Wood, Hay and Straw, Venial Sin in the State of Innocence, and Why Angels Cannot Sin Venially (Aquinas, Question 89, Articles 2-4)

Orientation #

He continues straight through the articles of the question on venial sin, taking a. 2 (wood, hay, straw), a. 3 (innocence), a. 4 (angels), and at the end asks whether to take another article; they decide they cannot finish one, so the class stops there. He does not say what came before.

The class, in order #

1. Objections to wood, hay and straw (“unsuitably, venial sins are designated by wood, hay, and straw”) #

The objections of a. 2: (1) wood, hay and straw are said to be built upon the spiritual foundation, but venial sins lie apart from the spiritual building, as false opinions lie aside from knowledge. (2) The one who builds with them will be saved as through fire; but some who commit venial sins are not saved even through fire, namely those who die with mortal sin. (3) Gold, silver, precious stones are love of God, of neighbour, and good deeds; but venial sins are committed by those who do love God and neighbour and do good works — “if we say we have not sinned, we seduce ourselves” (1 John 1:8). (4) There are many more grades of venial sin than three. He notes what the three have in common: they can be burnt. Sed contra: the builder with wood, hay, straw is saved though through fire, so he undergoes punishment but not eternal punishment; and temporal punishment is what properly belongs to venial sin. Asides: “stipulate” traced to stipulari, to demand as a formal promise; stipula = straw, whence “stubble,” and “that’s the last straw.” On Paul (2 Corinthians) seeing God in passing in this life — Thomas follows Augustine; whether the Church has ever formally declared it, “I don’t know”; Moses said too. Digression on the prophets being slighted as “past history” though named in every prayer (patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, apostles), and on Boulay staying up all night over the prophets and talking about them instead of the day’s topic.

2. Two rejected expositions and his own (“these can be burnt with the building remaining”) #

Point: the right reading makes wood, hay and straw the venial sins mixed in among the things one procures.

• First exposition: the foundation is unformed faith (faith not formed by charity); on it some build good works (gold, silver, stones), some mortal sins (wood, hay, straw). Refuted by Augustine, On Faith and Works: Galatians 5 says those who do the works of the flesh will not obtain the kingdom, i.e. will not be saved; but Paul says the builder with wood, hay, straw will be saved through fire. So they cannot be mortal sins.
• Second exposition: they are good works mixed with venial sins — as a man’s care of his family is good but he mixes in a superfluous love of wife, sons, or possessions, yet under God, so that he would do nothing against God for them. His own instance: “I have superfluous love of my books” — burn all the books rather than do something against God, but still like the books. (Aside: Washington Irving on the Scotsman who fell on bad times and had to sell his books.) Rejected: all good deeds are referred to love of God and neighbour, hence to gold, silver, stones, not to wood, hay, straw.
• His answer: venial sins mixed in among the things procured are signified, because these are brought together in the house and do not pertain to the building of the house, and therefore can be burnt with the building remaining — so venial sins can multiply in a man with the spiritual building standing. For these one suffers fire, either temporal tribulation here or purgatory after; and nevertheless one attains eternal life.
• Asides: the building metaphor extended by the class — foundation faith, walls hope, roof charity, and “the tools you build with are the sacraments.” “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain.”

3. Replies in a. 2 (“placed alongside of it, so to speak”) #

(1) Venial sins are not built upon the spiritual foundation as directly placed on it but as placed alongside, as in Psalm 136, “upon the rivers of Babylon.” He adds: venial sins do not destroy the spiritual building — despair would destroy hope, hatred would destroy charity, and not a fleeting doubt but a real denial. (Aside: the man who said that if they define the Assumption, “I’m out” — “don’t worry, you’re already out.”) (2) It is said not of just any builder with wood, hay, straw that he will be saved, but of the one who builds on the foundation, which is not unformed faith but faith formed by charity — Ephesians 3, “rooted and founded in charity.” He notes the beauty of the double metaphor: radicati from natural things, fundati from art. The man who dies with mortal and venial sins has the wood, hay, straw but not on the spiritual foundation, so he is not saved as it were through fire. A student’s correction, accepted: he may go through fire, only not be saved through it. (3) Those withdrawn from care of temporal things sin venially but lightly, and are frequently purged by the fervour of charity, so little remains in them; the venial sins of those occupied with earthly things remain diutius, longer, because they cannot so frequently return to deleting them by that fervour.

