Question — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Question Third. On Sins Against Hope
47. What sins there are against hope. One can sin against hope by omission and by commission: by omission indeed if an act of hope is not elicited when by force of the precept it is to be elicited. Sins of commission against hope are of two kinds: for they are opposed either to the twofold act which precedes theological hope, namely to love and desire of beatitude, or to the act which essentially constitutes hope, namely to the trust of obtaining beatitude and the means necessary for it. Further, to hope insofar as it contains desire of beatitude there is opposed hatred of God, our beatitude, or excessive adherence to earthly goods; but to hope insofar as it is trust two sins are opposed, one by defect, which is despair, the other by excess, which is presumption.
Whether it is a sin against hope to wish for death from weariness of life. Because this act does not contain aversion from God, the ultimate end, nor exclude the desire of eternal beatitude, it is not a sin against hope, but either is a defect of subjection toward the order of divine providence, which defect ordinarily does not exceed venial sin, or it is impatience arising from inordinate love of self, by which someone refuses to bear the miseries of this life, which likewise ordinarily does not exceed venial sin. This desire is a grave sin if it happens with full deliberation and express rebellion against divine providence. But if someone wishes for death with due patience and subordination toward God, he does not commit a sin but performs an act of virtue, provided it proceeds from desire of eternal beatitude to be attained in God.1 To wish never to have been born, or to be annihilated, is a grave sin against hope, unless someone intends by desires of this kind only to signify the vehemence of pain.
1 Phil. 1:23.
48. Hatred of God, which is directly opposed to hope, namely hatred of abomination, is that by which man turns himself away from God, his ultimate end, not willing to constitute his beatitude in Him. This hatred of God is a sign of great and inordinate adherence to earthly goods and is certainly a grave sin, because earthly goods are preferred to God and His possession, which involves contempt of God.
Whether it is a grave sin to wish to remain perpetually in this life. If this desire coheres with that disposition of soul by which someone is prepared to leave heaven to God if He grants him earth, it is a grave sin against hope, because, turning himself away from God, he turns himself to creatures and places his happiness in them. But if this desire only signifies an excessive affection for this earth and its goods, or fear of death because of the uncertainty of eternal happiness, it is not necessarily a grave sin against hope, because this disposition of soul of itself does not exclude desire of beatitude. Spouses who desire to live together perpetually on earth not rarely intend by words of this kind only to signify the vehemence of love.
49. Despair is voluntary and full diffidence of obtaining beatitude and the means necessary for it.
a. Despair consists in a positive act of the will by which it, all hope having been cast away, voluntarily withdraws from God, the ultimate end, or from beatitude and the pursuit of it. Despair proximately arises from a prior judgment of the intellect by which someone thinks that he will be excluded from beatitude; but the reason because of which someone thinks that he is not to be saved can be diverse: for either he persuades himself that his sins are greater than that God can remit them, or he judges the way of the commandments of God to be too arduous, or he judges that God does not will either to spare him or to grant him helps, or he judges that it will never happen that God spare him, that he duly dispose himself for obtaining pardon of sins, etc.
b. From despair must be distinguished the fear by which sometimes even pious men are distressed because of the uncertainty of salvation. In like manner devout souls, which are sometimes troubled by continual temptations of despair, are not easily to be judged to have sinned gravely. In order that the confessor may know whether the penitent has consented to the sin of despair, he will be able to ask him whether for this reason he omitted his customary exercises of piety. For if someone, for example, for this reason ceases to pray because he is persuaded that God does not will to assist him, he sins gravely against hope; but if only from a certain inordinate sadness he loses heart and ceases from prayer, he does not sin gravely, and he sins in no way if he ceases to ask for health because he thinks that God does not will to restore it to him.1
1 Cf. Bucceroni, Casus conscientiae, Rome: Typographia Iuvenum Opificum, 1902, n. 32.
50. Its moral malice. Since despair is directly repugnant to the divine attributes, fidelity and goodness, it is a sin mortal from its whole genus, not admitting smallness of matter; indeed greater than sins which are opposed to the moral virtues, but less than the sins of infidelity and hatred of God which is opposed to charity: for infidelity and hatred of God are against God as He is in Himself; but despair is against God as He is our good.
