Vices and Sins
71. Vice and Sin
1. A sin is a human act (that is, a deliberate thought, word, deed, desire, omission) contrary to right reason, and therefore contrary to God. A vice is a habit of sin. Vice is a morally bad habit; it stands contrasted with virtue which is a morally good habit. And sin, which is a vicious act, is contrasted with a virtuous act, that is, a morally good act.
2. Vice is contrary to order and reason; it is opposed to the rational nature of man.
3. In itself, a bad act is worse than a bad habit; for a bad act is a deed done, whereas a bad habit is only a stable disposition to commit bad deeds. Even human law punishes a criminal act, but not a criminal disposition.
4. One sin does not destroy the opposed virtue as a habit. Just as one good act does not establish a virtue, so neither does one bad act establish a vice. But one mortal sin destroys all infused virtues as virtues (as living and active virtues), but not as habits. A mortal sin destroys charity and thus renders faith and hope inoperative for getting a man on towards heaven. Mortal sin robs faith and hope of their power as virtues, but it does not expel them as habits. Venial sin neither destroys nor expels charity or other virtues.
5. A person who sins by omission must, of course, be doing something at the time, but, for the sin of omission no determinate act is required to take the place of the omitted duty. The sin of omission is not in what a person is doing but in what he is failing to do.
6. Sin is sometimes defined as "word, deed, or desire contrary to the eternal law." The definition is adequate, for sinful "words, deeds, desires," involve thoughts and imaginings. And a sin of omission is actually a deed; it is the deed of omitting what one should do.
72. The Distinction of Sin
1. Sins are essentially distinguished one from another by their objective reality as things out of line with reason and God's law. That is, sins are distinguished from one another as objects. Thus we distinguish sinful words from sinful deeds, and both of these from sinful desires.
2. A sin comes from inordinate desire for some creatural good or from inordinate pleasure in a creatural good. This inordinateness may be in things of the mind (as, for instance, prideful thoughts or undue love of praise) or in things of sense (as, for example, food or sex). Thus there is a distinction of sins (still on the score of their objective reality) as spiritual sins and carnal sins.
3. Sins are not specifically distinguished on the score of their causes except in the case of the final cause, that is, the intention or end-in-view of the sinner.
4. Sins are distinguished as: (a) sins against God, such as blasphemy, heresy, and sacrilege; (b) sins against self, such as intemperance; and (c) sins against others, such as theft, murder, or slander. Of course, all sins are against God, but those that have this specific name are directly against God or the things of God.
5. Sins are not specifically distinct on the score of the punishment due to them. All mortal sins are at one in deserving eternal punishment, although there are essential distinctions among mortal sins, as, for example, between blasphemy and murder. And while mortal sins (which deserve eternal punishment) are essentially distinct from venial sins (which deserve temporal punishment only) this distinction does not find its cause in the punishment due.
6. Neither are sins specifically distinct on the score of commission or omission. A man who steals ten dollars, and the thief who omits to restore ten dollars he has stolen, are guilty of the same kind of sin against injustice.
7. In each species or essential kind of sin we distinguish sins of thought (involving imaginings and even desires), word, and deed (involving the deed of omission). Thought precedes word, and word may lead on to action. Sin may be in thought alone, or in thought and desire, or in thought and word, or in all three-thought, word, deed.
8. Sins are distinguished specifically as sins of excess and sins of defect or deficiency. One sins by excess in inordinately loving a crea-tural good; one sins by defect in being insensible to good. Inordinate love and sinful indifference are not the same species of sin.
9. In sins that spring from a single motive, circumstances may change the degree of sin but not its species or essential kind. Sins that spring from a manifold motive have circumstances which really enter into the essence of the act and introduce new species. Thus a man who steals money from a church to bribe a politician to enact unjust legislation, really commits three distinct sins against justice and one against religion.
73. The Standing of Sins Toward One Another
1. Sins are sometimes contrary to one another, as, for instance, sinful love and sinful hatred. It is therefore not true to say that all sins are connected.
2. Nor are all grave sins equal in gravity. Their gravity is measured by the extent in which they depart from the rule of right reason. Our Lord said to Pilate (John 19:11): "He that hath delivered me to thee hath the greater sin." Yet Pilate's sin was certainly great.
