Article I: On the Notion and Conditions of Sin

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 21, a. 1 and 2; q. 71, a. 1-4; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2.

413. Sin properly so called is taken philosophically and theologically:

a) Among philosophers an evil act is called a sin, which is a middle term between evil and fault: for not every evil is a sin, nor is every sin a fault. Evil, indeed, is the privation of a perfection which ought to be in something. But sin is the privation of a perfection due in order to an end, that is, in operation when this is not directed as its end requires; but since law is the rule according to which an act is to be directed so that it may come to its end, it is the same whether sin is called a disordering from the end, or a transgression of law. Moreover there are three laws: the law of physical nature, the rules of art, and the moral law; hence a monster is said to be a sin of nature, and a weak structure a sin of art. But transgression of the moral law has this special feature, that it arises from a free will, as mistress of its own acts; and consequently it is imputable and blameworthy: hence it has obtained the special name of fault.

b) But among theologians, who consider sin only in the moral matter and in order to the ultimate end, God, the custom has prevailed of taking sin and fault in the same sense. Therefore in the stricter signification sin is a morally evil act, or an evil human act. And in this sense, in the present treatise, there will be speech of sin.

414. Sin is distinguished from vice and from malice in strictness of speech, although in common speech these are often confused: vice is a habitual inclination to sin, or an evil habit; sin, an evil act; malice is the discordance with right reason and law, on account of which an act or habit is evil and therefore a sin or vice. Vice is directly opposed to virtue, sin to a good act, malice to goodness.

Sin has greater malice than vice, for 1) habit is midway between potency and act, and therefore just as it exceeds potency in good or evil because it inclines it to this, so it is exceeded by the act which determines the potency to this; whence it is worse to act badly than only to be able to do this or to be inclined to it; 2) vice is not evil except on account of the malice of the act, because it inclines to an evil act. Nevertheless under a certain respect vice is worse than sin, because it lasts longer and can be the efficient cause of many sins; but sin with respect to vice is the final cause according to which goodness or malice is considered, and therefore it is simply worse.

415. Sin differs from imperfection, which is either negative or physical, namely, the defect of a greater perfection which an act could have, and this is proper to every created act; or positive or moral. This again is distinguished as twofold: one, improperly so called, is a wholly indeliberate transgression of a law of lesser moment, for example, a wholly involuntary distraction in prayer: this is materially a true venial sin but without any fault; another, properly so called, is a voluntary action or omission against a counsel to which someone is stirred either by divine inspiration, or by the judgment of reason, or by the directive will of a superior, for example, to omit morning prayers, to violate the statutes of a community, etc.; and in this sense they are now accustomed to speak of imperfection. This in itself is not sin because it is not against law; nevertheless, if it is done deliberately and especially habitually, it will not always be without fault, either by reason of the effect, such as scandal or damage, or more often by reason of the cause, namely, an inordinate affection or depraved motive on account of which it is placed: whether from negligence or levity, or from inordinate passion, for example, of sensuality, curiosity, concupiscence or anger, impatience, sloth, worldly fear, etc., or from contempt; for reason forbids man to act in his acts from an evil or irrational motive.

In this matter it is altogether necessary to preserve the essential difference between a precept, which of itself is obligatory because it concerns a good necessarily to be done or an evil to be avoided, and a counsel, which is not obligatory of itself, as concerning a better good; so that every theory which would remove this difference in practice, by that very fact would be shown to fall short of the truth. Therefore the doctrine of those more recent authors cannot be admitted, who hold the passing over of the better good as per se and necessarily and always culpable, unless from determined circumstances it were proved that this good in the case is less fitting or less good: these remove in practice the aforesaid difference between precept and counsel. Besides, they do not prove their affirmation validly, although it belongs to the one affirming to prove. Namely, by the very fact that there is question of a better good, which of itself pleases God more, there is also a lesser good, which also of itself pleases God, as being good, although it pleases less because it is less good.

Therefore the passing over of the better and the choice of a lesser good is not of itself, necessarily, and always irrational, nor consequently evil: for it can be done from a rational motive, especially if someone does not positively intend to abandon the greater good, but chooses the lesser good because it is fitting to him here and now, from which the omission of the greater good follows indirectly. Therefore imperfection is not always fault, but it is not always without fault. And therefore it would better be called a less perfect act than imperfection.

