The Remission of Mortal Sins

I. Mortal sins can be remitted without the remission of venial sins. The reason is that one can detest mortal sins without detesting venial sins, and the formal cause of the remission of mortal sin, which is sanctifying grace, is not opposed to venial sin.

II. One mortal sin cannot be remitted without another. For a mortal sin is formally remitted through the infusion of grace, or at least in this order of Providence it is not remitted without that infusion. But sanctifying grace does not exist with any mortal sin.

III. The following proximately dispose for the infusion of sanctifying grace, and in this sense remit mortal sins:

1. Formal contrition, perfected by charity. This is clear: 1. from Sacred Scripture;¹ 2. from the Council of Trent;² 3. from the condemned proposition 71 of Baius.³ But the arguments proposed also prove that no certain degree of intensity is required in order that perfect contrition proximately dispose for justification. For the documents adduced teach absolutely, with no mention made of a degree of intensity, that perfect contrition justifies.

2. An act of charity, even without formal detestation of sin. This is proved: 1. from Sacred Scripture;⁴ 2. from the condemned propositions 31, 32, and 70 of Baius;⁵ 3. by theological reason. For an act of charity explicitly contains that whole motive on which the dignity of perfect contrition depends, which, as was said under 1, proximately disposes for justification.

It is disputed in what way the efficacy of perfect charity must be reconciled with the necessity of penance. Moreover, some say that charity does not justify except dependently on formal penance, or except insofar as it contains the desire of formal penance. That this desire is contained at least implicitly in the act of charity is clear from the fact that one who loves God wills the things which God wills. But God wills or commands formal penance. Others judge that charity justifies because it is virtually formal penance. For it is the perfect conversion of the soul to God loved above all things, and therefore a true detestation of sin, though virtual, from the most perfect motive. Whatever the case may be, it is certain that a baptized sinner is not justified, either by perfect contrition or by charity, except dependently on the sacrament of Penance, or except insofar as these involve the reception of the sacrament in desire; but reception of the sacrament does not take place without formal penance.

3. Imperfect contrition together with the sacrament, whether of Baptism (n. 61), or of Penance (n. 357),⁶ or, as others add, together with martyrdom (vol. I, n. 418).

¹ Ezekiel 18:21; 33:14 sq.

² Session 14, chapter 4.

³ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1071.

⁴ 1 John 4:7.

⁵ Denzinger-Bannwart, nn. 1031, 1032, 1070.

⁶ As regards the sacraments of the living, cf. the treatise on the sacraments in general (n. 6).

186. 1° From the things said above concerning the power of the keys (n. 20 sq.), it is already permitted to infer that through the sacrament of penance all sins committed after baptism are truly pardoned before God, and that no sin is irremissible. We have already proved this from many testimonies, while at the same time explaining the texts of Scripture and of the Fathers from which the adversaries propose difficulties. - That the same sins are truly blotted out and not merely scraped away, so that they do not return on account of a subsequent sin, was proved in the Treatise on Grace, where we treated of justification.

Here it is enough to solve the difficulty which Protestants and Rationalists today propose, and which in the time of Augustine was already being urged by heretics and pagans: "You," they said, "make men sin, since you promise them pardon if they do penance." Augustine eloquently refutes this, showing that by the promise of pardon souls are induced to penance, while, on the contrary, if this hope is removed, they fall into despair, and consequently into the mire of vices: "If the entrance to penance were closed, would not that sinner add sins to sins all the more, the more he despaired of being forgiven? For he would say to himself: Behold, I have sinned, behold, I have committed a crime, now there is no place of pardon for me; penance is fruitless; I must be damned; why now do I not live as I will? Since I do not find charity there, here at least I shall feed cupidity. Why then should I abstain? Every place there is closed to me: here, whatever I do not do, I lose, because the life which is to be after this will not be given to me. Why therefore do I not serve my lusts, so that I may fulfill and satiate them?... Therefore, if you take away the harbor of penance, they will increase sins by despair." But he who has hoped for pardon cannot increase sins as he wishes; for Scripture admonishes him not to defer penance and not to be hardened in sin; for suddenly he can be struck by death and fall into the hands of the living God. Thus therefore he concludes: "Behold, the providence of God has watched over us for both things. Lest by despairing we should increase sins, the harbor of penance has been proposed; again, lest by hoping we should increase them, the day of death has been given as uncertain."¹

¹ St. Augustine, sermon 352, n. 9; P. L., t. XXXIX, p. 1559-1560.

