The guilt of punishment

470. Besides the stain left in the soul, sin induces an obligation to undergo some penalty; this indeed is twofold: one which accompanies the fault itself, as remorse of conscience; the other, which is inflicted as a remedy of salvation by God or by man.

(A) Concerning remorse of conscience. The sinner, seeing that he has been turned away from God, and deprived of many goods, because of vile and transitory delights, returns into himself, and, hearing the voice of conscience, at least as long as he is not obstinate in evil, understands that he has erred and done evil.

Wisdom vividly describes this remorse of conscience:⁴ "Seeing, they shall be troubled with horrible fear..., saying within themselves, doing penance, and groaning for anguish of spirit... Therefore we have erred from the way of truth... We have been wearied in the way of iniquity and perdition; and we have walked difficult ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. What has pride profited us, or what has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed like a shadow... but in our wickedness we have been consumed." Too happy are sinners if, vexed by anxieties and remorse of conscience, they return penitent to the heavenly Father, crying out as the prodigal himself did: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee."¹

⁴ Wis. 5:2-13. - Hugo graphically depicts the remorse which Cain experienced after perpetrating fratricide in La Conscience, in the work La Legende des siecles, Paris, t. I, p. 35-37.

¹ Luke 15:18.

471. (B) Concerning the various penalties inflicted by God or man. A wise legislator adds sanctions to his laws, by which subjects may be more efficaciously deterred from evil and impelled toward good. (a) Now mortal sin induces guilt of eternal penalty; this indeed is twofold: the penalty of loss, or privation of the beatific vision, which corresponds to the turning away from God, and the penalty of sense, which corresponds to the turning toward creatures:² "And these shall go into eternal punishment."³ Yet this penalty is not inflicted except upon the impenitent, namely those who obstinately die in their sin. And surely he who voluntarily remains turned away from God is deservedly deprived of the vision of God and of the ultimate end; likewise he who inordinately adhered to creatures even to the end justly feels harm from them.⁴

² Concerning each it was said in the Treatise on God the Rewarder, n. 23-30.

³ Matt. 25:46.

⁴ In the natural order, the penalty of sin would be the privation of that beatitude which consists in a fuller, although natural, knowledge and love of God.

(b) Besides, sometimes God, even in this life, inflicts medicinal penalties upon sinners, namely various calamities, and also anxieties of soul, illnesses, and other temporal evils, so that, returning to the heart, they may grieve for sins and satisfy for them by salutary penance. But concerning these penalties nothing certain and infallible can be predicated: for Providence sometimes permits the evil to be afflicted by no special calamities in the present life, nor does He always measure the quantity of temporal penalty according to the gravity of sins. Hence the Psalmist says:⁵ "But my feet were almost moved... because I was zealous over the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners... Behold these are sinners, and abounding in the world, they have obtained riches." For God indeed is patient, because eternal. - Whence penalties inflicted upon sinners ought to be regarded, at least for the most part, as benefits: just as physicians give bitter potions to the sick for restoring health, so God chastises those whom He wills to amend.

⁵ Ps. 72:2-12.

From these things it is clear how diligently mortal sin is to be avoided, which offends God, defiles the soul, and renders the sinner subject to so many evils. Would that of any Christian it could be said what is narrated concerning Chrysostom:⁶ "That man is superior to fear and threats, and is lifted up even against death itself. One thing alone he fears, namely sin, and lest through it he offend God even a little."

⁶ Symeon Metaphr., Vita S. Chrys., Migne, P.G., CXIV, 1138.

— I. Notions. Punishment is properly defined: an evil contrary to the will and inflicted because of fault.

In this definition, evil is taken with respect to the one suffering, so that it is: the corruption of one's own delectable good; the will to which it is contrary can be elicited or innate: as when there is taken away from one ignorant of it a good whose loss he would grieve over if he knew its worth. Thus many now do not at all grieve over sanctifying grace lost.

And because the evil is then less contrary to the will, in expiation by punishments voluntarily undertaken, indeed patiently tolerated, the notion of punishment is contained only in a diminished way: as happens to the souls of purgatory. (S. Th. 1, 2, q. 87 art. 6, c. and 4 Sent. d. 21, q. 1 art. 1, 4.)

Observe, however, that in the present economy every evil of a rational creature has the notion either of fault or of punishment, so that without fault no evil would have been for him.

II. Divisions. One punishment is concomitant, which sin brings with itself with greater or less necessity; another is inflicted, which has an extrinsic cause.

One is medicinal: unto a remedy of the salvation of the delinquent or of others; another is vindicative: unto the pure vindication of violated order. Every punishment as denounced, and all punishments inflicted in this temporal life, are medicinal; while the punishments of the future life are vindicative.