416. Conditions of sin. - Sin strictly so called is a voluntary act deprived of due order to the ultimate end, or of due rectitude; therefore two things concur for it: a) disorder, whence it has the notion of evil, namely, privation of due order to the ultimate end and therefore recession from right reason and the law of God: this comes to it on the part of the object; b) the notion of the voluntary, whence it has the notion of fault: this comes to it on the part of the act or subject. Hence a threefold condition is required for sin:

1. moral malice of the object, otherwise it would not be evil; but subjective malice in the object suffices, that is, in the thing or action insofar as it is known, nor is objective malice necessarily required in the thing or action as it is in itself: for he who thinks something is evil and does it, really wills evil; whence he who falsely believes that it is Friday and eats meat nevertheless sins;

2. in the subject there is required some advertence to the malice, at least confused: for nothing is willed unless foreknown; whence if evil is in no way adverted to, not even by suspecting it or doubting about it, man cannot will it; hence he does not sin who on Friday, thinking nothing about the precept, eats meat;

1. This is clear from the condemnation of proposition 35 of Luther by Leo X, June 15, 1520; and of proposition 68 of Baius by Pius V, October 1, 1567; and of proposition 2 by Alexander VIII, December 7, 1690.

3. consent of the will is required, direct or indirect, because sin is a human act; hence an act which neither is in the will nor from the will nor accepted by it is not sin, as is a temptation not accepted by the will; and indeed free consent is required, whence the most vehement movements of anger or of another passion by which the use of reason and freedom are taken away excuse from sin.

1. This is clear from the condemnation of proposition 46 of Baius, and proposition 1 by Alexander VIII.

2. Freedom is required not from coercion but from necessity, as is clear from the condemnation of propositions 39, 41, 66, and 67 of Baius; and of proposition 3 of Jansenius condemned by Innocent X, May 31, 1653.

When advertence to malice is lacking, the evil act which is placed is called material sin, which is an involuntary transgression of law: it is not sin because in the acting subject the voluntary is lacking, yet it is called sin because on the part of the object or matter about which it is concerned, all things required for sin are present. Formal sin, however, is a deliberate, voluntary, and culpable transgression of law, whether the law exists or is thought to exist.

417. The notion of sin is not univocal but analogical. - That is not univocal which belongs in the same mode to all things of some genus, but it is called analogical whose property is that according to the full and perfect notion it is predicated of one genus, namely, of actual mortal sin, but imperfectly, deficiently, and in a certain respect of others: for the very essential elements which are found in every sin, namely, the notion of a voluntary act and disorder, are diverse. For:

1. Sin primarily and originally is an act; secondarily, however, and consequently, the disorder which follows the act, or the state of sin, is also properly so called and is sin, which is an evil act only in a certain respect, insofar as the act perseveres morally or by guilt.

2. Mortal and venial sin differ in the notion of disorder: the former is perfectly against the law, from whose end it turns away, to which we are united through charity; the latter only imperfectly, and therefore only delays from the end.

3. Personal and original sin differ in the notion of the voluntary: the former is voluntary by one's own will; the latter is most imperfectly voluntary, namely, not by one's own will but only by the will of our head Adam.

1. Analogy of proportionality, according to being and intention. Cf. I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 1; De Malo q. 7, a. 1, ad 1; II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2.

418. Sin in the Scriptures is called: 1) in order to the end: αμαρτία and αμάρτημα, that is, aberration from the end (Rom. V, 12; VII, 7), in such a way, however, that the first word is said also of the state of sin, the other of the act alone; 2) in order to the law of God: άνομία and παρανομία (in the Vulgate, iniquity), that is, violation or contempt of law (I John III, 4; II Peter II, 15); παράβάσις, that is, transgression or prevarication of law (Rom. V, 14; Gal. III, 19; I Tim. II, 14); παράκοή, that is, the will of not hearing the voice of God, or disobedience (Rom. V, 19; Heb. II, 2); 3) in order to the sinner: παράπτωμα, that is, fall (Mark XI, 25-26); ήττημα, that is, defeat, diminution (Rom. XI, 12); αγνόημα, that is, ignorance, because every sin imports culpable error (Heb. XI, 7; Acts XVII, 30).

Sin is also rather often taken in a metaphorical and improper sense, either for the sacrifice offered for sins (Hos. IV, 8; II Cor. V, 21), or for the cause, occasion, or object of sin (Deut. IX, 21), or even for its punishment or effect (Lev. XX, 20), or for cause and effect at once, as concupiscence is called sin by the Apostle (Rom. VII, 17), because it is from sin and inclines to sin (Council of Trent, sess. 5, can. 5).