§ 4. On The System Of Compensation Or Of Sufficient Cause

351. Arguments for the system of compensation. No system from those mentioned above avoids grave difficulties; indeed, each one, deduced all the way to its last consequences, impedes the profitable practice of the confessor. Probabiliorism excels both Equiprobabilism and pure Probabilism, and each one should strive to practice Probabiliorism in his own life. And in reality any sincere lover of truth embraces that which is certainly more like the truth, if he cannot obtain every kind of certitude. Indeed, this sincere and ardent love of truth can scarcely be commended enough, especially in our times, since so many men are deceived by the devil, the father of falsehood, who by his falsehood already deceived our first parents and thus induced them to go into exile from paradise. - But the confessor in the direction of souls is compelled not rarely to embrace, the more probable opinion having been set aside, an opinion less probable indeed, but truly probable, in order to avoid a greater evil. Just as he also sometimes ought to permit material sins in order to avoid formal sins. Hence also the Sacred Penitentiary often prescribes that the penitent is to be left in good faith, even if there is question of things materially certainly evil. For example, it is permitted that putative spouses existing in good faith live together maritally. Therefore according to the now universal practice it is sometimes licit for the confessor to permit material sins and to follow an opinion less safe and less probable. Nevertheless, it is never licit to act thus without a grave and proportionate cause, since even a material transgression of the law or material sin is something evil.¹⁵⁶ Generally in these cases one must act according to the rules established for the indirect voluntary. But if those rules are observed, on the one hand the dangers of Laxism, which are joined with pure Probabilism, are avoided; on the other hand the spiritual salvation of the penitent is procured in the better manner in which it can be done. Hence in practice this system of compensation or of sufficient reason, which is better called the system of Christian prudence, seems to be preferred to all others. But in order to know whether in a particular case it is licit to follow an opinion truly and certainly probable for liberty, the more probable one for law having been set aside, the individual circumstances must prudently be attended to: the holier and graver the law is, and the more probable its obligation, the greater the sufficient reason ought to be for acting according to the opinion favoring liberty; but the greater the utility hoped for the penitent, the more easily can the probable opinion favoring liberty be permitted. - Nor should anyone say that this system of sufficient reason is morally impossible in practice, since the confessor can scarcely, indeed not even scarcely, judge rightly whether there are sufficient reasons for following a probable opinion, the more probable one having been set aside. To this objection it is easily responded that such impossibility is no more an obstacle here than in six hundred other cases of the indirect voluntary, in which nevertheless every confessor ought to judge concerning the sufficient reason rendering the act honorable.

¹⁵⁶ Cf. St. Alph., Theol. mor. l. 2, n. 36.

352. Practical conclusion. We have sincerely set forth the reasons which are brought forward for the individual systems. If you prescind from absolute Rigorism and from Laxism, each system from those declared is tolerated by the Church, and therefore can freely be assumed, so that the confessor has no right to force some system upon his penitent, and a fortiori he cannot strictly demand that the penitent fulfill some obligation to which according to the principles of another system he is not bound. For the confessor is not the judge of opinions, but of the disposition of conscience.¹⁵⁷ Hence the confessor can indeed prudently counsel safer and more probable opinions, but cannot impose a strict burden to which the penitent probably is not bound. In practice it is to be counseled that the confessor act according to the system of Christian prudence, because a) thus he avoids the rocks of Probabilism, Equiprobabilism, and Probabiliorism; b) thus he proceeds according to Christian prudence, which is the mover and charioteer of all moral virtues and which is most necessary for living well.¹⁵⁸ Up to Bartholomaeus Medina none of these three systems was certainly known. And yet most holy and most prudent confessors with great fruit administered the sacrament of penance. Are today's confessors wiser than they? Are other sins committed today than at that time? The confessor who prudently explores the condition of the penitent and the circumstances of the act will judge rightly, 1. if he attends especially to the principle: "In doubt one must stand for that for which presumption stands"; 2. if he attentively consults good authors; and 3. if he does not trust too much in his own judgment. For then he applies the system which is best and which can rightly be called: the system of Christian prudence. Concerning this Christian prudence it is said: "Her ways are beautiful ways, and all her paths are peaceful."¹⁵⁹

¹⁵⁷ Ib. l. 3, n. 669.

¹⁵⁸ St. Thom., S. theol. 1, 2, q. 57, a. 5.

¹⁵⁹ Prov. 3, 17.