Question VI: What kind of sin injustice is, and how it is committed

In as many ways as Justice is called so, as related quaest. 1., in so many ways is the opposite Injustice called, according to the rule of opposites, in Aristotle 5. Ethic. cap. 1.

Therefore injustice first signifies all iniquity, as it is taken in prima Ioan. 3. and Valentia notes quaest. 3. punct. 1. This therefore is opposed to general justice, which makes holy. Of this in Psalm. 91. All the sons of iniquity shall be scattered: Immediately he sets the antithesis The just shall flourish like the palm tree. This injustice embraces all sins, whether from suggestion, or from one's own will, or from habit, whatever they may be of heart, of mouth, and of deed; as S. Doct. observes ad eum Psal. and just as every declination from evil, and pursuit of good, is justice, as is said Psalm. 33. Decline from evil, and do good, etc. The eyes of the Lord are upon the Just, so every pursuit of evil, and flight from the good due, is injustice, as S. Doct. warns serm. 18. Hexaëmeronis.

S. Doct. brings forward there another injustice, which is an imperfection in the virtues. Such is that of those who often fall: A just man falls seven times a day. Proverb. 24. On the contrary, some just men are perfect, who fall more rarely, of whom Proverb. 12. Whatever befall the just man, it shall not grieve him. And cap. 28. The just man, bold as a lion, shall be without fear. The Church teaches this perfection of justice Eccles. 4. Fight for justice even unto death, and Matth. 5. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice. Behold S. Doctor.

Therefore he places justice in three things Psalm. 33. In the declination from evil; the election of good; and the progress in good, as S. Doct. notes in the place cited above, and ad Psal. 110.

But PRE-EMINENTLY general Injustice is any transgression of the Laws, just as he is just who observes the law: Such is said to be Simeon, Lucae 2. A just man. And Zacharias with Elisabeth: They were both just, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame. And Noë Genes. 6. Just in his generations; namely, in all the commandments of God, as is said Psal. 118. I was directed to all thy commandments; I have hated every unjust way. For whoever shall keep the whole Law, but offend in one, is become guilty of all, as is said Iacobi 2. and S. Doct. pursues it in cap. 1. Lucae.

But more PROPERLY Injustice is the vice and sin opposed to legal justice, which is the virtue directing to the common good: D. Thom. calls this art. 1. illegal, which is a special sin, if it is committed out of contempt for the common good, and out of a settled intention of acting against it, as D. Thom. teaches loc. cit. Sotus lib. 3. de Iustitia, quaest. 3. art. 1. ad 1. Valentia quaest. 3. punct. 1. Otherwise it will not be a sin distinct from those which are committed against those virtues whose acts are to be exercised under the command of legal justice; but it will be the common condition of sins of this kind, and as it were a common sin, as Sotus and Valentia call it, and as I said in disputat. 22. quaest. 1.

But MOST PROPERLY it signifies the particular vice and sin opposed to the equality due of one to another, which particular Justice safeguards. Now this injustice is mortal in its genus, as D. Thom. teaches art. 4. although it can be venial on account of the smallness of the matter, or on account of the imperfection of an act not sufficiently deliberate, or not sufficiently voluntary, as on account of lightly culpable ignorance, as D. Thom. teaches in the cited article and more fully D. Bonavent. in speculo animae, cap. 2.

But Injustice of this kind is DIVIDED into various subordinate species, namely first into Injustice against distributive Justice, and Injustice against Commutative. Then into various species of injustice against Commutative according to the very diverse ways in which one can offend against it, which S. Doct. enumerates and explains in the place cited, and which I enumerated with Aristotle quaest. 1. and shall explain in their proper places.