Chapter VI — By other weights of reasons Probabilism is overthrown

I. The first and universal extrinsic rule of morals is the eternal law of God. The second rule, proximate and formal, intrinsic, is the reason, or practical dictate, of our conscience, as has been shown above. About this first proposition there is no dispute. That an action may be honorable, it must be consonant with both laws, as St. Thomas perspicuously teaches, I-II, q. 21, art. 1: In those things which are done through the will, the proximate rule is human reason, but the supreme rule is the eternal law. Whenever, therefore, a human act proceeds to its end according to the order of reason and of the eternal law, then the act is right; but when it is bent aside from this rectitude, then it is called sin. Now it is manifest from the premisses that every voluntary act is evil by this, that it recedes from the order of reason and of the eternal law; and every good act accords with reason and the eternal law.

II. The eternal law of God is a law of truth: Thy law is truth; all thy commandments are truth. Truth alone is the single rule of an honorable conscience — truth alone, I say, known either evidently and certainly, or probably and obscurely. When falsity appears to us under the aspect of truth, the rule is false, and the operation is not honorable, but vicious. If the falsity be invincible, the vicious action is not imputed to fault; but it never becomes good and meritorious, as has been shown above.

III. The third ineluctable principle is expressed in the holy Scriptures themselves — namely, the most grave commandment of inquiring after and investigating the truth. Nothing is more frequent in Scripture than this most grave precept, by which all are bound to learn and to meditate the law. It is said in Deuteronomy 6: And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey. David continually prays, and promises that he will investigate the law: Set before me for a law, O Lord, the way of thy justifications, and I will always seek after it. Give me understanding, and I will search thy law. Matthew 28: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. St. Paul, Ephesians 4 [recte 5]: Become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God. Not to be long: a thousand times this most grave precept of learning, meditating, searching, and not forgetting the law of truth is repeated to us. These things being laid down as certain, I press the Probabilists thus.

IV. If you hold the truth of the Law evidently, are you not bound to fulfill it? They say yes. Then you must say the same when you judge it more probable that the law exists. A clear knowledge of the law imposes the duty of fulfilling the law, as all confess. Therefore, according to the degree of knowledge, such will be the degree of obligation. Therefore, when the law more probably obliges, the burden of keeping the Law presses.

V. He who acts according to the lesser probability, the greater being repulsed, evidently violates the most grave precept of investigating, learning, and meditating the law. For he who acts according to the less probable opinion knows and reckons that his operation is more contrary than conformed to the law; he knows that he is receding from the law more than approaching it. Therefore he does not inquire after the law with sincerity of soul. Would you sincerely and with deliberate mind search for a treasure, if you abandoned the way which would more probably lead you to the finding of it, and selected the opposite way, which would less lead you to, and more lead you away from, the finding?

VI. If a sick man chose a medicine which he knows to be more probably poisonous than wholesome, would he be free from sin? They answer that these examples are inept: since, if the medicine be poisonous, it brings death, no good intention of the mind availing; but an opinion about the honesty of an action, even if false, excuses from mortal sin, by the benefit of invincible ignorance. Below I shall show that this probabilistic invincible ignorance is a portent monstrous in the extreme. Dismissing, then, the chimerical disparity which the Casuists are wont to assign between the recounted examples and the less probable opinion, I press the Probabilists thus.

VII. Let the Probabilists explain to us. Do they dare themselves to affirm that this sick man desires and loves his health with a sincere and efficacious mind? They would show themselves fools if they affirmed it. But why does that sick man not love or desire health with a sincere mind? Because he repudiates the medicine which he more probably judges to be more suited to the acquiring of health. Therefore, by the same reasoning, the Probabilists do not seek with a sincere mind the observance of the law of God, if, the greater probability being repudiated, they select the lesser. Whatever, then, be the case with the distinction between a medicine and an opinion, we now press the Probabilists to answer whether he studies to fulfill, with a sincere and efficacious mind, the most grave precept of finding and learning the truth, who in obscure matters rejects what is more verisimilar and embraces what is less verisimilar. From another side I press them.

VIII. He who conforms his operation to a rule which he judges more distorted, and opposed to the first rule, sins. So do the Probabilists conduct themselves. By their direct judgment they judge the less probable opinion to be more opposed than conformed to the first rule. Therefore they judge it more distorted than right. What they add about the reflex judgment is a childish cavil. For the direct judgment is the object of the reflex judgment; if that be distorted, so also is this. Again: he who contemns the eternal law, sins. The Probabilists, by the use of the less probable opinion, contemn the eternal law. Therefore, etc. I prove it. He who does not investigate the eternal law according to his powers, neglects it, and in very deed contemns it. The Probabilists, following the lesser probability, do not inquire after the eternal law according to their powers, since they repudiate the greater probability, that is, the greater nearness to the law. Therefore they neglect and contemn it. With what boldness can the Probabilists affirm that they apply sufficient diligence in inquiring after the law of truth, if they reject what they judge nearer to the truth of the Law, and of set purpose select what they think approaches the truth less — nay, what they know to recede from the truth more? Finally, the object of the intellect is the true. But the intellect cannot apprehend an object as true, when probable reasons prove that it is rather false.