EVEN a superficial acquaintance with Catholic morals, scholastic as well as mystical, ought to prevent any one from reproaching the Church with looking at things only from the outside and with teaching external justification. The precise form and emphatic assertion of the principle of sola fides shows every thoughtful critic that the original difference between the Catholic and Protestant religions was not the alternative "faith or works," but "faith alone" or "faith and works." In order to conceal the interior contradictions of his system, Luther charged Catholicism with teaching a purely external morality, and this charge has been made the main point of Protestant controversy, and it recurs with an astounding persistency. There are few points on which one feels so strongly tempted to agree with Newman, in saying that Protestants have always looked at everything Catholic through a telescope and have associated with Catholics as with the deaf and dumb, instead of asking a few questions or consulting a simple Catholic book.
It is hardly credible that a professor in a school oration should assert that the Catholic Church demanded of Christians nothing but good works, "and was indifferent as to the disposition or sentiments in which they were performed"; and that, until the time of Luther, the Church looked only at externals, "but cared nothing as to a man's heart." It is difficult to believe that a German Protestant paper could print such a sentence as this: "In the life of a Catholic, works are everything; and the intention, that we Protestants regard as the chief thing, is nothing to them."{1} Even a historian such as Treitschke undertakes to say that Luther accomplished an imperishable task "by reestablishing the doctrine that good works without a good intention are worthless."{2}
Theologians are more cautious, but though they generally avoid bringing such obviously false charges against Catholicism, they still overlook the true unity and depth of its teaching and maintain that Catholics do not regard the work of securing salvation as one uniform, absolute process, but break it up into a succession of many single acts. They discover the reason for this in the fact that the Church takes a wrong view of the inwardness of the religious and moral life, and looks at deeds rather than intentions and at things rather than at persons. In this way the moral law is split up into a number of separate requirements, estimated according to their magnitude; quantitative distinctions between good and evil and between mortal and venial sin take a prominent place and determine the moral worth or unworthiness of the individual. Protestantism, on the other hand, compresses the process of salvation into the one point of faith, and values all that is external simply as evidence of what is internal, and all action simply as the result of the intention; it stands, therefore, in their opinion, on a higher level with reference to its conception of morality.{3}
If morality is considered only with regard to its highest and ultimate aim, and man only in his spiritual aspect, there is certainly a temptation to adopt a false "uniformity" and concentrate all moral action and being on one point. For the resolution to do everything for God must embrace all the relations of life, and the will, whose business it is to form this resolution, actually possesses, as the spiritual and universal principle, the power to accomplish this complete surrender to God. If, on the other hand, in considering the object of morality one fixes his eyes chiefly upon its more immediate, relative aims and, with regard to its subject, looks only at exterior actions and efforts, he will naturally consider moral development as progressive and the moral state as a sum of qualities and powers. Pagan and Jewish morals erred through adopting the latter one-sided opinion, In the history of the Christian Church false mysticism occasionally encouraged an exaggerated monism, in its desire to deliver the elect at once from all the pains and uncertainty involved in progress and to bring them at once to rest in God. This was prompted partly by the prominence assigned to the final aim of religion, which is peculiar to Christian ethics, and also to tracing the new life of justice back to an immediate act of grace on the part of God, as contained in the Christian doctrine of justification.{4}
If we look, in the first place, at the historical evolution of the Christian life, the contrast between the Catholic and the Protestant theory is clearly marked by a decision of the Council of Trent: "If any one says that justice once received cannot be preserved before God and increased by good works, but that works are only fruits and tokens of the justification obtained, . . . let him be anathema."{5} With regard to this canon Gass remarks that it contradicts Luther's doctrine, "according to which the justice perceived in Christ, and appropriated by the sinner to cover up (tegere) his sins, always remains the same, needs no active works to preserve it, and is capable of no growth."{6}
This Protestant theory is, he thinks, untenable "in this form; it is based upon an obsolete psychology, for, even if justice cannot increase in its religious and historical signification, still the moral personality of the man appropriating it grows indirectly, and the man himself becomes stronger through acquiring fresh powers of will and self-determination." The "psychology" of Luther's age cannot be blamed for his untenable opinion of the moral process. The growth of the moral personality by the reception and appropriation of higher powers, which, as Gass emphasizes, is a fact recognized by modern psychology, was declared by scholasticism to be the essence of that progress which a Christian living in grace should display. St. Thomas Aquinas, too, says that the objective basis of grace, viz., God's goodness, is unchanging; therefore grace and charity can grow only in the way that "one man is more perfectly enlightened by the light of grace than another." He says that "the subject shares in charity to a greater extent the more he prepares for and submits to it," and that charity "takes deeper root" and "the likeness of the Holy Ghost is more perfectly reproduced in the soul."{7} No particularly profound psychology is needed to enable any one to see that, in speaking of moral purity and sanctity, we are referring only to "man himself," "to his moral personality," and that growth can only be expected from it and not from the religious and historical foundation of justice, i.e., the work of redemption.
Luther, however, did not grasp this simple fact, and this was due to his new and mistaken "theology," to his doctrine of the imputed justice of Christ, that merely conceals but does not remove sins, and has no effect upon "man himself." Such a forensic act of forgiveness is certainly incapable of development or growth; it cannot produce any truly moral disposition, but a certainty of salvation which finds comfort in the Redeemer in spite of a bad conscience. Only from such a standpoint as this could Luther have asserted that the act of faith made all men "just as holy as Mary and the other saints."{8}
Whoever adopts the interpretation given on page 159 and believes that, according to Luther's teaching, grace is lost by grievous sins, to be immediately restored by fresh acts of faith, so that a Christian is always falling and rising again, "living on the forgiveness of sins," altogether abandons the idea of a "uniform" and complete state of morality and acceptability to God, and thus every trace of the superiority claimed for the Protestant standpoint disappears. In order to uphold this claim, others refer to the evidence of justification and the sanctity resulting from it; others again to the moral struggle between the spirit of Christ and evil inclinations, in which struggle the former gradually prevails and the good disposition becomes firmly established and brings forth fruit. But they cannot deny that Luther regarded this sanctification as of less importance than faith, and that he derived the true consecration and life of the soul from faith alone, and did not even admit that moral actions could increase the inner worth of an individual.{9} In this way a dividing line is drawn between religion and morals, between faith and its outward manifestation, and thus the boasted unity in Luther's conception of the Christian life is seen to have no foundation.
In discussing how the life of a Christian develops in time, Catholicism adopts a point of view which, whilst recognizing the relative, changing, and progressive aspect of all created things, does not overlook the absolute, permanent, and essential side of morality. The process of conversion and sanctification is by no means split up "into a number of atomistic acts"; the essential sanctification of an individual, his transition from sin to a child of God, appears as one, momentary act. The Catholic theory is misunderstood, partly because the preliminary steps taken by the sinner, which dispose him for the reception of grace, are confused with justification. The former require as a rule a certain amount of time, but the latter is accomplished suddenly, both in the sacrament of penance and in awakening perfect contrition.
St. Thomas, like all Catholic theologians, teaches that "the infusion of grace takes place in a moment, not gradually." The act of the will, by which a man turns to God in love, occupies no length of time; the transition from darkness to light, from death to life, from purely created existence to the higher divine mode of being, is accomplished in one indivisible act of becoming.{10} There is no intermediate condition between the state of sin and that of grace; between the union with God that we call justice and friendship with God, and the separation from Him that characterizes the fall from grace. In opposition to Luther, the Church understands the biblical words referring to our rebirth in a mystical and positive sense, thus showing plainly how "absolute and uniform" the new life of the Christian is in her sight, in contrast with a mere enhancement of the natural life.
