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State of the question. If the subject of evil is good,
as we have said, can this subject be completely corrupted
by the evil that is in it, or be totally destroyed? It
seems that it can be; this is the opinion of some
pessimists. The reason, as given in the third
difficulty, is that the evil, as long as it lasts, harms
and destroys the good. But a finite good from which
something is always being taken away will in some time be
destroyed. Thus after a serious illness comes death, and
venial sins dispose to mortal sin, which takes away
grace.
This question is not of minor importance and it arises
again when we speak of original sin and its consequences,
under the question, "whether all the good of human nature
is destroyed by sin."[1029] The Protestants and
Jansenists said that by original sin man's liberty was
destroyed. On the other hand, most of the theologians of
the Society of Jesus say that in the state of fallen
nature man's powers are no weaker with respect to moral
good than in the state of pure nature; the Thomists and
Augustinians teach that man's powers are weakened
although his freedom is not extinguished.[1030]
Reply. In reply St. Thomas says that good is
threefold: the first is opposed to evil and is totally
removed by the evil; the second is the subject of evil and
it is not even decreased by the evil; the third is the
aptitude of the subject to good, and this aptitude is
decreased but is never completely removed. Hence, St.
Augustine said, "Evil cannot completely consume the
good."[1031]
This proof is founded on the division of good as given
above. In the preceding article it was stated that the
good which is a privation is different from the good in
which the evil is as in a subject; to this a third kind of
good is added, namely, the aptitude of the subject to
good, for example, the aptitude of human nature to
virtue.
The first two parts of the conclusion present no
difficulty.
1. The good that is opposed to the evil can be
completely destroyed by the evil; this is evident from an
explanation of the terms when the privation is complete for
then the good is entirely removed. This is clear from
experience: light is completely destroyed by darkness,
sight by blindness, corporeal life by death, and the life
of grace by mortal sin.[1032] So also the good of
original justice, freely conferred on all human nature in
the first man, was completely taken away by the sin of our
first parents.
2. The good that is the subject of the evil is not even
diminished by the evil. In the physical order prime
matter at least remains, and in the spiritual order the
spiritual human soul at least remains. The reason is that
the privation cannot take place except in an apt subject,
and therefore the nature of this subject must remain,
otherwise the same subject would no longer remain, that
is, the subject that is apt for the particular privation.
If the subject is destroyed, there is no longer any
privation, for example, the subject of sickness is a
living animal, and the subject of death is a corpse. We
do not say that the corpse is blind; blindness is
predicated of the living animal.
Hence St. Thomas speaks of the proper subject with
respect to the proper privation, and he also speaks of the
immutable nature of the subject. This is clear from the
example: the substance of the air is not diminished by
darkness; darkened air still remains air.
In another place, St. Thomas says: "The principles
of human nature, by which the nature itself is
constituted, and the properties, such as the powers of
the soul, are not destroyed or diminished by
sin."[1033] Hence the freedom of the will is not
extinguished by original sin, otherwise fallen man would
no longer be truly man. Fallen man is truly man by his
specific difference, which is indivisible, that is, it
is not subject to increase or decrease. Either someone
has or has not the capability of producing rational acts;
even a demented person preserves his nature although he
does not have the use of his reason, and as long as a man
retains the use of reason he retains proportionately the
use of deliberation and of his free will.
Therefore what can be taken from a subject while the
subject remains is its integrity. For example, a man can
lose his arm or his eyes but not his essence nor the
essence of his faculties; the very nature of our will
cannot become evil, not even in the damned, for the will
preserves its ordination to the universal good by which it
is specified. Either it is the will or it is not; in the
very nature of the will there is no increase or decrease
with regard to the specific object. The will, however,
may receive both acquired and infused virtues, by which it
is perfected, and it can also lose these virtues.
3. The aptitude of the subject to a good act is
diminished but it is never completely removed. For
example, in man the natural inclination to virtue, which
is increased by virtuous acts and diminished by evil acts,
is never entirely destroyed as long as the human nature
remains, because this aptitude is founded on this
nature.[1034]
The proof of this third part of the conclusion is somewhat
complex in the body of the article. The argument can be
reduced to the following.
The diminution of the subject's aptitude to good is not
quantitative, but it is a qualitative loss by contrary
dispositions. Such contrary dispositions, however, even
when multiplied to infinity, do not destroy the nature of
the subject as long as the subject remains, nor do they
therefore destroy the root of this aptitude of the subject
to good. Therefore this aptitude is never
destroyed.[1035]
Explanation of the major. What is meant by a qualitative
loss of this aptitude by contrary dispositions? Is it an
intrinsic diminution or only extrinsic?
We must judge the diminution of this aptitude to virtue by
its positive opposite, that is, by the qualitative
intensification. We must not confuse the intensification
and diminution of this capability with the intensification
and diminution of a habit, for an acquired habit is
increased intrinsically by the repetition of acts and
intrinsically diminished by the cessation of the acts or by
contrary acts, so that in the end the habit is completely
destroyed, while the natural aptitude to virtue is never
completely destroyed. The aptitude to virtue is something
else than the virtue itself.
We say, then, that this natural aptitude to virtue is
not increased or diminished intrinsically, that is, in
itself, on the part of the subject or the root of this
aptitude, which is the very nature of the soul or the
faculty. This nature is not subject to increase or
decrease. Hence this aptitude is increased or decreased,
as it were, extrinsically, not on the part of its
principle but with regard to the terminus.
In the reply to the second objection, St. Thomas
says: "This aptitude is between the subject and act.
