Advertence required for sin

To commit sin there must be actual advertence to the malice of the action done, either when the action is performed, or when the cause is put. This follows from what was said above about human acts, which must be voluntary either in themselves or at any rate in their cause. But no act is voluntary without previous knowledge and advertence. It is not sufficient, then, for sin that a man could physically advert to the wrongfulness of his action, and should have done so; if there was no advertence, either at the time of the action or when its cause was put, there is no sin. However, advertence to what is likely to follow when the cause is put is sufficient to contract the malice of sin; and so wrong done through wilful negligence, or passion, or habit, or carelessness, is imputable to the agent.

Advertence to an evil thought or motion does not constitute sin without free consent of the will. The will consents when it voluntarily accepts an evil suggestion presented by the mind, and it is immaterial whether the evil originates in the will, or whether the will accedes to evil when suggested to it from without. For sin, then, there must be both advertence to the evil and free consent to it; a man who takes another’s money, thinking it to be his own, does not commit theft, nor does the kleptomaniac who is powerless to refrain.

I. Notion. Sin of commission is situated in the placing, sin of omission in the omitting, of a commanded act. It is disputed whether a free and culpable omission can physically be given without any positive act morally affecting the omission. Certainly, however, it ordinarily occurs with a positive act, namely with the will of omitting or with another act which is known to be incompatible with the commanded act.

II. Morality. With respect to the morality of sin of commission, nothing special needs to be noted.

1. With respect to sin of omission, these things must be observed specifically:

a) Sin of omission begins to be imputed as soon as someone wills to omit the prescribed act, or places an act incompatible with the prescribed act.

b) Sin of omission, in the case in which the depraved will has not been retracted, is externally completed or consummated at the time when the prescribed act begins to bind; and the consummation lasts until the time for fulfilling the precept expires. If the depraved will is truly retracted before the precept binds, the sin is not consummated; if it is retracted after the precept has begun to bind, the consummation ceases (St. Alphonsus, V, 10; cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 79, a. 3, ad 3).

2. With respect to acts joined with omission, such as playing, eating, etc., I note:

a) They become sinful if they are the cause of the omission, as if someone from love of play omits Mass. An act causing malice is necessarily itself infected by the malice. Nevertheless, its malice is not diverse from the malice of the omission, so that it suffices to confess the omission alone. Except if the cause of the omission is gravely evil in itself, as if someone omits Mass in order to steal. Nevertheless, in that case "theft can be stated in confession separately from the omission of Mass, because then theft is only a cause aggravating, not changing, the species" (St. Alphonsus, cited place) of the omission.

b) They do not become sinful, and therefore do not have to be confessed, if they only accompany the omission, as if someone omits Mass and meanwhile, lest he remain idle, reads a book (St. Alphonsus, cited place).

144. Principles. - I. For formal sin, besides the objective malice of the act, advertence of mind and consent of will are required. And 1. advertence of mind to the malice is indeed required, because the malice of sin cannot be the object of the will unless it is known in some way by the help of the intellect: for there is no desire of a thing unknown; 2. consent on the part of the will is required; for sin is completed by the will, according to that saying, Matth. 18.19: For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, adulteries, etc. - Recall what was said On Human Acts, no. 3 and following.

II. For actual sin actual advertence is necessarily required. For it is repugnant that a man should sin unless in some way, either here and now, or in the cause, at least confusedly, he adverts to the sin. For nothing is willed unless it has been known beforehand. - Thus commonly with St. Lig., book 5, no. 4. - Suarez, etc. ².

² ** Even in this question the VV. (page 910) wished to find a discrepancy between the opinions of the Holy Doctor and Gury; and for this end they bring forward the words of St. Alphonsus (book 5, no. 4), saying that many evils, although actually and expressly they are not adverted to, ... nevertheless are imputed to fault to those perpetrating them, if their ignorance is in some way voluntary either because of negligence, or because of passion, or a depraved habit, or because of voluntary inconsideration in acting.

I answer: In bringing forward Gury's text the VV. (l. c.) ought not to have cut off those words: For it is repugnant that a man should sin, unless in some way either here and now, or in the cause, at least confusedly, he adverts to the sin. These words indeed contain that some advertence which even the Holy Doctor admits both to be present and to be necessary, so that those many sins which proceed from voluntary inconsideration and ignorance may be imputed. And advertence of this kind the Holy Doctor explicitly mentions not only when he explains that fourfold origin, but sufficiently and more than sufficiently asserts it when he calls that ignorance voluntary. For nothing can be voluntary without any advertence.

