Aquinas on Venial and Mortal Sin (Summa I-II, Q. 88, Articles 2–3): the Temptation of Christ, the Spirit of Error, and Contempt for Order

Orientation #

He refers back to the first article of the question, “the first one we read last week” (prev. lecture), where the division of venial against mortal was shown not to be univocal but like the division of accident against substance. The class covers Article 2 and Article 3 of q. 88.

The class, in order #

1. The four articles on the teacher (“whether man can be a teacher of himself”) #

An opening report on his reading of the De Veritate question on the teacher: (1) can man be a teacher, or only God, since Christ is called our teacher; (2) whether a man can teach himself — Thomas denies it, but the objection is good: the teacher enlightens the student, and each of us has an act of understanding that enlightens us, therefore we teach ourselves; he leaves the answer as a challenge; (3) whether an angel can teach man — this illuminates the opening prayer’s “strengthen the lights of our minds, illumine our images”; (4) whether teaching belongs to the active or contemplative life.

2. The three temptations and the three lusts (“the lust of the flesh… the pride of life”) #

The order of the temptations in Matthew — stones into bread, all the kingdoms of the world, the pinnacle of the temple — corresponds to the three in 1 John: epithymia tēs sarkos (flesh), epithymia tōn ophthalmōn (a kind of avarice), alazoneia tou biou (pride).

3. The names: Spirit, devil, Satan, tempter (“he’s also called by antonomasia the tempter”) #

• Christ is led out by “the Spirit” simply — the name Spirit, tied to breath and to his manner of proceeding, is proper to the Holy Spirit.
• The tempter is called diabolos throughout, and by antonomasia ho peirazōn, the tempter: “he really knows how to tempt… the rest of us are amateurs.”
• Etymologies: Satan = adversary, i.e. enemy; diabolos = slanderer (from diabolē, slander).
• He notes it is only at the third temptation, the one for pride, that Christ calls him by name, Satan — the supreme temptation, and there he calls him enemy.

4. The spirit of error and Apocalypse 12 (“am I justified in saying the pneuma planēs”) #

Question put: is the pneuma planēs (spirit of error, from John) rightly identified with the devil? He answers from Apocalypse 12: after the war in heaven, Michael and his angels against the dragon, “that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, ho planōn tēn oikoumenēn holēn” — who deceives (leads astray) the whole world. Since he leads astray and is bodiless, he is rightly called the spirit of error. Aside: the Supreme Court abortion decision of the 1970s as a place where the pneuma planēs is active. Etymological aside: “planet” comes from the same root, because planets wander.

5. Article 2, the three objections (“venial and mortal sin do not differ in genus”) #

1. Good and evil from genus in human acts is taken by comparison to the matter or object; but on any object one can sin either mortally or venially, since any changeable good can be loved below God (venial) or above God (mortal). Example: candy, or gold — loving gold more than God is mortal, loving God more than gold but still loving gold is venial. Therefore no difference of genus.
2. Mortal is irreparable, venial repairable; but irreparability belongs to sin from malice (called irremissible by some), reparability to sin from infirmity or ignorance. So they differ by their cause, not by object or matter. (Example: Paul persecuted the Church in ignorance.)
3. Sudden motions, of sensuality and of reason, are venial — e.g. a sudden doubt entering the mind; but sudden motions are found in every genus of sin, so there is no genus of venial sin.

Sed contra: Augustine in the sermon on purgatory enumerates certain genera of venial and certain genera of mortal sins.

Aside: he shows the class a picture of Our Lady Untier of Knots, applying it to the question — Thomas has tied us up, she can untie the knots; the devotion was made known by Pope Francis.

6. The three senses of “venial” (“ex eventu… ex causa… the order to the last end”) #

Veniale is said from venia, forgiveness.

1. Ex eventu — it has obtained forgiveness; Ambrose: every sin through penance becomes venial. So even a mortal sin can be venial in this sense.
2. Ex causa — it has in itself something diminishing the guilt, as when it comes from infirmity or ignorance; forgiveness partly does not fail to follow. (Courtroom parallel: “diminishing circumstance”; the famous defence, “I blacked out.” A sin venial ex causa can still be of very serious matter.)
3. Venial because it does not take away the order to the last end, and so merits temporal and not eternal punishment — “and about this venial sin we intend for the present.”

The first two have no determined genus; the third does, since the genus or species of an act is determined from its object.

7. The corpus of Article 2 (“mortal from its genus… against the love of God or of neighbour”) #

When the will is carried to what secundum se is repugnant to charity, by which man is ordered to the last end, the sin is mortal from its genus: either against the love of God — blasphemy, perjury — or against the love of neighbour — homicide, adultery. Such sins oppose charity, therefore separate from God, therefore are called mortal. When the will is carried to what contains some disorder but is not contrary to love of God or neighbour — an idle word, a superfluous laugh — the sin is venial from its genus.