III. The guilt of punishment is the obligation of sustaining punishment. It is distinguished from the guilt of fault by the very term, since the guilt of fault is terminated to habitual fault, the guilt of punishment to punishment itself. The proximate title of punishment is the guilt of fault; the remote title is actual fault. Wherefore the guilt of punishment is placed as it were intermediate between fault and punishment, yet in such a way that it approaches more to fault than to punishment. Wherefore God cannot effect the guilt of punishment. (Suarez, ad 1am 2ae, Tr. V, d. 7, s. 1, n. 4.)

— IV. The punishments of sin. By sin man perverts the threefold order to which he is subject: the order of reason, the order of human law, the order of divine law. Therefore he commits the guilt of a threefold punishment, so that he is punished by himself, by other men, and by God.

1. He is punished by himself, through concomitant punishments. Personal sin of perfect reason, or mortal sin, has as companions: disorder in the man himself, or the privation of due rectitude, because he is turned away from the last end; then, at least of itself, anxieties of the passions and remorse of conscience.

For privation of rectitude, although, because of its connection with the chosen or intended enjoyment of a changeable good, it is voluntary simply, nevertheless is not voluntary except accidentally, and is involuntary in a qualified sense. And since it manifestly has the notion of evil, it possesses the notion of true punishment.

Furthermore, sin diminishes the natural inclination to honorable things, and thus diminishes the mode, species, and order which are in the very nature of the sinner; and insofar as it takes away grace and virtue, it removes the mode, species, and order which are in grace and virtue (1, 2, q. 85 art. 4). By this reason sin disfigures the sinner.

It also corrupts nature as it is a principle of acting. For, because of the divine help withdrawn and the vicious habits left from acts, the inclination to good is diminished, and the wounds which original sin has branded into nature are increased: infirmity, ignorance, malice, concupiscence ¹.

Finally, by sinning mortally, man undergoes the yoke of a twofold servitude. By one kind of servitude he is given over to sin: from which servitude, of itself perpetual, Christ has freed us. For, while we are in the way, through his merits we have abundance for rising from sin, so that our servitude is no longer except less properly so called, and in a certain way voluntary. By the other kind of servitude, we suffer the necessity of bearing the consequences of sin: the propensity to sinning arisen from the habit of sin, incentives of temptations, the obligation of penal expiation, besides other harms in physical powers, in facility of talent, in reputation.

2. He is punished by men, who deny honor and esteem of probity to the sinner; and most of all by the legislator and judge, who, considering the transient act of sin with its exterior consequences, enact punishments by which provision is made for the exterior order of the community.

3. He is punished by God, who, as institutor and ruler of the universal order, punishes as long as that order is to be restored in some part by punishment.

Moreover, punishment inflicted by God is divided into punishment of loss and punishment of sense. In both, however, regard to God, regard to the subject, and regard to the fault are to be attended to. With regard to God, the punishment of loss is every punishment which God inflicts formally by not acting; the punishment of sense is that which he inflicts either by acting, or by willing or permitting the effects of withdrawal by which he withdraws himself either as the infinite Good or as benefactor. With regard to the subject, the punishment of loss formally consists in privation alone, while the punishment of sense designates a positive torment, which nevertheless can proceed from the privation itself. Finally, with regard to the fault to be punished, theologians, with St. Thomas, assign the punishment of loss to aversion from God, the punishment of sense to conversion toward the creature. But then the same theologians are accustomed to call the very affliction which follows privation, no longer by the name punishment of sense, but by the name punishment of loss.

In children who die with original sin alone, privation of beatitude is had without any positive affliction even of soul.

In souls, on the contrary, which are detained in purgatory, the delay of the possession of God is most afflictive, although it does not simply put on the notion of loss, since those souls know that they possess, in habitual grace, the root of eternal glory.

¹ Cf. Trid., s. VI, c. 1.

— Why punishment is eternal. Mortal sin, and therefore the guilt of punishment, is indeed, considered in itself, indelible.

Yet because through God, that is, through God's pardon, even mortal sin can be taken away and the principle of charity restored; and because it seems to pertain to the liberal goodness of God that he not deny grace to the man doing what is in him, the sanction of eternal punishment, whose tremendous mystery is not to be denied, would be repugnant to our sense, unless this final consideration were added: that after this life the human will is no longer mobile, but will adhere by perpetual obstinacy to the evil from which, at least at the end of the present life, it has not withdrawn. Whence the Angelic Doctor does not hesitate to write: "For there would not be perpetual punishment of the souls which are damned if they could change their will for the better, because it would be unjust that, from the time when they had a good will, they should be punished perpetually." (Contra Gentiles, l. 4). Concerning that immobility of the pure spirit and of the separated soul, let the metaphysicians be approached.