But, what is more to be wondered at, see the text of the Holy Doctor, which you would say was transcribed almost to the letter by Gury. It must be concluded, he says (l. c.), that the opinion of those, if perhaps there are any, who say that all errors which he commits are to be imputed to one acting against the law, even if no actual advertence ever intervened, neither direct nor indirect, in itself or in the cause, at least confusedly, but only interpretative advertence was present, consisting in this alone, that he ought and could, by physical and remote power alone, advert to the malice: this opinion can in no way be sustained.

Some indeed contradict this, asserting that virtual or interpretative advertence suffices for sin, which consists in this, that a man ought and is able to advert, although he does not actually advert. - Thus Collet, Concina, etc. - But this opinion must be entirely rejected. For nothing can be willed except in the manner and at the time in which it is known; for the effects of a voluntary cause are not determinately voluntary unless they are determinately known. Therefore sin committed without any actual cognition is merely material. Nor should they say that it is perhaps voluntary in cause: for if it was truly voluntary in the cause, then some cognition was necessarily present, and therefore then the sin was perpetrated ³.

³ ** The VV. (page 911, no. 15) exhibit the last period of this paragraph, and likewise the last of the sixth resolution, as discrepant from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus.

I answer: 1. A priori every sensible man will not believe this. For here are contained the first principles of ethics, from which no one will believe St. Alphonsus to have departed.

2. In the first text which the VV. bring forward, St. Alphonsus (book 5, no. 4) says that to one acting according to his passion, which he deliberately follows, every depraved effect connected with such a passion is imputed, even if it is not known in particular. But then the VV. cut off these following words: Which (effects), although they are not foreseen in particular, are foreseen at least confusedly... Whence the effects proceeding, although they are not voluntary in themselves, are nevertheless voluntary in their cause. Where then is the disagreement of opinions?

3. The VV. then bring forward as a text of St. Alphonsus a text which is not St. Alphonsus's, but Collet's, the very unhappy continuer of Tournely (vol. 2, On Sins, ch. 4, art. 1). Truly strange! For do the VV. not know that Collet defends the doctrine which St. Alphonsus there attacks, concerning the sufficiency of interpretative advertence, so that he does not hesitate to accuse as guilty from erroneous conscience even those who, nourished in heresy by condition of birth, have drunk in, as it were with milk, this persuasion: that the religion which they hold is the one which is true; and concerning this they never suffer any remorse? Let it be then that the Holy Doctor reported certain words of this many-colored writer, as though arguing ad hominem; for the rest, whatever finally this man wished for himself, it is of no concern.

But what the VV. add (page 911, note 1), that from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus those things which are noted at § 300, resolution 3, vol. 1 of Gury are not to be admitted, will be weighed in its place.

145. Resolves. - 1. Vincible ignorance concerning some precept is a sin, and in a grave matter can be grave, if the negligence was notable; the reason is that every law obliges first to knowledge of itself, and consequently the precept is violated not only through an act opposed to it, but also through voluntary ignorance of it.

2. Evil acts have that malice which is apprehended. Hence if cognition falls upon such malice, or malice specific in such a way, this is truly contracted by the act of the will. - Thus commonly.

3. If some sin has been foreseen in the cause, and then is placed with advertence, there will be a twofold sin, namely 1. in the voluntary cause, 2. in itself ⁴.

⁴ Namely, by two acts, as we suppose, formally distinct, and he consents into the same sin. See below, On the numerical distinction of sins.

3. If ignorance, culpable in the beginning, becomes invincible, the evil act is not a sin in itself, but the reason of sin must be sought from the cause alone. Now it will become invincible if no thought any longer arises concerning the past negligence or the actual ignorance, because then proximate and ready power for driving away the ignorance is lacking. Ignorance also becomes invincible if a doubt arising concerning it cannot be driven away.

5. Those blinded and habitual sinners, although because of the defect of clearer cognition at that time they perhaps sometimes sin less gravely in act than others, nevertheless are not excused, because a state of this kind, where there is no care for amendment, is voluntary and culpable for them ⁵.

⁵ State the opposite if, as is fitting, they apply themselves to amendment.

