Title V: The Flight from Sin

The usefulness of this title, in which we treat of the proximate and remote occasion of sinning, is very great in the use, both active and passive, of the sacrament of penance, so much so that not a few writers defer the question of the occasion of sin to the treatise on the sacrament of penance. Yet it is a general question, whose proper place is here. Nor can moral solutions be understood unless you know the reason and measure of the obligation of fleeing sins and their dangers.

— The obligation of fleeing sins. 1. The negative part of Christian justice: turn away from evil, obliges us to abhor moral evil with the hatred of which it is worthy, that is, with supreme or absolute hatred. Violation of this obligation, according to the gravity of that moral evil, will be mortal or venial.

Nor can we today, when so many men and philosophers deny absolute moral obligations, indeed so easily prefer human advantages, whether their own or common, to moral duties, insist enough on this severity of true religion, and make this persuasion familiar to the faithful: that the laws of morals, like the laws of faith, must be honored with the fortitude of martyrs.

But moral evil properly such is nothing except formal sin. For moral evil is the evil of the will, which by choosing evil becomes itself evil. But material sin is not imputed to the will. Therefore it is not an evil of the will, nor therefore true moral evil.

2. And so that obligation, as we warned in the treatise on conscience, cannot be transferred to material sin. Otherwise absolute rigorism would have to be professed, nor could we reprove the condemned proposition: "It is not lawful to follow an opinion (probable) or, among probable opinions, the most probable" ¹. But the reason of the diverse rule is easily given, because the evil (not moral) of a particular law not observed is compensated by the good of human action not too much impeded, which, as we have explained before, being loosed from the particular law, is always held by the general norms of honorable action.

And so the obligation of fleeing material sin is converted into the positive obligation of taking care for the observance of the law in a human manner. That necessary diligence varies according to the moment of the law and the capacity of the subject. Lugo discusses the evil of material sin, Paen. d. 16, n. 389.

There remains the question of the obligation of fleeing the danger of consent into sin, or rather the temptation of sin, that is, the question concerning the occasion of sin to be fled.

¹ Proposition condemned by Alexander VIII through decree of the Holy Office, 7 Dec. 1690, n. 3. (Denz. 1293).

— The obligation of fleeing the occasion of sin. In order we shall set forth: I. Received judgments with notions; II. The cause of the obligation with our conclusion; III. Various corollaries; IV. The rule of perfection.

I. Notions and received judgments. 1. Notion. The occasion of sin is an exterior circumstance for a man which induces the danger of sinning. And so under this name there does not properly come the danger which a man can find in his nature, in his fragility, in his passions, in an interior act, although the norms concerning fleeing the occasion must altogether be transferred to certain interior acts. Thus he who knows that he is certainly drawn by a certain kind of phantasms to taking illicit pleasure is prohibited, because of that danger, from deliberately turning over those phantasms.

2. Divisions. a) The occasion is further divided into proximate and remote. But writers do not plainly agree concerning the notion of proximate occasion. Cf. Ballerini, V, n. 105.

From Lugo, Paenit. (1): "They call it proximate when it is such from its kind that it frequently induces men of like condition to mortal sin, or experience shows that in this man it has such an effect." Suarez has almost the same thing word for word (2). And, giving the reason of the notion, Lugo adds: "It must be said that an occasion is not called proximate because nothing mediates between it and actual sin, but because nothing mediates between it and the moral certainty of future sin" (d. 14, n. 164).

At n. 149 he thinks the definition must be moderated which some ascribe to St. Gregory because of c. 7, De Paenitentia, Dist. 5: that the proximate occasion is one "which we cannot, or certainly cannot without difficulty, use without sin." For then military service and business would have to be abandoned. "Others therefore add," so Lugo himself proceeds, "that an occasion is proximate which a man never or almost never uses, with the circumstances considered, without a new sin, as one who keeps a concubine."

