OBJECTIONS BASED ON THE IDEA OF A RETRACTED JUDGMENT

According to St. Thomas the devil sinned because of lack of consideration of a higher rule. But the devil can now give that consideration especially since he has learned through his misery. Therefore the devil can change his judgment.

Reply. I distinguish the major: the devil sinned from lack of consideration that was voluntary, I concede; he sinned from a lack of consideration arising out of ignorance, I deny.

The devil was not ignorant that in thus proudly refusing supernatural happiness he would bring on himself damnation. He was certainly more certain than we theologians that turning away from his final supernatural end was for him an unforgivable mortal sin which implied indirectly an aversion from his final natural end.

I insist. But it seems incredible that any intelligence would refuse supernatural happiness, especially when such refusal brought with it future damnation.

Reply. Nevertheless this is a characteristic of unbounded pride: to cling to one's own individual good and pride one's self on it rather than accept supernatural happiness from the goodness of another and to possess that happiness in common with men. The devil closed the eyes of his mind to the light of grace and haughtily refused to follow that light. Doellinger wished to defend the Church, but he wished to defend it in his own way and not under the direction of the Supreme Pontiff.

I insist. But the devil foresaw his damnation only speculatively; now he knows damnation experimentally and therefore because of this new experience he can change his judgment.

Reply. If the devil now practically understands his crime of pride as a moral evil that must be rejected, I concede; if he only speculatively understands this pride as an evil, I deny.

In order that the devil could practically understand his crime of pride as an evil that should be rejected he should also incline to humility, to obedience, and to prayer for mercy. But the devil's pride "ascends continually," not intensively, but by always producing new effects. The damned do not ask for pardon. For them there could be but one way to retract their judgment, namely, the way of humility and obedience, and they do not will to follow this way.

We find a similar state of mind in some of the apostates, in Lamennais and Loisy. They strove for an object that was apparently the object of magnanimity; they strove for excellence but they strove for it in the spirit of pride. Magnanimity is the well-ordered love of excellence; pride is the inordinate love of one's own excellence without subjection to God.

Objection. According to St. Thomas some remorse of conscience remains in the damned because of synteresis, and therefore it seems that they are able to change their judgment.

Reply. Such remorse of conscience does remain because of synteresis, but it is without the least attrition or hope, indeed it is the remorse of desperation, without the least veleity of true repentance.[1230]

For the damned, sin is a bitter thing but not because of any repentance. Although they still have synteresis and remorse of conscience, they do not have infused faith, hope, prudence, or fear of sin; their minds are overwhelmed by pride, of which it is said that it "ascendeth continually." The damned do not repent of their evil deeds because of the guilt; they rue their deeds only because of the punishment. More than this, they wish all others to be damned, because they are filled with unbounded hatred for all good things, and they are grieved by every good, by every deed done according to God's will, and especially by the happiness of the blessed.

I insist. But the damned still have a desire for happiness, at least for natural happiness, which they do not possess, because they are turned away not only from their final supernatural end but also from their natural end. Therefore because of this desire for happiness they are able to change their judgment.

Reply. In order to change their judgment practically they would have to follow the way of humility and obedience, but because of their unremitting pride they do not will to follow this road. They are therefore confirmed in evil. In the damned the desire for the happiness they have lost is filled with envy; indeed this is part of damnation. The damned persevere in the hatred of God, for although the devil naturally loves God as the author of his nature in its physical aspect, he hates God as the author of the law that commands obedience, he hates God as the judge, as the author of grace, because under these three aspects God commands something that displeases the devil.

Practically then the devil does not apprehend his crime of pride as a moral evil that must be rejected; only speculatively does he apprehend it as evil. At the same time pride rules him completely and in this pride the devil loves himself above all things with the bitterness of desperation and hatred of God.[1231]

How is man's obstinacy explained? Can we say with Cajetan that man is made immovable in good or evil by a meritorious or demeritorious act elicited in the first moment of non-being ("in primo non esse viae"), that is, in the first instant of the separation of the soul from the body? Some Thomists reject this idea, since it would not be man but a separated soul that would be meriting. Our Lord said, "The night cometh, when no man can work."[1232] In the final chapters of "Contra Gentes" St. Thomas explains that after the separation from the body the soul is no longer on the road to salvation (in via), since the body is for the perfection of the soul that the soul may reach its end, and the separated soul therefore is no longer on the road to its perfection, and that final merit or demerit is rendered definitive by the soul's separation from the body.[1233]