The same biblical words guarantee also the other truth, that a definite exclusion of what lies in the past does not preclude a development in the future, and that the point where the old existence ends is not a terminus, but the beginning of an upward trend of life. A judicial act of amnesty and the imputation of another's merit may have unity and limitation in the first sense, but the procreation and birth of a human being have unity and completeness in the second. A development of life, ever producing something new, follows upon the moment of origin; and this one, permanent life unfolds its powers, sometimes with joyful growth, sometimes in conflict with troubles and sickness. The same union of a fixed and a movable element occurs in our love of God, which we have seen to be the moral expression of the life of grace. It must be a love "above everything" and "from the whole heart," a complete surrender of all that is personal to the highest Good. It requires us to abandon all that is displeasing to God and to resolve to be loyal to Him in all circumstances of life. Even the lowest degree of caritas, according to St. Thomas, excludes mortal sin. But this exaltation and perfection of soul are not quietistic and unfruitful, certain of salvation, like Luther's faith; for love involves entering into the mind of the beloved, partaking in his interests and aims. God is infinite, and the tasks that He has set us cannot be measured and so our love must necessarily procced from rest to action, and by means of holy activity it must develop its own being in likeness to and conformity with God. This development of the soul in the state of grace is not something belonging to a lower, secondary stage of life, as Luther taught -- it is the development of the life of faith and grace itself, and is filled with its divine dignity and everlasting importance.
There can be no doubt that this Catholic theory is found in the New Testament. By baptism we become "new creatures" and "saints," and it marks an absolute beginning, the implanting of a new and higher being in man. At first this new life is delicate and rudimentary; Christians are called "little ones" and "children," who can digest only milk, not solid food; but gradually they grow to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ and become "perfect."{11} The life of the inward man is "renewed day by day"; the zealous Christian advances in the light of faith "from glory to glory," and "he that is just, let him be justified still, and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still."{12} Although love is a complete and unconditional surrender of the heart, it can still vary in degree, it can advance and stumble; it can bring forth fruit in greater or less abundance, and consequently there are differences in sanctity and in the heavenly harvest resulting from it.{13}
With reference to St. Paul, there have been lively discussions among Protestant theologians, leading to what can only be described as a confirmation of the Catholic theory. A. Ritschl pointed out that, in considering his relation to God, the apostle does not by any means manifest that constant discontent which Luther desires to awaken in man as a motive for faith in Christ. Wernle went further and denied that St. Paul, apart from occasional moods, felt himself to be a sinner at all. "Paul arrived at that total deliverance from sin which a Protestant is accustomed to hope for only in the world to come"; he expected of his readers, not further moral development, but completed righteousness.{14}
In answer to these statements, Gottschick, Jacoby, Braun, and others have shown that the truth lies midway between the extremes; that a Christian is indeed raised above sin and, leaving his evil past behind him, advances joyfully in the consciousness that he is the child of God. But the life of salvation is not a thing completed, it is a "beginning," subject "to development"; and this development is not always in a straight line, but it meets with many obstacles, swervings from the path, and trials, which show the need of vigilance and humility, and mingle the triumph of victory with the pain and sorrow of conflict. St. Paul knows that it is possible for a man to fall back into his former state and to sin in the fullest sense of the word, but he recognizes also unavoidable minor faults and imperfections. "Transgressions that are to be regarded as sins due to want of thought may occur even in the life of a normal Christian, and in this sense Paul also probably adopted the prayer of the publican and the fifth petition of the Paternoster."{15} Here we touch upon another aspect of the problem; viz., the question how unity and multiplicity are interwoven in the object of morality. The description of the smaller faults, that St. Paul ascribes even to a normal Christian life, tallies perfectly with the Catholic idea of venial sin, which Protestant controversialists are in the habit of regarding as evidence of our superficial conception of morality.
Catholic morals preserve the right mean between two extremes with reference also to the substance and matter of moral activity. In the development of a moral code, it is not enough to have a high standard, it must be comprehensive in order to bring unity and multiplicity, the absolute and the relative, into their due relations. Our opponents say that Catholicism allows the intention, the interior personality, to be obscured by works and external aims that are promoted or retarded, attained or rejected; they maintain that the Church judges of good works, the same as of sins, by their magnitude, and not according to the purity or malice of the personal intention. If we take the word "intention" in its widest sense, the question resolves itself into this: Is it in accordance with Catholic teaching or practice to describe as moral an exterior work or result unaccompanied by any mental understanding or volition? It is an elementary principle in Catholic morals that understanding and freedom are essential to the morality of an act. A sin committed without consciousness and freedom, is no sin at all; an act of heroism, performed by a man who is asleep or intoxicated, is not meritorious. "A thing enters into the sphere of morality inasmuch as it is voluntary."{16} "He who has a will is said to he good so far as he has a good will; because it is by our will that we employ whatever powers we may have."{17} "An ignorance, which with our best efforts we cannot overcome, is called ignorantia invincibilis. Such ignorance is not a sin, because it is not voluntary, and because it is not in our power to remove it."{18} "Sin resides essentially in the act of the free will, which is the faculty of desire and reason."{19} "Sin is possible by means of the senses in as far as the senses are subject to the reason."{20} "Virtues exist in the appetitive faculties only in a derivative sense. In their original and primary meaning they reside in the reason and will, because the essential act of moral virtue is choice, and this belongs to the reasonable will. In its subsequent effects, however, choice has a bearing upon the emotions of the vis irascibilis and concupiscibilis."{21}
There is no need to make further quotations from Catholic authors in support of this principle; it is stated as the most obvious and elementary truth in every work on morals. So much stress is laid upon the inner direction of the will that moralists are almost unanimous in saying that the outward carrying out of a good or bad resolution does not affect its morality, it only causes it to overflow upon the outward act, except in the case where the outward action reacts in a stimulating and strengthening manner upon the will.{22}
The great importance attached to the inner necessity and to freedom is shown by the fine distinctions between different degrees of consent on the part of the will, especially in the case of sin. There are sins of ignorance, passion, and malice. In all some amount of perception of the evil of sin, and some freedom in consenting to it, are taken for granted; but the wickedness and responsibility of the act are diminished if the insight and freedom of the mind have been clouded by erroneous representations or passionate emotions. A sin of malice, however, being an act of a perverted will, is altogether wicked and its guilt is unmitigated. This sin is in a higher degree peculiar to the will," having originated in it; it affects matters of principle, is more permanent and harder to cure than sins committed through passion.{23}
In estimating the freedom of and responsibility for a man's moral actions, account must be taken of his habitual dispositions and the good and evil tendencies inherent in his soul. In opposition to the false principle that an unbeliever commits sins even in his involuntary evil impulses, St. Thomas{24} remarks that those who presume this to be the case must assume these impulses to be much more sinful in the case of believers, since, ceteris paribus, a believer, by committing the same sin as an unbeliever, sins more grievously than the latter.{25}
This true remark can be used against Luther's opinion that the stirring of concupiscence is an actual sin, imputed as such to an unbeliever, but covered over and forgiven in the case of a believer. It is one of the glories of Catholic morals to have always upheld free, intellectual origin of morality against every deterministic attack; and scholasticism did much to remove certain obscurities on this subject in the teaching of St. Augustine and of theologians in the early mediaeval period. In Luther's teaching, and that of sects akin to him (Jansenism), we at once meet with a confusion of physical and moral ideas and an undervaluing of the free, personal element in man's actions. Even at the present time Protestants regard purely natural and indifferent things as moral faults and real sins; they feel obliged to deny the sanctity of men like St. Jerome and St. Augustine, because they had to struggle against an irritable temperament and temptations to sensuality. Such a view obscures the inward character and personal determination of morality, and Kant's saying, that in the whole world nothing was valuable except a good will, is denied its true signification. How definite and clear in contrast is the formula of the Catholic principle as given by our teachers of morals: "An act is called moral which has to do with the morals of a man, or in which a man, by his personal self-determination, imposes on himself an inward code which makes him worthy of praise or blame. This is done by free and deliberate acts, and only in this way."{26}
Great emphasis is therefore laid, in Catholic morality, upon inward character, upon the fact that a deed is the free expression of the will; and surely this is what is meant by "intention." In comparison with the deed and its immediate result, there is a reference to a higher intention, to which the immediate reality is subordinated. In almsgiving we must look not only at the willingness to part with one's property, but at the deeper motives for giving it away. An injury to one's neighbour must be judged in one way if it is done to avenge a crime or to defend one's honour, and in another if it is the outcome of a base desire for gain. Does Catholic moral teaching overlook the importance of motives and aims? Does it regard only the amount given in alms, the length of time spent in prayer, the actual value of a thing stolen, without seriously taking into account the inward motives for such actions? If so it may well be charged with encouraging pagan and pharisaical opinions. But we have already seen that, according to the unanimous teaching of our moralists, for a deed to be morally good, the end in view, the means taken, and the circumstances accompanying the deed must be good. We must desire what is good, and desire it for the sake of what is good (propter bonum, sub ratione boni). In judging of the morality of an action, we have to distinguish the external act itself and the internal will that prompts it.