This latter definition does not please St. Alphonsus (3), and he prefers to it this other one: that a proximate occasion per se (or with respect to men in general) is that in which men commonly for the most part sin. But immediately he calls a proximate occasion per accidens or respectively one in which someone, "although not almost always, nor more frequently, nevertheless has frequently fallen; or because, with his past fragility considered, his fall is prudently feared. For, as we have said, to constitute a proximate occasion, it suffices that a man frequently fall in it." St. Alphonsus therefore describes the proximate occasion special to certain persons more severely than the general proximate occasion. Ballerini abstains from giving his own definition.

d'Annibale (1) reports this mathematical estimate from Gobat: if from ten occasions, seven or more have induced sin. Lehmkuhl (2) says that a proximate occasion is one which brings a grave and instant danger of falling; which is gathered either from sad experience, if a man, "when he was living in those circumstances, more frequently or at least rather frequently sinned in fact: but if he sinned notably more rarely than he remained victor, the occasion cannot be called proximate from the experience of falls"; or from a vehement temptation to which a man is exposed in those circumstances. Genicot (3) approves this definition: "one in which a man always or at least altogether more frequently sins. Whence, also for the future, sin is morally certain or at least very probable." What a proximate occasion is for us will appear after the conclusion.

b) An occasion is called present, continuous, or in being, which is accustomed to surround someone, for example in his own house, in the place to which he goes daily for business; or disjoined, not continuous, not in being, which, at separated intervals, either offers itself or is sought: for example, by visiting an inn. The former is removed, repelled; the latter rather is declined by abstaining, by not seeking;

c) Free is that which a man can abandon without great inconvenience: scandal, infamy, grave detriment. Necessary is that which cannot be left either simply or without great difficulty; whence this can be either physically or morally necessary.

And observe that an occasion can be necessary which at first sight you would have called free. Thus one sinning with a maidservant, or in a workshop, who can dismiss the maidservant or leave the workshop, nevertheless is living in a necessary occasion, if the temptation flows not from such a maidservant or such a workshop, but from a maidservant or workshop as such, and the sinner morally cannot lack every maidservant or workshop. Cf. Lugo, d. 14, n. 150; d. 15, n. 50;

d) It is called absolutely proximate or remote when attention is paid to the common reason of men of such condition and age; relatively such when attention is paid to the peculiar fragility or firmness of some person.

e) An occasion can be proximate in individual meetings, or become so because of frequency, as not rarely happens to betrothed persons;

f) An occasion can be of various sins or of one definite sin (Lugo, Paenit. d. 14, n. 163, 164).

3. Flight from a proximate occasion is of a twofold kind: one material, when the thing or person which is the occasion is removed or is not approached; the other formal, when, whether by caution employed or by the will strengthened, the force of the temptation is diminished enough that it can be said to have been converted from proximate into remote.

The means to be employed, concerning which there will be speech in the treatise on Penance, return to this: that the hostile attack be weakened, or that the defensive powers be increased.

4. Norms of acting. There is no special obligation of avoiding a remote occasion, provided one has a firm will not to sin in it. - But under grave obligation a proximate and free occasion of sinning gravely is commanded to be fled, unless, without temerity, you prefer to render it remote by suitable means. - Because of the frequency of occasions, which would make the matter most burdensome, and because of the lesser moment of the matter, flight from the proximate occasion of venial sin does not seem to be commanded under venial obligation, unless nevertheless, as Lehmkuhl II, 621 wills, you undergo the danger rashly, or without utility. This especially holds concerning those venial sins which prepare mortal sins. Besides, at least venial will it be to approach, without relative necessity, occasions not yet strictly proximate of graver sin. But he who is living in a necessary proximate occasion of sinning even gravely, or who is compelled to approach such an occasion, is obliged to do this one thing: that he seek remedies by which there is hope that the occasion will become remote. The reason is that, even in a proximate occasion, one does not sin except freely; and because the difficulty of declining the occasion excuses him from admitting the danger, in which he can demand the special help of God.

