First Motions of Sensuality in the Faithless, and Whether Venial Sin Can Exist with Original Sin Alone

Orientation #

He begins with his customary prayer, then works straight through articles five and six of the question on venial sin. At the end he announces: “now we’re up to law, right?” and asks the class to look at the proemium before the break. The next class opens the Treatise on Law at q. 90.

The class, in order #

1. Opening prayer and the common good (“respect for the common good”) #

Prayer to God, the guardian angels and Thomas Aquinas. An aside on Washington: what one sees there is respect for the common good; the common good of the country is better than any other good in the country, and God is the common good of the whole universe, “the common good par excellence.” To respect the common good at all is “a kind of a good sign.”

2. Article 5, objections: the first motions in the faithless (“the first motions of sensuality in the faithless”) #

The question: are the first motions of sensuality in the faithless mortal sins?

1. Romans 8: “there is no damnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh.” Paul is speaking of the concupiscence of sensuality. So the reason concupiscence is not damnable is that they are in Christ Jesus; the faithless are not in Christ Jesus; therefore in them it is damnable.
2. Anselm (On Grace and Free Choice): those who are not in Christ, sensing the flesh, follow damnation, even if they do not walk according to the flesh. But damnation is owed only to mortal sin.
3. Anselm again: man is so made that he ought not to sense concupiscence. That debt is met through baptismal grace, which the faithless do not have. So whenever the faithless man desires, even without consent, he sins mortally, acting against what he ought to be.

He notes in advance: “Thomas’s going to defend the faithless” — “he will defend them better than they can defend themselves.”

Asides on the world’s insanity (marijuana prescribed for pets; drug users who spent a whole recording talking about the red light on a tape recorder and could not stand hearing themselves sober; the Haight-Ashbury hippies; a priest’s line: “they can get high on drugs, but if they get high on drugs, what must be their low?”; “lunar cruising”).

3. Article 5, sed contra and body (“God is not an acceptor of persons”) #

Sed contra: Acts 10:34, God is not an acceptor of persons — he remarks it is interesting to see that used as a counter-argument. What is not imputed to damnation in one is not imputed in another; first motions are not imputed to damnation in the faithful; therefore not in the faithless.

Body — two ways it is clear that it is said unreasonably that the first motions of the faithless are mortal sins (given no consent):

1. Sensuality itself cannot be the subject of mortal sin — it must be in the will; and sensuality is of the same nature in faithless and faithful.
2. From the state of the sinner: the dignity of a person never diminishes sin but increases it; so sin is not less in the faithful but multo magis — “put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Sins of the faithless rather merit forgiveness on account of ignorance (1 Tim: “I obtained mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief” — Paul persecuting the Church, and the faithful still afraid of him after the conversion; Ananias telling our Lord what he had heard about this man, “as if our Lord didn’t know”). Sins of the faithful are aggravated by the sacraments of grace: Hebrews 10, how much worse punishment for those who have polluted the blood of the testament in which they were sanctified — you are made a temple of the Holy Spirit and then desecrate the temple. Applied: Catholics practising birth control sin worse than others.

4. Article 5, replies (“although there remains the fomes of concupiscence”) #

• To 1: Paul speaks of the damnation owed to original sin, taken away through the grace of Christ, although the fomes of concupiscence remains; so the desire of the faithful is not in them a sign of the damnation of original sin as it is in the faithless. “That’s why they get confused on this thing.”
• To 2: understand Anselm in the same way.
• To 3: that debt of not desiring belonged to original justice; what is opposed to it pertains not to actual but to original sin — which is why the faithless lack that freedom from the first motion.

“I’m glad somebody’s defending those faithless people.” Thomas is imitating God, not a respecter of persons.

5. Article 6, objections: venial with original sin alone (“venial sin can be in someone with only”) #

The question: can venial sin be in someone with original sin only, without mortal sin? “That’s an odd article.”

1. Disposition precedes habit; venial sin is a disposition to mortal; so in the faithless, whose original sin is not remitted, venial is found before mortal — hence sometimes venial with original and no mortal. (He notes the argument is tortured, and that having the disposition to mortal sin is not having mortal sin.)
2. Venial has less connection with mortal than mortal with mortal. But the faithless man under original sin can commit one mortal sin and not another; therefore also a venial and not a mortal. He comments on the form: what is more likely not to be so, given that what is less likely is not so.
3. A time can be determined at which a boy is first able to be the author of an actual sin (as against the original sin he already has); at that time he can stand at least some brief space before sinning mortally — “this also happens even in the most wicked” (sceleratis) — and in that space, however brief, he can sin venially. “I’m perfectly convinced, aren’t you, fellow dimwits?”

Aside: nice that we have “this book for beginners” — the disputed questions De veritate et bonitate give fifteen objections, while here he cuts down to about three, out of pity on the dimwit beginner.

6. Sed contra, and the class on limbo (“there’s no third place”) #

Sed contra: for original sin men are punished in the limbo of children, where there is no pain of sense; in hell men are thrust down only on account of mortal sin; therefore there is no place in which to punish one who has venial sin with original only.

Student exchange, worked out on the board of the discussion: limbo is for original sin alone, hell for any mortal sin (baptized or not); so for original plus venial there is “no third place.” He notes Thomas does not say where such a one would end up — his point is that the case is impossible. One student first supposes such a person would go to limbo; the resolution reached is that limbo is only for those who have original sin and have not had time to commit venial sin.