"Each of these acts has its own peculiar object. The final end in view is, in the proper sense, the object of the inward act of the will, and the matter of the outward activity is the object of the latter. Just as the outward activity is specifically determined by its object, so the inward act of the will receives its specific character from the end in view, as its own peculiar object. What proceeds from the will is the formal element in relation to the exterior activity, for the will makes use of the organs as its instruments, and outward actions are moral only in as far as they are voluntary. Hence the specific character of human action is considered formally in accordance with the end in view, and materially in accordance with the object of its external activity. Thus Aristotle says that a man who steals in order to commit adultery is an adulterer rather than a thief."{27}
"A will cannot be called good if an evil intention underlies it. A man who gives alms in order to win vain reputation, wills to do what is in itself good from the point of view of evil, In the way in which he wills it, it is evil; therefore his will also is evil."{28}
Since there are certain aims which generally confuse and bewilder a man's moral sense, because they urge themselves as objects of his daily actions and lower his "intention," the Catholic teaching has, since the time of the Fathers of the Church, recognized and resisted the passions corresponding to them as the seven chief sins. Many learned treatises on morals, and many popular books on confession, as well as allegorical representations in art, direct attention to their disastrous influence. On the other hand, the virtues are represented not only as a series of good actions, but as a habitus; i.e., as inward moral conditions which through constant practice take root in the soul, overcome its natural indifference and selfishness, and give it a firm and joyous inclination to what is good. Thus morals do not merely aim at intention in general, in the way Kant describes it, but at an intention which more and more overcomes psychological obstacles in doing what is good, and by loyal fulfilment of duty and endurance of labour arrives at a morality that is natural in the higher sense of the word -- i.e., spontaneous -- and full of vigour and zeal.
"The goodness or badness of the will depends chiefly upon its aim --i.e., upon that on which the will is set; and quiet concentration of the will and of every effort on what is good is joy; hence from the joy of the human will it is possible to recognize a good or a bad man. He is good and virtuous who rejoices in works of virtue; he is bad who delights in evil deeds."{29}
These principles are accepted by Catholic theologians without any exception, and even their opponents bear witness to the fact of their doing so by reproaching them with allowing the "direction of the intention," the interior "reference to the end in view, and the "good disposition" to influence unduly the morality of actions. These very charges show that our moralists properly lay great stress upon the moral aim. If their opponents were not accustomed simply to repeat, without examining them, all the old objections to Catholic morals, they could not adopt such phrases as "justification by works" and "the end sanctifles the means." They would have to consider the "subtle scholastics" and "shrewd Jesuits" to be so dull and stupid as to teach that the objective wickedness of an action disappears when it is performed with a good intention, whereas its goodness and merit remain no matter what the intention and disposition may be with which it is done.
A deeper and more general meaning may be assigned to the word "intention." Above the aims and virtues rises one highest aim and ideal of morality. Catholic moral teaching requires our direction of all actions and desires to this highest aim and final end of morality; and this direction in its highest and most efficacious form is the love of God, the central virtue of a Christian life, the "soul" of all other virtues.
Many modern writers speak of moral disposition thoughtlessly without asking in what it consists and what it really tends to. Intention is the direction of the will, of affections and endeavours; a purely subjective intention, without aim and object, is plainly a contradiction. St. Augustine says, "Virtue is to love, but to love that which is worthy of love." "Love, but take care what you love!"{30}
Christianity teaches the love and fear of God as the fundamental intention in morality; this is its most intelligible form, and one that satisfies all philosophical thought. The Catechism teaches the child that the aim of his life is to love and serve God, and he is advised to consecrate all his daily occupations by doing them for the glory of God. Theology demands a relatio operum in Deum, a thorough and habitual relation of all actions to God, so that "the force of this first direction to the final end remains in all subsequent actions, as also the force of the highest aim remains in all subordinate aims."{31} In any case it recognizes no merit unless the disposition to love God resides in the heart, together with sanctifying grace. "By love the soul is unifed with God, who is the life of the soul, just as the soul is the life of the body"; works not brought into connection with this vital principle are "dead."{32}
St. Thomas states emphatically that the absolute value of morality and the essential happiness of heaven depends upon "the intensity of the love, not the greatness of the works"; for God regards the motive more than the magnitude of the action (Deus magis pensat, ex quanto, quam quantum fiat).{33} This sentence seems to have been written with a view to refuting beforehand the Protestant accusation that Catholicism has a "quantitative" method of judging moral actions.
Here, too, as with all ideals and profound obligations, the realization is often far behind the theory. In barbarous times, and when men are rough and uneducated, their thoughts and aims are often fixed upon the external, realistic aspect of good and evil, since this only is within their comprehension. The Church in her instructions and penitential discipline was forced to lay stress upon an earnest obedience of the moral law, and ignorant or short-sighted critics might misunderstand her so far as to suppose that she attached equal importance to this outward compliance with the law as to the inward disposition; but such a mistake is possible only where there is inadequate knowledge or a culpable ignorance of the principles laid down by the Church. A more general difficulty is found in the supernatural dignity of the Christian aim in life. It is not so easy to lift the ordinary occupations of daily life naturally and spontaneously to the height of a religious ideal, as it is to value them according to their human results and to work them up into a business system. Where the thought of God is not a lively one and does not permeate a man's whole existence, and where there is a failure to grasp the moral duties in their connection with one another, we often find unhappily that piety and the faithful discharge of duty in things of this earth diverge, and that love of God has not yet become the element in life which glorifies and dominates everything else, even the smallest temporal details, social courtesy, and attention to one's calling.{34}
Secular writers on speculative ethics criticise Protestant piety in the same way, and perhaps more sharply; and the human element, which always attaches to what is sacred, is by no means enough to account for the obstinacy and violence with which Protestant controversialists accuse the Catholic Church of undervaluing the inward disposition to morality.
