Chapter VI — Whether doubtful sins are to be confessed

I. In a threefold manner you can doubt. First, you doubt whether you have sinned mortally in this or that matter otherwise mortal. Second, you know that you have sinned, but you doubt whether the sin be mortal or venial. Third, you know certainly that you have sinned mortally, but you doubt whether you have confessed it.

II. Doubt, as St. Thomas teaches, On Truth, question 24, is when the intellect, between reasons which occur equally on either side, both for affirming and for denying, is uncertain, suspended, and hesitates, assenting to neither part. Some have devised a negative doubt, when on neither part do reasons for doubting occur; but this is mere nescience, or ignorance. The first therefore is a true and proper doubt, which is called positive, concerning which we must dispute.

III. QUESTION I. What is to be said of the opinion teaching that one is not bound to confess sins certainly committed, if he doubt whether he confessed them? ANSWER. Fr. Dominic Viva in his Course, question 2, article 2, no. 3, proposes this question: “Whether he who is CERTAIN of a mortal sin committed, but doubts positively whether he confessed it, so that he has a probable reason that he confessed it, and probable also, nay MORE PROBABLE, reasons that he did not confess it, is bound to confess it? I answer likewise negatively, with the common opinion of the Doctors whom Martin Perez cites against Coninck, in Diana.”

IV. What is this community of Doctors? What do you seek? See in Diana. It pleases me to refute the opinion of Fr. Viva by the testimony of the probabilists themselves. The Salmanticenses Scholastici, Vol. XII, part 2, tract 24, doubt 6, § 1, no. 178, page 173, write these things: “We think that he who certainly knows that he has committed some mortal sin, but doubts whether he confessed it, is obliged to its confession. So Navarrus, Suárez, Sánchez, and others commonly. … Whence even Caramuel himself, who in these matters is reckoned laxer or freer than others, when he had learned that certain JESUITS at Vienna had defended a thesis contrary to this common doctrine, and had alleged Caramuel for themselves, refused it, openly excused himself, and asserted that he philosophized otherwise of a doubtful sin, otherwise of a sin certainly committed but doubtfully confessed.”

V. Behold a new and indeed clear argument of Probabilism. In a twofold manner Fr. Viva imposes upon his readers, when he says that the Doctors commonly defend his doctrine. Since even if all the probabilists defended it, these do not constitute a community of Doctors. Secondly, because even the freer casuists themselves, who are undeservedly called Doctors, disapprove the doctrine of Fr. Viva. If this doctrine were preached from a public pulpit, Christians would be moved and would suffer scandal, as it seems to me.

VI. What? You certainly know that you have drunk a deadly poison, but you doubt whether you have applied the antidote — and do you refuse to employ the antidote? Is a certain debt satisfied by a doubtful payment? It is of faith that a certain sin is to be subjected to confession. But by a doubtful confession this most certain debt is not satisfied. Therefore you are bound to confess it.

VII. The sophisms dug out of the mine of Probabilism which Fr. Viva adduces are vain. The use of Probabilism was condemned in the civil forum by Innocent XI: I think it more probable that a judge can judge according to the less probable opinion. Therefore it is far more severely disapproved in the sacred forum. What of this, that Fr. Viva defends that you when doubting are not bound to confession, even if he have more probable reasons that he did not confess? The doctrine of Fr. Viva Fr. La Croix also teaches, Book 6, part 2, no. 602, and cites for the same Gobat, Sioz, Bosco, and other like Doctors.

VIII. QUESTION II. Whether he who doubts whether he committed some sin is bound to confess it? ANSWER. Fr. Dominic Viva in the place cited, no. 2, proposes this question: Whether he who positively doubts whether he committed a sin, so that he has probable reasons that he did not sin, although he have equally probable, nay perchance MORE PROBABLE, reasons that he did sin, is bound to confess that sin? He offers this answer: I answer with the common opinion of the Doctors, NEGATIVELY.