3. The gravity of mortal sin varies according to its species, and this species is determined by the objective character of the sin. Thus, murder is more grave than great theft.
4. The gravity of any sin is discerned in its opposition to a virtue. The more excellent a virtue, the graver the sin that opposes it. Venial sins may stand opposed to great virtues, but not directly so. An analogy illustrates all this: the most serious illness is that which directly opposes health and tends to destroy it utterly; yet minor ailments also oppose health, but not in direct and totally destructive fashion: conversely, the more perfect is health, the more free it is from destructive disease, and the more readily it overcomes minor ailments. Thus also, the more excellent a virtue is, the more remote it is from its full opposite, and the more readily it withdraws a man from the minor faults that could lead to that full opposite.
5. Carnal sins are, in general, less grave than spiritual sins; yet they bring greater shame on the sinner, and tend more to brutalize him.Carnal sins usually spring from a stronger impulse than spiritual sins; they are a turning to inordinate pleasure, while spiritual sins are a direct turning from God and right reason.
6. The more intense the will is in choosing and cleaving to sin, the more grievous is the sin. For the will is the cause of sin, and the greater the cause, the greater is the effect. Yet when the will is made more intense in sin by things external to itself and contrary to its nature, the sin is diminished in gravity. Thus ignorance (which weakens the judgment of reason and therefore hampers the will's choice) reduces the gravity of sin; so also does concupiscence, which hampers free action.
7. Circumstances, as we have seen, can introduce new elements into sin and thus change its specific nature, or rather, add to one sin another specifically different sin. The circumstance of person may thus add a sin of filial impiety to a sin of injustice, as, for example, when a man injures his own father. And circumstances can turn a sin through different areas so that the sinner commits the same sin in more than one way; as, for instance, when a wasteful man gives when he ought not, and to whom he ought not. Again, circumstances may make a sin more grave without changing its nature or species, as, for example, when grave anger is nursed and made more lasting.
8. A sin is made more grave by the graver harm it does, unless this harm is accidental to the sin and is neither foreseen nor intended by the sinner.
9. In sins against others, the status of the person offended may make the sin greater; thus disrespect for parents is more grave than disrespect towards respectable strangers. So too, a sin is greater for being committed against a person who, by holiness, or by his official station, is closer to God than others.
10. The more excellent the person or status of the sinner, the greater is his sin. For such a person has resources for more easily avoiding sin. Besides, in sinning, such a person shows a greater ingratitude to God who has bestowed more excellent gifts on him. Finally, sin in such a person is especially inconsistent with his gifts and his station, and so gives the greater scandal.
74. The Subject of Sin
1. The principle of human acts is the will, and sins are human acts; hence the will is the principle of sin. Now, the principle of sin is called the subject of sin. Hence the will is the subject of sin. St. Augustine says (Retract. i): "It is by the will that we sin, and by the will that we live righteously."
2. The will elicits some of its acts (completing them within itself) and commands others (which are carried out by subordinate powers of mind or body or both). Hence the total subject of sin includes, with the will itself, all the powers which can be put into operation, or restrained from operation, by the will.
3. Therefore, even sensitive or sensual powers may be the subject of sin inasmuch as their exercise is voluntary, that is, willed.
4. Yet mortal sin is never, properly speaking, in the sensitive part of man, but in reason which disposes the order of human acts in accordance with sensual bent or tendency.
5. Sin is in the reason (that is, the intellectually enlightened and counseled will) when the sin results from ignorance of what the sinner could and should know and has neglected to know, and also when reason commands inordinate movement in the lower powers, or fails to check such movement.
6. When reason permits the lower powers or appetites to move inordinately, and dwells upon the pleasure of their avoidable movement, without, however, carrying into action what is thus dwelt upon, it is guilty of the sin of morose delectation. One commits the sin of morose delectation by dwelling pleasurably or consentingly upon unlawful movements or imaginings of lust, revenge, envy, covetousness, or other vice.
7. St. Augustine draws a distinction between the higher reason which contemplates eternal truths, and the lower reason which deals with temporal things. Now, the consent which sinful reason gives to a sinful act is of the higher reason, for it is the higher reason which knows the divine and eternal law against which the sin offends.
8. Delight in the thought of what is gravely sinful is itself a grave sin when reason consents to this delight, envisioning and tending towards the sin itself. In a word, it is gravely sinful to consent to the inclination to grave sin.