6. Moreover perfect inadvertence is scarcely to be admitted in habitual sinners, because at least confusedly they advert to the malice of sin. Yet if at any time they perpetrate evil acts wholly inadvertently from custom, these acts indeed cannot be called actual sins ⁶, because here and now they are not voluntary; nevertheless they are voluntary in the cause, and therefore are always imputed to them, because the strict obligation of correcting a depraved custom always urges. The very same must be said of other sins which are voluntary merely in the cause; namely, then guilt is contracted when the cause is placed voluntarily; and since the whole guilt resides in the cause, it will be present here in the same way, whether acts of this kind follow or not, and whether these same acts are repeated in a smaller or greater number ⁷.

⁶ It is said less exactly and against the opinion of all the Doctors that sins of this kind cannot be called actual. For that division is common to all, according to which actual sin is distinguished from original, and therefore whatever of sin is not original must be called actual. But the Author, as is clear, here uses the word actual in a less usual sense to signify sin which is voluntary in itself, and is distinguished from that which is voluntary only in the cause.

⁷ But all guilt will cease if, the cause having been retracted through penance, one applies care for amendment equal to the necessity.

365. 2. Full advertence. Advertence can be concerned with a twofold object, namely with the physical act and with the malice of that physical act. The first advertence can be present without the other, for example someone knowingly eats meats, but does not know or has forgotten that today this eating is illicit because of Friday. If the first advertence is lacking, the act is no longer human, but an act of man, and therefore cannot be a mortal sin. As to the other advertence, authors do not agree on what kind is necessary for mortal sin. All indeed teach that advertence must be full, and that half-full advertence does not suffice, but they dispute among themselves whether actual advertence is required or virtual advertence suffices. That actual advertence is required is taught by several authors cited by St. Alphonsus;⁶⁰ that virtual advertence suffices is judged by Cajetan, Billuart,⁶¹ and others. It seems to be a dispute over a word. Certainly false and savoring of Jansenism is the opinion of a few who say that all transgressions of law are to be imputed, even if no actual advertence ever intervened, neither direct nor indirect, neither clear nor confused advertence of the malice of the act, and that interpretative advertence suffices, which consists solely in this, that a man has had the physical and remote power of adverting to the malice. St. Alphonsus deservedly says⁶² of this opinion: "It would follow that very many men would find themselves burdened with many mortal faults, though they had never had any cognition whatever concerning them." On the contrary, for mortal sin it is by no means required that one here and now actually advert to the malice of the act; crass and supine inadvertence suffices. For if actual ignorance or inadvertence is voluntary and culpable in the cause, for example because of negligence,⁶³ because of passion which one deliberately wishes to follow,⁶⁴ because of a bad habit which one knowingly retains,⁶⁵ without any doubt it does not excuse from mortal sin. Thus, for example, prostitutes are sometimes so carried away by their own most evil life and vices that they no longer actually attend to the malice of individual shameful acts. Nevertheless those shameful acts, notwithstanding actual inadvertence to the malice, are mortal sins.

Clear advertence is not required, but confused advertence to the malice of the act suffices. Therefore it is by no means necessary that one clearly and explicitly advert to the whole malice of the act. Thus, for example, he who kills his enemy commits homicide with all the circumstances which he could and ought to have foreseen, even if he does not actually think that this enemy is, for example, the father of a family, is perhaps in mortal sin, that God has forbidden homicide, etc.; or a priest who sins against chastity also commits sacrilege, although here and now he thinks nothing of the vow of chastity being violated.

Note. In practice it is not rarely rather difficult for the confessor to discern whether full advertence was present or not. If the penitent is of a timorous conscience, for the most part it is licit to judge that full advertence was not present, if some doubt arises about it; but if the penitent is of a lax conscience and a freer life, the presumption stands for sufficient advertence having been had.

Signs of half-full advertence are:

a) If someone committed the act half-asleep or half-drunk or almost not master of himself. Note this concerning pollution which occurs in sleep or in drowsiness!

b) If someone, carried away by a most vehement passion, did not retain the full use of reason, for example in anger.

c) If someone labors under pathological states or affections, for example hysteria, mania, phobia, etc.

d) If after the deed someone scarcely remembers what gravely evil thing he did, or if he says firmly to himself that he would never have done it if beforehand he had seriously thought.

⁶⁰ Theol. mor. l. 5, n. 4.

⁶¹ De pecc. diss. 5, a. 6.

⁶² L. c.

⁶³ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 76, a. 3. De malo q. 3, a. 7 ad 7 et 8.

⁶⁴ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 6, a. 8. De malo q. 3, a. 10.

⁶⁵ S. theol. l. c.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 21, a. 1 and 2; q. 71, a. 1-4; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2.

