Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article First. On the condition required for remission.
241. What it is. 1. An adult man, for obtaining remission of sins, must dispose himself through penance, by which he withdraws from sin and returns to God.
a. From Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testament it is established that God grants to men remission of sins only under this condition, that they do penance for the sins committed: But if the wicked man shall do penance for all his sins... he shall live life and shall not die.2 Be penitent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.3 Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish.4
b. Therefore the Council of Trent teaches: "At every time this movement of contrition was necessary for obtaining pardon of sins,"5 and the same council enumerates penance among the dispositions necessarily required for obtaining pardon of sins.6
c. Although God could absolutely remit sins to a sinful man without a previous act of penance, nevertheless in this order of providence it never happens, and it is altogether consonant with reason that God not reconcile the sinner, who by sin inflicted offense and injury upon him, unless he himself retracts the offense and injury inflicted, which is done through penance. Hence the noted words of St. Augustine: "He who made you without you does not justify you without you... he made you not knowing, he justifies you willing."7
alpha. The condition required for obtaining remission of sins is contained in diverse acts to be performed by the sinner with the help of grace. These acts are comprehended under the name of conversion, which from the Council of Trent is completed by these, as it were, steps. The sinner, moved by faith in God and by hope of obtaining pardon of sins through the mercy of God, conceives sorrow for sins committed, with the purpose of sinning no more and of beginning a new life through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church.8
beta. The Council of Trent enumerates several acts which ought to precede remission of sins and justification: faith, fear, hope, love (the beginning of love), penance, purpose of a new life, will of receiving the sacrament.9 Yet by these it does not intend to teach that all these acts are necessary in every justification, but it enumerates those which are ordinarily present in the conversion of a sinner. The absolutely necessary act, and that explicit, is penance or sorrow for sins committed, with the purpose of not sinning for the rest; faith, hope, and desire of receiving the sacrament are indeed themselves necessary, but only implicitly; but perfect charity is not necessary for obtaining the remission of sins through the sacrament, and in like manner servile fear is not required.
- The penance which is said to be necessary for obtaining pardon of sins in the sacrament is formal penance, namely an act of detestation and sorrow formally elicited; but special penance is not required, for general penance suffices (215).
a. Although the opinion of theologians is not improbable which holds that virtual penance (which is contained in charity) suffices by way of disposition for obtaining remission of sins (even mortal sins), nevertheless it does not suffice by way of sacramental matter. But according to the probable opinion of several, acts of penance constitute the matter of this sacrament.
b. In charity, penance or detestation of sin is contained virtually and in desire: virtually, because he who loves God above all things, by this very fact has hatred of sin; in desire, because he who loves God wills the things that please God; but detestation of sin pleases God.
1 Azor, Institutiones morales, l. 4, c. 10; Suarez, De poenitentia, disp. 11; Lugo, De poenitentia, disp. 9; Sporer-Bierbaum, III, pr. 3, n. 33-47; Tepe, Institutiones theol. mor. gener. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1898), II, quaest. 3.
2 Ezech. 18:21.
3 Acts 3:19.
4 Luke 13:5. Cf. Ezech. 18:30; Judith 8:14.
7 Serm. 169, c. 11, n. 13.