9. Consent to the sinful act is a sin of the higher reason. It is mortally or venially sinful, according as the act consented to is mortally or venially sinful.
10. In its own domain, the higher reason may be guilty of venial sin as well as of mortal sin. We say "in its own domain," to indicate the excluding of the pull of lower appetites. For example, a sudden movement of unbelief might be a venial sin if it came from a momentary carelessness of the higher reason itself.
75. The Cause of Sin
1. The direct cause of sin is the will inasmuch as it culpably lacks the direction of right reason (the truly enlightening and counseling intellect) and God's law, and is intent upon some creatural good.
2. Thus the interior and proximate cause of sin is found in the will.We usually say that this interior and proximate cause of sin is in the reason, meaning by the word reason the whole intellective element or part of man, that is, his intellect and will together. The remote, as contrasted with the proximate, interior cause of sin is the influence of the sentient appetites and the imagination. This remote interior cause of sin is never the complete cause; it must be admitted into the intellective part of man by free will before it can become thoroughly effective.
3. Exterior things can be, in some sense, the cause of sin, but only partially and incompletely in so far as external objects can stir the senses and, through the senses, exercise an influence on reason. Thus a precious gem may stir a person to desire it, to dwell imaginatively upon the joy of possessing it, and so lead him to steal it. But, in the last analysis, the theft is not truly caused by the gem itself; the theft is caused by the thief's will, acting without the right ordering of reason.
4. One sin may be said to cause another, since a human act may dispose a person to perform its like. One breakthrough of the restraints that keep a person from sin may invite, so to speak, other sins to follow in the wake of the first. But, in each case, the complete cause of the sin is the will, the reason, of the sinner.
76. Ignorance as a Cause of Sin
1. The active cause of sin is the will under the light and judgment of intellect; that is, the cause of sin is the reason. Now, ignorance may deprive reason of guiding knowledge that it ought to have, and therefore may bear upon the committing of sin. Thus, in some sense, ignorance may be the cause of sin.
2. Ignorance is itself a sin when it is a man's own fault and pertains to things that he is under obligation to know.
3. Ignorance which is not one's own fault, and which deprives one of knowledge which would have prevented a sinful act, excuses from the guilt of sin.
4. Ignorance that is not directly willed tends to diminish the guilt of sin that comes as a result of it.
77. The Sensitive Appetites as the Cause of Sin
1. Sense-passion or appetite cannot directly move the will to sin, but it can work indirectly upon the will. For the judgment of reason sometimes follows sense-tendency, and the will's choice follows this judgment.
2. When passion is so intense that a person loses the use of reason, the consequent act is not a human act at all, and the person who performs the act is guilty only in so far as he knowingly permitted the wild passion to take hold on him. But, short of this insane excess, a person is responsible for his act, although this responsibility is lessened by high passion. It is possible for a person, in responsible acts performed under stress of passion, to allow reason to be so strongly swayed that he acts against his knowledge of what is right and sane. Thus a man, in an outburst of wild temper, will say and do things that he knows "at the very moment" are futile and foolish. And a man, well aware of a truth, may, through passion, fail to recognize or apply it in a particular case, and thus may deny what he really knows to be true.
3. Therefore, a sin committed through passion is a sin of weakness. As the body is weak because of disorder in its parts, so the soul is weak when passion disorders the right rule of reason.
4. Sin comes from loving or willing a temporal good as though it were the eternal good. And back of the desire for such a good lies the inordinate love of self. For the sinner wants to have his own way; he wants to please himself. Hence, every sin is truly the fruit of inordinate self-love.
5. The influences which bear upon reason to induce it to sin are rightly set forth in Sacred Scripture (I John 2:16) as follows: (a) the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, passionate desire for bodily delights; (b) the concupiscence of the eyes, that is, inordinate desire for wealth and temporal goods; (c) pride of life, that is, the soul's hunger for honors, praise, and power to rule.
6. Passion that precedes sin (that is, antecedent passion) not only brings urgency upon the will, but also obscures the judgment of the thinking mind that guides the will; hence, antecedent passion diminishes sin. But consequent passion, that is, passion stirred up by the will itself (as in one who deliberately works himself into a rage, or nerves himself to do an evil thing) rather increases a sin than diminishes it, for such passion shows the intensity of the will's determination to sin.