— Corollary. The same privation of sanctifying grace is, considered in itself, punishment, insofar as God formally deprives man of grace, not indeed by acting, but by now no longer infusing grace. This punishment is inflicted, insofar as it has God as author, and it is concomitant, insofar as in it there is contained the intrinsic disorder in man which accompanies every sin. It is also fault, insofar as it is an imputable aversion from God, who is to be loved supremely in himself by charity; and it is stain, insofar as it is a detriment of brightness proceeding from spiritual contact, through affection, with an object morally evil.

— I. Punishment, or an evil contrary to the will and inflicted because of fault, is one kind concomitant, which sin brings with itself, and thus seems to be inflicted on the sinner by the sinner himself; another kind is inflicted through an exterior cause, either unto a remedy of the salvation of the delinquent or of others, and then it is medicinal; or unto the pure vindication of violated order, and it is vindicative. The guilt of punishment is the obligation of undergoing punishment, which proximately arises from the guilt of fault, remotely from the actual fault itself.

II. Man sinning perverts the order of reason, and therefore he is punished by himself through concomitant punishments: disorder in himself, anxieties of the passions, remorse of conscience, the taking away of supernatural comeliness, the diminishment of natural comeliness, the diminishment of inclinations to good, the worsened wounds of original sin, the accepted servitude of sin (which, without Christ, would be perpetual), and the necessity of suffering the consequences of sin. He perverts the order of human society, and therefore he is punished by men by lesser esteem, and especially by public power, so that provision may be made for the exterior order of the community. He perverts the order of divine law, and therefore he is punished by God, by punishment of loss and punishment of sense: which are understood in various ways, with regard to God, with regard to the subject, and with regard to the fault.

III. Because God can restore the principle of order, and because it is fitting for God not to deny grace to the man doing what is in him, the true cause of eternal punishments is in the immobile will of the separated soul.

Corollary. The same privation of sanctifying grace is, considered in itself, concomitant punishment, inflicted punishment, habitual fault, and stain.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 87; q. 72, a. 5; Suppl., q. 99, a. 1; De Malo q. 1, a. 4 and 5; q. 7, a. 1 and 8; C. Gent. III, 140-146; II Sent. d. 24, a. 2, ad 5.

521. The third effect of sin is the debt of punishment, that is, the debt of punishment to be paid on account of sin, or the obligation of undergoing punishment. For:

a) In order that law be observed by men, it must have coercive force through fear of punishment; in other words, it is required that law be sanctioned by a proportionate punishment (n. 237). But sin is against the eternal law of God. Therefore before God it induces the debt of a punishment proportionate to it.

b) Justice requires that the equality of order which has been injured be repaired. But the sinner violates the equality of order, while he prefers his own will to the divine will and satisfies it against the order of God. Therefore justice requires that equality be repaired, and that man be compelled to suffer something against his own will according to the ordination of the will of God, "namely, that he who has indulged his own will more than he ought, acting against the commandment of God, according to the order of divine justice should suffer something against that which he would will, whether spontaneously or unwillingly" (q. 87, a. 6); and this is punishment.

c) He who rises up against some order ought to be repressed by the prince of the order. But by sin man acts not only against the order of reason, and sometimes against the order of a human legislator, but also against the order of God. Therefore he incurs a threefold punishment: one from himself, which is remorse of conscience; another sometimes from man; but the third from God (q. 87, a. 1; - Exod. XVIII; Ps. XXXI; Matt. XII, 36; XXV; Rom. II, 9).

522. Punishment is an afflictive evil inflicted in vengeance of sin against the will of the one suffering, or the privation of a delectable good which the will unwillingly suffers against the natural appetite.¹

¹ It is, namely, against the habitual tendency of nature, and not always against the actual and elicited appetite of the will, since someone can be ignorant of it, indeed can voluntarily undergo it, in which case nevertheless it remains involuntary in a certain respect.

One punishment is 1. concomitant, which guilt itself, as efficient cause, brings with itself intrinsically (Wis. V, 7; 2-13; Luke XV, 18), for example, privation of health, shame, remorse of conscience, privation of grace as a stain; - 2. another is inflicted, which is brought from without by God or man as efficient cause and of which guilt is the meritorious cause, for example, privation of grace as the physical destitution of a supernatural principle by God. This regards either only past sin, and then it is a) either punishment simply and strictly so called, or merely vindicative, if evil is inflicted from justice alone, solely in vengeance of the violated order, namely, in punishment of one's own sin (Ezek. XVIII, 20) and for restoring the injured order of justice, for example, the punishment of the future life; or b) satisfactoria, if the evil inflicted either by the judge or by the sinner upon himself is voluntarily sustained, for one's own sins or even for the sins of others, for compensating the injury brought upon God, for example, sacramental penance, fasting, an evil sent by God: this, involuntary in a certain respect, is voluntary simply, which diminishes the account of punishment; - or c) it also regards future sin, and then it is medicinal, if evil is inflicted or tolerated also from mercy, as a remedy of salvation, as censure is: namely, for correction and healing against future sins, whether of him who is punished or of others, for example, a punishment of the present life inflicted by God.

