|
State of the question. It appears that this is true
because: 1. reward has more of good than merit, and
similarly penalty has more of evil than guilt; 2. the
agent is better than the action, and therefore the evil of
the agent, namely, the penalty, is worse than the evil
of the action; 3. the penalty of loss is the privation
of the vision of God and therefore worse than the
privation of moral rectitude. These are clever sophisms.
Reply. The reply is that guilt partakes more of the
nature of evil than any penalty, whether it be the penalty
of the senses or of loss or of damnation.
1. In the argument "sed contra" this is proved
from the reference to the wise being who inflicts the
penalty. In His wisdom God inflicts the penalty that
the guilt may be averted, that is, He induces a lesser
evil that a greater may be avoided, just as the surgeon
amputates a member to save the rest of the body from
corruption. This argument of St. Thomas applies also
for the penalty of eternal damnation, as he explains in
the body of the article. Indeed the punishment of hell is
medicinal, if not for the damned at least for those still
on earth, since it induces a salutary fear. So in
society the penalty of capital punishment inspires a
healthy fear in the criminal.[1059]
2. The proof in the body of the article is twofold: a)
from the formal cause and the formal effect of both guilt
and penalty; b) from the efficient cause of the penalty,
namely, God, who as the author of the penalty cannot be
the author of the evil of guilt.
a) The argument may be presented in this form. That by
which a man becomes evil in his will is a greater evil than
the privation of any one of the things he uses. But it is
by guilt that man becomes evil in his will. Therefore
guilt is a greater evil than penalty.
Proof of the major. Evil is the privation of an owing
good, and the greater evil is the privation of a greater
owing good. But good consists essentially in act, and a
man's ultimate act is his operation, and moreover it is
the will that moves all his other faculties to operation.
Thus a man is said to be good by reason of his good will,
by which he makes good use of what he has; and he is evil
because of an evil will. For it is the will that tends to
good, and directs not only to the good of some particular
faculty but to the good of the whole man. Hence the will
tends to the good of the whole man and averts evil from
him. A man who is good without qualification is a man of
good will and not the man with a good intellect alone, for
knowledge is ordered to the truth, which is the good of
the intellective faculty, but the truth is not the good of
the complete man. A philosopher or a scientist may, as
we know, put his knowledge to evil uses.
It follows that by the deprivation of knowledge or art,
by the loss of an arm, a man is rendered evil not
completely but only in certain respects. He may be a bad
scientist, a poor artist, or a poor musician; But by
the privation of good will a man is rendered completely
evil.[1060]
Elsewhere St. Thomas says: "The subject of the habit
that is called virtue can be nothing else than the will or
some faculty that is moved by the will. The reason is
that the will moves all the other faculties which are in
some sense rational to their acts. And therefore the fact
that a man actually acts well arises from the fact that the
man has a good will."[1061]
b) This argument is based on the fact that God, the
efficient cause of penalty, cannot be the author of the
evil of guilt. It may be stated in the following form.
That is the greater evil which is opposed to the greater
good and cannot be caused by God. But the evil of guilt
is directly opposed to the uncreated good and cannot be
caused by God, whereas the evil of penalty is opposed to
the uncreated or created good of the creature and is caused
by God.
The major is evident. The minor is proved as follows:
The evil of guilt is opposed not only to the uncreated
good of the creature, as in the case of the privation of
the beatific vision, but directly to the uncreated good
itself. In what way?" Sin is opposed to the
fulfillment of the divine will and the divine love by which
the divine good is loved in itself and not only as it is
participated in by the creature." That is, as St.
Thomas explains in the treatise on charity:[1062]
"We must love God more than ourselves and we must love
Him on account of Himself, formally and finally, as He
is infinitely good in Himself and our final end,
infinitely better than ourselves and better than all His
gifts." Mortal sin, on the other hand, is a turning
away from God our last end, and this is denying to God
the infinite dignity of the last end. Cajetan offers this
formula: "the evil of guilt is directly opposed to the
uncreated good, not as it is in us but as it is in
itself."[1063]
But a difficulty arises from the fact that mortal sin
takes nothing from God since God is infinitely simple and
can lose nothing.
"To this we reply briefly," says Cajetan in the same
place, "that the opposition of evil to the uncreated good
can be understood in two ways, formally and objectively.
Formally such opposition is impossible....since God
is pure act who can lose nothing. Objectively, however,
the evil of guilt opposes the divine good in itself. This
is explained in the place referred to (and in the present
article) by the object of charity. Whoever sins mortally
wishes explicitly or interpretatively as much as he can
that God should not be his ultimate end. This is
opposing God objectively as He is in Himself, just as
he who loves in charity wishes for God whatever belongs to
Him."
St. Thomas' article may be reduced to the following.
|
formally; this is impossible
objectively; by mortal sin
|
|
|
of the good of the creature
|
|
|
of the uncreated good: pain of loss
of a created good: pain of senses
|
|
Anyone who sins wishes explicitly or interpretatively as
much as he can to deprive God of the infinite perfection
of the last end, that is, that supreme good on account of
which all things were made. Mortal sin practically denies
to God the dignity of the highest good, and the sinner
places his last end in himself and loves it above all
things. Hence St. Thomas says: "A sin committed
against God has a certain infinity because of the infinity
of the divine majesty. The offense is judged to be graver
by how much higher he is against whom the offense is
committed. Hence, for condign satisfaction, the act of
satisfaction must have infinite efficacy, as belonging
both to God and man."[1064] The conclusion of the
present article is borne out therefore especially for
mortal sin, namely, that mortal sin is more evil than any
penalty.
Doubt. Does this conclusion apply also to venial sin?
The reply is in the affirmative. The term sin is
predicated analogically of venial sin, but the analogy is
proper and not metaphorical, and therefore the conclusion
applies also to venial sin, that is, even venial sin, as
something purely evil, is a greater evil than the evil of
penalty, because a just penalty, even the penalty of
damnation, is not purely evil since in its own way it
restores the order of justice. The penalty is, then,
merely something evil, as the privation of the good of the
creature, and damnation itself is privation of the
uncreated good to the creature, which is less than the
denial of the uncreated good in itself.[1065] Below
we shall see that God can in no way be the cause of even
venial guilt because even venial sin is something
essentially disordered.[1066]
|
|