7. Passion so great as to destroy free choice excuses from sin. But if this great passion comes from the will's faulty neglect to prevent it, it does not wholly excuse from sin.
8. In serious matters sins committed through passion, even through passion that diminishes responsibility, are mortal sins. For as long as passion does not render a man temporarily insane, it can be allayed. A man can work to banish the passionate urge, and can prevent it from having its sinful effect. If he fails to do this, he sins, and, in serious matters, he sins mortally.
78. Malice as the Cause of Sin
1. Malice is badly disposed reason. It is commonly called bad will. A sin committed through malice or bad will is a kind of cold-blooded sin. From the standpoint of the disposition of reason towards sin, there are three types of sin: (a) sins of negligence; for example, sins that come from culpable ignorance; (b) sins of passion; (c) sins of malice.
2. There is malice in a sin committed through habit. For a habit is not compelling; the victim of habit is free to reject its influence. So long as a person knowingly allows a sinful habit to continue, and does not take effective measures to banish it, he shows malice or bad will.
3. Yet a man may sin, and sin with malice, without having the habit of such a sin.
4. Malice makes a sin more grievous than it would be if it were committed under the stress of passion. For malice shows a coldly purposive will to sin, despite the clear judgment of reason which is at the will's service. But passion surges hotly upon a person and blurs the judgment that precedes the act of will.
79. External Causes of Sin
1. In no way whatever, directly or indirectly, is God the cause of any sin.
2. God supports his creatures in being and existence. God therefore supports man's free will, even while man is abusing free will by sinning. God causes the man who sins, and causes his will, and enables or causes it to act. But, though God is the cause of the act which free will makes sinful, he is in no way the cause of the sin as such.
3. God is called the cause of spiritual blindness and of hardness of heart, in the sense that he withdraws or withholds his grace from those in whom he finds an obstacle or block to the entry and effectiveness of such grace.
4. Spiritual blindness and hardness of heart indicate a man's determined abandonment of God, and, consequently, his abandonment of the hope of heaven. Sometimes, however, a temporary spiritual blindness may work towards a man's good by warning him; just so a temporary blindness of the bodily eyes may warn a man to avoid strain and unsuitable light which could permanently injure or destroy his vision.
80. The Devil as the Cause of Sin
1. The devil cannot be the direct cause of human sin, for he cannot directly move man's will. God is the only external cause that can directly move the will, and God never moves the will to sin. The will moves itself to its object. The devil may induce man to sin by persuasion, by presenting attractive objects to human appetites. Only thus can the devil cause man to sin.
2. The devil exercises his powers of persuasion by stirring a man's imagination and by cooperating with whatever moves the sensitive appetites. Thus does the devil inwardly instigate a man to sin.
3. In a man who is possessed, the devil may compel acts of sin, but these are not human acts of the man himself, for he is not free. For the rest, the devil can in no wise compel a man to sin.
4. In one sense the devil is the cause of every human sin, for he induced the first man to commit the sin that has infected human nature with the tendency to sin. But apart from this, the devil is not the cause of all human sins. Origen (Peri Archon. iii) says that even if the devil were to cease to exist, man would still be subject to inordinate desires and to the abuse of free will by sin.
81. Human Beings as the Cause of Sin
1. The first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants by way of origin, and therefore is called original sin. In a sense, all men are one; they are one in nature; they are one in origin. In Adam's sin, human nature sinned; that nature sinned in which all men are one. As a murder committed by the hand would not be the hand's fault, yet would be imputed to the hand as part of the murderer's person, so Adam's sin appears in his descendants as members of the human nature that sinned. Adam's sin is imputed to his descendants as the murder is imputed to the "guilty hand" of the murderer.
2. As the original justice of Adam was to be transmitted to his descendants, so was the disordering of that justice to be transmitted. Original sin is transmitted, but no other actual sin of the first parent, or of any parent, is transmitted to descendants.
3. The original sin is transmitted to all men except to Christ, who is God-made-man, and to those whom God, through Christ, exempts from the common human heritage of sin. {-The Immaculate Mother of God was never infected with original sin. This doctrine of the faith had not been defined in the day of St. Thomas Aquinas; it was defined in 1854.-}
4. If God were to make a man miraculously from human flesh, but not by the normal process of generation, that man would not contract the original sin. For original sin is "the sin of nature," and is transmitted only by way of nature, that is, by generation.
