Chapter VIII — On the conditional vow, and on the penal vow

I. In every promissory oath, and in every vow, however absolute, certain general conditions are included, and they are intrinsic to every vow. On account of these general and inward conditions, however, a vow is not called conditional, but absolute.

II. Question I. What are the general conditions which are found in every absolute vow, and what are the particular ones which make a vow conditional? Response. The general conditions are commonly reduced to three. The first is: if I am able, and things are not greatly changed. The second: if it please God, or if it be lawful for me. The third: if the prelate, if the superior, does not decree otherwise, nor take away the obligation. Of these we have spoken elsewhere. The particular condition which constitutes a conditional vow is manifold. First, one is affirmative, as if you should say: If God grants me health in my sickness, I vow to enter religion; another negative, as if you should say: If I do not keep chastity, I vow to fast for a month. Secondly, one condition is of the present, another of the past, another of the future. Of the present is: If my father is living, I vow alms of three gold pieces. Of the past: If my father was living yesterday, I vow to build a monastery. These two conditions do not make a vow conditional, because they do not suspend its obligation. The third condition, of the future, is the one that properly makes a vow conditional, because it suspends its effect, or obligation; as if you should say: If I obtain that dignity, I vow to erect an altar in honour of the Blessed Virgin. This condition of the future is either necessary, as: if the sun rises tomorrow; or impossible, as: if I fly up to heaven; or contingent, as: if I reach thirty years. Finally, these conditions of a contingent future are some of them shameful, others honest. Of the shameful, some are against the substance of the vow, some against what is adventitious, or accidental. All this is common ground among authors.

III. Question II. What is a conditional vow, and does the particle "if" always make a vow conditional? Response. A conditional vow is one that suspends the obligation as to actual execution until the condition laid down comes to pass. The particle if does not always make a vow conditional, because not seldom this particle if means the same as when. Now when someone makes a vow by means of the particle when, he makes not a conditional but an absolute vow; as if he should say: When my father dies, I vow to enter religion: that vow is absolute: because he vows religion absolutely, although he defers the execution of the vow until his father's death. It is the same if the vow is made with the particle if. So the authors everywhere. Note, however, that although this vow is commonly called absolute, because the condition laid down, namely the father's death, is necessary, I do not see why it cannot also be called conditional: since whether a longer or shorter span of time is to pass before the father's death is something contingent; and in this respect that vow can be called conditional.

IV. Question III. Is a vow under a condition of the present, of the past, or of a necessary or impossible future valid? It has already been said that a condition of the present or of the past does not make a vow conditional, because it does not suspend the consent. Likewise a condition of a necessary future, as if the sun rises tomorrow, I will take you as my bride, makes a vow absolute, not conditional: because, since such a condition is necessarily to come, it is held as fulfilled, as the doctors commonly think. Sánchez, however, Bk. IV, ch. 23, n. 5, teaches with others that if the one vowing fixes beforehand a time for the execution of the vow, though the condition be necessary, the vow becomes conditional; as if you should say: I vow to keep chastity from a year hence, if the sun rises tomorrow: because, he says, although the condition laid down does not suspend the consent, and on this side the vow is absolute, yet, because a day has been fixed beforehand for the execution, the one vowing is not bound until that day. It is otherwise if you should conceive your vow in this way: I vow chastity, if the sun rises a year hence. There is no reason to dwell longer on unravelling these things. Some contend that a vow made under an impossible future condition is valid; as if you should say: If I touch heaven with my finger, I vow chastity. But the most common opinion teaches that such a vow is null. And the reason is manifest: because one who promises something under a condition does not will to take on the obligation except after the condition comes to pass. Therefore, when he adds an impossible condition to his vow, by that very fact he does not will that vow, nor its obligation. That such conditions, when attached to last wills and to marriages, are held as not added, so that the testaments and marriages are valid, is because positive laws so decree.

V. Question IV. Does a shameful condition against the substance of the vow make it void? Response. The authors commonly affirm it, asserting that any shameful condition against the substance of a contract vitiates it. Concerning religious profession, however, affected by a shameful condition against its substance, they disagree. Some contend that it is valid on the authority of the chapter Insinuante: because in the text cited the woman was granted the faculty of retaining the use, not the ownership, of her goods. Others maintain that it is null: because a shameful condition against the substance vitiates any contract whatever; why not religious profession too? This is defended by St. Antoninus, Part III, tit. 16, ch. 3; the Rosella, s.v. Religio 2, n. 21; Sylvester, s.v. Religio 3, q. 6 and 7; Navarre, Bk. III of the Consilia, title on the state of monks, cons. 14, n. 15; Azor, Bk. XI, ch. 15, q. 9; Sánchez, Bk. IV, ch. 4, n. 94; the Armilla, s.v. Religio, n. 8; Leander, tract. 1, disp. 41, q. 11; and many others: and it is a very probable opinion. Concerning conditions, however, that are not against the substance but against the accidents of the contract, there is no disagreement. All admit that they do not vitiate the contract.