There is, as a matter of fact, a real conflict of principles underlying this charge. At the outset Protestant ethics emphasized the inner disposition so pointedly that activity had to suffer harm; the eye of the mind was directed to God in so spiritual a fashion that the moral value of created things was overlooked. Catholic moral teaching insists upon the moral disposition and the religious unity of all morality, but within this disposition and unity it strictly maintains the importance of individual duties. If the works, with regard to their value, depend upon the intention, to some extent the intention depends upon the works. There are actions so positively good or bad that they cannot be performed with a contrary intention, and their occurrence eo ipso reveals a good or bad disposition, although ineffectual nobler tendencies may run parallel to it. A man cannot truly love and honour his parents if he disobeys their earnest and reasonable commands; nor can he possess the purest patriotism if he evades payment of the taxes due to the state. In the same way a moral disposition is not a mere good-natured, ideal enthusiasm for the welfare of humanity, nor is it a quietistic absorption in God, but an inner adherence to a real order, branching off in many directions, upon which depend the welfare of mankind and the glory of God. Luther says explicitly: "In this faith all works are equal and one is the same as another; all difference vanishes between works, whether they be great, small, short, long, many, or few. For the works are not pleasing for their own sake, but for the sake of the faith, which alone and without distinction is present, works, and lives in each and every deed, no matter how many and how various they may be, just as all the members receive life from the head, and move and have their name; and without the head no limb can live, move, or have a name."{35}
This principle still affects Protestantism. Harnack remarks that, in applying it to the Catholic doctrine of justification by works, Luther was opposing the fundamental error of the view adopted by the moralists and Pelagians, "as if anything but God Himself had any value before God"; also that in this way he destroyed the "refined dualism" that runs through the whole Catholic theory of Christianity.{36}
Thus many utterances of modern ethics are based, consciously or unconsciously, upon the principle that, in comparison with the ideal aim of our thoughts, "all differences in works disappear" and that all individual rules are consumed by the glow of faith. There is occasionally a touch of historical irony when, for instance, the "Deutsche Evangelische Frauenbund," in its declaration of principles against the modern views of life and marriage, said in 1910: "Modern ethical teaching is dangerous on matters of principle, and is consciously hostile to Christianity, although, when occasion serves, it quotes passages from the Bible, torn out of their proper context. In its exaggerated individualism it values only the motive, and never the act, and obliterates the differences between our judgment of an action and our judgment of the man performing it."{37}
It was Luther who introduced and spread this "exaggerated individualism." With the intention of representing faith and inward confidence in God as the essence of Christian piety, he fell into the fatal error of describing the relations of creatures to one another, and the works resulting from these relations, as purely external, placing all on an absolute equality. "Thou hast no duty to God but to believe in Him and confess Him; in all other things He leaveth thee free and unfettered, so that thou mayst do as thou wilt, without any danger of conscience."{38}
This liberty is restricted only by consideration for one's neighbour, not by any thought of the interior opposition offered by certain actions to the very essence and wisdom of God. "In God's sight it does not matter whether a man leaves his wife or not, for the body is not united to God, but given freely for all outward purposes, and it is God's only internally by faith; but in the sight of men the marriage bond must be preserved."{39} Luther had recourse to the same argument in attacking the doctrine of opera supererogatoria, the higher dignity of the religious life, etc., and many theologians of the present day do the same; but the fact should not be overlooked from whence the argument is derived, and that its disastrous results are far-reaching.
The first and most inevitable of these results is that not only all good works, but also all sins, not immediately referring to God, are perfectly equal. For if the value of the action and the inner perfection of things are not taken into account when a man turns in faith to God, they are equally unimportant when he turns away from Him. We can understand, therefore, why Luther considered it a "harmful error" on the part of the Sophists "to distinguish sins secundum substantiam facti; i.e., according to the works in themselves and not according to the faith or want of faith in the agent. A believer commits just as grievous sins as an unbeliever, but in the case of the believer they are forgiven and not imputed to him, whilst in that of the unbeliever they are retained and imputed, and so to a believer that sin is pardonable which is mortal to an unbeliever."{40}
Harnack, too, declares it to be one of the chief points in the Evangelical faith that it does not distinguish between one sin and another, as Catholicism does."{41} Some moralists, Melanchthon amongst others, disagree with Luther on this point and discriminate between grievous and slighter transgressions "according to their substance"; but how can they then endorse Luther's fundamental statements regarding good works and even commend them?
When Luther says that sin is not imputed to the believer, we see another result of his principle. What he calls "pardonable" sin is not the same as "venial" sin in the Catholic sense, but has ceased to be sin at all, since no guilt is attached to it. If, with reference to the final aim of religion, all relative values are alike, then they have no real significance for it at all; and if all acts of earthly morality are "equal" before God, they become perfectly indifferent. If murder and adultery are not in themselves worse than the unavoidable daily faults, then transgression of the moral law loses its absolute character, and the only sin capable of separating man from God is unbelief. This line of argument brings us back again to the conclusion that, in Luther's opinion, faith is compatible with sin. Harnack makes the same deduction, for immediately after the passage quoted above, in which he declares the equality of all sins to be a Protestant doctrine, he goes on to say that "a Christian lives on the forgiveness of sin, and in spite of sin and guilt is a child of God."
If we wish to discover the fundamental error in Luther's views, we shall find the clue to it in Harnack's statement that Luther was opposing the theory "that anything had any value in God's sight except Himself." This is undeniably a thorough uprooting of the "refined dualism" of Catholic morals, but in itself it is nothing but refined pantheism. History supplies us with many instances of it; the equality of all good works and sins was taught by the pantheistic Stoics and Hindoos, by the Gnostics in the early ages of Christianity, and by some mystics with pantheistic tendencies in the Middle Ages. If God is everything and things created exist only in appearance, then no significance can be attached to any action aimed at anything created, and this is avowed Pantheism.{42}
The false deduction of refined, practical Pantheism is this: "If morality in the highest sense is derived from faith or love, and if without this reference to God no work is truly moral, then the value of the work in God's sight is determined, not by its character, but by the fact of faith or love; and consequently to one in good faith all works are alike." We might just as truly argue thus: "If in the night everything looks black, and if it is the sunlight that imparts to bodies their colour and brilliancy, then in this one light all things must assume the same colour and lustre." Or, to use a metaphor employed by Luther himself: "If all the members derive their life from the head, and without the head no member can live or move or have a name," then it follows that eye and ear, heart and brain are not distinguishable at all in their action or in their objects. The latter conclusions are obviously false, and it is equally false to say that "as works are not pleasing to God for their own sake, but on account of faith, they are all alike and there is no difference between them."
God is the Sun in Christianity, but not a sun that by its brilliancy destroys all created beauty; but He is a sun which, as the efficient cause, calls all created things into being and makes them reveal the splendour of their various colours, and also, as the final end of morality, raises all created ideals and aims to the clear light of morality, though their moral beauty and dignity vary greatly.
Love is the soul of all Christian actions, not a soul which, as in the lowest organisms, animates the body without reference to particular functions, but one that controls a very highly developed organism, assigning to every organ a particular task and to every sense a specific energy. In God's sight not He alone is of value, but His regard includes the universe, created by Him with such infinite wisdom, and, above all, the human race, to each individual of which He has appointed his place and his round of moral duties.{43}
St. Thomas solves the sophism, that has confused so many intellects, in the following way: "The equality of all virtuous acts seems to be supported by the fact that a work receives the quality of being virtuous from the aim of all good; hence, as all good actions are directed to one moral end, they might all appear to be good in the same degree. But although there is only one highest aim of the good, the actions, deriving their goodness from it, receive goodness in various degrees. There are differences of degree among the good acts directed to the final end, according as they are more perfect and closer to the final end. Therefore, in the will and its acts also, there are gradations of goodness, according to the diversity of the good things to which the will and its actions are directed, although the final end is the same."{44}
In the Catholic theory of morals the recognition of an absolute Good, whence the peculiar consecration, obligation, and merit of good deeds are derived, is connected with the recognition of a relative good, on which the diversity and the specific gradation of moral acts are based.
The goods connected with family life, property, honour, civil government, culture, etc., receive in the light of the highest aim, a moral and in so far an absolute significance; but the peculiar character of each is retained and the duties of continence, justice, patriotism, and piety are specifically different, although they all possess the common character of duty.