523. Thesis I. Mortal sin per se induces the debt or obligation of eternal punishment, as inducing an inordination of itself irreparable. It is of faith.

It is proved 1. from the Scriptures: Matt. XXV, 41, 46; Mark IX, 42; Is. LXVI, 24; Apoc. XIV, 11; XX-XXII; II Thess. I, 9;

2. from Tradition, namely, from the Athanasian Symbol, and from the definition of the Fourth Lateran Council (cap. Firmiter), and Trent, sess. 6, can. 24 and 25; sess. 14, can. 5;

3. by reason: Mortal sin induces an inordination of itself irreparable; therefore eternal punishment is owed to it. Proof: Mortal sin takes away the principle of moral life by which it could be repaired, namely, ordering to the ultimate end (in the present order: grace and charity), by which man adheres to God and by which he can obtain pardon from God by satisfying. But no one can recover the principle of life, in the case, ordering to the ultimate end (or charity), by his own powers. Therefore mortal sin of itself is irreparable, so that from its nature its disorder remains forever. But while the cause remains, the effect remains. Therefore, while the disorder of sin remains, the debt of punishment remains, and therefore mortal sin from its nature can be punished forever² (q. 87, a. 2).

² It is no objection that the inordination perpetually remaining after death is no longer voluntary, because the time of meriting and demeriting has passed; whence it ought not to be punished perpetually. For the perpetual disorder is voluntary in its cause, because one sinning voluntarily cast away ordering to the end, and indeed irreparably.

It is confirmed: a) The first principle of moral life is ordering to the ultimate end, just as the soul is the principle of animal life, and truths evident of themselves are the first principles of intellectual life. But sickness can be repaired because something of the vital principle remains, but death, which removes the principle of life, cannot be repaired by nature; similarly error in conclusions can be repaired from reduction to principles, but error in first principles is irreparable. Therefore similarly sin which turns away from the ultimate end, or inordination concerning the ultimate end, is irreparable for man; although it can be repaired by the power of God.

b) The sinner voluntarily places himself in a state from which, unless divinely aided, he cannot be rescued. Hence from the very fact that he wills to sin, as much as is in him, he binds himself to remain always in sin, and consequently implicitly wills to remain in sin perpetually. Just as he who would take away his own eyes would deserve to lack sight forever, so he who voluntarily turns himself away from God deserves to be deprived of God forever.

c) The sinner constitutes his ultimate end and perfect happiness in a creature against God, and consequently wills to order his whole life to it and always to adhere to it; he prefers the fruition of created good to the eternal fruition of the ultimate end, and consequently much more would have willed to enjoy that created good forever. And therefore he implicitly has the will of sinning forever, and deserves to be punished in his own eternal thing, since he has sinned against the eternal good.³ - For he totally turns himself away from God, the ultimate end, and renounces him. But he who renounces the end because he adheres to another, deserves never to obtain it, because the ultimate end from its nature is perpetual. Hence he who renounces it, renounces it forever.

³ It is no objection that the one sinning sometimes has a contrary will of not always adhering to the created good, or even of converting himself. For when there are several opposed wills, the predominant intention elides the others; but the will of sinning is efficacious and has effect, whence it is predominant; and therefore the opposed intention is only conditioned, or even a mere velleity. For knowing that these things cannot be composed, the sinner simply prefers and chooses created good as the ultimate end. "Just as if someone were to throw himself into a pit, from which he could not get out unless extraordinarily aided, it could be said that he would will to remain there forever, however much he might think otherwise" (St. Thomas, IV Sent. d. 46, q. 1, a. 3).

d) The sinner contemns eternal life and rejects charity, which is the bond by which he is united to the heavenly society; therefore he deserves to be excluded from that society in perpetuity.

We have proposed the argument for the present order, in which ordering to the ultimate end is made by grace and charity; but it is valid also in the natural order, because no creature can offer condign satisfaction for sin, nor therefore by itself recover the due ordering to the end, as is usually shown in the treatise on the Incarnate Word (n. 536).

524. Thesis II. The punishment of mortal sin is twofold: the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense. - For sin consists in aversion from God and undue conversion to created good. Insofar as it is aversion from God, the infinite good, it justly deserves to be deprived of the infinite good (punishment of loss: I Cor. VI, 9; Matt. XXV, 41; Apoc. XXI-XXII); insofar as it is undue conversion to a creature, a finite good, it justly deserves the punishment of affliction from creatures (punishment of sense; Is. LXVI; Mark IX, 42; Apoc. XIV, 11; Matt. XXV, 41). But since sin is not of infinite gravity on the part of conversion, punishment of infinite bitterness is not required (a. 4).

