§ 1. On the Indifference of Acts

310. For a right understanding of the matter we note beforehand: 1. here the matter treated is solely the indifference of a human act in order to its morality; not at all its indifference in order to supernatural merit; for such treatment, as we have already observed, belongs to dogmatic theology; 2. that a human act

can be considered in the abstract according to species, and on the part of the object only; or in the concrete and in the individual, insofar as it is on the side of the thing and clothed with all circumstances. With these things briefly noted beforehand, let there be

311. PRINCIPLES. I. Not all human acts, according to their species, are indifferent (of faith). For some are of themselves good, as acts of faith, hope, and charity; others, however, of themselves evil, as fornication, the killing of the innocent. The reason is because the objects of these are of themselves consonant with reason, or dissonant from reason (V, n. XLII).

II. Nevertheless there are given human acts according to their species indifferent. Thus St. Thomas (1.2, q. 18, a. 8) with the common opinion. To this comes the condemnation of article 16 of John Hus, affirming "that there are no indifferent works." This condemnation cannot be understood of things indifferent in the individual, because very many good Catholics probably defend this same thing; therefore it must be understood of things indifferent in species (Concil. Constant., s. 15, a. 16).

III. There are not given human acts indifferent in the individual. This is the more common opinion, which St. Alphonsus, V, n. XLIII, confirms by these words of St. Thomas: "It is necessary that any individual act have some circumstance by which it is drawn to good or evil, at least on the part of the intention of the end. For since it belongs to reason to order, an act proceeding from deliberative reason, if it is not ordered to the due end, by this very fact is repugnant to reason and has the nature of evil; but if it is ordered to the due end, it agrees with the order of reason, whence it has the nature of good. But it is necessary that it either be ordered, or not be ordered, to the due end. Whence it is necessary that every act of man proceeding from deliberative reason, considered in the individual, be good or evil. Thus nervously the Angelic Doctor" (1.2, q. 18, a. 9).

Therefore: to walk in the garden, to smell a flower, to rub the beard, or the hands in order to drive away cold, etc., which ordinarily are done indeliberately, are not human acts, but acts of man. But if they are done deliberately, then either they are posited according to the dictate of reason, and therefore are good; or they are done from some dishonest end, or with some vitiated circumstance, and then they are evil, and in no way indifferent.

312. IT IS ASKED. Whether an external act adds morality to an internal act, for example, in him who efficaciously proposes that he will give alms?

Resp. 1. That, PER SE, the external act has a special morality which it adds to the internal act, the Scotists indeed affirm, because, they say, externally to operate something good or evil is something greater than only to will to operate it. But the Thomists and others commonly deny it. Their opinion is proved first from Sacred Scripture, where an efficacious will is everywhere reputed as the deed: thus a man desiring a woman is declared guilty of adultery; and Abraham received precisely the same reward as if he had actually immolated his son. The reason is because the external act obtains its whole morality from the internal act, that is, from the free voluntary, without which no morality can be conceived. Whence St. Thomas (in 2. D. 40, q. 1, a. 3): "He merits as much, with respect to the essential reward, who has the perfect will of doing some good, as if he did it, the will remaining equally perfect. Nevertheless the external act adds something to the accidental reward." Thus martyrs who really suffer for Christ have an accidental reward, or aureole, above those who, with equal fervor of charity, merely desire death for Christ.

2. But that, PER ACCIDENS, the external act, regularly speaking, adds some goodness or malice, must be affirmed: "For the external act is often the cause and occasion that the internal act becomes worse, either because the interior acts are multiplied until we execute the acts extrinsically; or because the interior act has a greater duration until it completes the work, which cannot be completed at once; or because it becomes more intense through the extrinsicness of the act. Besides, by the external act the senses are more dulled, and the exterior powers are rendered more prone to evil; scandals are produced; sometimes excommunication is incurred, or irregularity, or the obligation to restitution, which are not incurred through the interior act" (V, n. XL). For the rest, the external act is the complement of the internal act, and from the whole there arises one moral act, and therefore it must necessarily be declared in confession, as will be seen in its place (cf. n. 1692).