Article I. On the Essence of Morality

22. • Not a few Theologians go off into various opinions and most intricate questions in order to explain and determine the essence of the morality of human acts. But according to the more common doctrine, the following things seem to have to be established:

I. The essence of morality consists primarily in the habitude or relation of the human act to the eternal law, which is the divine reason, or the will of God commanding the natural order to be preserved and forbidding it to be disturbed. The reason is that only the eternal law can be the primary rule of morals ¹. And indeed a rule of this kind must be infallible, indefectible, and able to oblige in conscience; but such is only the eternal law, from which alone the other laws receive the force of obliging: therefore. Thus from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 9, art. 2.

¹ That the eternal law may rightly be established as the rule of morals, or the norm of morality, it must be taken here more broadly, so that it indicates not only the order which must necessarily be observed, but also that which is fittingly observed. Otherwise the honesty of acts not commanded will be excluded.

II. The essence of morality consists secondarily in the habitude of the human act to right reason. The reason is that only right reason can manifest to man the eternal law, or the primary rule of morals. Therefore right reason is the subjective rule manifesting the primary rule. Therefore the essence of morality consists secondarily in the conformity or difformity of the human act with right reason. - St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, art. 4.

23. You Will Resolve. - 1. Therefore that and only that is a moral entity which is subject to the rule of morals, or to the law of God commanding, forbidding, or permitting ². For through that alone we are ordered to our ultimate end, or disordered from it. Therefore, that our acts may be good, they ought to be in some way conformable to the divine will, since it is the highest and primary rule of morals.

² ** This disjunctive is less apt: for not every act which is not commanded or prohibited ought to be called merely permitted, nor would you aptly call the profession of the evangelical counsels merely permitted.

2. Liberty is pre-required as the foundation of morality; for otherwise the act would not be human, and thus all sins and merits would be taken out of the way. Therefore...

3. It is false that the essence of morality is to be placed in liberty alone. For the imputability of a human act unto praise or blame, unto reward or punishment, follows upon the morality of the act itself; but an act is not worthy of praise or blame only because it is free, but also and especially because it is conformable or difform to the rules of morals, or to the divine will. Therefore...

4. A fortiori it is false that morality consists in the voluntary alone. For the voluntary without liberty is worthy neither of praise nor of blame ³, since man without liberty is not master of his own act.

³ ** That the merely voluntary suffices for the notion of merit and demerit is the Jansenian heresy after Luther, Calvin, etc. See above, no. 12.

24. Questions. - YOU WILL ASK 1. Whether acts properly indifferent, or lacking morality, are given, either in species or in the individual?

I answer 1. It is certain that indifferent acts in species are given, or acts which in their species are without morality. For there are acts which, considered in themselves, abstracting from end and circumstances, have no agreement or repugnance with law or right reason, and therefore are to be reckoned neither good nor evil. Thus to walk, to write, and innumerable similar things are acts indifferent per se.

I answer 2. But there is controversy regarding acts in the individual, or considered in the agent.

The first opinion, more common and more probable, denies this with St. Thomas. The reason is that man, acting deliberately, necessarily proposes some end to himself; for he ought to act as man. Moreover, the end which he proposes to himself is necessarily good or evil, or conformable to reason, or not conformable: therefore in no case will there be given an act properly indifferent in the individual ⁴.

⁴ ** Compare St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, art. 9. St. Alphonsus (book 5, On Human Acts, no. XLIV) added also this argument to the arguments of St. Thomas: Besides these things, man is held to refer all his acts to God when he acts with deliberation and for some end. For the Apostle says, 1 Cor. 10: Whether you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all things unto the glory of God. If therefore he refers it to God at least by a virtual intention, the act will be good; if he does not refer it, it will be evil; therefore no act is indifferent.

This argument indeed the holy Doctor took almost to the letter from Collet (On Human Acts, ch. 6, sect. 2, conclusion 1), to whom (he says) I send the one who studiously seeks this question treated more at length....

But indeed it must not be dissembled that this is pressed by very grave difficulties, nor are there lacking rocks which scarcely or not even scarcely can be avoided. And in reality Collet himself observes that both John Hus, and Luther, and Baius, and Jansenius, and Quesnel took arms from here for the defense of their errors; to whom must be added those pseudo-theologians of Louvain, Laurentius Neessen, Macarius Havermans, Ioannes Sinnichius, Gerardus Van Werm, Gregorius Van Goorlaechem, etc., as may be seen in Cardinal Aguirre (Theology of St. Anselm, disp. 130): and to decline these rocks Collet had to flee to the absurdities which you may see below (note to § 32, question 1).