525. Thesis III. Venial sin of itself does not merit anything except temporal punishment. - For since it does not take away order to the ultimate end and charity from which it can be repaired, of itself it is reparable and therefore of itself does not merit eternal punishment, but temporal. Per accidens, however, according to St. Thomas, it is punished by eternal punishment, if it becomes irremissible because it is joined to mortal sin (a. 5).

526. Thesis IV. When guilt has been remitted, not always is every punishment remitted, as is proved in the treatise on Penance, and is clear from the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 14, can. 30, and sess. 14, can. 22; but satisfactoria can remain, because the sinner cannot be converted to God unless his will accepts the order of divine justice, according to which "he who has indulged his own will more than he ought, acting against the commandment of God, should suffer something against that which he would will, whether spontaneously or unwillingly" (a. 6). Hence it is required "that he himself spontaneously assume punishment for himself in recompense for past guilt, or also patiently sustain what is brought upon him by God" (Wis. X; Gen. III; II Kings XII, 13).

Hence, although "the stain being removed, the wound of sin has been healed as to the will, punishment is still required 1. for the healing of the other powers of the soul, which through preceding sin were disordered, namely, that by contraries they may be cured; 2. it is required for restoring the equality of justice; and 3. for removing the scandal of others, so that those who have been scandalized by guilt may be edified by punishment" (ad 3).

527. Remark. - Let it be noted that punishment does not correspond to guilt according to the dignity of him against whom one sins (because thus to any sin whatever there would be owed a punishment infinite in intensity), but according to the disposition and inordination of the sinner, - and indeed a) the quantity of punishment or bitterness corresponds to the quantity of guilt, which is not infinite simply but greater or lesser in various degree according to diverse gravity; b) the duration of punishment corresponds not to the quantity but to the duration of guilt, not on the part of the act which passes away, but on the part of perpetual inordination (a. 4, ad 3, coll. a. 3, ad 1; IV Sent. d. 46, q. 1, a. 3, ad 6).

528. The evil of guilt and the evil of punishment differ:⁴ a) guilt is prior to punishment, because it induces punishment; b) guilt is according to the will (to operate evil), punishment against the will (to suffer evil); c) guilt is evil in action or a deficient act, punishment is evil in the agent according as he is deprived of permanent perfection; d) guilt is opposed to the honorable good, punishment to the delectable good. Hence:

⁴ Cf. De Malo, q. 1, a. 4 and 5.

1. The evil of guilt is greater than the evil of punishment; whence it is never licit to commit sin, even venial sin, to avert any punishments whatever, even those of hell.

2. The same thing according to the same respect cannot at the same time be punishment and guilt, but under a diverse respect there is no repugnance. Thus the privation of habitual grace is at the same time sin and punishment: it is habitual sin insofar as it is the voluntary privation of ordering to God or habitual aversion from him; it is punishment insofar as it is the privation of an adornment granted by God, and indeed in two ways: as the privation of brightness and an adhering stain, it is concomitant punishment; as the physical taking away of supernatural life by God, it is inflicted punishment. In other words: morally, as a voluntary lack or habitual aversion of the sinner from God, which is passively in man, it is sin; actively and physically, as the aversion of God subtracting grace from man, it is punishment.

3. It is understood why sin, according to St. Thomas (a. 2), cannot be the punishment of sin per se or by reason of guilt, both because sin is voluntary, punishment against the will; and because punishment is intended by the judge, but God can in no way intend guilt.

Nevertheless per accidens and indirectly it can be the punishment of sin:

a) by reason of the antecedent, or on the part of the cause (which is the removal of what restrains), insofar as God, in vengeance of preceding sin, subtracts grace which would impede sin (Rom. I; II Thess. II);

b) by reason of the concomitant, namely, on the part of the substance of the act or material element, insofar as the act of sin brings difficulties and afflictions, whether it is an interior act, as happens in anger, envy, etc., or an exterior act, if man must sustain great labors or expenses and undergo dangers in order to perpetrate sin;

c) by reason of the consequent, or on the part of the effect, insofar as sin is called punishment on account of consequent effects, such as anxieties of conscience, infamy, poverty, diseases, etc.

In these last two ways sin is not only the punishment of preceding sin, but also of itself.

529. Every punishment is on account of guilt (a. 7 and 8). - And indeed:

1. Punishment strictly so called, that is, merely vindicative, is on account of the proper guilt of him who is punished: for no one is punished simply and properly for the sin of another (Ezek. XVIII, 20).

2. Satisfactory punishment can also be for the sin of another, since one can bear the punishment of another, insofar as one joined to another by the bond of charity assumes the punishment owed to the sins of others (Gal. VI, 2).

