PROPOSITION CVII.

There are two kinds of Evil, which are peculiar to rational Being; to wit, the Evil of sin and that of punishment.

As this Thesis demands declaration rather than proof, a quotation from the Angelic Doctor shall serve as foundation for the subsequent exposition. The passage shall be given in full for the sake of its completeness, though a part of it transgresses the limits of pure philosophical investigation; as will he pointed out in its place. 'Rational or intellectual Being,' says St. Thomas, 'stands in a certain special relation to Good and Evil, as compared with other creatures. For every other creature is ordained by nature for some particular Good; whereas intellectual Being alone apprehends the common nature itself of the Good by the intellect, and is freely impelled towards the Good in general by the desire of the will. And it is on this account that Evil, in the instance of the rational creature, is specially divided into the Evil of sin and that of punishment; . . . because it is in the nature of sin that it should be a result of the will, while it is in the nature of punishment that it should be contrary to the will. But will is only to be found in rational Being. Now, the distinction between these two divisions of Evil can be understood by what follows. For, since Evil is opposed to Good, the division of Evil must necessarily run parallel with the division of Good. Now, the Good denotes a certain perfection. But perfection is twofold, viz, primary, which is form or habit; and consequent perfection, which is operation.' For the first perfection of Being is its Being, as constituted by its essential form, and its habit or appointment by means of its connatural accidents. Its second perfection is its vital action; for an entity must first exist, before it can act. 'Further, under primary perfection, whose energy in exercise is its operation, may be included all that we make use of in operating. Wherefore, conversely, there is a twofold Evil; one in the agent himself, in that he is deprived either of a form, or appointment, or of anything whatsoever that is necessary for his acting; as blindness or a bow-leg, or instance, is an Evil. The other kind of Evil is in the defective act; as limping in one's gait is an Evil. Now, as these two kinds of Evil are to be found in other entities; so are they also discovered in intellectual Being which acts by its will. It is plain, that in such Being the inordinate action of the will has the character of sin. For a man is blamed and is rendered culpable, because he elicits of free-will an inordinate action. We may likewise find Evil in the intellectual creature under the form of the privation of a habit, or disposition, or whatsoever else is necessary to proper action, whether pertaining to soul or body or things external; and such Evil, according to the Catholic Faith, is necessarily of that kind which goes by the name of punishment. For there are three things which are included in the essential idea of punishment. One is, that it has relation to sin ; for a man is properly said to be punished, when he suffers Evil for something which he has committed. Now, it is held according to the tradition of the Faith, that a rational creature could not have incurred any harm either in soul or body or in any things external, save for some previous sin personal or original. Thus it follows, that every privation of such a Good as is serviceable for the purpose of operating properly, is said to be a punishment in the case of men. It is the same with the Angels. For this reason, every Evil, to which a rational creature is subject, is contained either under sin or under punishment. In so far as the Evil is of the nature of punishment, it is contrary to the will. For the will of every one is inclined towards his own private Good; wherefore, to be deprived of his own private Good, goes against his will. . . . Thus, then, punishment and sin differ in three ways. First, in that sin is an Evil in the action itself; whereas, punishment is an Evil in the agent. But the order of these two Evils is different in entities of nature and in entities endowed with will. For, in the former, Evil in the action is consequent on Evil in the agent, as for instance limping is the consequence of a bow-leg; whereas in the latter, on the contrary, Evil in the agent, (which is punishment), is the consequent of Evil in the action, (which is sin); since the Divine Providence remedies the disorder of sin by punishment. Secondly, punishment differs from sin, in tbat the former is against the will; the latter, in accordance with the will. Thirdly, in that sin is in action; punishment, in enduring.'^{1}