IX. Do the probabilists alone constitute the community of Doctors? It is certain that the more celebrated theologians of the illustrious Gallican nation, of the Dominican and Augustinian Religion, and Jesuit Doctors, and the most learned men of every Institute whatsoever, keenly disapprove the aforesaid doctrine of Fr. Viva. Are those men not Doctors? Are the probabilists alone Doctors in the Catholic Church? By what daring therefore does Fr. Viva write with the common opinion of the Doctors? Who are these Doctors whom Fr. Viva cites? Are they Sánchez, Alcover, Bizozer, Burgaber, Sporer, Stoz, Razemberger, Leander, Escobar, Caramuel, Gormaz, Busembaum, La Croix, La Cruz, Veracruz, Zanardi, and other like men? So many parish priests, so many less skilled confessors, when they read in Fr. Viva or another probabilist So the Doctors commonly teach, believe in good faith that the Doctors of the Church commonly teach this, and therefore with closed eyes adopt lax opinions and reduce them to execution. Hence it follows that the probabilists for the most part cite no Doctors save their own probabilists. Whether this be to deceive unskilled confessors, and whether this manner of writing savours of sincerity, humility, and a prudent form of writing, let the wise judge. The described doctrine is false.

X. QUESTION III. Ought we to confess a doubtful mortal sin as doubtful? ANSWER. All the ancient theologians commonly affirm it, especially St. Thomas in Book 4, distinction 21, article 3, reply 3. The Salmanticenses, both scholastic and moral, testify that this is the common opinion of all theologians, even of the probabilists.

XI. Although the probabilists themselves, as the Salmanticenses say, defend the common doctrine of the Church, very many of them nevertheless implicate it with the paints of Probabilism. They distinguish a twofold doubt. When the intellect is altogether uncertain, because on account of the equal weights of reasons it cannot decline to either part, they say that the intellect doubts; and this doubt they call negative. And all the probabilists commonly affirm that a Christian so doubting that he has sinned mortally is bound to confession. But when the intellect has for one part more probable reasons which show that he has sinned, and for the other part probable reasons proving that he has not sinned, then, they say, the doubt is positive, which by force of reflex Probabilism can according to them be laid aside, and the obligation of confession ceases.

XII. Hitherto I have refuted the doctrine of Fr. Viva and of others excusing Christians positively doubting from the duty of confession, and have indicated that this distinction is futile, and the figment of a positive and negative doubt vain. But that you may more clearly behold how Probabilism daily enlarges its jurisdiction, it pleases me to transcribe what very many younger probabilists teach against the common doctrine of the Church concerning negative doubt.

XIII. Fr. Dominic Viva, question 2, article 2, no. 6, writes these things concerning the obligation of confessing negatively doubtful sins: “I answer that it was almost the MOST COMMON opinion of the ancient Doctors that a man is bound to subject negatively doubtful sins to the keys; and Thomas Sánchez reputes this altogether certain. … For these causes Fr. Matthew de Moya of our Society, who was confessor to Mary Anne Queen of Spain, in his Select Questions on the Sacrament of Penance, after he had asserted that he had taught the contrary opinion for thirty years even in the Schools, disputation 1, question 5, has these things: "Nevertheless, the matter being maturely considered, I judge that we must stand for the contrary and common opinion asserting the obligation of a doubtful sin: to which I am led by this one efficacious argument, that the sacrament of Penance COULD have been instituted with this obligation. But that he did institute it, the more common sense of Catholics persuades, and a tradition continued from the time of the Apostles down to our times, by reason of which the Doctors have not so much proved as PRESUPPOSED, as an UNSHAKEN DOGMA, the precept of confessing doubtful sins equally with certain ones. For, as Augustine says, Book 4 Against the Donatists, that which the universal Church holds," and so forth. Thus far Fr. Moya. To these add Leander and Tamburini himself, although patrons of the kindlier opinions.”

XIV. Fr. Viva therefore of his own accord confesses that the doctrine obliging Christians to confess negatively doubtful sins is most common. But here he subjoins: “These things notwithstanding, I think the contrary opinion is PROBABLE and SAFE, asserting that negatively doubtful sins are not necessary matter of the sacrament of Penance, which very many authors follow in Mendo and Diana and others … whom Caramuel numbers up to twenty-two. … To whom add Lessius, Sá, Layman, Praepositus, Amicus, Leander, Hounihl, and also Ferrandinus On Scandal, question 77, where he cites the Revisers of the Society of Jesus as holding that this opinion can now be permitted in our schools; which openly and of set purpose Marchant, Joseph de Januario, Martinon, and many other writers judge probable — although FORMERLY, according to our rules, it could not be permitted, since scarcely one writer could be found who openly maintained it, as the same men testify in Tamburini. But now, as Diana notes, IT DAILY STRIKES DEEPER ROOTS.”