413. Sin properly so called is taken philosophically and theologically:

a) Among philosophers an evil act is called a sin, which is a middle term between evil and fault: for not every evil is a sin, nor is every sin a fault. Evil, indeed, is the privation of a perfection which ought to be in something. But sin is the privation of a perfection due in order to an end, that is, in operation when this is not directed as its end requires; but since law is the rule according to which an act is to be directed so that it may come to its end, it is the same whether sin is called a disordering from the end, or a transgression of law. Moreover there are three laws: the law of physical nature, the rules of art, and the moral law; hence a monster is said to be a sin of nature, and a weak structure a sin of art. But transgression of the moral law has this special feature, that it arises from a free will, as mistress of its own acts; and consequently it is imputable and blameworthy: hence it has obtained the special name of fault.

b) But among theologians, who consider sin only in the moral matter and in order to the ultimate end, God, the custom has prevailed of taking sin and fault in the same sense. Therefore in the stricter signification sin is a morally evil act, or an evil human act. And in this sense, in the present treatise, there will be speech of sin.

414. Sin is distinguished from vice and from malice in strictness of speech, although in common speech these are often confused: vice is a habitual inclination to sin, or an evil habit; sin, an evil act; malice is the discordance with right reason and law, on account of which an act or habit is evil and therefore a sin or vice. Vice is directly opposed to virtue, sin to a good act, malice to goodness.

Sin has greater malice than vice, for 1) habit is midway between potency and act, and therefore just as it exceeds potency in good or evil because it inclines it to this, so it is exceeded by the act which determines the potency to this; whence it is worse to act badly than only to be able to do this or to be inclined to it; 2) vice is not evil except on account of the malice of the act, because it inclines to an evil act. Nevertheless under a certain respect vice is worse than sin, because it lasts longer and can be the efficient cause of many sins; but sin with respect to vice is the final cause according to which goodness or malice is considered, and therefore it is simply worse.

415. Sin differs from imperfection, which is either negative or physical, namely, the defect of a greater perfection which an act could have, and this is proper to every created act; or positive or moral. This again is distinguished as twofold: one, improperly so called, is a wholly indeliberate transgression of a law of lesser moment, for example, a wholly involuntary distraction in prayer: this is materially a true venial sin but without any fault; another, properly so called, is a voluntary action or omission against a counsel to which someone is stirred either by divine inspiration, or by the judgment of reason, or by the directive will of a superior, for example, to omit morning prayers, to violate the statutes of a community, etc.; and in this sense they are now accustomed to speak of imperfection. This in itself is not sin because it is not against law; nevertheless, if it is done deliberately and especially habitually, it will not always be without fault, either by reason of the effect, such as scandal or damage, or more often by reason of the cause, namely, an inordinate affection or depraved motive on account of which it is placed: whether from negligence or levity, or from inordinate passion, for example, of sensuality, curiosity, concupiscence or anger, impatience, sloth, worldly fear, etc., or from contempt; for reason forbids man to act in his acts from an evil or irrational motive.

In this matter it is altogether necessary to preserve the essential difference between a precept, which of itself is obligatory because it concerns a good necessarily to be done or an evil to be avoided, and a counsel, which is not obligatory of itself, as concerning a better good; so that every theory which would remove this difference in practice, by that very fact would be shown to fall short of the truth. Therefore the doctrine of those more recent authors cannot be admitted, who hold the passing over of the better good as per se and necessarily and always culpable, unless from determined circumstances it were proved that this good in the case is less fitting or less good: these remove in practice the aforesaid difference between precept and counsel. Besides, they do not prove their affirmation validly, although it belongs to the one affirming to prove. Namely, by the very fact that there is question of a better good, which of itself pleases God more, there is also a lesser good, which also of itself pleases God, as being good, although it pleases less because it is less good.

Therefore the passing over of the better and the choice of a lesser good is not of itself, necessarily, and always irrational, nor consequently evil: for it can be done from a rational motive, especially if someone does not positively intend to abandon the greater good, but chooses the lesser good because it is fitting to him here and now, from which the omission of the greater good follows indirectly. Therefore imperfection is not always fault, but it is not always without fault. And therefore it would better be called a less perfect act than imperfection.

