Infected Powers, Avarice as the Root and Pride as the Beginning of Sin (ST I-II q.83 a.4; q.84 a.1–2)

Orientation #

He opens by picking up “quick article four here,” the last article of q. 83 on the subject of original sin, referring back to the proemium of that question and to the previous article on the will (prev. lecture). He then begins q. 84 on sin as cause of sin, and ends mid-question, saying “maybe we should stop there.”

The class, in order #

1. A misprint in the title of a. 4 (“it’s not really part of the text of Thomas”) #

The printed title reads praefatae potentiae; the body of the article reads praedictae, “the four said powers.” Those four are the ones enumerated in the proemium of q. 83 — will (treated as primary in the previous article), and then the generative power, the concupiscible power, and the sense of touch. He stresses that the utrum titles are not really Thomas’s own text, though printers can also err in the text itself.

Asides (on following a printed text blindly): Kasurik’s joke that nuns repeat whatever the text says because they are more docile than men; a newspaper typo, “the time of immortality of man” for immorality; a beginner’s Latin student stuck on mobilissimus for nobilissimus; the nuns who chanted the rubric non dicitur Gloria Patri and then the Gloria Patri; Kasurik telephoning Fr. Baumgartner when he could not answer a question, and Fr. Baumgartner’s face at having to hear nuns’ confessions.

2. The three objections of q. 83 a. 4 (“it seems that the four said powers are not more infected”) #

1. Infection of original sin pertains more to the part able to be subject to sin, i.e. the rational part and especially the will — so the will is more infected.
2. No power is infected by guilt except so far as it can obey reason; but the generative power does not obey reason (Ethics I) — so it is not most infected.
3. Sight is more spiritual and nearer reason, since it shows many differences of things (Metaphysics I — “the first book of Wisdom, right after the books of Natural Philosophy”); and guilt’s infection is first in reason — so sight is more infected than touch.

Sed contra: Augustine, City of God XIV — the infection of original guilt most of all appears in the motion of the generative members, which are not subject to reason; these serve the generative power in the mixture of the sexes, in which there is pleasure according to touch, which most moves concupiscence.

Aside on touch and concupiscence: Aristotle on temperance quotes the man who wished for a neck like a swan’s, so as to feel the food going down; and the mean is not the same for all — the man who ate a whole ox needs a different amount than the average person, since moral virtue is a habit in the middle “towards us.”

3. The body: infection is what is passed on (“apt to be transferred to another”) #

Corruption is called infection most of all when it is apt to be transferred — as leprosy and murrain (an infectious disease of cattle) are called infections. But the corruption of original sin is passed on by the act of generation; hence the powers that run together for that act are most said to be infected — the generative power, and with it touch, whose pleasure is the greatest object of the concupiscible. So though all parts are corrupted, these three are especially said to be corrupted and infected.

Aside: his granddaughter says fresh grass is like candy to a cow, and they must be kept from eating too much of it.

4. The three replies (“original sin… on that side by which it inclines to actual sins”) #

1. Distinction: on the side by which it inclines to actual sins, original sin pertains especially to the will; on the side of its being carried over (transmitted), it pertains to the foresaid powers, and to the will only more remotely. Cf. “my mother conceived me in sins.”
2. Actual guilt infects only powers moved by the sinner’s own will — it must be voluntary; but original guilt is not derived from the will of the one contracting it, but from the origin of nature, which the generative power serves.
3. Sight pertains to generation only by remote disposition, since through sight the concupiscible species appears (he glosses: pornography; porneia = fornication/adultery in Greek, and pornography its representation); but pleasure is perfected in touch, so the infection is attributed more to touch than to sight.

Aside, on Augustine’s way of saying things: the passage Thomas quotes — miserable the man who knows all other things but not God; blessed the man who knows God even if he knows nothing else; blessed too the man who knows God and other things, but not for knowing the other things. Asked for the reference, he says he cannot remember. Tied to this: Aristotle’s remark that some things have been said so well by our predecessors that we should try to say them as well, not better; and against “il faut dépasser saint Thomas” — “fine, if you can do it.” His answer to the doctor’s wife about keeping up with one’s field: “in my field the difficulty is catching up, not keeping up.”

5. Q. 84 announced: sin as cause of sin (“whether cupidity is the root of all sins”) #

Now to consider the cause of sin as one sin causes another — which “is going to require looking before and after.” Four articles: (1) is cupidity the root of all sins; (2) is pride the beginning of every sin; (3) besides pride and avarice, are there other capital vices (capitalia vitia); (4) how many and which are the capital vices. He notes the great work on evil is the Quaestiones disputatae de malo, not about bad in general but with a question on each of the seven capital vices — “if you’re really interested in evil.” Aside: the seven capital vices show “how evil is organized” — like the justice robbers must keep among themselves or fall apart; and he has been reading Flannery O’Connor, “another approach to the same thing.”

