Article III: On Lax Conscience

— Notion. A conscience is called lax both when it cares for grave sins alone and, more properly, when, from a habitual disposition, it judges erroneously or on account of a lighter reason, either before an action, that this is permitted or at least is not prohibited under grave sin; or after an action, that this certainly lacked grave malice from the object, imperfect advertence, no consent or not full consent, when these were present in reality. Hence it is antecedent or consequent.

— Rules. He who, from the warning of a prudent confessor, knows that he labors under this vice of conscience:

a) Ought to strive against laxity, unless he wishes to commit grave guilt of ignorance and to have to render an account morally for errors, insofar as they were foreseen in confusion. To this end the study of reflection, or of greater consideration, pious exercises, prayer, and frequent approach to the sacraments are useful;

b) Once doubts have arisen, he ought to explore them more diligently than others before he despises them as empty; and he actually sins gravely as often as he acts with knowledge at least confused of the gravity of sin or of the grave obligation of inquiring more. Yet from his very precipitation, because of deficient deliberation, he can be excused from grave sin; which will more easily be admitted in him who has begun to employ effort toward correcting the vice;

c) The confessor will rather presume that the consent of this sort of penitent, concerning which he doubts, was full. Unless he had consented, "he would not even doubt" (Lehmkuhl, I, 139). At the same time he will warn him concerning the harms of his state, nor of itself will he permit that, in his doubts, he receive sacred communion without having confessed.

— I. A fully right conscience, which answers, persuades, and approves or blames according to truth, must be held in great esteem. Its perfection is tenderness. A conscience right in a diminished way, whose persuasions disagree with judgments, is precarious.

II. Scruple means morbid anxiety, which must be ascribed to the genus of phobia, and is explained more by defect or weakness of the will than by defect of the intellect. It differs greatly from a quiet propensity toward more severe things.

The scrupulous man can estimate himself as such from the judgment of a confessor. It is permitted to him, with anxiety remaining, to act. Although scruples for some time are not without usefulness, he has an objective obligation of eliminating scruples.

The treatment of the scrupulous man includes two stages: in the former, he is led by another's authority; in the latter, he is taught to recover his own governance of himself. Even with foresight of accidental error, he can accept and follow absolute rules of acting. The care of a tepid scrupulous man is more laborious than that of a fervent one.

III. One must act against an excessively lax conscience. It must be corrected by greater reflection and distrust of one's own judgment. From custom some precipitation will be able to be excused because of inadvertence. Against one excessively lax, doubts will rather have to be solved.

— These, as it were, the chief heads of the treatise on Conscience seem to have to be retained:

I. No human action can be withdrawn from every divine law, so that every question concerning probabilism turns upon the obligation of a particular law, the suppression of which permits the general norms to which human actions must be conformed to remain untouched.

II. The question concerning probabilism pertains to the treatise On Laws, insofar as, in handling that question, we use the principle concerning the necessity of promulgation so that a law may exist; it pertains to the treatise On Conscience, insofar as knowledge of the law, or certain intimation of conscience, alone imposes the law. Yet formally it finds its place in the treatise On Conscience, since it is asked immediately in what way a speculatively doubtful conscience becomes the proximate rule of human action.

III. The prudent use of probabilism today is permitted by morally unanimous suffrage, so that the principles can be weighed with a more serene mind.

IV. Doubts of fact are to be solved not by the principles of probabilism, at least directly, but by their own rules.

V. The rectitude of conscience must be held in the highest esteem, both for perfection and for our action. This must be obtained by us with every effort, as a splendid aid of virtue, internal peace and liberty, and all beatitude.