Moreover, that the matter may be clear, not many words are needed. For, according to this doctrine, lest an act be evil, and therefore sin, a relation to God, at least virtual, is necessary. Moreover, that is called virtual which remains by virtue of a previously had actual relation, and has not been revoked (as Collet rightly says in the cited place) through a contrary act, namely sin; the same thing is repeated also by Cardinal Gotti, alleged by VV. (page 130). Therefore, as often as either no actual relation has preceded, or one previously had has already been retracted through a contrary act, all consequent acts will lack the necessary virtual relation, and thus will be evil. And since referring acts to God, or to the glory of God, pertains to the theological virtue of charity, as is evidently shown below, and the actual relation of works to God is nothing else, as St. Thomas has it (2, Dist. 40, q. 1, art. 5, ad 6), than that the habit of charity go forth into act, it manifestly follows that he who either has never elicited an act of charity, or has lost the habit of charity through sin, sins in every deliberate work. Therefore we have revived the condemned doctrine that both unbelievers and sinners always sin in every work of theirs.

Nor indeed can these consequences be ascribed to the doctrine of St. Thomas. For he certainly teaches that it falls under the precept of charity that all things be referred to God; but at the same time he teaches that this precept does not always urge, but only when man is held to elicit an act of charity; otherwise he nowhere says that a relation of this kind is so necessary for the moral goodness of acts that, if this is lacking, they are deprived of every moral goodness and thus, as the opinion of the Jansenists and of Collet has it, become evil. And these things indeed will appear better below, where the discussion of this relation of works to God will return.

Moreover, if any others, to prove that no act in the individual is indifferent, invoked the sentence of the Apostle, they argued from it only that any act ought to be referable to the ultimate end, and for this reason ought to be honest, and therefore ought to have an honest and reason-consonant proximate end. But, as is clear, what is said about an actual or virtual relation to the glory of God, in which the influence of a preceding actual relation perseveres, pertains nothing to this. Wherefore that argument of Collet cannot be drawn from here: either man refers the act to God at least virtually, and thus it will be good; or he does not refer it, and thus it will be evil. Indeed, rather, the relation of an act to God, as ultimate end, supposes the act already to be referable per se, and thus to exist as honest from the proximate end.

The second opinion affirms this with the Scotists. Their reason is that it is not clear that there is a law of intending a positively good end in all things, since such a law is unknown to many doctors. For does right reason dictate that a man acts badly when he posits an action permitted by God, and nevertheless does not refer it to a positively honest end ⁵? not however as to moral goodness. See 2, Dist. 28, art. 2, q. 3. Indeed Gabriel Vasquez also shows that Scotus must be understood thus. On I-II, disp. 217, ch. 1, no. 6.

⁵ Father Staidel attributes this opinion to St. Bonaventure in the Dissertation on Human Acts prefixed to volume I of Gabriel Antoine, no. 278. But in reality the holy Doctor at most affirms this concerning the indifference of acts as to the merit of eternal life,

Moreover, although each opinion, as far as appearance goes, is opposed, nevertheless it does not seem to differ so greatly. For according to all, a depraved end must always be excluded; otherwise an act, however indifferent in itself, would become evil. But an end is called good by Thomists which is held as indifferent by their adversaries. For the matter is of an end not supernatural, but naturally good or honest. Moreover he is led by a naturally honest end who acts on account of an end naturally intrinsic to the work, or on account of that to which the work by its own nature is ordered.

25. • YOU WILL ASK 2. Whether the external act adds morality to the internal act?

I answer 1. Per se the external act adds no morality to the internal act, and thus neither increases nor diminishes the substantial merit or demerit of the internal act. - The reason is that all morality is taken from the intrinsic, or from the will; nor does the external act have any imputability unto merit or demerit proper to itself and distinct from the imputability of the internal act. Wherefore the external act is not formally, but only materially, honest or dishonest.

It is also clear from sacred Scripture, which often reckons the will for the deed itself. Thus in Gen. 22 God said to Abraham, who only willed to immolate his son: Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy son... I will bless thee. And in Matt. 5 Christ himself said: He who shall look upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. - Nor does the obligation of declaring the external act in confession stand in the way; for it must be declared because it constitutes one and the same act with the internal act, as will be said where the integrity of confession is treated.

I answer 2. Nevertheless per accidens the external act for the most part increases morality, because very often it is the occasion why the goodness or malice of the internal act is increased, for example, that it be prolonged, or multiplied, etc. For the internal act is increased on account of the arduousness of the good external work, or the delight of the evil one, or on account of the longer delay of time necessary in completing the external work.

Besides, often in the external work there is scandal or harm to the neighbor, or on the contrary good edification, from which the morality of the internal act is also increased. Thus commonly the Theologians. Compare Suarez, On the Goodness of Human Acts, disp. X, sect. 1.