— II. The reason of the obligation and conclusion. Therefore the genuine reason why a proximate occasion must morally be declined is not that the will of approaching it is repugnant to a serious will not to sin; otherwise we could not remain even in a necessary occasion of sinning. Besides, in a proximate occasion sin is indeed foreseen, but from the will freely then changed, of him who now elicits a firm purpose, so that flight from the occasion cannot be called a means without which the end can in no way be obtained. But the reason is that the general virtue of prudence imposes on us sufficient positive diligence of taking care that at least the grave duties of any virtue whatever not be derogated. That positive precept is violated by him who remains in a free proximate occasion; it is not violated by him who tolerates a necessary occasion. Therefore he who refuses to abandon a free proximate occasion materially or formally actually sins gravely against the virtue whose duties he thus neglects, in whose sin the general malice against prudence also is contained. And because he actually sins gravely, therefore his purpose of fleeing mortal sins is not universal, as it ought to have been.

In estimating that positive care, the relative gravity of the danger and of the inconvenience to be undergone is to be weighed; therefore the whole doctrine concerning flight from a proximate occasion seems able to be contracted more distinctly into a few points thus.

Conclusion. - A proximate occasion formally is an exterior circumstance which induces a relatively grave danger of sinning. We must decline such a danger, unless we are excused by a proportionate inconvenience, and then we must employ the possible cautions. The variety of opinions makes it that we cannot say the grave obligation to be certain unless the danger is so great that in it fault truly more frequent than victory is to be foreseen.

— III. Corollaries. 1. Before experience of the thing, the gravity of the danger must be measured from what commonly happens, but afterward from the relative effect.

2. He who approaches an occasion of sin does not strictly actively permit sin, which would be intrinsically evil, but temptation, to which afterward he himself will freely resist or yield. Observe, however, that although we ought to hate sin above all things, it has not been imposed on us that above all things we abhor temptation in which we may sin. If it should be revealed to someone that in America he will commit a sin from which in Europe he will abstain, not for that reason will he have to abstain from the American journey. He would certainly have to abstain if it were revealed to him that in America he would lose his soul eternally. For then he also has foreseen the conjunction of death with the state of sin: which has not been placed in his free power, and which from charity toward himself he must altogether avoid.

3. In him who neglects the proximate occasion of sin, the universality of purpose is lacking rather than its efficacy. Yet it can be said that this man lacks the mediate efficacy of purpose, since the positive precept of fleeing occasions has been given for avoiding formal sins.

— What if, in an occasion not strictly physically but morally necessary, the use of remedies seems fruitless, nor are better remedies at hand in the concrete?

Doctors go off into various opinions. Ballerini-Palmieri ¹ think that the supposition should rather be denied. Others then deny the obligation of abandoning the occasion by their very silence, indeed in explicit words. For if, so they say, the penitent "could be absolved the first time, he will be able also the second" (2), since sorrow and purpose are no more lacking in the second case than in the first; and because, in a physically necessary occasion, all ought to be content with this present disposition. Almost thus Lugo (3), who inclines to this opinion. Others, not few, then oblige one to abandon the occasion, because formal flight alone from the occasion then gives hope of amendment, and Christ said: "If your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you," etc. Others, as Suarez (4) and St. Charles (5), deny that a general rule can be given. Gury (6) distinguishes thus: flight from the occasion is to be commanded if it seems practically easier to abandon the occasion than to remain in it without sin. Berardi, in some rare case in which the Confessor, having known the moral (7) fortitude of the penitent, indicates a means proportioned to his strength, thinks that flight from the occasion must be imposed, notwithstanding great inconvenience.

And so we think it must be said thus. As often as the thing seems in some way possible, flight itself from the occasion, or the safer parts, are to be urged to be followed by every effort. And unless a very grave inconvenience stands in the way, this flight seems of itself to have to be imposed: for, with attention to the gravity of spiritual ruin, the occasion now cannot be called necessary but relatively free. Yet with very grave inconvenience of life, fortune, etc., the confessor does not seem able strictly to prescribe material flight from the occasion, since, because of disagreement among authors, the obligation cannot be called certain. Cf. Lugo, Paen. d. 25, n. 115. For the rest, cf. tr. De sacramento Paenitentiae.