Hence inasmuch as it touches on the act it is diminished
by evil, but inasmuch as it is identified with the subject
it remains." Thus the aptitude of wood to burning is
diminished by humidity, and the aptitude of the soul to
virtue is diminished by contrary dispositions or by venial
and mortal sins, both actual and habitual. In this way
this aptitude was diminished by original sin, which
implies directly a habitual aversion to the final
supernatural end and indirectly a similar aversion to the
final natural end, for every sin that is directly opposed
to the supernatural law is indirectly against the natural
law, which commands us to obey God in whatever He
commands us. Hence this natural aptitude to virtue is
diminished by original sin, not intrinsically, on the
part of the principle, but extrinsically, with regard to
the facility of eliciting a virtuous act, because of the
obstacles placed between the faculty and the virtuous act
for which it was intended.
St. Thomas explains this at greater length in his book,
"De malo", where he shows that this aptitude
cannot be diminished by the subtraction of parts
(intrinsically) but by the addition of contraries
(extrinsically). We now ask whether these contraries
are able to corrupt or destroy the subject; whether, for
instance, humidity corrupts the wood and whether sin
destroys the soul or the nature of man.[1036]
St. Thomas makes the following distinction. By
continual diminution every finite being can be totally
removed, this I distinguish: by the intrinsic
subtraction of parts, I concede, unless it be a division
to infinity, by the extrinsic addition of contraries,
this I subdistinguish: of contraries that can corrupt the
subject, I concede; of contraries that cannot corrupt
the parts, I deny.
The minor requires explanation, namely, why contrary
dispositions can never completely remove or destroy the
aptitude mentioned above. St. Thomas says that these
contrary dispositions can be increased either to infinity
or not. If they are not increased to infinity, neither
is this aptitude decreased to infinity. Thus, for
example, wood becomes less combustible by humidity to a
certain stage, and beyond this the wood is corrupted. As
long as the nature of wood perdures, its combustibility or
the aptitude to combustion remains, but when the nature of
the wood is corrupted the aptitude is removed. "If the
contrary can corrupt the subject, the aptitude can be
completely removed."[1037]
If, however, the contrary dispositions can be increased
to infinity, the aforesaid aptitude is likewise decreased
to infinity but it is never entirely removed as long as the
nature of the subject remains. "If by the addition of a
contrary, the subject is not corrupted, no matter how
much the contrary is multiplied, the aptitude is always
decreased as the added contrary increases, but it is never
entirely removed."[1038] The reason is that the
nature is the root of this aptitude. Thus it is with man
in the moral order; the man who sins continually retains,
together with the incorruptible nature of his soul and his
faculties, a certain aptitude to virtue, but this
aptitude is decreased to infinity by the multiplication of
obstacles between his faculties and the virtuous act to
which the faculty is ordered. Thus air can always be
illuminated by the sun even though opaque bodies to
infinity are placed between the air and the sun.
This is to say, against the Manichaeans, that no
created being is evil and that no created nature can become
absolutely evil, or completely lose its aptitude to good.
Corollary. In spite of inveterate depraved habits a man
still can reform his moral character and arrive at the
judgment that God's commandments are in conformity with
the basis of his human nature.
Even in the devils a nature remains, which as nature is
good, but it can no longer go on to a good act. "Even
in the damned there is a natural inclination to virtue,
otherwise the devils would not have remorse of
conscience."[1039]
In the reply to the third objection it is noted that some
have offered a faulty proof of this conclusion, saying
that the matter is as in the case of the division of
quantity where something smaller is always subtracted, for
example, first half the whole quantity, then half of the
half, so that there is always something remaining to be
divided. St. Thomas replies that this is true with
regard to quantity but that there is not parity here with
sin because the second sin can be more serious than the
first, indeed succeeding sins are generally more grave.
This doctrine can be expressed by the following synopsis
taken from St. Thomas' De malo.[1040]
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DIMINUTION OF GOOD: QUALITATIVE
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extrinsic by addition of a contrary
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which cannot corrupt an incorruptible subject, as sin with
regard to the soul;
which can corrupt the subject and its aptitude, as
humidity which finally corrupts wood
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intrinsic, which can completely destroy virtue
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DIMINUTION OF GOOD: QUANTITATIVE
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by the subtraction of parts; this can completely remove
the good, for example, a sum of money
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Napoleon once said, "I prefer a good synopsis to a long
report." But for a synopsis to be good it must be
adequate and the divisions must be founded on the nature of
things. These divisions must be necessary, not
accidental, that is, they must be made according to the
formal reason of the whole to be divided, and they must be
made in such a way that the members are really opposite so
that no member will be overlooked.
We conclude, then, that the natural aptitude to virtue
always remains, as long as the soul remains, even though
this aptitude is diminished extrinsically by actual sin,
especially by actual sin repeated so often that it becomes
habitual sin.[1041]
In this light St. Thomas explains the wounds which are
the consequences of original sin, which is the deprivation
of the gift of original justice. "The natural
inclination of virtue is not diminished on the part of the
root but on the part of the terminus inasmuch as an
obstacle is placed in the way of attaining the
terminus."[1042] Thus in the state of fallen
nature man's powers for virtue are weaker than in the
state of pure nature because now he is born with a habitual
aversion to his final natural end, whereas in the state of
pure nature he would have been born neither habitually
averse nor converted to moral good; he would have been
simply capable of aversion or conversion. Now he is born
with a certain weakness for the natural moral good, but
his natural aptitude to virtue remains. After baptism
these wounds are on the way to being healed.
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