4. Beginning, middle and end: reply 4 (“omnia tribus includuntur”) #

The fourth reply: as the philosopher says in the first book on the universe, all things are included in three, beginning, middle, end. His notes:

• Aristotle is there quoting Pythagoras, and his own point is the number of dimensions: only three lines can be drawn at right angles to one another, a fourth is impossible — so it is a probable argument, yet Thomas takes it seriously.
• Secundum hoc, all grades of venial sin reduce to three: wood, which stays long in the fire; hay [ed.: read for straw] which citissime expeditur, goes at once; and the middle. He notes Thomas runs longest to shortest, and that one often takes the two opposites first and then the middle — as tragedies, comedies, and those in the middle.
• Aristotle’s definitions: the beginning is before something but not after anything; the end after something but not before anything — two oppositions. The middle is after something and before something, so it is opposed to the beginning in one respect and to the end in one, hence less opposed — as grey is opposed to black and to white, but not as much as they are to each other.
• Augustine and Thomas on three stages of charity in the Psalms: the first fifty for beginners, fighting against sin and repenting (whence Psalm 55 [as he says], the penitential psalm St Teresa of Avila loved); the second fifty for those progressing in virtue; the third for those resting in the contemplation of God. Students offer “grade school, high school, college” (he: not clear) and youth, middle age, old age.
• Conclusion: as venial sins are of more or less adherence and gravity, they are purged more quickly or slowly — “so where are you? That’s the question.”
• Extended aside on beginning-middle-end in music: reading Ossley’s [ASR; article reprinted from The Thomist] in high school, he asked whether a Mozart piano concerto’s three movements are one piece or three; unless the three form a beginning, middle and end it would be a concert, not a piece. The 23rd, in A major, “the key of Mozart”: first movement bright but with a touch of sadness in the development (Girdlestone: a spring day with danger of precipitation, the sun unconvincing); the second movement brings the sadness out in the minor and resolves it at its end; the third opens a bright succession of melodies, with the sadness returning but faced, not fled.
• Aside: that morning Thomas divided the ancestors of Christ into three fourteens — patriarchs, kings, and after the transmigration.

5. Objections: could man in innocence sin venially? (“Adam was not seduced”) #

The objections of a. 3, all for the affirmative: (1) On 1 Timothy 2, “Adam was not seduced,” the gloss says he was inexperienced with the divine severity, believing that a venial thing was being committed; he could not have believed this unless he could sin venially. He glosses: “I’m going to commit a little venial sin here — eat that apple.” Compare the man who says God will not punish him for missing Mass on Sunday: “he can’t see it.” (2) Augustine, On Genesis to the Letter XI: the tempter would not have cast man down unless a certain elatio (the name for pride) had already preceded in his soul; that elatio preceding the casting down, which was by mortal sin, could only have been venial. (“He didn’t fall until he fell.”) (3) Same work: a desire of experiencing solicited the man when he saw the woman had not died after taking the fruit; and in Eve there seems to have been some motion of infidelity, in that she doubted the Lord’s words (Genesis 3). These seem venial sins; so man could sin venially before sinning mortally — “the little before the big.” (4) Mortal sin is more opposed to the integrity of the first state than venial; but man could sin mortally notwithstanding that integrity; therefore also venially. He calls this a fine theological place: “if I’m able to decapitate you, couldn’t I just kick you in the shin?” Sed contra: every sin owes some punishment, but there could be nothing punishable in the state of innocence (Augustine, City of God XIV); so there could be no sin by which one was not ejected from that state; but venial sin does not change man’s state; therefore he could not sin venially. He restates it for the class: you must leave the state of innocence to be worthy of punishment, and only mortal sin leaves it. Asides: “debt and debtor” in the Greek of the Our Father, “trespasses” coming in later; Arabic and Syriac use two words there; the parable of the forgiven debt fits the petition. Louis de Broglie’s 1932 address: one must be open to the higher things, else the mechanical age is nothing but “a kind of complicated barbarism” — said just before Hitler came to power.