416. Conditions of sin. - Sin strictly so called is a voluntary act deprived of due order to the ultimate end, or of due rectitude; therefore two things concur for it: a) disorder, whence it has the notion of evil, namely, privation of due order to the ultimate end and therefore recession from right reason and the law of God: this comes to it on the part of the object; b) the notion of the voluntary, whence it has the notion of fault: this comes to it on the part of the act or subject. Hence a threefold condition is required for sin:

1. moral malice of the object, otherwise it would not be evil; but subjective malice in the object suffices, that is, in the thing or action insofar as it is known, nor is objective malice necessarily required in the thing or action as it is in itself: for he who thinks something is evil and does it, really wills evil; whence he who falsely believes that it is Friday and eats meat nevertheless sins;

2. in the subject there is required some advertence to the malice, at least confused: for nothing is willed unless foreknown; whence if evil is in no way adverted to, not even by suspecting it or doubting about it, man cannot will it; hence he does not sin who on Friday, thinking nothing about the precept, eats meat;

1. This is clear from the condemnation of proposition 35 of Luther by Leo X, June 15, 1520; and of proposition 68 of Baius by Pius V, October 1, 1567; and of proposition 2 by Alexander VIII, December 7, 1690.

3. consent of the will is required, direct or indirect, because sin is a human act; hence an act which neither is in the will nor from the will nor accepted by it is not sin, as is a temptation not accepted by the will; and indeed free consent is required, whence the most vehement movements of anger or of another passion by which the use of reason and freedom are taken away excuse from sin.

1. This is clear from the condemnation of proposition 46 of Baius, and proposition 1 by Alexander VIII.

2. Freedom is required not from coercion but from necessity, as is clear from the condemnation of propositions 39, 41, 66, and 67 of Baius; and of proposition 3 of Jansenius condemned by Innocent X, May 31, 1653.

When advertence to malice is lacking, the evil act which is placed is called material sin, which is an involuntary transgression of law: it is not sin because in the acting subject the voluntary is lacking, yet it is called sin because on the part of the object or matter about which it is concerned, all things required for sin are present. Formal sin, however, is a deliberate, voluntary, and culpable transgression of law, whether the law exists or is thought to exist.

417. The notion of sin is not univocal but analogical. - That is not univocal which belongs in the same mode to all things of some genus, but it is called analogical whose property is that according to the full and perfect notion it is predicated of one genus, namely, of actual mortal sin, but imperfectly, deficiently, and in a certain respect of others: for the very essential elements which are found in every sin, namely, the notion of a voluntary act and disorder, are diverse. For:

1. Sin primarily and originally is an act; secondarily, however, and consequently, the disorder which follows the act, or the state of sin, is also properly so called and is sin, which is an evil act only in a certain respect, insofar as the act perseveres morally or by guilt.

2. Mortal and venial sin differ in the notion of disorder: the former is perfectly against the law, from whose end it turns away, to which we are united through charity; the latter only imperfectly, and therefore only delays from the end.

3. Personal and original sin differ in the notion of the voluntary: the former is voluntary by one's own will; the latter is most imperfectly voluntary, namely, not by one's own will but only by the will of our head Adam.

1. Analogy of proportionality, according to being and intention. Cf. I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 1; De Malo q. 7, a. 1, ad 1; II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2.

418. Sin in the Scriptures is called: 1) in order to the end: αμαρτία and αμάρτημα, that is, aberration from the end (Rom. V, 12; VII, 7), in such a way, however, that the first word is said also of the state of sin, the other of the act alone; 2) in order to the law of God: άνομία and παρανομία (in the Vulgate, iniquity), that is, violation or contempt of law (I John III, 4; II Peter II, 15); παράβάσις, that is, transgression or prevarication of law (Rom. V, 14; Gal. III, 19; I Tim. II, 14); παράκοή, that is, the will of not hearing the voice of God, or disobedience (Rom. V, 19; Heb. II, 2); 3) in order to the sinner: παράπτωμα, that is, fall (Mark XI, 25-26); ήττημα, that is, defeat, diminution (Rom. XI, 12); αγνόημα, that is, ignorance, because every sin imports culpable error (Heb. XI, 7; Acts XVII, 30).

Sin is also rather often taken in a metaphorical and improper sense, either for the sacrifice offered for sins (Hos. IV, 8; II Cor. V, 21), or for the cause, occasion, or object of sin (Deut. IX, 21), or even for its punishment or effect (Lev. XX, 20), or for cause and effect at once, as concupiscence is called sin by the Apostle (Rom. VII, 17), because it is from sin and inclines to sin (Council of Trent, sess. 5, can. 5).