5. If Eve alone had sinned, her sin would not have been transmitted to descendants. For in the order of nature the active principle of propagation is the male principle. Hence, it is Adam's sin, not Eve's, that is transmitted.
82. The Essence of Original Sin
1. A habit is a steady or enduring quality which inclines a power to act. In this sense, original sin is not a habit in us who inherit it. But, in a second sense, a habit is a lasting disposition in a complex nature which makes for the well-being or ill-being of that nature; this type of habit is sometimes called "almost a second nature." Original sin is this latter type of habit in all who inherit it. It is an ill disposition of fallen human nature. St. Augustine (In Ps. 118, serm. 3) calls it "the languor of nature."
2. Original sin is specifically one sin. It is not a complexity or plurality of sins in each human individual. It is one sin in each individual.
3. In its own essence, original sin is the "deprivation of the original justice." In consequence of this deprivation, man's normal drive and desire for God are changed into a drive and desire for temporary and changeable good. Since drive and desire are called concupiscence, it is accurate to call original sin (as it works out in human beings) by the name of concupiscence.
4. Original sin is not more in one person than in another; it is equally in all, and is equal in each one.
83. The Subject of Original Sin
1. Sin is in the soul, not the body; hence original sin is in the soul. The defects, weaknesses, and tendencies of the flesh which come from original sin are punishments, not guilt. When actual sin occurs because of bodily tendencies, it is really committed by man through his will. The flesh of itself does not sin, nor has it the guilt of sin.
2. Original sin primarily affects the very nature of man. It is in the essence of the soul rather than in the powers of the soul.
3. Through the soul's essence original sin infects the soul's powers. It strikes first at the will. The will is the seat of appetency, and it is the source of man's first inclination to sin.
4. In the subordinate powers, the infection of original sin is most apparent in the generative power, the appetites, and the sense of touch.
84. One Sin as the Cause of Another
1. Covetousness, not as a general inordinateness of desire or as a general tendency to such inordinateness, but as a special sin, is the root of all actual sins. This special covetousness is the inordinate desire for riches. Riches (that is, money) open a ready avenue to all excesses and sins, and are longed for by sinners. Not money itself, but the love of money, the desire for it, is the root of all evil, as St. Paul says (I Tim. 6:10).
2. Pride as an inordinate desire to excel (not the pride which is an actual contempt of God or an inclination to this contempt), is back of the primal covetousness. Pride is therefore the beginning of all sins. Man wants goods or riches to have some perfection by possessing them, or some excellence, or some outstanding quality, or some notable enjoyment. Thus, while covetousness is the root of evil, pride is the beginning of sins.
3. Therefore covetousness and pride are fundamental or capital sins. These sins are like generals in an evil army; all the action of the evil warfare stems from them. And there are also colonels and majors in the evil army; these too are listed with the capital sins.
4. There are five sins in addition to pride and covetousness that are rightly reckoned as capital sins. Hence, the count of capital sins is seven: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth.
85. The Effects of Sin
1. The good of human nature means one or all of three things: (a) the constitution and properties of human nature itself; (b) the inclination to virtue; (c) the original justice. Now, sin does not diminish or destroy the constitution of human nature. Nor does sin take away the original justice, for this was taken away in the beginning by Adam's sin. Sin diminishes the good of human nature inasmuch as this good is the inclination to virtue.
2. Thus sin can never destroy the entire good of human nature, although it may go on diminishing a man's inclination to virtue.
3. The wounds which sin inflicts on human nature may be listed as four: weakness, ignorance, malice, and concupiscence. The concupiscence mentioned here is an expression or stressing of the concupiscence which is often used as a name for original sin itself.
4. A thing has good in its species, its mode, its order (cf. Ia, q. 5). Its species is a thing's complete essential kind. Its mode is discerned in both essential and accidental qualities that it has. Its order is its purpose or direction to an end or goal. Now, sin destroys or diminishes all three types of goodness in the soul's inclinations, virtues, and actions. But sin does not diminish or destroy the good of species, mode, and order in the soul's essence and substance.
5. By the sin of the first man, the original justice was forfeited. In consequence, human nature was stricken with disorder in the soul, and, through this disorder, with corruption in the body. Hence, death came by sin; bodily disorders and defects came by sin.
