Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article First.
Conditions of Mortal Sin.
313. What they are. Three things are required so that sin considered subjectively may be mortal: a. grave matter; b. full advertence; c. perfect consent. For since mortal sin produces such disastrous effects, it must be a perfectly human act concerning a grave obligation; and therefore for committing mortal sin, grave matter is required with advertence and perfect consent.
- Grave matter, i.e. an obligation which is apprehended by the agent as grave, whether it is grave in itself or is held as grave by the agent from invincible ignorance.
Grave matter, which is altogether required for formal sin, must not be considered as it is in itself, but as it is perceived by the agent: for conscience is the proximate norm of actions. Therefore grave sin is committed when the agent apprehends the matter of his act to be grave, whether in itself it is prohibited gravely, lightly, or in no way.
314. 2. Full advertence to the grave malice of the act or to the law obliging under grave obligation. This knowledge must be full; half-full knowledge does not suffice. Yet it is not required that it be clear and distinct, but confused knowledge suffices (n. 46, 287).
From those things which were said in the treatise on the voluntary and its imputability (n. 70 ff.), it is established that, for committing sin, it suffices that the malice of the act be apprehended in the cause of the evil act: for an evil effect which is foreseen as going to follow from a voluntarily placed cause is voluntary in that cause and is imputed to the agent, even if afterward it is placed without actual advertence. Moreover, it can happen in three ways that an evil act is apprehended not in itself but only in the cause.
a. From voluntary negligence, whether in learning those things which someone is bound to know, or in applying the consideration which the matter to be done deserves: for all the defects which he commits are imputed rightly and deservedly to him who, adverting to the obligation of learning or of acting more considerately, nevertheless neglects his obligation.
b. From voluntary sin: for the evil effects which the agent foresees as going to follow from his sinful action, e.g. from drunkenness, are deservedly imputed to him.
c. From a voluntary depraved habit: for evil acts which are foreseen as going to arise from a depraved habit, e.g. of blaspheming, are deservedly imputed to him who does not try to correct the depraved habit (n. 86).
Signs of half-full advertence are:
a. If someone, occupied and distracted by another thing, only passingly and slightly apprehends the thing to be evil, or if he attends little to the sin.
b. If someone is half asleep, or half drunk, or half delirious, or not yet perfectly in possession of reason.
c. If someone is disturbed by vehement passion or by some mania.
d. If someone immediately after the deed scarcely remembers what he did.
e. If someone after the deed, weighing the matter, i.e. the habitual disposition of his soul, judges that he would not have done it if he had fully adverted.
He who indeed knows that he acts badly, but thinks nothing at all about whether the matter is grave or light, sins only venially: for a. he does not sin gravely, because he apprehends a grave obligation in no way; b. by the very fact that he does not apprehend the matter as grave, he is judged to stop at light matter, unless the matter is so certainly grave that its grave malice cannot be hidden from him.
He who doubts whether something is grave or light and, with the doubt not yet laid aside, acts, sins gravely, because he deliberately exposes himself to the danger of gravely offending God: for he knows that his action perhaps gravely offends God and nevertheless does not abstain from it.
315. 3. Full consent, which is always had whenever the will, after full advertence, adheres to a matter prohibited by law.
Consent follows advertence, so that it is full when advertence is full, and half-full when advertence is half-full. Wherefore diverse passions, especially grave fear, impede full consent and therefore mortal sin only when they impede the perfect use of reason.
Signs of half-full consent:
a. He who habitually abhors grave sin, indeed has a firm purpose rather to die than to sin mortally, is to be presumed not to have consented fully.
b. He who could easily have executed the sin exteriorly and nevertheless abstained from the sin is to be judged not to have fully consented interiorly.
c. He who, reflecting on what he did, is immediately distressed and saddened and turns himself away from depraved thoughts and desires, likewise did not give full consent.
d. He who doubts whether he consented is to be presumed not to have consented, if he is of a timorous conscience.
What sort of sin does he commit who deliberates about committing a sin, and nevertheless does not consent?
a. If the deliberation is only a certain hesitation or omission of resistance against temptation from negligence or torpor, the sin is venial. b. If the deliberation is true and full, i.e. if one, with the grave malice of the action known, seriously weighs whether he wishes to perpetrate the gravely evil matter or not, he sins gravely. For hesitating whether to prefer God or the creature, he compares God with the creature. The sin is of the same gravity and species as that about which he deliberates.1
Note. From the signs of full and half-full consent it is gathered what the confessor ought to ask in order to know whether, in a doubt concerning consent, grave sin was committed. Not rarely the confessor will not be able to form a certain judgment concerning the gravity of the sin committed by the penitent, so that the matter must be left to the judgment of God.
1 Croix, l. 5, n. 229.
316. A sin grave from its genus can in the individual become light. A sin grave from its genus is ordinarily also mortal in the individual; but sometimes, from defect of a required condition, a sin mortal from its genus becomes light in the individual accidentally:
From imperfection of the act: for since full advertence and full consent are required for mortal sin, if one of these is lacking and only imperfect advertence or imperfect consent is had, the sin will be venial.
From smallness of matter: namely, where a precept grave of itself is violated only in a light matter, the sin cannot be grave, because grave sin of itself necessarily also demands grave matter.
From an excusing cause: namely, if the excusing cause indeed does not suffice to exempt altogether from sin, nevertheless it is such as at least excuses from mortal sin. Thus grave inconvenience altogether excuses from hearing Mass or from fasting, but inconvenience not so grave can at least excuse from mortal sin and makes the transgression venial.
From erroneous conscience, which invincibly judges something to be venial sin which in reality is mortal: for just as an invincibly erroneous conscience excuses from every sin, so also it excuses from grave sin.