Article I: On Specific Distinction

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 72; De Malo, q. 2, a. 6.

432. Principle I. Sins are distinguished in species immediately and proximately according to diverse formal objects, or objects distinct in moral species. For sin is not a simple privation but a voluntary act deprived of due rectitude; whence, just like other human acts, sins will have their species immediately from the object: thus idolatry, homicide, and gluttony are distinguished (a. 1). But since end or good is the proper object of the will, it follows that sins are distinguished in species according to diverse ends (ad 1), whether of the one acting (for example, to steal for revenge or for fornication), or especially those intrinsic to the work itself (for example, gluttony toward pleasure, theft toward money; gluttony from love of delicious food or from love of much food).

433. Principle II. Sins are not distinguished in species immediately and proximately insofar as they are opposed to diverse virtues from which they recede (as Scotus taught), or to precepts (as Vasquez says): for the privation which is had in sin, namely, recession from virtue or law, is not intended by the sinner but is outside his intention, whence it is not per se and directly the object of the will and of the human act, nor therefore does it give species to the evil act (a. 1).

Nevertheless St. Thomas observes that it comes to the same thing whether sins are distinguished in species according to objects or according to the virtues to which they are opposed, because the virtues themselves are distinguished in species from objects (ad 2); or even according to precepts, because these differ according to diverse object, motive, and end, and also according to diverse virtues, since they are made for this, that we may operate according to virtue. Therefore, although sins do not immediately take their species from the law which they transgress, or from the virtue from which they recede, nevertheless they can be said to receive species remotely and mediately from them.

1. From Laymann, Noldin took this, and Tanquerey follows him: that sins proximately receive specific distinction from the virtues or from the precepts to which they are opposed, remotely from the objects about which they are concerned. But precisely the contrary must be said.

434. The following practical rules are usually constructed, by which the specific distinction of objects and consequently of sins is easily discerned:

The first, altogether universal, to which all the others can be reduced: Those sins are diverse which are concerned with formally diverse objects; but objects are formally diverse not according to physical being but according to moral being, that is, according to special agreement or repugnance with right reason and the eternal law. Hence to steal a sheep, a horse, or money is the same sin in species, although the objects are materially diverse, because they agree in one moral reason, in taking another's good; on the contrary, homicide, adultery, and theft are diverse because they contain diverse repugnance to reason, since they injure a diverse right: to life, to a wife, to exterior goods (a. 1 and ad 3).

The second: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to diverse virtues; for individual virtues have their own proper goodness. Hence theft, fornication, and perjury are distinguished because they are opposed to justice, chastity, and religion (ad 2).

The third: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to the same virtue but in a contrary mode, that is, by excess and defect, as presumption and despair to hope, prodigality and avarice to the virtue of liberality: for they are placed from an opposite motive and recede from virtue by a diverse reason (a. 8).

The fourth: Those sins are diverse which are opposed to the same virtue, not in a contrary mode but in a diverse mode, on account of a special repugnance with right reason and law; in other words, those which are against diverse goods, rectitudes, honesties, or offices of the same virtue, for example, homicide and theft, theft and robbery, contumely and detraction, real, personal, and local sacrilege, violation of a vow and of an oath, idolatry and magic, perjury and blasphemy: for then diverse goodness is injured and in the objects there is deformity of a distinct reason.

The fifth: Those sins are diverse which are repugnant to formally diverse precepts, that is, precepts enacted from a diverse motive or intrinsic end; but not those which are repugnant to several precepts enacted from the same intrinsic motive, even if they are enacted by diverse legislators. Hence he who is bound by vow and by the precept of a confessor to fast on Friday of Ember week, if he does not fast, commits a threefold sin specifically distinct against temperance, religion, and the virtue of penance; on the contrary, one omitting Mass on a feast day falling on Sunday, or not fasting on an Ember Saturday falling on a vigil, because each precept is of the same reason on the part of the end or intrinsic motive; likewise there is only one sin which is prohibited by natural, divine, ecclesiastical, and civil law, such as homicide.

435. Circumstances of themselves only aggravate sin. - For many pertain to the same object and the same matter; for example, from the same motive the prodigal gives when, where, and to whom he ought not, and the illiberal man accepts when and where he ought not and more than he ought. Nevertheless they change the species if they include a special and distinct deformity with reason or proceed from a special motive; but then they do not remain circumstances, but become as it were a secondary object of the act and have the notion of a specific difference. Thus theft of a sacred thing is distinguished in species from simple theft, likewise various sins of gluttony, such as eating too much or food too delicious (a. 9).

436. Corollaries. - A. Therefore the following are distinguished in species: a) carnal and spiritual sins, because they tend to formally diverse objects: for carnal sins, namely, gluttony and lust and those which are reduced to them, have as their end carnal pleasure which is perfected in the touch of the body; spiritual sins have spiritual pleasure which is consummated in the cognition of some thing, as the five other capital sins do (a. 2).

b) Likewise sins against God, against oneself, and against neighbor, for the objects and virtues by which man is ordered to God, to neighbor, and to himself are diverse in species. Let it be noted that every sin which is against neighbor and against oneself is also against God; but here under the name of sin against God there comes that which is proximately, immediately, and specially against Him, without being against neighbor and oneself (a. 4).

B. Sins are not distinguished in species: a) because they differ according to guilt of punishment, as mortal and venial sins do. For the will of the sinner does not intend the punishment of sin, but this is per accidens and outside his intention. Since, therefore, guilt of punishment is not the object of the sinful act but follows per accidens, it does not cause a specific difference.

Mortal and venial sin differ infinitely on the part of disorder or privation, but not on the part of conversion to created good, on the part of the act and object, from which nevertheless they have species. Therefore nothing prevents mortal and venial sin from being found in the same moral species, as the first movement in the genus of adultery, or theft of ten centimes, is venial (a. 5).

Likewise b) because they are sins of heart, mouth, and deed: for although per accidens they differ in completed species if they are consummated and perfect, whether by thought, word, or deed, as heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, because then they have diverse ends or objects; nevertheless per se they indicate only degrees of one sin in species, whose first beginning is in the affection of the heart, second degree in the manifestation of the mouth, third in the consummation of deed; for example, the desire, proposal, and perpetration of adultery; to conceive anger in the heart toward another, to express it in harsh words, and to strike him (a. 7).

Hence 1) they are not distinguished when they are joined together at the same time;

2. but if one or another degree is found separately and the will does not proceed further and does not execute the sin, then they are distinguished in incomplete species, because then they stand as incomplete and complete species in the same mode as part of a movement and the whole movement, an imperfect work and a completed work, for example, the placing of a foundation and the building of a house. Thus internal lust, imperfect lust of the mouth, sight, or touch, and consummated or perfect lust of deed (ad 3).

Likewise c) because they are sins of commission and omission: for although according to physical being they are distinguished in species and even in genus, according to moral being they are not necessarily distinguished in species, because they can be concerned with the same object, tend to the same end, and proceed from the same motive, as to seize another's goods and not to restore, to stay awake and to sleep against the precept of a superior, to omit Mass or to steal for adultery, etc. (a. 6).