7. Article 6, body (“impossible that venial sin be in someone with original sin without mortal”) #

Thomas’s answer: it is impossible.

1. Before the years of discretion, the defect of age preventing the use of reason excuses from mortal sin, and much more from venial — even if he does something that is of its genus such. (Example: the baby crying in church this morning is not guilty of venial sin for disturbing the Mass. Joke about the child’s age: “29 — just recently weaned.”)
2. When he begins to have the use of reason, he is not altogether excused from guilt. But the first thing that then occurs to a man to think about is to deliberate about himself. If he orders himself to a due end, through grace he obtains the remission of original sin. If he does not, then so far as at that age he is capable of discretion, he sins mortally by not doing what is in his power. So there will not be in him venial without mortal, except once the whole is taken away through grace.

Student question: does this mean the first real moral act of a person starting from original sin either takes away original sin or is itself mortal? He answers that Thomas seems to speak that way — “it’s kind of strange, a strange position.”

8. Replies, and the first thought of man (“the first that occurs to a man having discretion is that he thinks about himself”) #

• To 1: venial is not a disposition necessarily preceding mortal but contingently — as labour sometimes disposes to fever, not as heat disposes to the form of fire. (Joke: “I got so hot, I burst into flames.”)
• To 2: what prevents venial with original alone is not the distance or convenience between them but the defect of the use of reason.
• To 3: from other mortal sins the boy beginning to use reason can abstain for a time, but not from the sin of the foregoing omission, until he turns himself to God. For the first thing that occurs to a man having discretion is that he think about himself, to which other things are ordered as to an end — for the end is first in intention; and this is the time at which he is bound by the affirmative precept, “Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you.”

Discussion: a student suggests the reply reflects Thomas’s own experience, sent to the monastery as a young boy, turning himself to God very well at that age. Another connects it to Paul at the Areopagus — God is not far from any one of us — so the thought is not foreign to man; it is an actual grace to see it, and since God wills that we order ourselves to the right end, such grace should be offered to everyone. A joke that Thomas’s “beginning to exercise reason” was already like other people’s decades of it.

He tells them to mark the article with a little question mark and think more about it — “because it’s difficult.” He notes the parallel texts printed below the article are all replies to objections, not whole articles, so he doubts a whole article elsewhere does the same thing.

9. Turning to law (“but now we’re up to law, right?”) #

He announces the shift and calls a break, asking them to look at the proemium. Warning: this treatise on law is theological, so the order in which the laws are treated may differ from what a lawyer would expect — though he would begin to see it after a while. His old professor Derek Kasurik (inferred spelling) at the College of St. Thomas used to meet regularly with practising lawyers to read the treatise. Students note law students are now fed Cardozo — progressive, political, certainly not theological. He adds that Aristotle in the Rhetoric speaks first of so-called positive law and then of natural law; people think of positive law first, natural law being less known to them, though by nature it should be better known. Lawyers do get a sharpness of training. Reminiscence of his father’s lawyer, Gus Larson, who ran a board meeting well, and who told his mother it was a compliment that her husband left everything to her, since lawyers usually tie up the money for the children out of distrust of the wife.

His words #

• “first motions” — motions of sensuality not consented to.
• “the faithless” — the unbelieving/unbaptized [ed.: infideles].
• multo magis — “much more”: sin is not less but much more in the faithful.
• “fomes of concupiscence” — the fervour/tinder remaining after baptism.
• “acceptor of persons” / “respecter of persons” — Acts 10:34, on God’s impartiality.
• “years of discretion” — the age at which the use of reason begins.
• sceleratis — “the most wicked,” in objection 3.
• “sin of the foregoing omission” — the mortal sin of not ordering oneself to a due end at the first use of reason.
• “Dimwit beginner” — his name for the reader for whom the Summa was written.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 89, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 89, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Romans 8:1 (in obj. 1); Acts 10:34 (sed contra); 1 Timothy 1:13; Hebrews 10:29
• Anselm, On Grace and Free Choice (objs. 2 and 3)
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 90, proemium — assigned at the break

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (and “de bonitate,” as he names it) — fifteen objections
• Aristotle, Rhetoric — positive law treated before natural law
• Acts 17, Paul at the Areopagus (student’s reference)
• Cardozo (student’s reference)

His questions #

• Are the first motions of sensuality in the faithless mortal sins? — No: sensuality cannot be the subject of mortal sin, and its nature is the same in faithless and faithful.
• Is sin less in the faithful because they have grace? — No: dignity never lessens sin; sin in the faithful is multo magis, aggravated by the sacraments of grace.
• Why is the faithless man’s concupiscence spoken of as damnable? — Because in him it is still a sign of the damnation of original sin, which in the baptized has been taken away, though the fomes remains.
• Can venial sin stand with original sin alone, without mortal? — No: it is impossible, as the sed contra’s lack of a place for such a soul shows.
• Where would someone with original and venial sin go? — Nowhere: limbo is for original sin alone, hell for mortal sin; there is no third place. Thomas does not say, because the case cannot arise.
• What first occurs to a man on reaching the use of reason? — That he think about himself, deliberating to what end he orders his life; if he orders himself rightly, grace remits original sin, if not, he sins mortally by omission.
• Is the child who disturbs Mass guilty of venial sin? — No: defect of age excuses from mortal sin and much more from venial.
• Does venial sin necessarily precede mortal as a disposition? — No: only contingently, as labour sometimes disposes to fever, not as heat to fire.
• Is the article settled? — Left open: “mark it with a little question mark… it’s difficult.”