The same is true of the differences and degrees within the province of the same duty. If the acts, of creatures and their significance in personal and social life are to be recognized as having a moral value, their diversity must have definite effects upon morality; and here we reach the dreaded "quantitative valuation" of good works and sins. If an injury to the rights of property is not only a breach of the law, but a moral offence, a sin, then the theft of a costly object cannot, in either ethics or law, be precisely the same as the theft of a less valuable thing. Where the circumstances are the same, a theft of one hundred dollars cannot involve the same degree of sinfulness as a theft of fifty dollars. If, from the moral point of view, the difference of fifty dollars is nothing, then the first fifty dollars stolen must also be nothing. To poison a whole community must be a more serious sin than to kill one person; if the loss of life of the greater number does not affect the moral valuation of the act, then the loss of one life cannot deserve notice.
Hence the "actual" valuation of a moral act, though not its essential and most important aspect, is inseparably connected with the foundations of all morals. If in the light of faith all works are equal, morality ceases to be anything but a general, vague "disposition" to wish to do right. Such a disposition does not of itself induce men to be moral. For if all things are equal in God's sight, if one aim set before creatures is not more moral than another, why should "faith" or a "moral disposition" make a man choose to do one thing rather than another, prefer chastity to impurity, honesty to theft? Just as soon as we ignore the inner nature of things and their inherent determination to some end, and declare them to be morally indifferent, the moral impulse is confronted with a chaotic mass of indifferent possibilities, and moral freedom of choice degenerates into blind license, and finally in complete lawlessness. If I resolve to found a refuge for the sick or for orphans, for the glory of God, I must necessarily recognize the work as good in itself before I can perform it as an act of homage to God.
Hence St. Thomas and the Catholic moralists teach that what is indifferent may be sanctified by a good aim, but not directly by the highest aim; I cannot say: "I will stand on my head for the glory of God!" What is earthly and temporal must first be brought by its inner teleology into order with the reasonable life of mankind before it can be consecrated to God and share in eternal life. Morality is an organism of which the whole resides in its parts, but in which also the parts live each in its own way and condition the whole. Thus God's goodness, the source of all being, is at the head of all good things, and as all being emanates from God not naturally, but according to spiritual ideas, and therefore in an infinite variety of ways, so these same ideas form laws of action, characteristic links between the one highest good and the multiplicity of life.
In deciding individual questions of morals, we have to take into account the personal element, circumstances, calling, etc., as well as the objective idea. But what is there to guide any one in his deliberations if there are no individual ideas of morality to connect the concrete instance with the absolute? How can I reasonably determine my profession if all careers with their duties and dangers are morally alike and indifferent? Can circumstances alone guide me if, in thought, I cannot start with some objectively valid ideas of morality? If there are no species of good or bad, there can be no specific circumstances; if we have no degrees of goodness and badness, we cannot weigh and compare things from a moral point of view. If there is no objective standard to assist the conscience in the development of moral ideas, we shall be driven either to the subjectivity of a false mysticism, that expects a divine inspiration at every moment, or to a purely empirical utilitarianism, that regards only the temporal result of the action, or finally to anomistic quietism, which, relying on the sensation of inner union with God, dispenses with all outward morality.{45}
What has been said will lead to an understanding of the difference between mortal and venial sin. I say it will lead, for the question still remains whether the distinction between various kinds of sin is really so essential and far-reaching as, according to Catholic doctrine, is that between mortal and venial sin. But here again we perceive the correct union of the absolute and relative factors in morality, such as a consideration of human nature and of the objective foundations of morality demands. In virtue of his intellectual faculties man is able to bring together the whole of his life into one moment; by means of a total surrender of himself to God and His grace he can rise above time, above the "endless succession" of earthly existence, to a definite end of his development, that is also the beginning of a new and everlasting life. He can also sum up into one grand point of view the various objects and interests of his life, and perceive the absolute Good in human existence, the unum necessarium in the midst of distracting multiplicity. But at the same time, owing to his possession of a body and senses, he is a child of the moment, of his time and its changes, he is still subject to development, to its progress and vicissitudes. He is influenced by what is individual, subject to the impression of the senses and to advantages of this world, and in such a way that what is universal and eternal is not in every case either furthered or abandoned.
This explains, on the one hand, the possibility of mortal sin, which in its inner nature and in its punishment is absolute and eternal in character, and, on the other hand, the possibility of venial sin, the nature and punishment of which bear the mark of something relative, pertaining to the senses and temporal.{46}
St. Thomas makes the significant remark that an angel is incapable of venial sin. With the higher intellectual energy that is peculiar to him he concentrates his whole moral development, or rather decision, into one moment; with the same energy and consistency he beholds each object of his volition, even the derivative, in the light of the absolute, and in each individual decision he definitely takes up a position for or against God.{47}
It is otherwise with the pilgrim of this world. His conscience, too, refers him to God, the absolute Good; to him, too, the everlasting truths of morality are revealed in the rationes aeternae of his reason; and he, too, is able by a free decision of his will to concentrate his whole being and bring it into harmony with or opposition to the Most High and Eternal. But his actions are not always deliberate and decisive. Imperfections are possible in the accomplishment of the will; there may be acts that are not a complete expression of his personality. The sphere of sense, or "the lower reason," concerned only with temporal standards and rules, may outstrip the decision of the conscience, judging according to eternal principles. Such acts cannot amount to wore than a venial sin, since full knowledge and freedom of decision are inseparable from sin in the full meaning of the word. There are differences also in the object of the will and action, which may remove the mortal character of sin; and faults involving a disorder in the "means," in concrete temporal goods, without affecting the "final aim," the divine end of the world and of life. Not only Holy Scripture, but mankind in general, recognize the fact that there are sins which in their nature do not betray a real lapse from morality, and that there are bad actions which do not render the agent bad and worthless, but may be performed even by the just and noble. According to St. Thomas, it is characteristic of both forms of venial sin that the will does not swerve from its direction to the final aim of morality; viz., the love of God above all things, although it does so in the case of mortal sin.{48}
But what sins are mortal sins? First of all, of course, any explicit aversio a Deo, contempt of morality as such, and deliberately living according to sensuality or caprice. But not only this subversion of the moral principle, nor only hatred and blasphemy against God, diabolical pride and unbelief in Luther's sense, unrestrained worldliness, etc., are mortal sins. It is God's desire to realize and represent in the order of the universe, and especially in mankind, His own glory as the highest aim. This highest aim is the conclusion of a series or organization of aims, and whatever imperils the order of the world may destroy the moral order. Everything tending to annihilate man, made in God's likeness and the vehicle of morality, everything endangering the continued existence of the human race, God's kingdom on earth, is a blow aimed at God Himself.{49}
In examining the various departments of moral action, we must not only take its empirical effect into account, but also ask whether a mode of action, if regarded as a "general maxim," would render human order and prosperity impossible. From these points of view there is an essential difference between an offence against courtesy and an assault for purposes of robbery; between a falsehood told in jest and a slander affecting a man's honour; every reasonable person must see that this is true. It is more difficult to decide cases that lie, as it were, on the border line; here the verdict of Holy Scripture and of the teaching authority of the Church, as also the development of Christian thought, have thrown much light; and the more the underlying conditions of duty vary with time and place, the more weight must be attached to the reasonable formation of the individual conscience. After what has been said above, however, it is plain that everywhere the distinction between mortal and venial sin and a "real valuation" of offences is unavoidable.{50}
Linsenmann, a Catholic theologian, has discussed the scholastic distinction between mortal and venial sin, but although his opinions have met with applause in some quarters, they cannot be accepted as justifiable on some essential points. With reference to St. Thomas's definition of mortal sin as an aversio a fine, and of venial as a deordinatio, he remarks that St. Thomas was aiming at a notional expression and succeeded only in giving a figurative one.{51}
This may be true if we assign to the word finis the meaning, let us say, of the end of a journey, but not if, like St. Thomas, we understand it to be the final aim of morality, Good in its highest and absolutely binding form. It is unfair to bring this charge against St. Thomas as, immediately after giving the formal definition, he goes on to determine the notions thus: "As it is charity which orders men to their highest aim, all that is contrary to charity is mortal sin; it may be against the love of God, as blasphemy, perjury, etc., or against the love of our neighbour, as murder, adultery, etc."{52}
Does not this cover what Linsenmann terms "malice" of the will? Although, as we have seen, St. Thomas and the other moralists refer particularly to the greater or less amount of disturbance caused in the moral order, as was pointed out above, this is actually of more importance in distinguishing mortal and venial sins than is the "psychological" distinction, that Linsenmann prefers, between sins of malice and sins of frailty. Not every venial sin is "due to frailty" -- i.e., to a sharp moral temptation -- nor is it "regretted as soon as it is committed." There are also "small sins of malice," the consequence of which may be momentary annoyance, but not real destruction of friendship. There are even habitual faults, defects of temperament, which one cannot call depravity, but blots on a character, such as vanity, a love of gossip, discourtesy, etc. On the other hand, some sins of frailty are not venial. Would any theologian regard St. Peter's denial as a venial sin, or the surrender of innocence, because of a "sharp moral temptation"?{53}
Linsenmann's remarks are not unreasonable where they are aimed at a superficial application of casuistic distinctions to practical life. What the theoretician and casuist cannot accomplish, must be done by the teacher or confessor; that is to say, he must take into account the connection of the individual act with the whole character, the circumstances and the probable results, and let these things guide his judgment and counsels. A habit of lying or stealing may have worse consequences in the development of a child's character than an objectively greater offence; a student who is addicted to habitual though moderate tippling may, by wasting precious time and money, do himself more harm than one who on an isolated occasion becomes completely drunk. But the accuracy of the objective determination of the sin is not affected thereby; only practice is more varied than theory, and there may be complications and compensations, that occasionally add gravity to what in itself is light, and make light what in itself is grievous.
