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Objection 1: It would seem that gluttony is not a sin. For our
Lord said (Mt. 15:11): "Not that which goeth into the mouth
defileth a man." Now gluttony regards food which goes into a man.
Therefore, since every sin defiles a man, it seems that gluttony is
not a sin.
Objection 2: Further, "No man sins in what he cannot avoid"
[Ep. lxxi, ad Lucin.]. Now gluttony is immoderation in food;
and man cannot avoid this, for Gregory says (Moral. xxx, 18):
"Since in eating pleasure and necessity go together, we fail to
discern between the call of necessity and the seduction of pleasure,"
and Augustine says (Confess. x, 31): "Who is it, Lord,
that does not eat a little more than necessary?" Therefore gluttony
is not a sin.
Objection 3: Further, in every kind of sin the first movement is a
sin. But the first movement in taking food is not a sin, else hunger
and thirst would be sinful. Therefore gluttony is not a sin.
On the contrary, Gregory says (Moral. xxx, 18) that "unless
we first tame the enemy dwelling within us, namely our gluttonous
appetite, we have not even stood up to engage in the spiritual
combat." But man's inward enemy is sin. Therefore gluttony is a
sin.
I answer that, Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and
drinking, but an inordinate desire. Now desire is said to be
inordinate through leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of
moral virtue consists: and a thing is said to be a sin through being
contrary to virtue. Wherefore it is evident that gluttony is a sin.
Reply to Objection 1: That which goes into man by way of food, by
reason of its substance and nature, does not defile a man spiritually.
But the Jews, against whom our Lord is speaking, and the Manichees
deemed certain foods to make a man unclean, not on account of their
signification, but by reason of their nature [FS, Question
102, Article 6, ad 1]. It is the inordinate desire of food
that defiles a man spiritually.
Reply to Objection 2: As stated above, the vice of gluttony does
not regard the substance of food, but in the desire thereof not being
regulated by reason. Wherefore if a man exceed in quantity of food,
not from desire of food, but through deeming it necessary to him, this
pertains, not to gluttony, but to some kind of inexperience. It is a
case of gluttony only when a man knowingly exceeds the measure in
eating, from a desire for the pleasures of the palate.
Reply to Objection 3: The appetite is twofold. There is the
natural appetite, which belongs to the powers of the vegetal soul. In
these powers virtue and vice are impossible, since they cannot be
subject to reason; wherefore the appetitive power is differentiated
from the powers of secretion, digestion, and excretion, and to it
hunger and thirst are to be referred. Besides this there is another,
the sensitive appetite, and it is in the concupiscence of this appetite
that the vice of gluttony consists. Hence the first movement of
gluttony denotes inordinateness in the sensitive appetite, and this is
not without sin.
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