Second Question: On the Debt of Guilt or the Stain of Sin

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 86; q. 89, a. 1.

517. The second effect of sin is the debt of guilt, that is, the debt of repairing the offense brought upon God through sin. For after actual sin has been committed, man remains guilty of it; for when the voluntary act by which man recedes from the light of reason and the law of God ceases, man does not for this reason immediately return to it, but for this there is required a motion of the will contrary to the first motion, "just as if someone is distant from another by some motion, he does not immediately become near to him when the motion ceases, but it is necessary that he approach by returning through a contrary motion" (q. 86, a. 2). Hence guilt is imputed to man until he has retracted it and obtained its pardon.

518. In mortal sin, the debt of guilt imports a state of habitual aversion from the ultimate end, which is habitual sin: for it is impossible that man be guilty of aversion from the end and at the same time be converted to the end. Hence man remains turned away from God until by conversion he returns to God (Is. XVII; Matt. IX, 1-7; 12-13; Luke VIII, 37-50; I John III, 5; Ps. L, 4). Habitual sin, in the natural order, would be only the privation of the habitual ordering of reason (and will) to God; but in the supernatural order, since conversion and ordering to God is made through grace, the privation of habitual conversion to God is also the privation of habitual grace making one pleasing (Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 15, can. 27; sess. 7, can. 6). It is not a mere punishment or effect, but true habitual sin, because it is a voluntary and culpable inordination: voluntary, as foreseen by him who sins mortally and therefore willed at least in its cause or indirectly; culpable, because he is bound to forestall and remove such inordination.

519. Mortal sin leaves a stain in the soul. - For our habitual ordering to God, whether through reason or through grace, is the beauty of the soul: "the soul of man," says St. Thomas, a. 1, "has a twofold brightness, one indeed from the shining of the light of natural reason through which it is directed in its acts, another from the shining of the divine light, namely, of wisdom and grace." Hence the privation of habitual ordering to God is at the same time the loss of due brightness and therefore a stain of the soul. Hence habitual sin and stain are not distinguished really but only by reason: insofar as it takes away order to God as ultimate end, it is considered as habitual guilt and separation from God; insofar, however, as it takes away the due beauty of the soul, it is considered as stain¹ (Jer. II, 22; Zach. XIII, 1; Ps. XIV; Ps. CXVIII; Ecclus. XXXI; Is. IV, 4; Ezek. XIV; XXXVI, 23; Josh. XXII, 17; John XIII, 10; Eph. V, 27; Tit. I, 15; I Cor. VI, 11; Council of Trent, sess. 5, can. 2; prop. 56 of Baius).

¹ "Stain is properly said in corporeal things when some bright body loses its brightness from contact with another body ... But there is as it were a certain touch of the soul, when it adheres to certain things through love. But when it sins, it adheres to certain things against the light of reason and of divine law ... Hence the very detriment of brightness arising from such contact is metaphorically called a stain of the soul ... Therefore it must be said that the soul is not defiled by lower things by the power of those things, as though they acted upon the soul; but rather conversely the soul defiles itself by its own action, by adhering to them inordinately against the light of reason and of divine law" (q. 87, a. 1 and ad 1).

Nevertheless it does not follow that the stains of diverse sins do not differ among themselves, or that a second mortal sin does not cause a new stain, since habitual grace has already been removed by the first. For, as St. Thomas says, a. 1, ad 3, stain signifies the privation of the brightness of the soul in order to the cause, which is the act of sin, and therefore stains are many, diverse, and unequal according as the sins which induced them are many, diverse, and unequal, just as shadows are diverse according to the diverse bodies impeding the light. Moreover a second sin of itself is privative of grace and would take it away if it found it; and therefore it is a new cause of privation and thus a new stain.

520. What venial sin leaves behind. - Venial sin, which is contrary to fervor, that is, the exercise of charity, is imputed unto guilt until man, charity influencing, through an act of contrition or another equivalent act which contains virtual displeasure for sin, retracts it and thus compensates its inordination. But since it does not take away nor diminish the habitual or permanent order to God and the habitual beauty of the soul (Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 11; sess. 14, c. 5), it follows that it does not induce a stain properly so called and remaining; but insofar as here and now it impedes actual brightness arising from acts of the virtues, it is sometimes said improperly, for one moment, to stain the soul.²

² The greatest charity is compatible with venial sin; therefore the fervor which venial sin impedes is not habitual.