Since the first appearance of this work the problem of mortal and venial sin has been much discussed by Catholic theologians, and therefore I may here make a few supplementary remarks that will help to elucidate the fundamental idea of scholasticism on the subject, as well as to solve some of the commonest practical difficulties. The more we study St. Thomas's teaching (and in all essentials St. Bonaventure is in complete agreement with him), and the more we consider his incidental remarks, the better do we appreciate his logical consistency, refinement, and depth, and these are the best criteria of truth. Unfortunately it is impossible here to do more than just outline the most important points in his doctrine. I will give first a consecutive and literal specimen of his line of argument.
"In order to establish the distinction between venial and mortal sin, we must notice that they differ in guilt (reatus), for mortal sin deserves eternal, and venial sin temporal punishment. But this difference follows from the nature of venial and mortal sin, and does not constitute their nature. For sin is not sin because punishment follows it, but, on the contrary, punishment follows it because it is sin. Mortal and venial sin are distinguished also by their effects, since the one deprives the soul of grace, and the other does not. But this again is not the distinction that we are seeking, since this difference in their effects follows the sin; it is because the sin is of such a kind that it has such an effect, not vice versa. . . . To make matters clear we must also take into account that sin consists in a disorder of the soul, just as sickness is a disorder of the body; sin is, as it were, a malady of the soul, and its remission is a cure of that malady. Just as there are curable and incurable maladies, so certain sins are curable or venial, and others are in themselves incurable or mortal, although they can be cured by God. But we call a malady incurable or mortal, when it affects a vital principle of life; for when such a principle is destroyed, there are no means of restoring it, and the sickness must end in death. Other ailments affect not vital principles, but conditions which flow out of these principles, and hence can be restored by them. For instance, the 'tertian ague' is due to an excess of gall, and may be overcome by the force of nature. The principle in action is the final aim.{54} The principle of the spiritual life that consists in the integrity of the action, is therefore the aim of all human action, viz., love of God and one's neighbour. 'The end of the commandment is charity.'{55} For by love the soul is united with God, who is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body. When love is excluded, mortal sin enters, and no principle of life is left that can cure the defect, although it can be cured by the Holy Ghost: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us."{56} If the lack of integrity, however, is such as not to exclude charity, it gives rise to venial sin, for such deficiencies can be made good by the charity that still remains, acting as a principle of life. 'Charity covereth all sins.'{57}
"There are two reasons why a sin may or may not exclude charity; one on the part of the sinner and the other depends on the character of the action. On the part of the sinner in two ways: in one case the sinful act involves a power of the soul that is incapable of directing itself towards the final end, and therefore incapable also of turning away from it. For this reason a mere movement of sensuality may be not a grievous, but only a venial sin, because aiming at the end belongs to the intellect alone. Conversely also, when the power of the soul, that can aspire to or reject the final end, places in opposition to this end some action not in itself contradicting it; thus for instance an idle word uttered in contempt of God, i.e., against charity, would be a mortal sin, not on account of the form of the action, but on account of the perverse will of the agent. In the second case the disagreement or compatibility with charity results from the character of the action, i.e., from its object or matter, according as this is opposed to charity or not. Just as there are certain kinds of food which destroy life, e.g., poisons, and others that do not endanger life but interfere with its orderly course, e.g., coarse and indigestible kinds of food, and also digestible kinds if consumed to excess, so amongst human actions there are some that in themselves are antagonistic to the love of God and one's neighbour, those, namely, that destroy man's obedience to and reverence for God, such as blasphemy and idolatry, and those which prevent men from living together, such as robbery and murder, -- for where such crimes are committed often and with impunity social life ceases to be possible. These actions are grievous sins in themselves, no matter with what intention or purpose they are committed. But some actions involve some amount of disorder, without directly excluding the things previously mentioned as good. For instance, if a man tells a lie, not in matters of faith nor for the injury of his neighbour, but in order to please him or further his interests; or if any one exceeds the bounds of moderation in eating or drinking. For this reason such actions are venial sins."{58}
A few further observations may be made, if we take into account the other teaching of St. Augustine, St. Thomas and the chief scholastics. In the first place there is a clear ethical meaning underlying their figurative expressions, ethical also in the sense that the distinction between mortal and venial sin is not derived from the punishment threatened, nor is it transferred into some mystical and unknown region, but the great difference in the penalty and the different effect upon the life of grace are deduced as results of the moral difference between venial and mortal sin. Nor is this difference "quantitative," produced by mere intensification and accumulation, but it is qualitative and specific, arising from contrary mental dispositions; in the one case removal of the moral basis, in the other only a digression; in the one case love of God is abandoned, in the other it is preserved; there the effect is deadly, here it is only a malady capable of cure. Mortal sin can be committed only when the final aim of life can be recognized or despised in spirit; such sin is utterly opposed to charity, which unites the inmost spirit with God the highest Good. Mortal sin is contra caritatem, venial is praeter caritatem; the former is antagonistic to the habitus or disposition of charity, the latter only to the act, the momentary activity of charity, In the case of venial sin, too, the act is disorderly and sinful, but the disposition, and therefore also the agent, remains good and pleasing to God, since the will, the centre of the personality, holds fast to the subjection of all the goods of life to God, as it betrays false pleasure and love only in the valuation of these good things. For this reason, mortal sin severs the union between God and the soul, and destroys the supernatural life; whilst venial sin interrupts the movement of the soul towards God, and checks the growth of grace. It is a gap, a break, a standing still; and in as far as we owe our whole life to God, it is a step backwards, and moreover, as confusion in the lower reacts upon the highest, it becomes a disposition to and danger of mortal sin. The consequence of sin in the future life confirms this distinction. Whoever persists in turning away from God, and passes into eternity in that disposition, remains forever aloof and cut off from Him; hell is essentially the loss of God, the failure to attain the final end of morality and happiness. But he who passes away in a state of venial sin, as he loves God, is judged worthy of happiness; his punishment corresponds to his guilt, and is not a diminution of his heavenly reward, but temporal postponement of it, and a painful hindrance to a love that is now eager to reach its aim.
