Prima Secundae
208. Can a Venial Sin Become Mortal? (Q. 88, Articles 4–6): Circumstances, Anger, Drunkenness and the Imperfect Act
Class of 2015-03-05
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/208-can-a-venial-sin-become-mortal-q-88-articles-4-6-circumstances/

[0:00] Okay, the article four here. To the fourth one proceeds thus: It seems that venial sin is able to become what mortal, right? I assume is it talking here about one the same sin, right? You're not talking about you know being disposing for or something like that. But

[0:23] for Augustine says expounding that of John three thirty six, who is what unbelieving to the Son? will not see life, right? He says even what the least sins, right, that is venials, if they are neglected, they what kill.

[0:51] But from this it is said what to be a mortal sin that it spiritually kills the soul. Therefore, venial sin can become what mortal. Okay.

[1:06] Is it that something was a venial sin turns around the next day? Hey, now it's become mortal by venial sin yesterday, or is it it's disposing me to commit now another act which will be mortal, right?

[1:34] Moreover, the motion of sensuality before the consent consent to reason is a venial sin, right? But after consent, it becomes a mortal sin. Concedo, ergo,

[1:55] venial sin can become mortal. Get the woman out of here. Taps over my desk, you know. Venial sin and mortal differ as a curable sickness and an incurable one. As has been said, but a curable sin can become incurable. I can hear about that every once in a while, you know. Therefore, venial sin can become mortal.

[2:37] Moreover, a disposition can become a habit. But mortal venial sin is a disposition for mortal, and therefore venial sin can become what? Oh boy, this is really good stuff, huh?

[2:59] What is it? The Boy Scouts they teach you how to make a good knot. But I was supposed to learn the logic how to make a good, good knot in the mind.

[3:11] This is still very tight to them. We'll be reading again now. You know, it's that was back in the the first time was in Paris, right? Fifty, they think fifty six, fifty nine. You know, twelve fifty six, twelve fifty nine, something like that.

[3:33] We're pretty good at that. We're pretty good. You have eighteen arguments, you know, some of these ones on one side. Nobody, nobody trained the mind on those days. Yeah, didn't have distractions like TV and phones. I know, I know. They're they're talking now about you know they think that this all this you know these gadgets is going to make more more Alzheimer's and so on because the mind is not being active enough.

[4:04] You know, just doing something else is doing more. From outside, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, got to keep reading my Euclid, you know. Get my mind.

[4:23] Yeah. But against this, those things that differ in infinitum, right, are not changed into each other, right? But mortal sin and venial differ in infinitum, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, venial cannot become mortal, right? It's tell us that too in the old days, right? To do the confession, huh? Well, it's Thomas. He

[5:00] he sees a distinction, right? Which is included in the idea of looking before and after, as I've been clear to point out. I answer: It should be said that venial sin to become mortal can be understood in three ways. Well, that's news to me. In one way, that the same act in number, first is a venial sin and after a mortal. I did anticipate that a bit, and this is not able to be

[5:45] because a sin chiefly consists in the act of the will, just as every what moral act. Come on, define more virtue in Aristotle. There is a habit of what choosing, right?

[6:06] Are you accustomed to choose to drink moderately? Are you accustomed to drink excess, right? You know. Have you learned how to drink with your parents? Maybe you learned how to drink moderately, right? If you learned with your boyfriends and you're in high school or something like that, you learned. Let's get drunk this weekend. I'd hear my my fellow students saying that, you know.

[6:40] Okay. Whence is not said to be one act morally, if the will is what changed. Although what the action according to nature can be what continuous, right? Huh.

[7:07] But if the will is not changed, there cannot be a what change from venial to what mortal, right? But the will's change is not the same moral act, he's saying, right? Because principally consists in the act of the will.

[7:29] In another way, it can be understood that that which is venial in genus becomes mortal, right? And this is possible, right? Huh? Insofar as one constitutes in it is what end. Or insofar as one refers it to a mortal sin as to a what end, huh? Okay, we talked about that in the previous article. Okay. In the

[8:04] third way, can be understood that many venial sins constitute one mortal sin, right? Which is, if it is thus understood that for many venial sins, as a whole, is constituted one mortal sin. This is false, right? And they always tell you that. You know, even a huge number of venial sins is not does not add up to a. Yeah, you have to be able to add. Yeah.

[8:36] They don't add up to it. For not all the what, not all the venial sins in the world are able. To have as much of what guilt, I guess, debt,

[8:55] yeah, as one mortal sin, right? Which is clear on the part of duration, because the mortal sin has the debt of eternal what punishment. Venial sin, the debt of what? Yeah. So you might be in purgatory to the last day, but yeah, yeah.

