Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Article III: On Sins Opposed to Charity Toward God
Besides sins of omission against the affirmative precept of divine charity, there are three sins which are opposed to the same charity, namely: inordinate love of a creature; hatred of God; sloth. Concerning sloth we have already spoken in the treatise on Sins (n. 372).
- PRINCIPLES. I. Every inordinate love of a creature, passing into act, is a mortal sin. Thus Sporer (tr. 2, c. 5, sect. 4, § 4) with the common opinion.
It is said: 1. inordinate, that is, by which a creature is preferred to God; 2. passing into act; otherwise actual sin cannot be given. It is established from the things said concerning the obligation of loving God appreciatively above all things, and from the words of the Lord (Matt. 10:37): He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whence here lightness of matter cannot be imagined.
It must be noted: 1. Inordinate love of a creature is sometimes a special sin, sometimes not: a) It is a special sin when someone knowingly and willingly loves a creature so inordinately that on account of it, by actual consent thereafter elicited, he is prepared to transgress any precept whatsoever and mortally offend God. It is, I say, a special sin against charity, because it is repugnant to no precept in particular. b) But it is not a special sin against charity if someone from inordinate love transgresses some precept, for example of justice; but it is the same in number with the transgression of this precept: because charity is always wounded in every grave sin.
- Such love is the cause of all sins, even of hatred of God itself. St. Thomas explains this nearly thus (2.2, q. 34, a. 1 and 6): "First, man is inordinately occupied and captured by love of himself or of some creature, or wishes it to be well with himself in such a creature. Then, because often it cannot be well with him thus unless he transgresses the law of God, therefore from love of this creature he consents to sin. Further, because he experiences God as a severe legislator and avenger of sin, the impious sinner proceeds to formal hatred of God."
- II. Formal hatred of God is a special sin, and indeed the gravest of all. The reason for the first is that any hatred of God whatsoever turns away from God as troublesome to itself; whence it is opposed to the charity of God, and directly and formally destroys it. The reason for the second is that the gravity of fault consists in aversion from God. But that aversion is stronger and greater in hatred of God, in which it is per se and directly, than in other sins, in which it is indirectly and per accidens (2.2, q. 34, a. 2; St. Alph., V, 60).
Note. 1. We said: formal hatred, because in every sin by which divine friendship is dissolved there is found some hatred of God, but virtual and interpretative, by which a special fault is not constituted.
This formal hatred of God is twofold: one of abomination (opposed to love of concupiscence), by which someone hates God insofar as he experiences or apprehends him as contrary to himself; the other of enmity (opposed to benevolence and friendship), by which someone hates God in himself and according to himself, willing evil to him, insofar as it is evil to him. So great a malice is present in this latter hatred that a greater cannot be conceived. Yet hatred of enmity itself and hatred of abomination, with respect to God, do not differ in species; because although hatred of abomination of itself arises from desperation, nevertheless the will cannot come all the way to hatred of God unless God is attacked in himself, by hatred of enmity (II, 20, 24; Lehmkuhl, I, 434).
From hatred of God can proceed blasphemies, execrations, curses, sacrileges, persecutions against the Church, etc. Such hatred adds a species to these sins, as is plain (Sporer, tr. 2, c. 5, sect. 4).