VI. Question V. When does a vow under a future, contingent, honest, and possible condition oblige? Is it enough that part of the condition be fulfilled? And can any condition be added after the vow has been made? Response. A conditional vow, properly so called, is one made under a future, contingent, and honest condition. Now this vow does not oblige before the condition is fulfilled: because it is the nature of this condition to suspend the effect until it is itself fulfilled. Nor is it enough that part of this condition be fulfilled; the whole must be fulfilled for the vow to oblige. This condition must be attached to the vow when it is made. For once the vow is made, it can no longer be attached: because, when the vow made was absolute, it can no longer become conditional; just as no burden can be added to the same vow once fully made, whether absolute or conditional. If several conditions have been added, all must be fulfilled for the vow to oblige; provided the conditions were added conjointly; otherwise if disjointly. But if you doubt whether you laid them down conjointly or disjointly, you ought to choose the safer part, says St. Antoninus, Part II, tit. 11, ch. 2, § 4, at the end: If he did not think about this, and does not know how to discern, it is safer to fulfil it. The probabilists teach the opposite.

VII. Question VI. Is it enough that the conditions be fulfilled equivalently for the vow to oblige, or must they be fulfilled in their specific form? Response. That it is enough for the condition to be fulfilled equivalently is taught by Sánchez, Bk. IV, ch. 23, n. 26, citing others for the same opinion: because the condition is intended not for its own sake, but insofar as it is a means to obtaining the end of the one vowing. Therefore, if the effect is in fact obtained, the intention of the one vowing appears to be fulfilled. For example: you vowed religion if your sister should marry, if your father should consent: if your sister dies, or professes religion, or your father dies, you are bound to enter religion, because the condition has been equivalently fulfilled. Again, you vowed religion if your father should die, because he needs your support: you are bound to enter if he has acquired riches; because the condition has been equivalently fulfilled, namely, your father's poverty is no longer an impediment to your entry into religion. You promised an alms if you should make a profit from such a business: you made the profit not from that business but from another; you are bound to the vow, because the condition has been equivalently fulfilled.

VIII. The contrary opinion is defended by Castropalao, disp. 1, punct. 17, n. 5; Tamburini, Bk. III, ch. 12, § 6, n. 4; Leander, tract. 1, disp. 41, q. 21; the Salmanticenses, tract. 17, ch. 1, § 6, punct. 6, n. 169: because the obligation of vows depends on the intention of the one vowing; and the intention of the one vowing was bound to that condition, not to another put in its place: for he did not vow absolutely and in any case whatever, but under such conditions laid down. This opinion clings to the letter more than is just. When it is certain that the one vowing laid down that condition, namely the poverty of his father, who needed his son's support, and his sister's marriage, because she required her brother's protection, for this reason: when, I say, this is certain from the intention of the one vowing, I for my part would not dare to free him from the obligation of fulfilling the vow. For by laying down such conditions the one vowing intends nothing else than the removal of the impediment. And whether the impediment is removed by this way or by that is all one. And surely it would seem excessive ingratitude, not to say worse, if, having obtained from divine providence what he absolutely intended, he should refuse to perform what he promised, because he did not obtain it by that specific and, so to speak, material way of which he himself had thought. Wherefore the first opinion is to me the more probable; when, however, the one vowing did not expressly intend that the condition be fulfilled in its specific form: for then there would be no difficulty.