6. His answer on innocence: mortal sin had to come first (“a good example of a before and after”) #

It is commonly laid down (his text cites Albert on Sentences II and Bonaventure on Sentences II, ad Claras Aquas edition) that man in innocence could not sin venially. First a clarification: this does not mean that what is venial for us would be mortal for them because of the height of their state — the dignity of the person is a circumstance aggravating the sin, but it does not transfer it into another species, unless the deformity of disobedience or vow-breaking is added, which is not the case here. It means he could not commit anything venial in itself before losing the integrity of the first state by mortal sin. The reason, as the class works it:

1. Venial sin arises in us either from imperfection of the act (sudden motions in the genus of mortal sins, e.g. a sudden doubt about an article of faith), or from disorder about the things that are toward the end while the end itself is kept in order.
2. Both come from a defect of order, the lower not being firmly contained under the higher: sudden motions of sensuality [ed.: the emotions, sense desires] because sensuality is not altogether subject to reason; sudden motion in reason because the carrying out of reason’s act is not subject to deliberation from the higher; disorder about means because the means are not infallibly ordered under the end, which holds the place of a beginning among desirables.
3. But in the state of innocence (as was had in the First Part) there was an infallible firmness of order: the lower always contained under the higher, so long as man’s highest was contained under God.
4. Therefore disorder in man could only come from his highest part not being subject to God — and that is mortal sin. Conclusion: man in innocence could not sin venially before sinning mortally. He stresses: “Isn’t this a good example of a before and after that you wouldn’t probably think about?” — in our fallen state venial sins come before mortal sin and in some way dispose for it; in innocence the order is exactly reversed. “See how Thomas looks before and after” — and Augustine saw the before and after before Thomas. Aside on the naked pair: they did not know they were naked until after they sinned, so there were no sudden unreasonable passions. Asides on Augustine as Thomas’s chief teacher “by the written word, not by the spoken word” (“they even have MP3s back then”), John Paul II’s encyclical on Augustine, and the Augustinian rule behind Dominican and Assumptionist life.

7. Replies in a. 3 (“venial is not taken there according as we are now speaking”) #

(1) “Venial” in the gloss is not taken as we now use it, but as meaning what is easily forgivable. (2) The elatio that went before in man’s soul was man’s first mortal sin — pride was the beginning — and it is said to precede the casting down in the exterior act of sin. Following that elation came the desire of experiencing in the man and the doubt in the woman, who doubted God under the suggestion of the devil, from the very fact that she heard the precept mentioned by the serpent, not wishing to be held under precept. (Aside: hence redemption begins from Mary, to redeem womanhood.) (3) Mortal sin is so opposed to the integrity of the first state that it corrupts it, which venial sin cannot do; and since no disorder can stand together with that integrity, the first man could not sin venially before sinning mortally.

8. Objections: can an angel sin venially? (“man understands with the angels”) #

(1) Man comes together with the angels in the highest part of the soul, the mind — Gregory’s homily, “man understands with the angels”; but man can sin venially in that higher part; therefore so can the angel. (2) Whoever can do more can do less — “a dialectical place”: if you can lift two hundred pounds you can lift a hundred; “if I can murder you, I can certainly steal from you.” The angel could love a created good more than God, which he did in mortal sin; therefore he can also love a created good below God disorderedly, sinning venially. (3) Bad angels seem to do things venial in their genus, provoking men to laughter and like levities; and the circumstance of the person does not make a venial sin mortal unless a special prohibition is crossed, which is not the case. Sed contra: the angel’s perfection is greater than man’s in the first state; man in the first state could not sin venially; much less the angel — “a good nice dialectic argument.” Digression on naming, prompted by “man understands with the angels”: understanding is sometimes used as a synonym for reason. The angel has this power fully and keeps the name understanding; we have it in a shadowed way and get a new name, reason. So when Shakespeare defines our understanding he defines it by discourse, and for the second part says “looking” rather than “seeing” — the angel would be seeing. A basic rule of naming: the one that has the perfection fully keeps the name and the lesser gets a new one — woman/girl, man/boy, cat/kitten, dog/puppy; and sometimes the reverse, the one that has nothing more keeps the common name.

9. His answer on angels, and replies (“all of their acts are acts of charity”) #

The angel’s understanding is not discursive (as said in the First Part): it does not proceed from principles to conclusions, understanding each separately as we do; whenever it considers conclusions it considers them as they are in the beginnings. And, by Aristotle’s comparison “said many times,” ends are as beginnings and means as conclusions. Hence the angel’s mind is not borne to the means except as standing under the order to the end; so by his very nature he cannot have disorder about the means unless there is disorder about the end itself.