6. Objections to cupidity as root (a. 1) (“that’s a good argument”) #

1. Cupidity, immoderate desire of wealth, is opposed to liberality; but liberality is not the root of all virtues, so cupidity is not the root of all sins. He praises this as arguing “from the upstairs,” i.e. from the place of opposites; compare those who say that if pride causes sins, humility is the foundation of virtues.
2. Desire of means proceeds from desire of the end; wealth is desired only as useful to some end (Ethics I); so cupidity proceeds from some prior root.
3. Avarice often arises from other sins — desiring money for ambition, or for the belly. He notes Thomas is “busily looking before and after” even in raising the objections, and that objection 3 argues from particular cases, objection 2 generally from the end.

Sed contra: “the apostle” (Paul, named by antonomasia, of which Scripture is fond — as the Gospel is “the good news”), 1 Timothy: radix omnium malorum cupiditas.

Asides: Warren’s fifty-dollar birthday bottle arranged through Rosalie; the Château Gloria at a wine tasting, and the hundred-dollar bottles (Opus One) he is probably missing out on; “mortgage your house again — buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have.”

7. The body of a. 1: three senses of cupidity, and Paul’s (“the intention of the apostle”) #

“According to some” (his text refers this to Albert the Great, whom Thomas does not name) cupidity is said three ways: (i) disordered desire of wealth — a special sin; (ii) disordered desire of any temporal good — the genus of every sin, since every sin turns disorderly to a changeable good; (iii) an inclination of corrupt nature to desiring corruptible goods disorderly — everything disordered being against reason, and, as Dionysius says, for man to be good is to be reasonable. In this third way they call cupidity the root of all sins, like the root of a tree drawing nourishment from the earth.

Thomas: these are true but not according to the apostle’s intention, who speaks against those who, wishing to become rich, fall into temptation and the devil’s snare — hence of cupidity as a special sin. So: even as a special sin, cupidity is the root, because through wealth a man acquires the faculty of perpetrating any sin and of fulfilling the desire of any sin, since any temporal good can be got through money — “all things obey money” (Ecclesiastes).

Digression on the temptations of Christ, prompted by a student: the stones-into-bread was the sensual one; “all the kingdoms” is like cupidity; the leap from the temple is more like pride.

Asides: the wealthy man with five mansions and young girls, jailed thirteen months, whom Clinton and one of the English princes had frequented; oil money going to terrorists; money needed to get elected (“in Rome everything is for sale”).

8. Replies of a. 1 (“not from the same arises virtue and sin”) #

1. Virtue and sin do not arise from the same source. Sin arises from desire of a changeable good, so the desire of the good that helps one gain all temporal goods is its root; virtue arises from desire of the unchangeable good, so charity, the love of God, is the root of the virtues — Ephesians 3:17, “rooted and founded in charity.” He notes radicati is taken from nature, fundati from art.
2. Wealth is called the root not as sought for its own sake as last end, but as useful to every temporal end; and because a universal good moves desire more than any singular good, since with money many other things can be had. (He mocks the TV phrase “wealth management” as showing wealth is for something else, i.e. useful.)
3. A very nuanced answer: as in natural things one asks not what always happens but what happens for the most part — corruptible nature can be impeded — so in morals what is true for the most part, since the will does not act of necessity. So avarice is the root of every evil not because no other evil is ever the root of it, but because from it most frequently other evils arise.

Asides: the homeroom teacher’s “money isn’t everything” and the clever boy’s “yeah, but what it isn’t no buy”; the neighbour’s remark after his father died that he was not cut out to be a businessman since he was not interested in profit — “quite a compliment”; the student in California who wanted a ship to entertain his friends on the Pacific and needed money fast; a student on huge yachts on the East River, one with a helicopter, the yacht looking like a lifeboat on the larger vessel; a professor’s line about books and shelves [unclear in recording].

9. Article 2: pride as beginning of every sin (“it seems that pride is not the beginning”) #

Objections: (1) the root is the beginning of a tree, so root and beginning are the same; cupidity is the root, so cupidity, not pride, is the beginning. He notes Thomas often uses root and beginning as near-synonyms, so it is interesting that here it will be a beginning in a much different way. (2) Ecclesiasticus 10: “the beginning of the pride of man is to be an apostate” — so a sin is the beginning of pride (apostatein, to stand apart / fall off). (3) What makes all sin is disordered self-love, which builds the city of Babylon (Augustine, City of God XIV) — so self-love, not pride.

Sed contra: Ecclesiasticus 10, “the beginning of every sin is pride.” (Aside: a whole psalm is about being delivered from pride.)