In this way the speculative theory of scholasticism is not a superficial and mechanical mode of thought, but reveals a lively comprehension of the inner and outer factors of our actions, and particularly of what lifts the moral personality above what is external and finite.{59}
In the case of a non-Christian conscience, unenlightened by faith in God, the statement that there is in mortal sin an aversio a Deo is true in the sense that it must involve an abandonment of the real aim in life and absolute good, and a betrayal of the one thing needful, moral worth as such. In this sense every developed conscience, even that of a pagan, possesses the knowledge of an absolute, sacred, and divine Good. Mankind in general distinguishes dispositions and actions in accordance with the attitude adopted towards this highest Good, and allow that some make a man "bad," and ruin him morally, whilst others are indeed bad, but may be described as the faults of a "good" man, In the case of every mortal sin the prospective enmity with the absolute Good must be really recognized and desired; a merely "interpretative" abandonment of it is not enough to turn even a serious offence of an outward kind into a mortal sin. The desire need not, however, be direct, or based on principle. It is based on principle always in so far as the fully conscious will recognizes its responsibility for the decision and perceives the contemplated sin to be an evil in the absolute, supernatural sense. As a rule, man does not seek evil directly, for its own sake, but for the physical good connected with it. If we were to declare nothing grievously sinful except a diabolical antagonism to and rejection of the highest Good, we should have to describe all ordinary sins and vices as venial. In a magnificent passage St. Augustine shows how in every sin there is an impulse towards happiness and greatness, in fact even a distorted longing for God. He says: "The soul plays the wanton, when it turns away from Thee, seeking, apart from Thee, what it can find purely and wholly by returning to Thee. In a perverted way all are following Thee who leave Thee and rebel against Thee."{60} In the case of actions rendered insulting to God by their objective disorder, the subjective will would often gladly cast away the evil and make peace with God; but this desire and wish is ineffectual; in fact the actual volition, tending in a contrary direction, gives it the lie.
But is there not in venial sin also an offence against charity and the moral law, a revolt against reason and eonscience, as St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure speak of it as an action praeter caritatem, praeter legem, sine ratione? Does not this fact overthrow the very fine distinction according to which this kind of sin is only a gap or break, a deviation on the periphery of the development of morality? In reply it may be observed in the first place that praeter legem and praeter caritatem mean the same thing; venial sin is a transgression of a secondary law of morality, "the order in the means," the due measure and relation of our aims and affections, but it does not transgress the fundamental law of morality, the command that requires us to love God above all things. A man who sins venially would never renounce God to secure earthly pleasure. The following elucidations will show with how much deliberation St. Thomas used the other expressions. To the first class of venial sins belong the so-called subiti motus, actus imperfecti, i.e., efforts, prompted as a rule by the senses, and not in themselves free, to obtain what is forbidden (even what is forbidden under pain of serious punishment), such efforts not being sanctioned by the will, but also not hindered, in cases where the will has control over them. With regard to these faults, due to inadvertence and indifference, man, as a reasonable being, does not eonsider the object of the desire, but gives undue liberty to his imagination and temperament, as belonging to a lower sphere for which he would not wish to be responsible; and he does not bring it within the subjection of his intellect. Such a proceeding is literally an "interruption" of his moral life, a "break" in his full mental action and progress. It is not contra rationem, but sine ratione, sine ordine; but because we ought always to use our reason and conscience, it is nevertheless a sin. There seems to be more difficulty with regard to small, deliberate transgressions of the law. How is it possible in such cases as trifling thefts, intentional lies, etc., to uphold St. Thomas's definition of venial sin? He remains faithful to his fundamental idea, and remarks often that in such cases the object of the venial sin is "practically nothing, without any value or significance," as, for instance, plucking a flower, in questions of property. He says of venial sin that it is "idle and vain, and therefore forbidden." That is to say, in comparison with the full force of morality and the absolute obligation of justice, charity towards one's neighbour, etc., these objects are insignificant, and therefore they do not affect the highest good of morality. The temporal good, however, the rule of moral action, is despised and injured by them, and as everything ought to have a moral consecration, what is comparatively nothing becomes really sinful and worthy of punishment.{61}
When we attempt to define the boundary in a concrete instance, at first sight there is a serious difficulty involved in passing from the increasing material value of an object -- as in the case of compensation for damage done to property -- to the moral, supernatural contrast between mortal and venial sin. Some one may argue that if it is a venial sin to appropriate a "small" sum of money, and a mortal sin to steal a "great" sum, there is a point where the addition of a single penny to the theft alters the whole character of the offence. Yet in God's sight a sovereign is of no greater importance than a shilling. In a question of this kind, between God, the highest Good, and the material, concrete action, we must insert as middle term the particular virtue which is outraged and its special aim, and then the change becomes intelligible. In cases of injury to property, we have to consider whether the person affected really suffers from the loss, or whether he does not view the matter so much as a loss, but rather is aggrieved because he is the victim of a joke or of carelessness. In the case of a child's disobedience, we must see whether the parents feel their authority impugned, and no longer regard the disobedient child as a good son, or whether, in spite of his unruly behaviour, they are still on the whole satisfied with him. Similar considerations arise between friends and between married people.{62}
That ultimately in all these cases one drop more would be enough to make the cup overflow does not affect the actual state of affairs. It is not the trifling addition that makes an offence grievous, but the qualitative change in its character; what was jest becomes earnest, and the habitus of friendship, or of conjugal and parental contentment, cannot endure the increased strain, but is broken and destroyed. These things are undoubtedly important when regarded from the point of view of the moral aim, and thus the moral gravity of the offence becomes self-evident. Therefore it is only in an indirect way that material differences affect the sphere or morals and religion, and the point under discussion. In every case, as has been said, we have to consider over and above the "object," a number of intrinsic psychological factors and all the circumstances attending an action before we can judge of it as a whole.
{1} Der Reichsbote, Ben., 1890, No. 293; Deutsches Protestantenblatt, Bremen, 1892, No. 28 (see Reichmaan, op. cit., p. 5). 237
{2} Treitschke, Politik, 1897, I, 99.
{3} Herrmann, p. 12; Luthardt, Kompendium der christi. Ethik, 1896, pp. 89, 212; Ziegler, p. 576; H. Schwarz, Das sittliche Leben, 1901, p. 343; H. Gass, II, 184; Weiss, Einl. in die chr. Ethik, 1889, p. 163.
{4} In the Middle Ages the Church condemned the theory of the Beghards, according to which a Christian in this life can attain to such perfection as to relieve him from any further practice of virtue. Eckhart, too, was condemned for stating that God did not really enjoin any outward actions, hecause He cared only for souls and not for works (Denzinger ed., X, 471, 476, 516, etc.); similar statements by later Quietists were likewise condemned (ibid., pp. 1253, 1260).
{5} Sess. VI, can. 24.
{6} Gass, op. cit., II, 1, 184.
{7} S. theol., I, II, q. 112, a. 4, c; II, II, q. 24, a. 4 ad 3; a. 5 c. ad 3.
{8} Walch, XI, 3144.
{9} Von der Freiheit e. Christenmenschen (Erlangen ed., XXVII, 183, 191).
{10} S. theol., I, II, q. 113, a. 7.