a. Although despair is not the gravest sin of all, nevertheless it is more dangerous than other sins: for experience establishes that, with hope of salvation plainly cast away, men rush without restraint into vices.1 But in concrete cases it must be adverted whether someone really despairs concerning the goodness and mercy of God, or rather from faint-heartedness concerning his own cooperation with divine grace.
b. Men who from a depraved habit are given to sins, for example of drunkenness or pollution, sometimes seem to despair, since they are accustomed to say that they can no longer lay aside a depraved habit now too inveterate. Yet these are more faint-hearted than despairing; they despair rather concerning their own cooperation than concerning divine help. Wherefore they are to be raised up into greater trust in divine grace and admonished concerning cooperation with the help of grace.
1 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 20, a. 3.
51. Presumption is the rash expectation of eternal beatitude and of the means for attaining it, namely otherwise than God has ordained. The sin of presumption can be committed in five different ways:
a. If someone trusts that he will obtain remission of sins and eternal beatitude by his own powers, which is Pelagian presumption.
b. If someone trusts that he will obtain remission of sins and eternal beatitude without good works, from the merits of Christ alone, or without observation of the commandments, from the mercy of God alone, which is Lutheran presumption.
c. If someone trusts that he will obtain divine help for carrying out evil, for example revenge. In this case blasphemy is joined with presumption.
d. If someone trusts that he will obtain extraordinary goods against the order of divine providence, for example the holiness of the Blessed Virgin Mary or of the greatest saint, to which he knows that he is not to be elevated by God.
e. If someone assumes divine mercy as a motive of sinning and of repeating sins.1
Whether it is presumption to sin because of hope of obtaining pardon. a. To sin or to persevere in sin from passion or frailty with the hope of obtaining pardon is not presumption: for hope of pardon is not the motive inducing to sinning, but an affection accompanying the sin; as if a soldier indulging in a rather free life defers confession until his military service has been completed.
b. To sin because of the ease of accusing sins, that is, if someone repeats sin because it is easy to confess or because several sins are accused as easily as one, likewise is not presumption, because the motive inducing one to repeat sins is not the ease of obtaining pardon, but the ease of confession.
c. To sin because of hope of pardon, that is, if someone sins and perseveres in sins because God remits several sins as easily as one, late as easily as soon, is a sin of presumption, because hope of pardon is the motive inducing to sinning and therefore an inordinate trust in divine mercy. Yet this sin of presumption is rarely committed, because hope of pardon must be called rather the occasion than the motive of sinning.2
1 Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, n. 310.
2 Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri, II, n. 130.
52. Its moral malice. 1. Presumption is a sin grave from its whole genus, or always mortal, if it contains heresy or blasphemy, the first, second, or third mode; otherwise it admits smallness of matter, the fourth and fifth mode.
Thus it is light to assume divine mercy as a motive of sinning lightly. Likewise, in a light danger, to expect without prayer a help which God has not promised.
- Despair and presumption are either simple or qualified, according as they either are or are not joined with a sin against faith. For both despair and presumption suppose an erroneous judgment of the intellect; now if that erroneous judgment is against faith, those sins are joined with heresy.
Thus he who despairs because he thinks that God cannot or does not will to save him, or because he judges that observation of the commandments is impossible for him, is not only despairing, but, the suppositions being supposed, also a heretic; likewise both Pelagian and Lutheran presumption contains heresy.
Note 1. For discerning in the practice of confession whether the penitent has really committed a sin against hope, and whether with the sin against hope there is also joined a sin against faith, he will have to be asked why he despaired or presumed, and from the response a judgment concerning this matter can be formed.
Note 2. The habit of hope is not lost through every sin against hope, but only through that which is directly opposed to the formal object of hope; wherefore through the sin of despair, through hatred of God by which one withdraws from God insofar as He is our beatitude, and through Pelagian presumption, the habit of hope is lost. Besides this, since faith is the foundation of hope, through sins by which the habit of faith is lost, at the same time the habit of hope is lost.