[9:25] It is clear also on the part of the punishment of the damned, of damnation, that mortal sin merits what the lack of the divine vision, to which no other punishment is able to be compared, as Chrysostom says. Huh.

[9:49] Incidentally, a little aside there about Chrysostom. There, I forget the name of his teacher. of rhetoric right, but he's a very famous guy. So he's like Augustine, right? he is, yeah. This guy was not a Christian or something. He wasn't a Catholic. He wasn't a Christian. And so when he got to old age, this rhetoric teacher said, who's going to succeed you? Because he was such a famous teacher.

[10:14] And he says, "Well, Chrysostom would, if they had not, if the church had not stolen him from me. " I was kind of struck, you know, by by that, you know, the number of the great minds here, the church there, that had this rhetorical training, right? Augustine had that. He was a teacher rhetoric, wasn't he? Here, here, this great, famous teacher of rhetoric, you know, would would like to have used Chrysostom to succeed him, you know, and with the Christian stolen from me.

[10:46] And was it was it was it was it Jerome, you know? Are you a Ciceronian or Christian? Remember, you know. Yeah. That's what our Lord said when he had a dream, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, some kind of a dream.

[11:01] Christian, very nice, Ciceronian. Yeah, who are you? Which which are you? So they admired, you know, this Ciceronian rhetoric and so on. But it seems to me that's kind of a training, though, for the mind too, that rhetoric, kind of a disposition, huh?

[11:22] Can go from rhetoric to dialectic to demonstration. But it gives them, you know, what Chrysostom means, what golden mouth, I guess. You know that's the name given to him. Is that maybe his real name? Is it? I don't think. John John was a good name But I mean, he's like Augustine, you know. Augustine has a beautiful way of writing, huh? That comes from rhetoric, right? It's part of rhetoric, huh?

[11:50] It's the third book of rhetoric, right, where Aristotle talks about style and those sort of things. Okay, so this is a beautiful thing, huh? To which no other punishment can be compared, right, huh?

[12:19] It is clear, also, on the side of the what punishment of sin, as regards to the worm of what conscience, huh? Although perhaps according to the punishment of fire, they are not unproportional punishments, huh? So jail for that. Okay.

[12:49] If one understands, right? That many venial sins make one mortal sins dispositive right, sic verimest right? huh? It's as been shown above right. According to two ways of disposition by which venial sin disposes for what mortal sin, and one was at the part of the agent, the other was at praeexistentis way. huh? Okay.

[13:23] To the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine speaks in that sense that many venial sins dispositive, huh? Cause immortal sin, right? Not that one of the same sin becomes that, or not that one they skip genus generally, right? To the second, should be said that that same motion of sensuality, which precedes the consent of reason, never becomes what Immortal sin, but the act of reason what Consenting.

[13:57] consenting, right? To the third, it should be said that bodily sickness is not an act, but a certain what permanent disposition, once the same remaining, it can be what changed, but venial sin is a transient, huh, passing away act, which cannot be what resumed, right? And as it regards this, the comparison is not what similar, right? Likeness is the great cause of deception, right?

[14:38] To the fourth, then, it should be said that the disposition which becomes a habit is as something imperfect in the same what species, just as a imperfect science, when it's perfected, becomes a what Habit, In the same way that the moral virtues, right? Huh? But the venial sin is disposition of another genus, as accident to substantial form, in which is never changed. Huh? The accident never becomes a what substance, as most philosophers, not most, but true philosophers, no.

[15:15] Take a little break now. This great terrible topic of circumstance. What? Yeah, right, right. That's it is. To the fifth, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that circumstance is not able to make the venial sin a mortal one.

[15:49] For Augustine it says in the sermon on what purgatory that if anger right is held for a long time and drunkenness, I guess, if it is be what assiduous right, huh? Because if you dedicate yourself to having too much, they pass into the number of what mortal sins, huh?

[16:24] But anger and what? What? Drunkenness are not from their genus mortal sins, huh? But venial sins, huh? When Christ turned the water into wine, right? I mean, you would not be doing that if it was mortal from its genus, right?

[16:50] I was reading about a town there in Spain, there, where they had the festival every year, and they have free wine on tap. I said, "I'm going there, Rose."