6. Human nature, like every existing nature, tends to preserve itself and to hold on to its perfections. In view of this fact, death and defects are not natural to man. Yet, despite the inclination of bodily natures to preserve and perfect themselves, the matter or bodiliness of their constitution cannot support them in endless existence. For matter as such is subject to corruption, that is, to essential breakup. Therefore, in this view, death and defects are natural to man. In our first parents, God supplied for the deficiency of matter, and bestowed on human nature the supernatural gift of incorruptibility or immortality. This gift was rejected, together with the original justice, by human nature in Adam's sin. Hence, death came through sin, and is a penalty consequent upon sin.
86. The Stain of Sin
1. Sin is called, by metaphor, "a stain on the soul." A stain is a blot or ugly mark which destroys what is bright and comely. A stain is caused by contact with soiling and unsuitable things. Sin dims or blots out the brightness of perfected human nature; it blots out the wisdom and grace of God in the soul. It is therefore a stain upon the soul. We speak here of grave sin, not of the actual sin which is called venial.
2. A stain remains after the contact that caused it has ceased. So also the stain of serious sin remains in the soul after the act of sin has been completed. This stain is not removed except by a new act of returning by recovered grace to the unsmirched beauty of the soul.
87. The Debt of Punishment for Sin
1. What offends against an order is punished by that order. If a man offends against the order of reason (as he offends in sinning), he is punished by reason through remorse of conscience. If a man offends against human law he is fined or imprisoned by human law. If a man rebels against the divine law, he deserves punishment by that same law. Hence, sin incurs punishment; it lays the debt of punishment upon the sinner. Sin by its very nature incurs the debt of due punishment.
2. Sin can be (not essentially, but accidentally) the punishment for sin. For by sin man loses grace, and so leaves himself open to further sins; these, if they occur, may be regarded in the light of punishment for the first offense. For these sins plunge the sinner more deeply into his weakness and they lay upon him an increasing debt of punishment due. Sometimes the effect of sin is actual pain or even disease; here the punishment is not only for preceding sins, but for the sin which causes the pain. In this sense a sin can sometimes be called its own punishment.
3. Sins which destroy charity by turning man entirely away from God cause a complete disruption of the order which aligns a man with his true good. This destruction of charity is, in itself, irreparable; it is as irreparable as the destruction of human life by murder is irreparable. Yet God's power can repair the total destruction of charity, even as God's power can restore a murdered man to life. But unless and until God's power restores the soul to its true order of charity, the soul remains disrupted forever. Hence, serious sin merits eternal punishment.
4. But sin does not incur infinite punishment. It inflicts infinite loss, since it causes the loss of the infinite God. But it cannot incur infinite pain, for the senses are finite.
5. Not all sins are completely destructive of charity. Some sins are only a partial turning from God. These sins deserve punishment, but not eternal punishment. Such sins are called venial sins. They deserve temporal punishment.
6. When the act of sin is over, guilt remains in the sinner's soul, and the debt of due punishment remains. And when the stain of serious sin is removed by repentance and grace, there may still be need of some punishment as satisfaction, but not as simple penalty. To this extent, the debt of punishment can remain after forgiven sin.
7. Punishment taken simply as penalty always has reference to sin, original or actual. But we must not suppose that all the trials and hardships of life are punishments. Many of these are tonics for the soul, and remedies for its deficiencies. The physician who requires his patient to swallow bitter medicine or to undertake painful exercise, is not punishing the patient, but assisting him to health. The physician is not inflicting penalty, but conferring benefit. So it is with many of the pains and distresses which we endure in life; these are medicines prescribed by God for our eternal welfare.
8. Punishment as penalty for sin is never imposed on anyone but the sinner. Except in the medicinal sense explained in the preceding paragraph, the sins of parents are not visited on the children who are in no sense partakers of their parents' sins. In spiritual matters, no one suffers loss without some fault of his own. Therefore, penalties, whether material or spiritual, are not inflicted on one person for another's sin.
88. Venial and Mortal Sin
1. Mortal sin utterly destroys the order which directs the soul by reason and God's law; it inflicts on the soul damage that is naturally irreparable. Venial sin is a disorder, but not a destructive one.