3. Likewise medicinal punishment, if it is corporeal and of the present life, can be inflicted for the sin of another upon those who are his: thus children are punished for parents, subjects for masters, citizens on account of the city or king (or vice versa), insofar as they are certain things of theirs; in which case the punishment is as to him for whom one is punished, not as to those who are punished; unless, however, they have been participants in his guilt (original or actual) or have imitated the sin, because then they are punished on account of their own sin and on account of the sin of another (Exod. XX, 5; Matt. XVIII, 32).

4. Indeed every penality is in some way on account of guilt, at least original guilt. Penality is not true punishment because it is not inflicted on account of sin, but on account of obtaining a greater good, namely, a spiritual good (cf. prop. 72 of Baius); but it has a likeness to punishment, because it is a temporal afflictive evil repugnant to the natural appetite, for example, the miseries of the Blessed Virgin or of the Saints (Heb. XII, 6; Ps. XXXIII, 20). Penality is inflicted by God a) for the exercise of virtue and greater merit (Tob. XII, 13); b) for turning away from sin (Luke XXIII, 31); c) as an example of virtue and patience for others (Tob. II, 12); d) in punishment of another's sin, as if parents are punished in their children; e) that God may show there is another life; f) that the glory of God or grace may shine out more (John IX, 3).

St. Thomas, q. 87.

You will ask 1° whether sin entails liability to punishment.

I answer. Affirmatively. Thus Scripture expressly in various places. Exod., XXXII, 35: The Lord struck the people for the guilt of the calf. Psal. XXXI, 10: Many are the scourges of the sinner. Matth., XXV, 41: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire. Matth., V, 22: Whosoever shall say (to his brother), fool, shall be guilty of the fire of gehenna. Rom., II, 9: Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil. And elsewhere.

It is proved by reason. Right reason demands that he who has violated the order and equality of justice restore and re-establish it by a kind of compensation of punishment²; which is observed in those very injuries done to men. But he who sins violates the order and equality of divine justice, indulging his will more than he ought, acting against the commandment of God. Therefore. ² Here q. 87, a. 6, o.

You will ask 2° what liability to punishment is.

I answer. Liability to punishment is not an ordination, whether active or passive, to punishment, but it is the condignity or due of punishment to be undergone on account of sin: both because sin is first worthy of punishment before it is ordained to it; nay, it is not ordained to it except because it is worthy of it, as an act of virtue is first worthy of reward before it is ordained to it, nor is it ordained to the reward except because it is worthy of it: and because, even if God did not ordain the sinner to punishment, nevertheless the sinner would be worthy of punishment: and finally because ordination to punishment is good and from God, but God makes no one liable to punishment.

You will ask 3° whether liability to punishment remains after sin remitted.

I answer. Sin being remitted, there can remain the liability to some temporal punishment¹. This is against the Lutherans and Calvinists dogmatizing that with guilt the whole punishment is always remitted, and thence doing away with indulgences, satisfactions and Purgatory. ¹ Ibid.

I say. God indeed can remit all things; but ordinarily, in remitting guilt and constituting man by grace heir of glory, he remits only eternal punishment, and changes it into temporal satisfactory punishment.

That this is so Scripture openly testifies. For Adam himself, whose guilt, it is agreed, was remitted, Sap., X, 2, yet underwent various punishments, not as medicinal against future sins, as the heretics will, but in vindication of past guilt. For it is said Genes., III, 17: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof, etc. Moreover death and the miseries of this life are punishments of original sin, yet they are incurred also by those to whom it has been remitted. Likewise David, II Reg., XII, 14, after obtaining pardon for his adultery, was punished by the death of his son, not as a safeguard against the future, but in vengeance for the past; for Nathan said to him: Because thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing, the child that is born to thee shall surely die. So in many other places; and thus it was defined by the council of Trent, session VI, chapter 14 and canon 30; session XIV, chapter 8 and canon 12. Of which more in the third part of the Summa, at q. 86.

Punishment strictly taken is penal and afflicting evil, inflicted against the inclination at least natural of the one suffering it, in vengeance for his own sin. And since evil is twofold, positive and privative, punishment is twofold : One positive, which is called the pain of sense, because, since it torments by inflicting something disconvenient and noxious either to the soul or to the body, and the positive afflictive hurt is perceived chiefly by the senses, therefore this punishment, whether it regard the mind or the body, is called pain of sense. The other is privative, and is called the pain of loss, by which is understood the loss of those goods which are owed to men from the promise of God; among which, since the beatific and intuitive vision of God stands forth eminent, its privation is called antonomastically the pain of loss.

§ I

How manyfold is the punishment of sin?

I say : Every personal mortal sin induces the guilt of twofold punishment, namely of loss and of sense¹. Of original sin I shall speak below. ¹ Here a. 4, c.