[17:03] See if it's really true, you know. And no one, Rose, his uncle went to Italy there, you know, and he studied Italian, you know, and he's staying in some kind of a bison, you know, and and they, you know, they bring the wine there, you know, these carts, you know, big big fads of wine, so maybe they do. They could afford to to open up the thing for free for a while.

[17:41] Okay, therefore, but these are not from their genus mortal sins, but venials. Otherwise, they would always be mortal, right? Therefore, circumstances makes a venial sin to be what mortal. Moreover, the Magister magister, huh? That's the way they named. Yeah, he was the bishop of Paris at one time, I guess. But his his was the standard work in theology until the sum of the talents, you know. Morver de Magister says, the 24th distinction, the second book, of sentences.

[18:23] The delictatio, if it be what long lasting, I guess, is a mortal sin, right? If, however, it is not morosa, it is a venial sin. But morositas, huh, long lasting, I guess, is a certain circumstance. Therefore, a circumstance can make a venial sin a mortal one. Interesting argument from the magister.

[18:54] Moreover, more do good and bad differ than venial sin and mortal sin, both of whom are in the genus of the bad. But circumstance makes of a good act a bad one, just as is clear when someone gives what alms on account of inane glory. Therefore, much more can one make of a what venial sin, a mortal one.

[19:30] But against this is that since circumstance is an accident, its quantity cannot exceed the quantity of its act, which it has as genus. For always the subject is what preeminent to the what accident, huh? If therefore the act from its genus is a venial sin, it cannot by circumstance become a mortal sin, since mortal sin, in infinitum, huh, Infinity, a certain way, exceeds the quantity of the venial sin.

[20:10] Okay. So no number of venial sins adds up to mortal sin, huh? Put that in your calculating mind and. Yeah. No amount of fish can it can add up to one steak, huh? Especially the salmon. Salmon steak is a contradiction in terms. I think it should be said as has been said above, that when we treat it of what circumstances, a circumstance in quantum huiusmodi, as such, right, is a accident of a what moral act.

[21:07] Can happen, however, the circumstance take on what a specific difference of a moral act. This is what this why it's so treacherous matter to talk about circumstances, right? Circumstantial evidence, that

[21:25] can convict you sometimes. Okay. And then it loses the notion of a what circumstance, and constitutes the species of a what moral act. And this happens in sins when the circumstance adds the deformity of another what genus, huh?

[21:56] Just as when someone what exceeds to the one that is not his own, there is a deformed act by the deformity opposed to chastity, right?

[22:13] But if one exceeds to not one's own, which is the wife of another, right? One adds a deformity opposed to what justice, huh? Against which it is that someone what?

[22:34] Yeah, takes over what it belongs, an alien thing, right? And according to this circumstance of this sort, it constitutes a new species of sin, which is called adultery, huh?

[22:53] It is impossible, however, the circumstance about a venial sin becomes mortal unless it what brings in a deformity of another what genus, huh? For it has been said above that venial sin has deformity through this that it implies the disorder about those things which are towards the end. But mortal sin has deformity through this that it implies a disorder with respect to the last end itself.

[23:40] So if a philosopher gives up the pursuit of wisdom, what would you say? No longer philosopher, because he no longer has ultimate end, right?

[24:03] Once it is manifest that a circumstance is not able of a venial sin to make a mortal sin when it remains a what circumstance, huh? But then only when it. Carry something over into another what species, and it becomes in some way the specific difference of a what moral act. See what a treacherous thing there it is to talk about circumstances, right?

[24:36] So what's that thing about the laughter that was superfluous, and now you start to laugh about you know divine things, right? In church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:55] I remember seeing an Italian there, crossing an Italian man there. He started to you know kind of this you know like he's doing the blessed sacrament or something like that you know. But he's like I just shook my head and he stopped you know but but you know. Like, you know, he's he's being idle there, and and he's he's starting to go into blasphemy or something of this sort, or or sacrilege, you want to say that, you know.

[25:27] You know. Of course, there's little kids there, you know, he's the host Yeah. with the neck all wafers, you know. Yeah. And I don't know how many kids I run into who did this as a kid, you know, practice, and they come back from mass or something like that, and they Play mass. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think that's blasphemous or sacrilegious, I don't think. But, uh, you can see how, you know, you could get, you know.

[25:51] Yeah. He- With the greatest reference. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember my sister and I, we used to play mass in the basement of the house, and we took all kinds of rags, and my mom Yeah. in boxes Yeah. and we'd tape them together, and that- those were my vestments. Mm. And of course, I was very avant-garde. My sister was my altar boy. Ahead of your time. I was ahead of my time.

