Question One: Concerning the Integral Parts

S. Th. II-II, q. 79.

249. In every justice there are two integral parts: to decline from evil, not any evil whatever, but that which is harmful to another (whether to a particular person, or to society); and to do good, not any good whatever, but that which is due to another. These two are required for the perfect act of justice (whether general or particular), so that someone may be simply and perfectly just.

It is proved: For it pertains to justice to constitute and preserve equality in those things which are toward another. But someone constitutes the equality of justice by doing good, that is, by rendering to another what is due; and he preserves the already constituted equality of justice by declining from evil, that is, by inflicting no harm on another.

But it should be noted that to decline from evil does not import a pure negation or mere omission, namely, not to do evil (for this is not an act of virtue), but a positive movement of the will repudiating evil. And this act is the more imperfect and secondary act of justice, without which the other cannot be: to do good, which is the principal act and the completion of justice.

250. These integral parts are proper to justice itself. — Although every virtue declines from evil and does good, nevertheless these two are really distinguished only in the cardinal virtue of justice, and therefore they are integral parts of justice alone.

It is proved: The other virtues are concerned with passions, in which to do good is to attain the mean of virtue (for example, to take food in due quantity), and by that very fact to avoid either excess or defect; and therefore in those virtues to do good is the same as to avoid evil.

On the contrary, justice is not concerned with passions, but with operations and exterior things in which what is due to another is rendered: but in these, to make equality is one thing, and not to corrupt equality once made is another. For justice obligates one to render what is due according to equality; but this obligation can be violated in a twofold distinct mode: a) by not rendering that which is due; b) by taking away what has been rendered as due. In the first mode, if someone renders what is due, he does good; in the second mode, he declines from evil. Hence these two are really distinguished in justice alone.

In other words: justice tends to a twofold good: a) negatively, not to take away what belongs to another; b) positively, to render what is due. But while it does either of the two, it already constitutes the mean of virtue. For example, while someone pays a debt, he can sin by defect if he pays less than he ought, and by excess if he pays more from goods which he himself needs. And while he does not take away what belongs to another, he preserves the mean already constituted. And thus one who does not take away what belongs to another already performs an act of justice, just as he who pays a debt does. Hence there are two distinct acts.

251. Opposed sins. — To declination from evil there is opposed the special vice which is called transgression, that is, an action against a negative precept, just as to the operation of good there is opposed omission, which imports the passing over not of just any good, but of a due good.

These occur materially in some way in every species of sin, because in every species sin is against a divine precept, just as it also omits a due good. But they are special sins against justice (legal or particular) if they are done formally, insofar as someone intends to act against a negative precept, precisely because it is to act against that which is due; and thus he contemns the due;¹ — or omits some good precisely because this is due. These two are really distinct, just as the two parts of justice to which they are opposed.

¹ Nevertheless transgression as a special sin is not to be confused with formal disobedience. Obedience regards the precept as it is from a superior, because it is good to be subject to a superior as such; legal justice regards the precept as procuring the common good and as due by law on account of the common good, without considering whether a superior commands. Hence formal disobedience is contempt of the precept as brought by a superior; transgression is contempt of the precept as precept or as due.

Thus, however, they are a special sin in two ways:

a) "In one way, according as it is opposed to the genera of sins opposed to other virtues: for just as it pertains to the proper account of legal justice to attend to the due of the precept, so it pertains to the proper account of transgression to attend to contempt of the precept" (q. 79, a. 2). And from the opposite side, "good under the aspect of due properly pertains to justice: to legal justice indeed, if the due is taken in order to divine or human law; but to special (or particular) justice, according as the due is considered in order to one's neighbor. Hence in that mode in which justice is a special virtue, omission also is a special sin distinct from sins which are opposed to other virtues" (a. 3). And although omission is opposed to every virtue because the good of any virtue can be omitted, nevertheless "it is directly opposed to justice...: for there is not an omission of the good of some virtue except under the aspect of due, which pertains to justice" (ad 4).

b) "In another way," according as they are really distinct from each other, just as the two integral parts of justice to which they are opposed. Thus transgression of a negative precept "is distinguished from omission, which is contrary to an affirmative precept" (a. 2); and "in that mode in which to do good, to which omission is opposed, is a certain special part of justice distinct from declination from evil, to which transgression is opposed, omission also is distinguished from transgression" (a. 3).

Other things being equal, the sin of transgression is graver than that of omission: 1) because it is easier to abstain from evil than to fulfill good; 2) because transgression is farther distant from virtue. For a contrary is farther distant from its contrary than the simple negation of it (for example, black from white more than non-white). But transgression is contrary to the act of virtue; omission of the act imports the negation of it. Therefore, speaking simply and absolutely, transgression is a graver sin than omission, although some omission can be graver than some transgression. Thus, for example, passing violence is less grave than the habitual absence of love or honor due.