Question Three: On the Division of Contrition

S. Th., Suppl., q. 1 and 5; q. 10, a. 1; q. 18, a. 1.

493. Contrition is usually distinguished into perfect and imperfect. - This distinction is not found explicitly proposed among the Fathers, who preached as necessary contrition alone, penance, detestation of sin from the whole heart, and indicated its various motives, but did not distinguish various dispositions according to the perfection of motive or efficacy. But in the twelfth century the distinction began to be made,1 and it can be understood in two ways:

a) by reason of efficacy, as is more often found among the older authors: contrition is imperfect if God is loved in Himself but not above all things; perfect if He is also loved above all things;

b) by reason of motive, as among modern authors: perfect contrition rests upon the perfect motive of charity by which God is loved for His own sake, and is properly contrition; imperfect contrition rests upon an inferior motive and is attrition. These are distinguished in three ways:

1. by reason of origin and according to cause: perfect contrition arises from the perfect supernatural love of charity or friendship toward God, the highest good absolutely and in Himself, infinitely perfect, lovable in Himself and for His own sake; imperfect contrition arises from the imperfect supernatural love of concupiscence toward God, good and perfect relatively to us and lovable to us, because He is our highest good, by the enjoyment of whom we will be blessed, and because He is supremely good toward us, from whom all benefits have been received;

2. by reason of motive or formal object and according to essence: perfect contrition is from the motive of charity, insofar as sin is an offense against God, the highest good lovable and loved in Himself above all things; imperfect contrition is from an inferior motive, insofar as sin is base and recedes from honesty and the law of God, or insofar as it merits the punishment of the most just judge or induces punishment to be inflicted by God;

3. by reason of efficacy and according to effect: perfect contrition of itself suffices for justification, and therefore without the real reception of the sacrament; imperfect contrition of itself does not suffice for justification, but from the institution of Christ in fact suffices with the real reception of the sacrament.

There is a twofold love of God: a) perfect love, by which God is loved for His own sake, and therefore above all things simply, even above ourselves and above all creatures; b) imperfect love, by which He is loved above all desirable and concupiscible things, not for His own sake but on account of the goods which He bestows, not because He is good in Himself but because He is good to us: namely, the motive is divine perfection as good and lovable to us, indeed as the highest good by the enjoyment of which we will sometime be blessed. Hence imperfect love abstracts from relation to the intrinsic infinite goodness of God, so that God is loved above all our goods but not yet above ourselves: nevertheless it does not positively exclude this, which would be evil, but abstracts from it, and thus it is not evil but less perfect. Whence from the opposite: perfect contrition detests sin as the highest evil in itself and simply, above all evils absolutely; imperfect contrition detests it as our highest evil, above all our evils, and thus is supreme in a certain respect.

From these things it is understood that imperfect contrition does not import the whole reparation of sin, even that which is possible to human frailty, and therefore does not rise to the perfection of virtue; namely, perfect contrition alone is the proper and perfect act of the virtue of Penance.

1. The first in whom the distinction occurs is reported to be Alanus ab Insulis, in Regulae de sacra theologia, rule 85.