[26:18] And, uh, we were serious, and we liked doing it. It was Yeah. It was something we admired and went in and dated. Yeah, yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that lengthness, that's right, time, is not a circumstance drawing something into another species. Likewise, neither, what, frequency or what? Yeah. Except perhaps per accidens from something else coming upon this. For something does not acquire a new species from this that is multiplied or what?

[27:04] Um. Drawn out. Drawn out. Prolong. What? Prolong. Prolong. Unless perhaps in some act prolonged or multiplied, there comes upon it something that varies a species, as example, disobedience or what? Contempt. Contempt, eh? Or something of this sort, eh? It should be said, therefore, that since anger is a motion of the soul to what? Harming one's neighbor, right, eh? If there be such a harm in which the motion of anger tends, that from its genus is a what?

[27:50] Mortal sin. As homicide or what? Theft, right? Such anger from its genus is a what? Mortal sin, huh? But that be a venial sin happens from the imperfection of the act, insofar as it's the sudden motion of sensuality, which is names the sense appetite sensuality. If, however, it be, what? Lengthy, it returns to the nature of its own genus through the consent of, what? Reason. If, however, the harm in which the motion of anger tends, from the motion of anger, the motion of anger tends, it would be venial from its genus, as when someone in this is angry against someone that he wishes to say to him some light and what?

[28:49] jocose. Yeah. Which saddens him a little bit, huh? You know how to do it. Takes one to know one. Yeah. Um... for, then the anger would not be a mortal sin, no matter how long it is.

[29:21] Continue. How long? This goes on for days and days. Unless through accident, as for example, from this a grave scandal arises, huh, Or on account of something of this sort, eh.

[29:35] My wife and I, we joke, you know, we say, we regard marriage as a dead end. We say, what's happening to marriage I wonder. All we mean by saying is it, it, um, there's no way out. Yeah. The- about what drink- drunkenness, huh, it should be said that according to its ratio, it has it be a what? Mortal sin. Because a man without necessity renders himself impotent for using reason, huh?

[30:16] Okay. Through which man is what? Reason. Man is ordered to God, and he avoids what? Sins that occur. From the what? S- s- soul love of wine, right, huh? Okay. Expressly contrary to what? Virtue, right, huh? Let's say if you drink too much and you don't know what you're doing, then the judge is going to find you guilty, right? I went to the red light, your honor, because I was drunk.

[30:57] No excuse. I took your money because I was drunk. I blacked out and I killed him. Was responsible. But that it be a venial sin happens sometimes on account of a certain ignorance or infirmity, right, huh? Who said, who got drunk? Was it Noah? Yeah, that was not a mortal sin, was it? That was because of his what? Ignorance, right, huh? As when a man does not know the power of the wine, that's, that's no.

[31:41] Or his own what? Weakness, huh? When he does not think himself to be what? Drunk, yeah. For then drunkenness is not imposed, imputed to him as a sin, but only the superabundance of drink, eh? But when he is frequently inebriated, it cannot be excused through his ignorance, but that his will chooses more to undergo drunkenness than to abstain from what? Excessive wine. Excessive wine. Whence it renders what?

[32:18] The sin, uh, it returned into his nature, I guess it's... Yeah. Mortal sin. huh To the second, it should be said that, uh, prolonged the pleasure, is it? Is not said to be a mortal sin except in those things which are of their genus, a what? Mortal sin, huh? In which, if the pleasure is not lengthy, it is a venial sin from the imperfection of the act, as has been said about anger.

[32:54] But if the anger is what? If the anger is length drawn out and the length and the pleasure is Prolonged. Prolonged. On account of the approbation, the approval of reason deliberating, then it becomes something else.

[33:16] To the third, then, it should be said that circumstance does not make of a good act bad, unless it counts except by constituting another species of sin, right? So that's a tricky thing to talk about, circumstances, right? Yeah. Difficult thing to talk about. And a lot of circumstances to be considered, as we may recall before. Now the other thing, when a mortal sin can become venial,

[33:59] to the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that a mortal sin can become venial, right? For the dist equal distance, right, between the these arguments are given.

[34:17] Venial sin and mortal, and the reverse, right? But venial sin can become mortal; therefore, mortal sin can become venial. That's that's convincing, right? Senator Moynihan's famous essay Defining Deviancy Down. Yeah. He was talking about how I mentioned this in recreation the other night, where society has a certain level of tolerance for behavior. If you go beyond that level of tolerance, it's it's a prescribed behavior, could be criminal behavior, deviant behavior.