187. Corollary. From this it follows that one mortal sin cannot be remitted without another. For (a) sin is not taken away except through the infusion of habitual grace; but any mortal sin is directly contrary to habitual grace and excludes it; therefore one lethal sin cannot be remitted without another: for, if one remains in the soul, it totally excludes grace. (b) Sin cannot be remitted without true penance, to which it belongs to detest sin insofar as it is an offense against God; but the same reason applies to one as to the other lethal sins, all of which truly offend God; therefore someone cannot truly be penitent concerning one sin without repenting of all the others, if he actually thinks of them.¹

¹ St. Thomas, 3, q. 86, a. 3.

S. Th. III, q. 86 and 88.

453. Thesis I. Penance in this life blots out all mortal sins. - It is of faith from the Symbol of Leo IX, from Lateran IV, and from Trent, sess. 14, c. 2, can. 1.

It is clear from the universality of the promise of God in the Old Testament: "All his iniquities which he has wrought, I will remember no more" (Ezek. XVIII, 22), and of Christ in the New Testament, saying without restriction: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them" (John XX, 23).

Indeed, if some sin could not be blotted out through Penance in this life, this would be either because someone could not repent of sin, or because Penance does not have the power of blotting out sins. Not the first, because this would take away freedom of will, whose property is to be flexible in this life toward good and evil,1 and would derogate from the power of grace, by which the heart of any man can be efficaciously moved to repentance, and inclined whithersoever God wills (Prov. XXI, 1). - Not the second, because a) this is repugnant to the infinite divine mercy, which is afflicted over malice (Joel II, 13): for God would in some way be overcome by man, if man willed sin to be blotted out which God did not will to blot out; b) likewise it would derogate from the power of the Passion of Christ through which Penance operates: for Christ satisfied for the sins of the whole world (I John II, 2). Therefore.

454. Thesis II. Penance does not blot out sins without an intrinsic change of the sinner's will, through the grace of God, i.e., without an act of penance at least implicit, or a will at least implicit of retracting and repairing sin, formed by the grace of God. - The first is of faith from the Council of Trent, sess. 6, can. 9 and 11; sess. 14, c. 4, can. 4; and is proved more fully in the treatise on grace. The other is at least certain and is clear from what we have said about the necessity of penance, n. 412.

It is clear both on the part of the sinner and on the part of God forgiving.

a) On the part of the offending sinner, who remains guilty of sin until he has retracted it: for he is turned away from God as last end and turned toward the creature, voluntarily deprived of the grace and friendship of God, injurious toward God and worthy of His hatred. But without an intrinsic change of his will he is not understood to be turned toward God and not turned toward the creature, or to have retracted the abdication of friendship and grace, and thus no longer to be injurious to God and worthy of His hatred. Therefore (I, n. 517).

b) On the part of God offended and forgiving: for it is repugnant to His eternal justice, truth, and sanctity, to hold as just and good one who is intrinsically unjust and whose will is bound to sin, to hold as a friend and worthy of His love one who is an enemy and worthy of hatred, to turn Himself toward one who voluntarily remains turned away from Him. Therefore God, by the very fact that He remits sin, renders the sinner good and worthy of love, from an impious man makes him just, and thus changes his will, which cannot be without a retraction of sin.

Accordingly this is the difference between the forgiveness and favor of man, and the forgiveness and grace of God, that the first can be merely extrinsic, while the other is necessarily intrinsic: "namely, it can happen that a man remits the offense by which he has been offended by someone, without any change of that person's will; but it cannot happen that God remits an offense to someone without a change of his will" (a. 2).

455. Thesis III. Penance blots out all mortal sins at once, because one cannot be remitted without another. - It is certain. It is proved:

1° Mortal sin is remitted insofar as the offense of God is taken away through grace: "namely, offense is directly opposed to grace: for from this someone is said to be offended by another, that he repels him from his favor" (a. 2). But every mortal sin is contrary to divine grace and excludes it. Therefore it is impossible that one sin be remitted without another.

