. About its own object it has two acts, simplex intuitus (“looking into” — “I like these words”) and deliberation. By simple intuition it can suffer a sudden motion of infidelity, venial though infidelity is mortal in genus: a matter of faith may occur under another aspect before one consults the law of God — e.g. suddenly considering the resurrection impossible by nature and checking it before deliberating that it is handed to us to be believed. If the motion remains after deliberation, it is mortal — “obstinate disbelief.” Asides: the devil likes to cause such motions; doubts about the real presence; “the saints undergo that too.” Replies: (1) a sin against eternal reasons, mortal in genus, is venial through the imperfection of the sudden act; (2) in operative matters simple looking-into belongs alongside deliberation, as reason both forms propositions and syllogizes — “one doesn’t always deliberate”; (3) the same thing has diverse considerations, e.g. God as knowable by reason or as believed by revelation, the higher; the sudden motion under the lesser consideration is not mortal, reduced by deliberation to the higher it becomes mortal.

His words #

• morose pleasure (morosa delectatio); pleasure one dwells on, from reason’s dwelling, not from time
• grasping power [ed.: apprehensive power]; “apprehending, not knowing”
• ability [ed.: power, potency]
• beginnings [ed.: principles]
• looking reason [ed.: speculative reason]; he explains he avoids “speculative”
• in inspiciendis / consulendis (also conspiciendis): looking upon the eternal reasons in themselves vs. consulting them to rule the lower
• via inveniendi / via iudicandi: way of finding, beginnings to conclusion; way of judging, back to beginnings
• sententia: final sentence of judgment; as in Lombard’s Sentences
• preambulum: what walks before — pleasure before the act
• soul vs spirit: soul as act of the body, spirit as reason and will, “not immersed in the body”
• simplex intuitus: simple looking into, as against deliberation
• emolumentum: temporal advantage (in the condemned proposition)

Texts #

Read in class:

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 74, aa. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Augustine, De Trinitate XII (quoted within the articles: woman/man as lower/higher reason; the Lord’s Prayer for such thoughts; the whole man damned unless forgiven)
• Innocent XI, two condemned propositions (rejoicing in parricide; desiring a parent’s natural death for gain) Mentioned:
• Aristotle, Ethics X (pleasure follows operation; pleasures differ as operations)
• Thomas, prima pars on higher/lower and speculative/practical reason as one power (no article stated)
• Thomas, treatment of temperance and mildness (no locus)
• Thomas on preambula to theology; on the beard (no locus)
• Shakespeare, Coriolanus; Boswell’s Johnson; St Paul on soul and spirit; Magnificat; Luke and Sermon on the Mount versions of the Our Father; St Alphonsus on habitual venial confession; John Paul on brain death

His questions #

• Does reason go from beginnings to conclusions, or from conclusions to beginnings? Both: to the conclusion in the way of finding, back to the beginnings in the way of judging.
• Wouldn’t reply 1 of a. 6 (reason as first mover) be true of all sins? Yes; he does not know why Thomas raises it here; reply 2 addresses it.
• Why does Thomas take anger and concupiscence as the examples? For their vehemence — as mildness is treated with temperance.
• Are higher and lower reason two powers? No: one reason looking at the eternal or the temporal, like looking and practical reason.
• Would it be a sin to think you’d have money if your father died? The good is real, but dwelling on it approaches the serious; the question is whether you rejoice in the good or in the death.
• Is it worse to take pleasure in torture than to want to torture? Worse: pleasure joins one to the thing more, being in its presence.
• Is a sudden motion of infidelity a mortal sin? No, venial through the imperfection of the sudden act; mortal if it remains after deliberation.
• Does deliberate consent always involve contempt of the divine law? Only when the sin is contrary to it.