The conclusion on both parts is of faith, expressed in the sentence to be pronounced by Christ at the last judgment, in these words Matth., XXV, 41 : Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire. Depart from me expresses the pain of loss; into everlasting fire, the pain of sense. Various other texts prove the same, whereby we are taught that men, on account of sin, are both deprived of the kingdom of heaven, as I Cor., VI, 9 ; Matth., III, 2, etc., and delivered over to the torment of fire, Isa., LXVI, 16 ; Apoc., XIV, 10, and elsewhere.

Reason congruent². Punishment is proportioned to sin. Now in sin there are two things, namely aversion from the unchangeable good and conversion to changeable good, according to that word Jerem., II, 13 : Two evils has my people done. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves broken cisterns. That therefore punishment be proportioned to sin, there must be something answering to aversion, and that is the pain of loss; and something answering to conversion, and that is the pain of sense. For it is equitable that he who voluntarily turns himself away from God remain separated from him, and that he who converts himself to a creature, seeking from it glory or delight, be afflicted through it; so that even in this sense that word is true Sap., XI, 17 : By what things a man sinneth, by these also he is tormented. ² Ibid.

You will ask 1° whether the grief arising from lost beatitude be pain of sense, or of loss.

Answer that it is not properly punishment, but supposes the punishment from which it is caused; reductively, however, it pertains to the pain of loss, from which it results, as joy is reduced to beatitude, from which it springs up.

You will ask 2° which punishment is graver : that of loss, or that of sense?

Answer that the pain of loss is graver, because it is quasi-essential, and is opposed to the beatific vision, which holds the first place in beatitude; but the pain of sense is quasi-accidental, and is opposed to accidental beatitude.

You will ask 3º whether the pain of loss be equal in all the damned.

Answer negatively : 1° because the pain of loss stands under the character of torment toward the damned, as the beatific vision, of which it is the privation, stands under the character of reward toward the blessed. But this is not equal in all the blessed. Therefore neither is that in all the damned. 2° One damned man grieves more for lost beatitude than another. Therefore the loss of beatitude is a greater evil to him than to the other.

You will say : According to St. Thomas, above q. 73, a. 2, c., total privation and in facto esse admits neither greater nor lesser. But the pain of loss is total privation and in facto esse. Therefore.

Answer. I distinguish the major. Total privation and in facto esse admits neither greater nor lesser extensively, I concede, because it takes away not more nor less of the form; intensively, I deny, because, greater obstacles being set against the form, it becomes more deeply rooted and fixed in the subject.

§ II

Whether any sin induces the guilt of eternal punishment?

I say 1° : It is of faith, against Origen, that the punishments of all the damned, both men and demons, will be eternal of common law; and thus mortal sin, unremitted in this life, must be chastised in hell with eternal punishment.

Thus everywhere Scripture. Isa., LXVI, 24, of the damned it is said : Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be extinguished. Matth., XXV, 41 : Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire; and 46 : These shall go into everlasting punishment, or, as Aug. reads, into everlasting combustion. II Thess., I, 9 : They shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction from the face of the Lord. Apoc., XIV, 10 and 11 : They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone... for ever and ever. And elsewhere.

If you say that Scripture often signifies by the name of eternity, not perfect eternity, but long duration, I answer that indeed it is so; but I deny that it can be thus understood where it speaks of the punishments of the damned : both because the holy Fathers unanimously understand perfect eternity, and this is the common sense of the faithful; and from the context, for Scripture speaks of the punishments of the damned in the same manner as of the life of the blessed : These shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting. But it certainly stands established that the life of the blessed will be properly eternal. Therefore likewise the punishments of the damned properly eternal. And so it was defined in the fourth Lateran Council, chapter Firmiter, On the Holy Trinity¹, and in the Council of Trent, session VI, canons 25 and 26^{2 1} « Jesus Christ,... who is to come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works, both to the reprobate and to the elect; all of whom shall rise again with their own bodies which they now bear, that they may receive according to their works, whether good or evil, the former with the devil perpetual punishment, and the latter with Christ sempiternal glory. » ² Sess. VI, can. 25 : « If anyone say that the just sins at least venially in any good work whatsoever, or, which is intolerable, mortally, and consequently merits eternal punishments, and is not damned merely on this account, because God does not impute those works unto damnation; let him be anathema. » Condemned here is the error of those asserting that the just sins in everything at least venially, or even mortally; but not rejected — nay rather affirmed — is the relation of eternal punishment to mortal sin. Can. 26 : « If anyone say that the just ought not to expect and hope for eternal retribution from God, through his mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, for the good works done in God, if, doing well and keeping the divine commandments, they persevere unto the end; let him be anathema. » Punishment ought to correspond to retribution. But the retribution will be eternal. Therefore also punishment. Sess. XIV, can. 5 : « If anyone say that that contrition which is prepared through discussion, collection, and detestation of sins, whereby someone reflects upon... the loss of eternal beatitude and the incursion of eternal damnation, with purpose of a better life, is not true and useful grief...; let him be anathema. »

I said, of common law, because there is no doubt but that God can, of absolute power, absolve all the damned from their punishments, and evacuate hell.