XV. The axe is to be applied to these poisonous roots, which attempt to infect the common doctrine of the Church, lest, as Diana prophesies, they daily grow more. Formerly in the illustrious Society of Jesus it was forbidden that a lax opinion be taught in the schools; is it now struck in public print by Fr. Viva, that it may daily strike deeper roots? If I wrote such things, our adversaries would cry out that I detract from the Jesuits, impose upon them, and calumniate them. And indeed what Fr. Viva writes of his own Society — that an opinion is now defended with approval against the common doctrine of the Church which formerly it had forbidden — I should not dare to publish; nor would I have transcribed it, unless the necessity of unteaching the unskilled urged. Fr. Viva confesses that the doctrine which teaches the obligation of confessing negatively doubtful sins is that of almost all the ancients. He confesses that the kindlier probabilists themselves — Sánchez, Leander, Tamburini — defend it as certain. What more? Even Fr. Matthew de Moya himself, in his work condemned for the heaping up of lax opinions, says that this doctrine the more common sense of Catholics persuades, and a tradition continued from the time of the Apostles down to our times, by reason of which the Doctors have not so much proved as presupposed, as an UNSHAKEN DOGMA, the precept of confessing doubtful sins equally with certain ones. This same thing almost all theologians testify, and the probabilists themselves, nay Fr. Viva himself.

XVI. And against the tradition of the Apostles, against the doctrine of all sacred antiquity, against the common opinion of all the more learned theologians and of almost all the probabilists, and against the long-established rules of his own Society, does Fr. Dominic Viva dare to propose to the Christian people as probable, nay as SAFE, an opinion false, improbable, and — to speak most mildly — full of laxity? This was brought in by Caramuel, Ferentinus, Martinon, Verde, and Januarius, patrons of a laxer Ethics. All theologians commonly detest it, and the most illustrious Society did not formerly permit it to be dictated in the schools. But now, says Fr. Viva, it daily strikes deeper roots. In what soil, in what schools, with what husbandmen and cultivators does this lax opinion daily strike roots?

XVII. Falsely does Fr. Viva cite for this opinion St. Antoninus, Tabiena, and Palude, whom after his manner he reads in Diana, or in Mendo. Whether he truly cites Layman and Lessius let others see: the Salmanticenses in the place cited, no. 195, vindicate Layman from this laxity. But Fr. Viva studies to multiply patrons, that the roots of his opinion may creep more widely.

XVIII. Fr. Claude La Croix, Book 6, part 1, no. 598, after his manner gathers all the opinions, true and false, upon this controversy; and for the opinion denying the duty of confessing negatively doubtful sins, against the common doctrine of the Church, whom does he allege? Toldet, Stoz, Caramuel, Conmarch. Then at no. 609 he thus concludes: “The opinion affirming an obligation of confessing negatively doubtful mortal sins is, authority being regarded, MORE PROBABLE, as is plain from what is said at no. 607. But intrinsic reasons being precisely regarded, the negative seems MORE PROBABLE, as will be plain to one comparing the intrinsic reasons adduced at nos. 607 and 608.”

XIX. Good heavens! Attend your mind. Toldet, Stoz, Conmarch, and Caramuel devised reasons more valid, more robust, and clearer for denying the duty of confessing negatively doubtful sins than the wiser Jesuit theologians of two centuries, who forbade this doctrine in the schools. Did Toldet and Stoz with a few others penetrate the matter more deeply than the holy Doctors of the Church, than St. Thomas, than the Fathers of the Tridentine Catechism, than all the rest of the theologians, both antiprobabilist and probabilist? Fr. La Croix indeed confesses at no. 610 that our opinion is absolutely more probable. But what thence? For by the benefit of Probabilism it is enough for him that the contrary be probable. The most certain doctrines of the Church they clothe with the mask of Probabilism, and thus render ambiguous truths which formerly reigned beyond controversy. Whither Christian affairs tend, unless this manner of opining be eliminated, let Christian readers judge. The sophisms which are wont to be obtruded, since they all rest upon Probabilism already shattered by me, I pass over. Consult Vol. IX, dissertation 4, chapter 7.