2° Mortal sin cannot be remitted without an act of sincere penance, as is clear from the preceding number. But there cannot be true penance unless it is concerning all mortal sins: for penance detests sins under the reason common to all, insofar as they are against God (a. 3). Therefore.

3° Mortal sins are connected among themselves according to aversion from God: for each one dissolves friendship with God (I, n. 445). But he to whom sin is forgiven is received into the friendship of God. Therefore one cannot be taken away without another.

456. Observations. - 1. Sins are blotted out in such a way that they do not return through a following sin, in the manner in which good works revive through the recovery of grace. For although improperly and in a qualified sense they can be said to return, insofar as through a new sin man is deprived of grace and becomes guilty of eternal punishment as he was before, and insofar as the new sin is graver because of greater ingratitude, nevertheless they do not properly and simply return, because the sinner does not contract deprivation of grace from the same cause or from the same sinful act (Rom. XI, 29; Ezek. XVIII, 30; Ps. L, 11-12; Is. I, 18; Mic. VII, 19). And therefore he is not hated by God and to be damned on account of sins formerly committed, even forgiven ones.

2. Our penance can be considered in two ways: as an act of virtue and as a part of the sacrament, and in each way it is a cause of the remission of sin, but in diverse ways: ex opere operantis or ex opere operato.

a) Insofar as it is an act of virtue, it effects the retraction and compensation of sin, and thus is an efficient cause of remission as to the removal of the offense which is an impediment to remissive grace, but is only a dispositive or material cause as to the infusion of grace.

b) Insofar as it is a part of the sacrament, it is an instrumental efficient cause, which operates instrumentally toward the very infusion of grace and toward the very forgiveness of sin and punishment; "and thus it is plain that the remission of guilt is the effect of penance insofar as it is a virtue, more principally insofar as it is a sacrament" (q. 86, a. 6).

3. The sacrament of Penance produces the remission of sin ex opere operato, not from the merit or disposition of the man operating, for example, from faith or contrition, but from the power of the work or of the thing worked, namely, the sign itself which is placed in the name of Christ has the power of conferring grace and blotting out sin. Our disposition is a mere condition; the efficient cause producing grace is the sacramental sign itself as the instrument of God, namely, absolution, which communicates sacramental power to the very acts of the penitent and together with them works the effects.

Wherefore against the Protestants, who contended that sins are remitted through faith and that the absolution of the priest is nothing except a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins have been remitted through faith, the Council of Trent defined: "If anyone shall say that sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins are remitted to the one confessing, provided only that he believe himself to be absolved... let him be anathema" (can. 9).

Something similar was taught in antiquity by certain Scholastics with Peter Lombard: that by the absolution of the priest sins are not properly forgiven, but are shown to have been remitted or retained, and men to be bound or loosed; yet in an altogether diverse sense. For they did not say that sins are forgiven by faith alone or confidence, which faith they excited by preaching the remission of sins, but at the same time through contrition and the ministry of priests. According to the Protestants, contrition and absolution are not a condition without which not; but either a means, though not necessary, of obtaining justification ex opere operantis insofar as they excited faith, or a sign and bare declaration of faith possessed and remission obtained. The Scholastics hold these as conditions without which not, so that the divine power is exteriorly assisting in the sacrament, and concomitantly effecting that what the priest looses on earth God looses in heaven. Whence the operation of the minister shows the present operation of God through which guilt is remitted in the conferral of the sacrament, but it is not a bare declaration without effect.

Yet this is not sufficient, because in that way God would operate only with the priest, not truly through the priest.

1. "In the works of God there is not anything in vain, just as neither in the works of nature: for nature has this also from God. But something would be moved in vain unless it could arrive at the end of the motion. Therefore it is necessary that that which is born to be moved toward some end be able to come to that end. But man, after he has fallen into sin, as long as the state of this life endures, there remains in him an aptitude to be moved toward good, of which the signs are desire for good and sorrow over evil, which still remain in man after sin. Therefore it is possible for man after sin again to return to good, which grace works in man... Hence it is that Isaiah I, 18 and Prov. X, 12 say this. This also we ask daily of the Lord not in vain, saying: Forgive us our debts. But through this is excluded the error of the Novatians, who said that a man cannot obtain pardon for the sins by which he sins after Baptism." St. Thomas, C. G. III, 156.