IX. Question VII. Does one sin against the vow who prevents the condition under which he made the vow from coming to pass? And must he await its coming to pass? Response. If the condition laid down depends on the will of the one vowing alone, he is not bound to await its coming to pass; but he may, before it comes to pass, choose what pleases him; as if you should say: I promise to enter religion if I go to Rome this year: you are not bound to wait for the year to pass; but you may, when it pleases you, contract marriage and abstain from the journey to Rome. But if the condition depends on another's will, then you are bound to await its coming to pass; as if you should say: I vow religion, if my father consents, if my sister marries, and so on. The one vowing is also bound not to make himself unfit for fulfilling the vow. All these things are common ground. Hence the first part of the question is plain. For if the condition added depends wholly on the will of the one vowing, without doubt he can lawfully avoid it; as, if someone has vowed that he will enter religion if he goes to Rome, he may not set out for Rome, and not enter religion: because he did not vow the carrying out of the condition, but willed to reserve this to himself, namely that he might freely carry out the condition or not carry it out. If, on the contrary, the condition depends on another's will, just as he is bound to await the coming to pass of that condition, so he is bound also not to prevent its coming to pass by force, fraud, or deceit. For example: you vowed religion if your father should consent: you act against the vow if you draw your father away from giving his consent. You vowed religion if you should recover your health: you act against the vow if you use harmful foods so as not to become well, to the end that you may exempt yourself from the vow. The Salmanticenses with Leander teach that the one vowing may persuade his father to dissent by entreaties and reasons, but not by force, fraud, and deceit: because entreaties, reasons, and counsels do not compel the father to dissent. Tamburini teaches the same with others. This opinion does not seem to me probable. For although reasons, counsels, and entreaties do not compel the father to dissent, nonetheless they do not prevent the one vowing from acting against his vow. Nor do frauds or deceits always extort the father's consent; and yet the one vowing who used them would sin. This reason proves only that the one vowing would not certainly attain his end by means of entreaties; but it does not prove that he has no mind to elude the vow. Where, I ask, is there any trace here of sincerity and good faith? If you had promised Paul a loan under this condition, that your brother should consent, would you not be held by prudent men a crafty and unworthy shifter if you persuaded your brother to dissent by entreaties, counsels, and reasons? Why should not the same be said, and with stronger right, in our case, in which fidelity is to be kept to God, not to men only?

X. Question VIII. If the one vowing, by his own malice, impedes the aforesaid conditions dependent on another's will, is he bound by the vow, or is he freed from it? Response: The theologians of Salamanca deny that he is bound by the vow (tract. 17, ch. 1, punct. 6, §6, n. 173), citing for the same opinion Suárez, Palao, Diana, Tamburini, Leander, Filliucci, and others — both because he is not bound by the vow on account of a condition which was really not fulfilled, nor on account of the sin committed in impeding the condition, since such a sin only imposes an obligation of penance, not of restitution; and also because the vow depends on the intention of the one vowing: therefore, whatever the cause for which the condition is not fulfilled, all obligation of the one vowing ceases.

XI. The contrary opinion is more probable, and is gathered from St. Thomas, who, in Bk. IV, dist. 38, q. 1, art. 3, qc. 1, ad 1, says that one who has, through his own fault, become incapable of fulfilling the vow, is bound to compensate for the vow through penance. "A distinction," he says, "must be drawn in another way: whether he incurred the incapacity through his own fault; for then he must compensate for it through penance, and yet, since he is fit to fulfill the vow, he ought to fulfill it." Nor is it true, as the most learned theologians of Salamanca reply, that human promises are to be kept, when the condition has been impeded by malice, because the aforesaid promises depend heavily upon law. For when the laws absolutely declare that contracts, in a given hypothesis, are valid, they do not decree this by mere fiat, but because reason so demands: and positive laws in similar cases only interpret and declare natural law; nor do they add anything to natural law, except when they make some peculiar contract an exception, for particular ends. But that a human promisee is harmed in useful matters — unlike God, who is harmed by the transgression of a vow in no matter of any moment whatsoever — is of no significance. For although God receives no detriment, the one vowing nonetheless breaks his promise through his own malice, or, through his own fault, places an impediment so that the promise is not fulfilled. But no one ought to reap advantage from his own iniquity. This opinion is defended by the more ancient, and weightier, theologians, who gather it from the law "He who gives not through him," rule 66, on the rules of law in the Sixth Book, and Rule 111 in civil law, on the meanings of words, and more clearly from the law "In execution," §83, "Finally," on the rules of law, where these words are found: "Whoever, bound under a condition, has taken care that the condition not occur, is nonetheless bound." What could be said more plainly? And indeed, when the one vowing adds a condition dependent on another's will, he intends, and virtually and actually decrees, to accommodate himself to the contingent outcome of that condition. Therefore, just as a vow once made obligates, and so must be fulfilled, so too must one await the condition once attached: if by his own malice he has impeded the outcome of the condition, he must nonetheless fulfill the vow. This is confirmed by the chapter "Against" on ecclesiastical immunity, where it is established that fraud and deceit ought to favor no one. As for the adversaries' claim that the vow depends on the intention of the one vowing, this is most true. But a distinction must be drawn: it depends on the intention of the one vowing in its making, but not in its execution. The one vowing can make, or not make, a vow. But, given that he has once deliberately made the vow, the vow no longer depends on the intention of the one vowing. So, in the present case, the one vowing can add, or not add, a fortuitous condition dependent on another's will. But once he has bound himself to this future occasional event, then, just as in human contracts it is settled that no one who impedes what he promised should thereby be released, so too, and by an even stronger right, in divine promises. Nor should our own opinion, that it is to be observed in all cases, be doubted, unless perhaps out of an excessive eagerness to indulge human liberty. The Gloss and Bartolus there, at the end, teach this opinion: Angles, in his Flores (Part II, unique question on vows, art. 2, following concl. 5), Angelo (s.v. Votum, 2, q. 11), Navarrus (ch. 18, n. 6), Palacios (Bk. III, Consilia, on vows, consil. 19, n. 2), Ludovico López (in Instructions, ch. 98), Manuel Rodríguez (Vol. II, Summa, q. ult.), Sayr (in Clavis Regia, Bk. VI, ch. 17), Prado (ch. 31, q. 5, §3), Bassaeus (Vol. II, s.v. Votum, 1, n. 36).