¹ Opus theol. V, n. 119. - (2) Tamburini, Praxis expeditae confessionis, III, 3, 10. - (3) Paen. d. 14, n. 156. - (4) In 3 Part. De Poenitentia, d. 32, s. 2. (5) Instr. Confess. - (6) Theol. mor. II, 631. - (7) De occasionariis et recidivis.

— IV. Rule of perfection. Thus far concerning obligation. But Christian charity of its own accord raises the soul to better pursuits. Just as, in the special matter of venereal delectation, there is preached a certain angelic chastity, which keeps every affection loosed from carnal pleasure, then, so far as is fitting and possibility is had, avoids carnal movements even involuntary ones, and keeps itself immune from the contagion of the corruption of the age, so there is had a certain general intention of chastity of mind, which cultivates perfect purity of affection and, yielding nevertheless to no pusillanimity, and refusing no ministry of charity, indeed renders itself, with the help of God's grace, stronger than every temptation; yet again refuses to undergo any temptation for the sake of its own satisfaction; indeed by the sublimity of its own wills and by command over the lower powers, acquired even painfully or through mortification, it strives to diminish the tinder of temptations in the virtuous man himself.

— I. We are held by an absolute and indispensable obligation of abhorring above all evils moral evil, which is formal sin; but not material evil, since it is not imputed to the will. Wherefore the obligation of fleeing material sin is the very obligation of taking care, in a human manner, for the observance of the law.

II. Concerning the occasion of sin. The occasion of sin is an exterior circumstance which formally induces the danger of sinning. It is divided into proximate and remote. Concerning that notion authors do not plainly agree. For some call proximate that in which a man almost always sins, while for others that is already proximate in which a man frequently sins; others say that a proximate occasion is one in which a man always or at least altogether more frequently sins. Nor are there lacking those who estimate these things mathematically. One occasion is present, continuous, or in being; another disjoined, not continuous, not in being: the former is removed, the latter is not sought. Another is free, which a man can morally abandon; another is that which cannot be abandoned either simply or without great difficulty.

It can be proximate or remote absolutely or relatively, according as it is such when attention is paid to the common reason of men of a definite condition and age, or when attention is paid to the special fragility or firmness of the person. An occasion can be in individual meetings or become such because of frequency; it can regard various sins or only one. But flight from an occasion is distinguished as material, by which the occasion is impeded, or formal, by which the force of temptation is diminished so that from proximate it becomes remote.

Under grave obligation there is commanded flight, at least formal, from a proximate and free occasion of sinning gravely. Under venial obligation free occasions less proximate, or occasions of venial sin itself, are to be warded off when without utility the danger is incurred of sinning venially. In a necessary occasion, there remains only the obligation of seeking remedies for converting the occasion into a remote one.

The true reason of the obligation is the obligation of prudence, which imposes on us sufficient diligence of taking care that at least we do not derogate from the grave duties of virtue. In estimating that positive care, the relative gravity of the sin and of the inconvenience to be undergone is to be weighed.

Wherefore a proximate occasion formally is an exterior circumstance which induces a relatively grave danger of sinning: we must decline this unless we are excused by a proportionate inconvenience, and then we must employ the possible cautions. Because of the various opinions, we cannot say the grave obligation to be certain unless the danger is so great that, in a free occasion, habitual fault, or fault truly more frequent than victory, is to be foreseen.

Corollaries. Before experience, the gravity of the danger will be estimated from what commonly happens. He who approaches an occasion does not actively permit sin but temptation. And in him who does not will to abandon a proximate occasion, rather than an efficacious purpose, a universal one is lacking, since he refuses to fulfill the grave obligation of fleeing the occasion.