[34:55] But if you're having a problem preventing the deviant behavior, you can either get tougher, or you can redefine deviant behavior, and that's defining deviancy down. So what used to be deviant behavior is just fine and dandy. Yeah. Once you change the laws. Yeah. So there you go. So it's

[35:18] very, very big in the '60s and '70s. Yep. Making all these drugs, you know, legal. Marijuana. Yeah. Moreover, venial sin and mortal sin are laid down to differ according to this: that the one sitting mortally loves the creature more than God, but the one sitting venially loves the creature below God. It can happen, however, that someone committing that which is from its genus, immortal sin, loves the creature below God,

[35:59] as if, for example, someone not knowing that fornication, simple fornication, is a mortal sin and contrary to divine love, commits what fornication. Thus, nevertheless, that in account of divine love, he would be prepared to forego fornication, if he knew by fornicating he acted against the divine what love. Therefore, he what? Yeah. And thus, mortal sin can become venial, right? Huh?

[36:36] I was reading reading a doctor the other day, and the doctor he said, "I was always pro-life, and he's always opposed to abortion, right? " But in his practice, he was he was, um uh contraceptive or giving product to contraception, right? And then he read Paul the Sixth's encyclical there, *Humanae Vitae there, and had a great impression upon him, and he stopped, you know. But but was he what is he doing?

[37:02] The prayer thought was okay, you know. Sometimes maybe that's a little more subtle than fornication is sin. And some of these pro-life people, you know, in the other churches there, you know, they they're in favor of contraception. You know, it's hard to know they don't know that is a serious thing.

[37:27] Okay. Moreover, as has been said above, more does the good differ from the bad than the venial from the mortal, because they're both bad. But an act which is of itself bad can become good, just as homicide can become an act of justice, right? As is clear in the judge who kills the thief. Therefore, much more does mortal sin become venial. Homicide has a little more precise meaning.

[38:01] I know. I think that's based on something. But against this is that the eternal never can become temporal, but mortal sin merits eternal punishment, venial sin temporal punishment. Therefore, mortal sin can never become venial. In answer, it should be said that venial and mortal differ as perfect and imperfect in the genus of sin. Pastorians use the word perfect, huh? Yeah, perfect, perfect.

[38:38] My house is totally wrecked, huh? Completely, completely wrecked. It's very incomplete now, my house. But the imperfect, through some addition, can come to what perfection. Whence the venial, through this that there is added to it the deformity pertaining to the genus of mortal sin, becomes what mortal. Just as when some says an idle word that he might what, fornicate him that his hind was bad. But that which is perfect cannot become imperfect by addition, huh?

[39:20] And therefore, mortal sin cannot become venial through this that there is added to it some deformity pertaining to the genus of venial sin. For what does not diminish the sin of the one who fornicates, that he says an idle word, right?

[39:45] But is more aggravated in account of the added. Deformity, right? Yeah. It can be however that that which is from its genus mortal could be venial on account of the imperfection of the act, when it does not perfectly attain to the ratio of a moral act, since it is not deliberative but sudden, subito, right? extinctis passionibus? And this comes about through a certain subtraction to that of deliberate reason.

[40:22] And because from reason deliberating it has the species of a moral act, hence it is that through such a subtraction the species of the act is what dissolved.

[40:37] To first, therefore, should be said that the venial differs from the mortal as the imperfect from the what perfect, as a boy from a man. Now a boy can what? Yeah, from a man can come to be from a boy, but not the reverse. The old man can be called a jail. Once the argument is not not cogent, huh? Okay. To second should be said that it would be such ignorance that the sin altogether what excuses it, the excuses altogether the sin, just as that of the man who is what mad or furious.

[41:23] Then from such ignorance, the one committing fornication sins neither mortally nor venially. If, however, the ignorance is not invincible, then the ignorance itself is a sin, and contains in itself the defect of divine love, in so far as a man neglects to learn those things which he is able to be conserved in the divine love. Saint Alfonso says that a man neglects the good of his soul for more than a month.

[41:57] That itself is a mortal sin. Yeah. The reason to anything else. Yeah, a lot of Catholics don't you know take the time to learn the Church's position on some of these things. And to

[42:16] third, to third, it should be said as Augustine says in the book against lie, right, Mendacium. Those things which are in themselves bad, by no end can they come what to be well. Homicide, however, is the killing of some innocent, and this in no way can what be done well. But the judge who kills the thief or the soldier who kills the enemy of the public. Are not what homicide?

[42:51] Augustine says in the book on free will. I suppose you stop there now before the start of another question.