{11} 1 Cor. iii. 1, xiv, 20; Ephes. iv. 13, etc.; Heb. v. 14, etc.
{12} 2 Cor. iv. 16, iii. 18; Apoc. xxii. 11.
{13} Matt. xiii. 8; 2 Cor. ix. 6.
{14} Wernle, Der Christ und die Sünde, 1897, p. 24.
{15} Jacoby, Neutestam. Ethik, p. 325, etc.
{16} Thom., S. c. Gentil., III. c. 9.
{17} S. theol., I. q. 5, a. 4 ad 3.
{18} Ibid., I, II, q. 76, a. 2.
{19} Ibid., cf. 77, a. 6; cf. S. c. Gentil., III, c. 10: Morale vitium in solo actu voluntatis primo et principaliter invenitur; et rationabiliter, cum ex hoc actus moralis dicatur, quia voluntarius est. In actu igitur voluntatis quaerenda est radix et origo peccati.
{20} De malo, q. 7, a. 6 ad 8.
{21} De virt. card., a. 4 ad 13.
{22} Thomas, S. theol., I, II, q. 20, a. 4; Alphons., I, n. 40; Lehmkuhl, 10th ed., I, n. 36; cf. St. Anselm's beautiful exhortation to religious (Epist., III, 133): "Every praiseworthy or blameworthy act derives its praise or blame from the will. From the will proceeds the root or beginning of all actions over which we have control; and if we cannot do what we would, we are yet judged before God in accordance with our will. Therefore keep your eyes fixed not only on what you do, but also on what you will; look not so much at your works as at your intention."
{23} S. theol., I, II, q. 78, a. 4.
{24} De malo, q. 7, a. 3 ad 17; cf. my Thomas-Texte, §§ 6, 42, 45, 53, 54, and supra, p. 154.
{25} Heb. x. 29; 2 Peter ii. 21.
{26} Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor., I, n. 27. Catholic ethical teaching does not, of course, overlook the fact that free acts may give rise to circumstances to which a moral importance must be assigned, but which are no longer wholly subject to free will.
{27} S. theol., I, II, q. 18, a 6.
{28} S. theol., I, II, q. 19. a. 7 ad 13; cf. also Thomas-Texte, §§ 39, 40.
{29} Ibid., I, II, q. 34, a. 4.
{30} August., Epist., 155, 13; in ps. XXXI, II, 5.
{31} Thomas, In II sent. dist. 40, q. 1, a. 5 ad 7.
{32} De male, q. 7, a. 1; Thomas-Texte, §§ 55, 49, 50.
{33} In III sent. dist. 29, q. 1, q. 8 ad 2; Thomas-Texte, § 51. The expression can be traced to St. Cyprian, de opere et eleemos., 15.
{34} Secular teachers are careful to show a child that he is connected with the civilization of mankind and with distant races and remote ages through the most trivial things about him, In the same way teachers of religion ought to make it plainer that a "good intention" does not merely superficially accompany our little daily duties, but that in the conscientious fulfilment of them there is really at least an indirect promotion of God's glory, of the salvation of our souls, and of the edification of Christendom.
{35} Walch, X, 1170.
{36} Dogmengesch., 4th ad., HI, 850.
{37} Sell, too, remarks (op. cit., p. 203) that Protestantism "cannot recognize any real difference in value between one duty and another, since every duty comprises one of God's commandments."
{38} Weimar ed., XII, 131.
{39} Walch, VIII, 1128.
{40} Walch, VIII, 2730; cf. the quotation from St. Thomas, supra, p. 246.
{41} Dogmengesch., 4th ed., III, 887.
{42} Pantheism in its cosmic form can, of course, lead to quite the contrary ethical conclusion and to purity of morals in this life.
{43} Cf. Mausbach, Die Ethik des hi. Augustinus, I, 213, etc.
{44} S. c. Gent., III, 139; cf. also supra, p. 136.
{45} Thom., de cant., a. 5 ad 7: Sicut caritas imperat aliarum virtutum actus, ita per modum imperii excludit peccata eis contraria; et secundum hunc modum caritas resistit tentationibus; sed tamen necesse est esse alias virtutes, quae dircete et elicitive peccata exciudant.
{46} Thom. in II sent. dist. 42, q. 1, a. 3,4,5; S. theol., I, II, q. 74, 88, 89;qu. disp. de malo, q. 7.
{47} S. theol., I, II, q. 89, a. 4.
{48} Thom. in I sent. dist. 1, q. 3, ad 4: Quamvis ille, qui peccat venialiter, non referat actu in Deum suam operationem, nihilominus tamen Deum habitualiter pro fine habet; unde non ponit creaturam finem ultimum, cum diligat eam citra Deum; sed ex hoc peccat, quia excedit in dilectione, sicut ille, qui nimis immoratur viae, non tamen exit a via.
{49} Thom. in II sent. dist. 42, q. 1, a. 4: Quando aliquis peccat in his, sine quibus recte servatis non remanet subjectis hominis ad Deum et foedus, humanae societatis, tunc est peccatum mortale ex genere.
{50} Julius Müller has dealt with the question of sin more thoroughly than any other Protestant theologian in "Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde" (Breslau, 1844). Since writing the ahove, I have found in his book an acknowledgment that Luther, Schleiermacher, and others take a partial and inadequate view of sin when they regard it only according to the general condition of the sinner. Müller says that, in spite of the danger of a trivial and superficial interpretation, the objective distinction between mortal and venial sin must be maintained. "Guilt is the subjective determination of sin, but it is the one which has the objective nature of sin as its essential basis. Guilt is the immediate reflection of sin upon its author, but the force with which it is reflected upon him depends not merely upon the effort of the will that produced the sin, but also upon the objective difference in the magnitude of (I, 232; cf. also II, 563, etc.).
{51} Moraltheologie, p. 159.
{52} S. theol., I, II, qu. 88, a. 2 c.
{53} Linsenmann is forced to admit in many instances that refer to the objective "standard" and "final end," the justification of the ordinary distinction. He quotes from St. Augustine (Enchir. n. 21): Quae sint autem levia, quae gravia peccate, non humano sed divino sunt pensanda iudicio. But these words bear a totally different meaning from that usually assigned to them. The author is not thinking of the secrecy of a man's personal motive for sinning, but, as the context shows, he says that the objective gravity of sin must be judged according to Holy Scripture and not according to the human wisdom. Cf. F. Stephinsky's criticism of Linsenmann's views in the "Katholik," 1910.
{54} Arist., Eth. Nic., vi. 5.
{55} Tim. i. 5.
{56} Rom. v. 5.
{57} Prov. x. 12.
{58} De malo, q. 7, a. I c.
{59} Cf. Thomas-Texte, § 55; de malo, q. 9, a. 2, q. 12, a. 3; S. theol., I, II, q. 88, a. 1, a. 2.
{60} Conf., II, 13, 14.
{61} Cf. de malo, q. 7, a. 1, 2, 4, 6; q. 9, a. 2; q. 10, a. 2; q. 12, a. 1, 3. S. theol., I, II, q. 109, a. 8; II, II, q. 59, a. 4 ad 2. q. 66, a. 6 ad 3. q. 76, a. 2 c. In 2 sent. dist. 24 q. 3.
{62} In case of dishonesty, the fact that the person robbed possesses immense wealth does not affect the border line at which sin ceases to be venial. As subject to the law and as a fair-minded man, even a wealthy man does not regard the theft of a sovereign as a trifle, although he might do so as a millionaire, as a philosopber, or an easy-going man. From the standpoint of law we ought also to take into account the effect of the ill-gotten gain upon the thief, and the injurious influence upon his domestic, social, and moral life, that money obtained so easily by dishonest means must inevitably call forth.