SIXTH ARTICLE: WHETHER PENALTY HAS MORE OF EVIL THAN GUILT HAS

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.

PRIVATION

of the uncreated good

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]