Fourth Question: On the Subject of Sin

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 74; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2 and 3; q. 7, a. 6.

446. The subject of sin is the power which is the principle of the evil act remaining in it. Moreover sin is in various subjects: a) properly and formally it is in the will, for sin is a voluntary act, but a voluntary act most properly is an immanent act of the will (a. 1); b) nevertheless not only acts of the will are voluntary, but also acts which are commanded by the will or are not repressed by it; whence sin also resides in reason and in the inferior faculties insofar as they are moved by the will; c) nevertheless it is not in the exterior members because their actions are transient. Therefore one sin in number can consist of several partial acts which are in diverse subjects: nevertheless these acts, because one says order to another, constitute one thing in the moral order: one sin (a. 2).

447. Sin is usually attributed to the more principal power when it is elicited by several powers. By the Scholastics it is attributed to the power principally operating, because action is attributed more to the principal and first agent than to the secondary or quasi-instrumental. But by moderns today it is usually attributed to the power in which it is consummated. Hence by reason of the subject three internal sins are distinguished:

1. in the sensitive appetite, insofar as it is moved by reason and will, movements of concupiscence or sins of sensuality, which are perfected by passions of the sensitive appetite;

2. in reason, morose delight, when deliberate reason does not repress the movement of imagination, of the sensitive appetite, or of the will, but remains about it for delight, by thinking and representing the evil to itself as present: for then the will does not tend into the act and the delight naturally following, but consents to delight alone as thought and represented, and the sin is perfected in reason;

3. in the will itself, desire or joy, when the will consents not only to the delight thought of but also to the evil work itself, whether to be placed or placed, which intention is perfected in the will itself.

Let it be noted, however, that several of these sins are rather often joined.

1. From this principle the mode of speaking of St. Thomas in this whole question is to be understood. Hence 1) sin is not usually attributed to the members and exterior senses because, since they obey despotically at the nod of the will and cannot resist it, and consequently do not have their own movements, they are only passive faculties and organs and instruments of the acts of the will (a. 2, ad 3). 2) Sin is attributed to the sensitive appetite (concupiscible and irascible) insofar as it is moved politically by reason and will, because it is not a pure instrument, but is an active faculty which has its own acts to which it can be moved by reason and will or be repressed by them, yet in such a way that it also resists them. Therefore it has a certain principality of operating comparatively to the exterior members; but it is not always principally operating comparatively to reason and will. For a) mortal sin, which requires perfect deliberation of reason and full consent of the will, is attributed only to reason and will, which principally operate and to which it belongs to be converted to the end or to be turned away from it (a. 4; Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate 25, a. 5). But b) inordinate movements of concupiscence which do not occur with full deliberation, but only with some advertence of reason, imperfectly or indirectly voluntary, are attributed to the sensitive appetite as principally operating, because reason and will do not principally but imperfectly operate in them (a. 3, ad 3). They are called sins of sensuality. 3) Every sin is from deliberating reason; moreover it can be in reason in two ways: a) insofar as reason errs in the cognition of something which it can and ought to know, b) insofar as it commands or does not restrain the inordinate movements of other powers (a. 5). When deliberate reason does not repress an inordinate movement of appetite, but remains about it for delight, the sin of morose delight or consent in delight is committed, which is attributed to reason as principally operating, namely, as first moving and directing (a. 6). 4) With reason deliberating, there can be consent not only in the delight of the work but also into the act or the work itself, future or past: then there is present the sin of desire or joy, which can be attributed either to reason as judging and bearing sentence and directing, or to the will which consents and thus completes the sin (a. 7, ad 1).