• Good angels are moved in the means only in order to the end, which is God; hence all their acts are acts of charity, and there can be no venial sin in them.
• Bad angels are moved to nothing except in order to the end of their pride; hence in everything they do by their own will they sin mortally — otherwise about the desire of the natural good in them, which they do naturally. Replies: (1) Man agrees with the angels in mind or understanding but differs in the manner of understanding — we understand by discourse; intelligere hominis est per modum motus, man’s understanding is in the manner of motion; “we’re kind of like waking up little by little.” (2) The angel cannot love the creature less than God without at the same time referring the creature to God as ultimate end; he cannot love it by itself — or else it ends in some disordered end, and he is the bad angel. So he loves the creature only in God. (An exchange: so shall we be in heaven, loving each other only in God.) (3) All the seemingly venial things the demons procure in order to draw men into their own familiarity and thence into mortal sin; so in all such things they sin mortally, on account of their intention for the end. He sums up what he finds striking: neither the good nor the bad angel can sin venially, because everything they do is tied to their end, since they do not discourse from end to means — for the good angel always in God, for the devil always in his pride. “We’re mixed up in the middle… shot at from both sides.”

His words #

• stipulate / stipula — from stipulari, to demand as a formal promise; stipula, straw, whence “stubble.”
• unformed faith — faith not formed by charity; rejected as the “foundation” of 1 Corinthians 3.
• faith formed by charity — the true foundation; radicati et fundati, rooted (from nature) and founded (from art).
• superfluous love — love of wife, sons, possessions mixed into a good work but kept under God.
• diutius — “or lengthy,” how long the venial sins of the worldly remain.
• omnia tribus includuntur — all things are included in three: beginning, middle, end.
• citissime expeditur — “right away it goes,” of the straw/hay.
• sensuality — “that’s the emotions now,” sense desires.
• elatio — “the name for pride.”
• the state of innocence / integrity of the first state — the order in which the lower is infallibly contained under the higher so long as man’s highest is under God.
• understanding vs. reason — the angel has the power fully and keeps the name understanding; ours, shadowed, gets the new name reason, defined by discourse.
• intelligere hominis est per modum motus — man’s understanding is in the manner of motion.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 89, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, corpus, four replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 89, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, corpus, three replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 89, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, corpus, three replies)
• Within these, quoted and commented: 1 John 1:8; Galatians 5; Ephesians 3; Psalm 136; 1 Timothy 2 with the gloss; Genesis 3; Augustine, On Faith and Works; On Genesis to the Letter XI; City of God XIV; Aristotle, On the Heavens I; Gregory’s homily.

Mentioned

• 2 Corinthians, on Paul seeing God in this life (Thomas following Augustine)
• Albert the Great and Bonaventure on Sentences II (ad Claras Aquas edition), cited in his text
• Girdlestone’s book on the Mozart piano concertos; Ossley’s [ASR] article reprinted from The Thomist
• Washington Irving on the Scotsman selling his books; Louis de Broglie’s 1932 address; John Paul II’s encyclical on Augustine
• Shakespeare’s “What is a man?” — reason defined by discourse

His questions #

• What do wood, hay and straw have in common? — They can be burnt.
• Can wood, hay and straw signify mortal sins? — No: Augustine against it, since Paul says that builder is saved, and doers of the works of the flesh are not.
• Can they signify good works mixed with venial sins? — No: all good deeds are referred to love of God and neighbour, hence to gold, silver, stones.
• Then why are venial sins so designated? — Because they are brought into the house without being built into it, and can burn with the building standing.
• Why does Thomas reduce venial sins to three grades at all? — On Aristotle’s omnia tribus includuntur, a probable argument from the three dimensions, taken over as wood, hay, straw by duration in the fire.
• Would what is venial for us be mortal for man in innocence, because of his state? — No: the dignity of the person aggravates but does not change the species.
• Could man in the state of innocence sin venially? — No, not before sinning mortally: all venial disorder presupposes the lower not held under the higher, and that only follows on reason’s leaving God.
• Isn’t this a striking before and after? — Yes: for us venial comes before mortal; in innocence mortal had to come first.
• Can a good or bad angel sin venially? — Neither can: undiscursive mind takes means only in the order of the end, so the good angel’s every act is charity and the devil’s every willed act is mortal.
• Should we take another article? — They judge they cannot finish one, so the class ends.