But, the dogma of faith supposed, a subtler question is raised among theologians : whether any sin of itself and its intrinsic malice induces the guilt of eternal punishment; or whether that character befit it only per accidens, whether by reason of the law laid down by God, whereby he forbids it under eternal punishment, or by reason of the subject, which remains perpetually deprived of grace. For the resolution of which,

I say 2º : Mortal sin, of itself and its intrinsic malice, induces the guilt of eternal punishment; venial sin, the guilt of temporal punishment only¹. ¹ Here q. 87, a. 3 and 5, c.

Proof of both parts together. That sin induces of itself and its intrinsic malice the guilt of eternal punishment which imports an inordination of itself irreparable. For sin induces the guilt of punishment by reason of inordination, as was said; but the cause remaining, the effect remains. But mortal sin, of itself and its intrinsic malice, says an inordination of itself irreparable; venial sin does not.

Therefore. — Proof of the minor by a twofold argument : 1° Mortal sin averts and disorders from the ultimate end, as we shall say below; but venial sin disorders only about means to the end. But disorder from the ultimate end is of its own nature irreparable, not disorder about means. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. The ultimate end stands in moral and practical matters as the first principle stands in speculative matters. But error concerning the first principle in speculative matters is irreparable of itself; for by whom would it be repaired? Otherwise error concerning conclusions, which can be repaired from right understanding of the principle. Therefore disorder concerning the ultimate end is irreparable of itself, not disorder about means.

Proof 2° of the first minor. Mortal sin takes away grace, which is the principle of spiritual life, and so stands as death of the soul; but venial sin takes not away grace, but only lessens its fervor, and so stands as sickness and languor of the soul. But death is not repairable except by miracle; sickness and languor are repairable by the forces of nature. Therefore.

You will say against the first part : Just punishment is equaled to fault; for justice is equality. Whence Isa., XXVII, 8 : Measure against measure : when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it. But sin is temporal and often momentary. Therefore eternal punishment is not owed to it.

Answer. I distinguish the major.¹ Just punishment, as to quantity or acerbity, is equaled to fault, I concede; as to duration, I deny. For, as Aug. says book XXI de Civit., c. 11, in much judgment, even human, it is required that punishment be equaled to fault as to duration. For not because adultery or homicide is committed in a moment is momentary punishment inflicted for that reason, but sometimes perpetual imprisonment or exile, sometimes even death; wherein is considered not the brief delay of the killing, but rather that he be taken away in perpetuity from the fellowship of the living, and thus it represents after its manner the eternity of the punishment inflicted divinely. ¹ Ibid., a. 3, ad 1.

I say 3° : Although to venial sin there is owed of itself temporal punishment only, as was said, nevertheless, if it be not remitted as to fault in this life, and be joined to mortal sin, it is punished per accidens in hell with eternal punishment¹. So with the Author judge St. Bonaventure, Richard, Abulensis, and several others, both ancients and more recent, against Scotus and the Scotists. ¹ Ibid., a. 5, ad 3 ; in II Sentent., dist. 33, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2 Suppl., q. 69, a. 7 ; q. 7 de Malo, a. 10.

Proof For punishment is not remitted while the guilt of punishment remains; otherwise the guilty would not suffer punishment, which is against justice. But in the damned there always remains the guilt of punishment due to venial sin unremitted in this life as to fault. Therefore punishment always remains. — Proof of the minor. As long as fault remains, remains the guilt of punishment due to the fault. But venial fault here unremitted will never be remitted in hell. Therefore. — Proof of the minor manifoldly : 1° because the damned are simply in termino; but to him who exists simply in termino remission of no fault is given. I said, simply in termino, to forestall the instance which might be made of souls in Purgatory, which are not simply, but secundum quid, in termino. 2° Venial fault is never remitted except through voluntary and condign retraction made by him who sinned; which voluntary and condign retraction cannot occur without act of charity and penance, of which the damned are not capable, being obstinate in evil. 3° No fault can be remitted except through application of the merits of Christ; for every remission of sin is an effect of the merits of Christ. But no application of the merits of Christ is made to the damned, since they are not his members, as the Author teaches 3a p., q. 8, a. 3, c., nor did he die for them existing in this state, as I said in the first part. And therefore the common sense of the faithful and of the Church is, that in hell there is no redemption. Therefore.

I say 4° : Mortal or venial sin dismissed in this life as to fault will probably not be punished in the damned with eternal punishment.