Two crossings, on the side of the agent:

• A sin venial from genus becomes mortal when one either constitutes his ultimate end in it (superfluous laughter as one’s end in life) or orders it to something mortal from genus (an idle word ordered to committing adultery).
• A sin mortal from genus becomes venial when the act is not deliberated by reason, the beginning of a bad act — as in sudden motions of infidelity. He instances sudden doubt arising from a difficulty; and people using “Jesus” in conversation almost thoughtlessly, or on smashing a finger — “hard things to judge.”

He notes this third sense is the one used when little boys are taught to confess.

8. Replies of Article 2 (“he is convicted to prefer that to divine charity”) #

1. He who chooses what is repugnant to divine charity is thereby convicted of preferring it to charity, and so of loving it for itself more than God; so sins repugnant to charity by genus have in them something loved above God, and are mortal from their genus.
2. That argument proceeds from venial sin ex causa.
3. That argument proceeds from sin venial on account of the imperfection of the act (what we were taught as lacking full consent).

9. Article 3, the objections (“whether venial sin is a disposition to mortal sin”) #

1. One opposite does not dispose to another; venial and mortal are divided as opposites. (“That’s thoroughly convincing, I think.”)
2. Acts dispose to something like themselves in species — Nicomachean Ethics II: from like acts like dispositions and habits are generated; but venial and mortal differ in genus or species.
3. If whatever disposes to mortal sin were a venial sin, then good works would be venial sins, since Augustine in the Rule says pride insidiously (insidiatur) works its way into good works — which is unfitting.

Sed contra: Ecclesiasticus 19:1 — “He that neglects little things shall fall little by little.” The one who sins venially neglects little things, and so is disposed to fall totally into mortal sin.

Aside, on the objections against articles of faith: “our mind has the stability of a wind sock.”

10. Corpus: two modes of causing, two modes of disposing (“a cause indirectly moving by removing the prohibiting”) #

The disposer is in some way a cause; so, according to the twofold cause, twofold disposition:

1. A cause moving directly to the effect, as the hot heats. Here an act disposes to an act like in species — so venial sin ex genere does not primo et per se dispose to mortal ex genere, since they differ in species. But by consequence it disposes to a sin mortal on the side of the agent: by repeated venial acts the disposition or habit is increased and the desire (libido) of sinning grows, until the sinner constitutes his end in the venial sin; for to each one having a habit, the end as such is to act according to that habit — “that’s a nice fundamental thing.”
   • Hence Augustine’s counsel to say the Our Father daily for our venial sins, lest they produce a habit.
   • Aristotle’s need of the moral virtues for prudence: the principle of prudence is the end, and you must not only know the end but be attracted to it in your desiring powers; if attracted to something other than the last end, that can become powerful enough that you choose it in its place.
   • Examples of an end taken over by a habit: candy as the purpose of one’s life; Robert addicted to an online game, stopping the car every few miles for a connection; the alcoholic whose taste becomes habit and ruins marriage and job; the inventor of intermittent windshield wipers who was cheated by a manufacturer and destroyed his life in court winning the case — “one greedy man ruining himself for another greedy man.”
2. A cause moving indirectly, by removing the prohibiting — the one who removes the column is said to remove what is set above it; a kind of accidental cause. In this way venial sin ex genere does dispose to mortal ex genere: he who sins venially sets aside some order, and his will becomes accustomed not to be subject to the due order in lesser things, and so is disposed not to be subject to the order to the last end in choosing what is mortal from genus. “You get a disrespect for order.”

11. Digression: disorder in the mind, in marriage, in music (“you take away order, anything goes”) #

Attached to removens prohibens:

• Error is from wandering; wandering signifies a disordered movement; so the mind that wanders wanders into error — Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, “now we wander in illusion.” A student adds: worse when the will wanders, since the will follows the heart.
• Marriage: states defending marriage between man and woman must do so in terms of the child; the child, not the mutual love of the spouses, is the end and the common good of mother, father and community. Once the spouses’ enjoyment is made equal to the children as end, and then the main thing, “why not?” — this is the prior disorder behind same-sex marriage. A student: the gay agenda wins because people already bought the sexual revolution, so nothing is left to prohibit. Asides: androgynous pharmacy advertisement; professional couples with a dog as surrogate child; radio seminars on divorce, “who gets the dog”; the objection “can it be abhorrent that two people of the same sex should wish that emotional and physical closeness?” — “is that all that marriage is?”; W. C. Fields on hating children.
• Music: Mozart and the Baroque represent the emotions in an ordered state; the romantics will not allow that the emotions be ordered by reason. Aristotle: reason should rule the emotions as a father rules a son, not as a master a slave — for the good of the emotions themselves. His old teacher Kasurik (ASR uncertain) on romantic music: “it tears you out.” In the last books of the Politics Aristotle says some paintings should not be looked at, and music matters even more than paintings. Aside on the Grateful Dead and deadheads as an introduction to disorder; a student adds that films combine disorder of music with disorder of images.
• Philosophy is called methodos, knowledge along a road, and road is taken from order. Aside: Monsignor Dionne asking why he paid less attention to another professor — “he doesn’t have the order that you and De Koninck have.”
• Long aside on Washington Irving’s biography of George Washington: Irving named after Washington, touched on the head by him as a boy in New York; he takes his closing eulogy from an English author, an enemy; Jefferson’s testimony that Washington never swerved from what was right. Also Irving’s life of Columbus. “If you should honour your father and mother, you should honour the father of your country.”

12. Replies of Article 3 (“just as accident can be a disposition for substantial form”) #

1. Venial and mortal are not divided ex opposito as two species of one genus, like black and white or hot and cold, but as accident is divided against substance (the first article, last week — not univocal). And just as an accident can be a disposition to a substantial form, so venial sin to mortal.
2. Venial sin is not like mortal in species, but is like it in that both imply a defect of the due order, though in different ways — more disorder in mortal sin.
3. A good work is not a per se disposition to mortal sin, but can be its matter or occasion — Thomas’s word for accidental cause — whereas venial sin disposes per se. Examples: a beautiful woman may become proud of her beauty, but beauty is good and not the per se cause of pride; likewise discovering a great theorem. A student adds the Federal Express commercial: the office worker whose one good idea became the shining moment and core of his whole life.

His words #

• pneuma planēs — “spirit of error,” identified with the devil from Apocalypse 12’s ho planōn.
• “by antonomasia” — calling him “the tempter,” ho peirazōn, as his proper description.
• ex eventu — venial “from the event,” i.e. having obtained forgiveness.
• ex causa — venial from a cause diminishing guilt (infirmity, ignorance); compared to “diminishing circumstance” in a courtroom.
• ex genere — mortal or venial “from its genus,” i.e. from the object determining the species of the act.
• secundum se — “as such,” of what is repugnant to charity in itself.
• libido — “a strong desire of sinning.”
• removens prohibens — the cause that moves indirectly by removing what prevents, as removing the column removes what is set above.
• “occasion” — Thomas’s word for an accidental cause, as against a per se cause.
• methodos — “knowledge over a road,” road taken from the idea of order.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 88, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 88, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• 1 John 2:16 (Greek and English)
• Apocalypse 12 (Greek and English)
• Ecclesiasticus 19:1

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, question on the teacher, four articles (inferred: q. 11)
• Matthew’s account of the temptation of Christ (inferred: Mt 4)
• Augustine, sermon on purgatory; Augustine, the Rule (on pride insidiously entering good works); Augustine on the Our Father and daily venial sins
• Ambrose: every sin through penance becomes venial
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II; Politics, last books, on music and painting
• Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors
• Washington Irving, Life of George Washington; his Columbus
• Porphyry (on what a genus is)
• (The verified source list also notes a match to Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles IV, ch. 15; the transcript does not name it.)

His questions #

• What is the order of the three temptations of Christ in Matthew, and to what does it correspond? Bread (lust of the flesh), the kingdoms (lust of the eyes, avarice), the pinnacle (pride of life) — the three of 1 John.
• What do diabolos and Satan mean? Slanderer, and adversary or enemy.
• Am I justified in calling the devil the pneuma planēs? Yes — Apocalypse 12 calls him the one leading astray the whole world, and he is bodiless, hence a spirit.
• Is candy an object of venial or of mortal sin? Of either: it depends whether it is loved below or above God — which is the first objection’s force.
• Peccatum veniale is said from what? From venia, forgiveness.
• Do venial and mortal sin differ in genus? Not in the first two senses (ex eventu, ex causa), which have no determined genus; yes in the third sense, taken from the object.
• Can a sin venial from its genus become mortal? Yes, on the side of the agent — if made one’s ultimate end, or ordered to a mortal sin.
• Whether venial sin is a disposition to mortal sin? Yes: by consequence, through the habit whose end becomes the venial act; and directly as removens prohibens, by taking away respect for order.
• How can opposites dispose to one another? They are not opposed as two species of a genus but as accident to substance, and an accident can dispose to a substantial form.
• How do good works dispose to mortal sin without being venial sins? Not per se, but as matter or occasion — an accidental cause, as beauty is the occasion of pride.