Article I. On Ignorance

Ignorance, taken generally, is the lack of knowledge; but it is divided in many ways, and is:

1st. Positive or negative, according as it is the lack of knowledge due, for example, of moral theology in a confessor; or not due, for example, ignorance of canon law in a rustic.

2nd. Of law or of fact, according as it is concerned with the existence of a law, or of a particular fact.

3rd. Vincible or invincible, according as, diligence being employed, it can be overcome, or not. But invincible ignorance is physically such if it can in no way be overcome; but morally such, if, moral diligence being employed, namely that which prudent men are wont to employ according to the gravity of the matter, it cannot be removed.

Vincible ignorance is distinguished as threefold, namely: 1st, simply such, when some diligence, yet not sufficient, is employed to drive it away; 2nd, crass or supine, when no, or scarcely any, zeal is applied in investigating the truth; 3rd, affected, which is directly willed, as when someone directly and positively wills to be ignorant of something, either that he may sin more freely, or that he may have an excuse from sins, or for some other reason.

To invincible ignorance are to be referred perfect forgetfulness and full inadvertence. But these, if they are not perfect, and proceed from negligence, pertain to vincible ignorance.

4th. Antecedent or consequent, according as it precedes an act of the will or follows it; whence the former is also called involuntary, invincible, and therefore inculpable; but the latter voluntary, either directly or indirectly, vincible, and more or less culpable. But each is a cause of willing or doing that which would not be done if knowledge were present. This last thing only, namely that it is the cause why the will wills what otherwise it would not will, antecedent or consequent ignorance adds beyond simply invincible ignorance, to which this does not necessarily belong. Cf. Baller., note (b), p. 13.

Here also mention is to be made of concomitant ignorance, which is had when someone is ignorant of what he is doing, but would still do it even if he were not ignorant; for example, if someone killed an enemy thinking him to be a wild beast, yet would still have killed him if he had not been ignorant. It in no way flows into the act, but only accompanies it by accident. Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 26 and seq.

Invincible ignorance wholly removes the voluntary, because no voluntary can be present where no knowledge is had; but vincible ignorance does not remove it. For such ignorance is truly voluntary, either directly or indirectly, and in morals what is caused from the voluntary is reputed voluntary. Yet if this ignorance is indirectly voluntary, namely either simply vincible, or crass or supine, then it diminishes the voluntary, and consequently sin, because it diminishes, although in a diverse degree, the knowledge of the malice of the act. But if it is directly voluntary, that is, affected, then, according to St. Thomas, "such ignorance does not excuse sin either wholly or in part, but rather increases it." Yet this greater malice seems to have to be understood of the depravity of the will, while it positively neglects to learn the law in order to sin more freely, but not of the very infraction of the law, which indeed is sinful because known in some way, but nevertheless less so than if it were perfectly known. Cf. St. Thomas, QQ. DD., q. 3, De Malo, art. 8.

The voluntary properly so called, although diminished, can suffice for grave sin. And this must be adverted to. But the gravity of the sin is taken first from the gravity of the arising obligation, for instance, from a positive precept or from the matter considered in itself; as in children the necessity of learning the catechism, and in a confessor the necessity of knowing those things which are required for rightly fulfilling his office. Secondly, to this must be added the gravity of negligence, which is measured according to the mode of diligence which the matter demands. Cf. Ballerini, Op. Mor., v. 1, tr. I, n. 904.

You Will Resolve. 1st. A spouse sinning with a woman whom he invincibly does not know to be the sister of his wife is guilty of adultery, but not of incest.

2nd. Children who have done things illicit in themselves without any anxiety of conscience or suspicion of malice have in reality not sinned formally, even if they had already attained the use of reason; and therefore afterward they are not bound to confess those things, when they understand them to be illicit, since material sins are not matter for confession.

3rd. If a confessor adverts that sufficient knowledge is lacking to him for discharging, as is fitting, his office, and neglects to acquire knowledge, or before he acquires it goes on exercising his office, he is guilty of the errors which he foresaw at least in some way, because they themselves, at least in cause, are voluntary.

4th. If negligence in laying aside ignorance is culpable only venially, the deed following from it will be imputable unto only venial fault; because acts of this kind are voluntary, and therefore culpable, only in cause; since therefore the cause, namely ignorance, does not reach grave fault, the effect also cannot exceed slight fault.

5th. Ignorance can be concerned either with those things which ought to be known at any time whatever, or with those things which here and now only ought to be known; for example, upon any faithful person there lies the burden of knowing the truths of faith and the obligations of his state, and a similar burden is imposed upon a physician of investigating the disease of this sick person. In the first case the ignorance is habitual; in the other, actual. The one culpably ignorant of things necessary to be known is in some manner in the state of habitual sin; namely, he sins as often as there is present a recognized occasion of acquiring knowledge, which nevertheless he voluntarily neglects. In the second case the physician sins when the necessity of investigating shines forth to his mind, but he does not investigate.

6th. Error renders an act null if it is concerned with that which constitutes the substance of the act or falls back upon a condition sine qua non; otherwise the act is valid, unless something else is provided by law; but in contracts error can give place to a rescissory action according to the norm of law (Can. 104).