§ 3. On Force or Violence

I. Notion. While spontaneous is said of whatever is done according to a natural tendency, force or coercion is a motion whose principle is outside, while he who suffers resists to the contrary.

II. Division. The coerced absolutely or simply is that to which one resists fully but fruitlessly. Cf. Wernz, Matr., n. 260, 261. But the coerced according to something is that which by greater resistance could at least partly have been impeded; or that which the sufferer, although he cannot resist, suffers not wholly unwillingly.

The will cannot be coerced: he who wills does not resist. Exterior powers can be coerced, as is manifest; and also interior faculties: phantasy, the sensible appetite, for example by a good or evil angel. For although the coerced act of appetition is done according to the tendency of the lower appetite, nevertheless it is produced while the will is unwilling or resisting, so that the man suffers coercion.

Absolute force effects the involuntary (Cf. can. 2205, § 1). Coercion according to something diminishes the voluntary more or less, according as the coercion itself was greater or lesser, or according as the will acquiesced more or less (Cf. St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 6, art. 5, ad 2).

The omission of resistance, according to the varied cause, can be blameworthy, inculpable, or praiseworthy. And say the same concerning the assent which the will confers, not indeed by acting, but by willing to suffer. Thus Christ and several Martyrs, by the most willing will by which they underwent death, merited exceedingly. On the contrary, a virgin oppressed by force sins if she consents internally, although she does not sin by the sin of complicity.

You will ask how much one ought to resist him who inflicts force and proposes indecent things? For he who inflicts force sometimes himself alone intends to complete the evil action. Thus a thief, a murderer, is accustomed to act; thus acted the slayers of Christ the Lord: then the obligation of resisting or fleeing is one thing in one case, another in another, and can also be none ¹. But sometimes participation ² in the evil action is demanded: for instance, that the sufferer offer incense to idols, or admit fornication or adultery. Then it is not enough that the one suffering force dissent internally, but besides this he must abstain from every action by which he seems to favor the depraved counsel ³, and oppose every positive resistance which is useful or which averts scandal of consent or danger of consent. Therefore they judge that a woman oppressed is per se obliged to defend herself by cry and by the powers of the body. "But if this positive resistance is useless or too difficult, indeed dangerous, she is excused from applying it, provided she can avoid consent." Noldin, De act. hum., n. 58.

¹ Thus, in Plato's dialogue Crito, Socrates is said to have been unwilling to flee, lest he should seem to despise the law.

² It must be judged morally what one can positively perform without the scandal of an omission which seems voluntary: for example, to climb a ladder, etc.

³ Unless the question concerns the violation of exterior goods, and someone can, on account of threatened menaces, cooperate with a robber without formal injustice.