10. The body of a. 2: intention vs. execution (“a twofold order is found”) #

“Some say” pride is said three ways, parallel to the last article: (i) disordered desire of one’s own excellence — a special sin; (ii) actual contempt of God as regards not being subject to His precept — a general sin, a genus; (iii) an inclination to that contempt from corrupt nature — and thus the beginning of every sin. On this view pride differs from cupidity as aversion from conversion: cupidity regards sin on the side of conversion to a changeable good, by which sin is nourished and fostered (hence root); pride on the side of aversion from God, whose precept it refuses to obey (hence beginning, since aversion begins the notion of evil).

Thomas again: true, but not the intention of “the wise one,” who speaks of pride as the disordered desire of one’s own excellence — as is clear from what follows, that God destroyed the seats of the proud leaders, and from the whole chapter. So pride, even as a special sin, is the beginning of every sin:

1. In voluntary acts, of which sort sins are, a twofold order is found: of intention and of execution.
2. In the order of intention the end has the notion of a beginning (“as has been said many times above”); and the end in acquiring temporal goods is that through them man have a certain perfection and excellence — so pride, the desire of excellence, is the beginning of every sin.
3. In the order of execution, what is first is what gives opportunity of fulfilling all one’s sinful desires — and this has the notion of a root; so avarice is the root of all evils. He flags this as “a very subtle distinction there.”

11. The replies of a. 2 (“apostasy from God is not taken there as a special sin”) #

1. Answered by the body: pride is beginning in the sense of end.
2. Being an apostate from God is called the beginning of pride on the side of aversion: because a man does not wish to be subject to God, it follows that he disorderly wishes his own excellence in temporal things — so apostasy is not taken there as a special sin but as the general condition of every sin, turning from the unchangeable God. Or: apostasy is the first species of pride (species to be taken up in the Secunda Secundae), since it belongs to pride not to wish to be subject to any superior, and especially not to God, whence a man is extolled above himself unduly.
3. A man loves himself in wishing his own excellence, since to love oneself is to wish good to oneself; so self-love and pride come to the same thing as beginning of every sin.

His words #

• praedictae / praefatae potentiae — “the four said powers” of the q. 83 proemium; he takes praefatae as a misprint.
• infection — corruption “apt to be transferred to another,” as leprosy and murrain.
• “first book of Wisdom” — his name for Metaphysics I, “right after the books of Natural Philosophy.”
• cupiditas / cupidity — immoderate desire of wealth; also (2) of any temporal good; (3) inclination of corrupt nature.
• antonomasia — naming Paul simply “the apostle”; Scripture is fond of it.
• radicati / fundati — “rooted” from nature, “founded” from art (Eph. 3:17).
• capitalia vitia — “head vices,” the seven capital vices.
• root vs. beginning — root: what nourishes/gives the means (order of execution); beginning: the end intended (order of intention).
• commutable good — changeable good, object of sinful desire, against the unchangeable good.
• species — of pride; to be treated in the Secunda Secundae.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 83, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies) — with the proemium of q. 83
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 84, proemium and a. 1 (full)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 84, a. 2 (full)
• Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIV (quoted twice: motion of the generative members; self-love making Babylon)
• 1 Timothy — “the root of all evils is cupidity” (6:10, inferred)
• Ecclesiasticus 10 — “the beginning of every sin is pride”; “the beginning of man’s pride is to be an apostate”
• Ephesians 3:17 — “rooted and founded in charity”

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I (the generative does not obey reason; wealth desired as useful); on temperance and the mean “towards us” (the swan’s neck, the man who ate an ox); on liberality
• Aristotle, Metaphysics I (sight shows many differences of things); and the remark about predecessors who said things well
• Ecclesiastes — “all things obey money”
• Dionysius — for man to be good is to be reasonable
• Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae de malo
• Albert the Great (as the “some” of q. 84 a. 1, per his edition’s note)
• Augustine on knowing God and other things (locus not recalled)
• Flannery O’Connor, stories

His questions #

• What are “the four said powers”? — The ones enumerated in the proemium of q. 83: (after the will) the generative power, the concupiscible, and touch.
• Why are just these three called infected? — Because infection is what is transmitted, and original sin is transmitted by the act of generation, which these powers serve.
• Does original sin then not belong to the will? — Yes, on the side of inclining to actual sin; only remotely on the side of transmission.
• Why sight less than touch? — Sight disposes only remotely, showing the concupiscible species; pleasure is perfected in touch.
• Was there a temptation of this (cupidity’s) sort for Christ? — Yes: showing him all the kingdoms; bread from stones was sensual, the leap from the temple more like pride.
• Where is that passage of Augustine on knowing God? — Left open; he cannot remember.
• If cupidity is the root, how can pride be the beginning? — Beginning belongs to the order of intention (the end, one’s own excellence); root to the order of execution (the means to every sin).
• Is avarice the root always? — No: for the most part, since the will does not act of necessity; sometimes another evil is the root of avarice.