2. By their genus, or general essential class, some sins are mortal and some are venial.
3. Venial sin may dispose the sinner to commit mortal sin, not by its nature (for it is generically different from mortal sin) but by its consequences in the soul. For venial sin may accustom the soul to disorder. Or, by its own disorder, venial sin may remove from the soul some special barrier which kept out mortal sin.
4. A venial sin cannot grow into a mortal sin. But, inasmuch as it can dispose to mortal sin, it may be followed by mortal sin, and by mortal sin in its own field. Thus a person who pilfers a trifling sum may, when opportunity offers, be ready to steal a great amount. But this is not a case of a little sin becoming a big sin. The big sin is an entirely new act of the sinner's will. Both the big and the little sin offend against justice, but they are not in the same essential class of sins against justice, for one is mortal and the other venial sin. These sins may look the same, and one may be inclined to think that they differ, not in generic kind, but only in degree. This is an error. Jabbing a man with a pin, even repeatedly, is never the same thing as running a sword through the man's heart. The sword thrust is not merely an enlarged pin puncture. Between annoying a man with a pin and killing a man with a sword, there is more than a difference of degree. There is an essential difference in the kind of deed done.
5. Therefore, no circumstance can turn a venial sin into a mortal sin. For when a circumstance "changes the nature of a sin," it is more than a circumstance; it is a new sin added to, or amalgamated with, the sin of which it is called a circumstance. A theft from a church is said to be a sin of injustice with a circumstance of place which changes its nature and makes it a sacrilege. But the theft is still a theft; that fact is not changed when it becomes a sacrilegious theft. We have not here the case of a theft being turned into a sacrilege, but of a theft having the nature of sacrilege added to its own nature as theft. The "change" induced by a circumstance is the change of something simple into something complex because of the addition or annexation of an entirely new sin to the unchanged old sin.
6. Nor can a mortal sin become a venial sin. Of course, a sin which is mortal in its kind may be venial in its performance. This happens when the sinner does not fully advert to the grievous character of his act, or when he does not give his full consent to the sin. But such a sin, as committed, is simply a venial sin. It is not a mortal sin reduced to venial status.
89. Venial Sin
1. Venial sin does not leave a stain on the soul, as mortal sin does. Venial sin is like a passing cloud which puts the soul into shadow, but leaves no mark on the soul itself. Mortal sin is like an ink-dripping cloth which leaves a stain on what it has touched.
2. St. Paul (I Cor. 3:12) speaks of venial sins under the names of wood, hay, stubble. These are such things as may be found in a man's house, and may be burned up without burning the house itself. And venial sins may be multiplied in a person, even as wood, hay, and stubble may be stored up in quantity in a house. Such venial sins are capable of being "burned up" by the penance of temporal punishment in this life or in purgatory, while the house of the soul still stands.
3. Man in his primal innocence could not have committed a venial sin. The first sin of man had to be a mortal sin. For venial sin comes of disorder in the sensitive appetites or in reason itself. But man in the state of innocence had "an unerring stability of order." Until mortal sin brought disorder, the irregularities and imperfections which occasion venial sin did not exist. Therefore, the first human sin was a mortal sin.
4. The angels could not have sinned venially. The angels have not parts or elements; they have no sentient appetites, no passions to become inordinate. They are pure spirits. No inordinateness is possible in an angel except complete, total, entire inordinateness. And such inordinateness is mortal sin. Hence the fallen angels sinned mortally. The good angels are now in glory and cannot commit sin. The fallen angels are in the essential disorder of mortal sin; this they reiterate or emphasize in all their acts; hence all these acts are mortal sins.
5. The sins of persons not of the faith are less grievous than sins of Catholics. For unbelievers do not know the malice of sin as believers do. When believers sin, they "sin against the light"; unbelievers are always in at least partial darkness. In anyone, believer or unbeliever, the beginning or first movement of sensuality is not a mortal sin, for this beginning-movement has not yet the approval of the will which is required to make a sin mortal.
6. When an unbaptized person comes to the use of reason, he will, according to this capacity, begin to direct his life to its true end. If he knowingly fails to do this, he is guilty of mortal sin. Before he comes to responsible life (that is, to the use of reason), an unbaptized person is in the state of original sin, but is incapable of committing actual sin. When he becomes capable of actual sin, and commits it, his first sin is necessarily mortal sin. It is impossible for a person to be guilty of venial sin with original sin alone.