XII. Question IX. What is a penal conditional vow; and is it valid? Response: A penal conditional vow is one which someone makes, not out of affection for the thing to which he binds himself, but out of a zeal to avoid an action which he detests — as if you vow in this manner: "I promise to build an altar, if I gamble; if I fornicate," etc. What the one vowing principally intends is to avoid such a sin, or action; and, so that he may be more vigilant in guarding against it, he establishes a penalty for himself — namely, alms, an altar, a sacrifice, and the like. This penal conditional vow is distinguished from a simple conditional vow: since in the former the condition is attached in the manner of a penalty; in the latter it is not added as a penalty, but absolutely. Theologians commonly affirm that this penal conditional vow is valid, against Catharinus — since it concerns something honorable, and does not impede a greater good. This they commonly divide further, into simple, as if someone says, "If I gamble, I vow a fast," and double, as they say — for example, "In order not to gamble, I vow a fast."

XIII. Question X. When the transgression of a penal vow is free of fault, from invincible ignorance, is the one vowing bound to undergo the penalty attached to the transgression? Response: The common opinion is negative — since where there is no sin, there ought to be no penalty. In the case supposed, no fault is supposed to exist. Therefore no penalty is to be undergone — which holds true even if the ignorance is not free of some venial fault.

XIV. Question XI. Is one who commits a mortal sin against a vow, if forgetful of the vow, bound to the penalty? Response: Some affirm this, but several deny it. For, they say, one who is invincibly unmindful of the vow does not truly sin against the vow. Therefore, just as he does not sin by transgressing the vow, so too he need not undergo the penalty. What if he is mindful of the vow, but forgetful of the penalty? Sánchez answers that this person incurs the penalty, if it is light; not so, if it is notable and most grave. But briefly, I say, it seems more probable to me that this person incurs neither a light nor a most grave penalty, when he invincibly does not remember it; but he does, if he vincibly forgets it. For it seems more likely to me that the law then does not oblige to the penalty, but rather excuses from the penalty.

XV. Question XII. In a double penal vow, if someone is absolved from the vow, is he also absolved from the penalty, which he has not yet incurred? Response: Not a few deny this. But the more probable opinion is that which affirms it — since, when someone is absolved, say, from a vow of gambling, he is presumed to be absolved also from the vow by which he had imposed a penalty upon himself, had he thought of it. For although such vows are not so connected that one cannot be made independently of the other, nonetheless, commonly, in penal vows such a connection holds. The intention of the one vowing must nonetheless be consulted.

XVI. Question XIII. Is one absolved from a vow to be considered absolved also from a penalty already contracted in the transgression of the first vow? And in seeking a dispensation, must both vows be explained? Response: The more probable opinion is that which denies that one absolved from a vow is likewise absolved from a penalty already contracted in the transgression of the first vow. We likewise judge it more probable that, in seeking a dispensation, both vows must be explained — since, for a dispensation to be legitimate and safe, the whole matter must be laid before the judgment of the Superior. And although the second vow is accessory, it nonetheless greatly assists the Superior in forming a prudent judgment when he grants the dispensation. All the more, then, is the one vowing bound to explain the principal vow, when he seeks a dispensation from a penalty already contracted, or to be contracted.

XVII. Question XIV. Is one who vowed to avoid something — say, gambling — under such a penalty, bound to the penalty as often as he gambles? Response: Setting aside the various distinctions of light and grave penalties, what seems more probable to me is that such a person incurs the penalty only once — since it is reasonably presumed that he understood it thus when he made the vow. For a prudent man is not accustomed to bind himself to undergo innumerable penalties, especially if such penalties are of a kind that can scarcely be repeated. If you had made such vows as: "If I gamble, I vow a pilgrimage to Jerusalem," or "entrance into religious life," or "chastity" — could these penalties be repeated as many times as the violation of the vow has been committed? As for these penalties, then, authors commonly admit that they are not to be undergone so many times over. Of other penalties they think differently. Nor do I myself object. Why? Because those vowing frequently intend such light penalties to be imposed on themselves, to be paid as often as they transgress the vow — as when they vow certain prayers, or small alms, genuflections, and the like. From the intention of the one vowing, then, or, if the intention of the one vowing is not clear, from the quality of the penalties, it must be gathered whether the penalties are to be repeated, or not.