In the above quotation, the Angelic Doctor establishes the following Propositions. i. Sin and punishment, in the proper and primary signification of this latter term, are Evils to which the rational creature alone is subject. The reason is, that every other creature is absolutely determined in its nature to some particular and definite end which is its immediate Good; and, as it is so determined in its nature, it has no even germinal capacity for deflection from such end. But the rational Being has a mind capable of apprehending the universal Good, or Good in general; and, by virtue of its free-will, it can choose as it pleases, within the sphere of the Good. Hence, it is able to choose inordinately; and the inordinate choice of the will is sin. Thus sin is necessarily an act of the will; and only a being endowed with free-will is capable of sin. But punishment essentially presupposes sin; and, consequently, that entity alone is subject to punishment, which is subject to sin. Both sin and punishment, then, are Evils attaching to the will, but inversely; for sin is in accordance with the will, while punishment is repugnant to it. It follows that, when the term punishment is applied to irrational animals, it is used in a sense purely analogical. ii. These two, moral Evils correspond so nearly with the twofold division of natural Evils, that a consideration of these latter will facilitate a clear conception of the former. The division of Evil is a counterpart of the division of the Good. Now, Goodness is perfection; and there are two kinds of perfection common to Being, -- the one belonging to its first act, or existence; the other, to its second act, or operation. Under the former are included not only the substantial form by which the entity is specifically constituted, but also all those accidental perfections which are either congenital with it or have developed subsequently, -- in a word, all that fits it for its natural operation. To this twofold division of the Good answers a like division of Evil. There may be natural Evil in the agent or operating nature, as for instance in a spavined horse; and there may be natural Evil in the operation or action, as there is lameness in the horse's action, owing to spavin. In like manner, disorganization of the brain is a natural Evil in man; extravagant thought, speech, action, are a natural Evil in his operation. It is precisely the same with moral Evil in the rational creature. For there is a moral Evil in the intellectual nature, -- some privation either in internal constitutives or external goods, which is punishment. But it must be understood, that such Evils do not for the most part differ entitatively from natural Evils; but are denominated moral Evils according to analogy of attribution of the first class, inasmuch as they are natural Evils, inflicted on account of sin. There is also a moral Evil in action, which is sin, or an actual inordination of the will. Between these two kinds of moral Evil there exists a marked antithesis. For, as the Angelic Doctor remarks, in a natural Evil the privation in the operation is consequent upon a previous privation in the operating nature; whereas in moral Evil privation in the nature is consequent upon privation in the action; or, in other words, punishment follows upon crime, iii. There are, accordingly, three primary differences between sin and punishment. The first is, that sin is in the action; punishment, in the agent or author of the sin. Secondly, the former is in accordance with the will ; while the latter is against the will. Lastly, sin is action; punishment is passion : -- in other words, the one is active, the other passive. iv. We have now reached the point where the Angelic Doctor has carried the discussion beyond the sphere of philosophy into that of Theology. He observes that, according to the teaching of the Christian Faith, the only kinds of Evil to which, as a fact, man is subject, are those of sin and punishment; forasmuch as all the natural Evils to which he is obnoxious, are the penal consequence of either original or actual sin. This revealed Truth is of the greatest service to Philosophy, in that it solves the difficult problem as to the amount of natural Evil in the world; since it represents the visible universe as out of gear, quite changed from what it originally was; and transformed, as it were, into a reformatory. But such doctrine is not purely philosophical; for it could scarcely have been discovered by unassisted human reason. Hence, contemplating the facts of human life as they offer themselves to the mind, reason would have led us to conclude that man was subject to three forms of Evil, -- viz. That which is purely natural, sin, and punishment; unless the Christian Creed has taught us that, as man was originally raised into a supernatural order both in soul and body, those Evils which would otherwise have been purely natural, have become penal. But, in any case, the present Proposition would have held true; for natural Evils are common to every creature; sin and punishment, to rational Being only.

{1} 'Natura rationalis vel intellectualis quodam speciali modo se habet ad bonum et malum prae aliis creaturis. Quia quaelibet alia creatura naturaliter ordinatur in aliquod particulare bonum; intellectualis autem natura sola apprehendit ipsam rationem boni communem per intellectum, et in bonum commune movetur per appetitum voluntatis. Et ideo malum rationalis creaturae speciali quadam divisione dividitur per culpam et poenam; . . . quia scil. de ratione culpae est quod sit secundum voluntatem, de ratione autem poenae est quod sit contra voluntatem. Voluntas autem in sola natura intellectuali invenitur. Horum autem duorum distinctia sic potest accipi. Cum enim malum opponatur bono, necesse est quod secundum divisionem boni dividatur malum. Bonum autem quamdam perfectionem designat. Perfectio autem est duplex; scil. prima quae est forma vel habitus; et secunda, quae est operatio. Ad perfectionem autem primam, cujus usus est operatio, potest reduci omne illud quo utimur operando. Unde et e converso, duplex malum invenitur; unum quidem in ipso agente, secundum quod privatur vel forma, vel habitu, vel quocunque quod necessarium sit ad operandum. sicut caecitas vel curvitas tibiae quoddam malum est. Aliud vero malum est in ipso actu deficiente, sicut si dicamus claudicationem esse aliquod malum. Sicut autem in aliis contingit haec duo reperiri, ita et in natura intellectuali quae per voluntatem operatur, in qua manifestum est quod inordinata actio voluntatis habet rationem culpae. Ex hoc enim aliquis vituperatur et culpabilis redditur, quod inordinatam actionem voluntarie operatur. Est autem et in creatura intellectuali invenire malum secundum privationem formae, aut habitus, aut cujuscunque alterius quod posset esse necessarium ad bene operandum, sive pertineat ad animam, sive ad corpus, sive ad res exteriores; et tale malum, secundum fidel catholicae sententiam, necesse est quod poena dicatur. Sunt enim tria de ratione poenae. Quorum unum est, quod habet respectum ad culpam. Dicitur enim proprie aliquis puniri, quando patitur malum pro aliquo quod commisit. Habet autem hoc traditio fidei, quod nullum nocumentum creatura potuisset incurrere, neque quantum ad animam, neque quantum ad corpus, neque quantum ad aliqua exteriora, nisi peccato praecedente vel in persona vel saltem in natura. Et sic sequitur quod omnis talis boni privatio, quo uti quis potest ad bene operandum, in hominibus poena dicatur; et pari ratione in Angelis. Et sic omne malum rationalis creaturae vel sub culpa vel sub poena continetur. Secundum vera quod pertinet ad rationem poenae est quod voluntati repugnet. Voluntas enim uniuscujusque inclinationem habet in proprium bonum; unde privari proprio bono, voluntati repugnat Sic ergo tripliciter poena et culpa differunt. Prima quidem, quis culpa est malum ipsius actionis, poena autem est malum agentis. Sed haec duo mala aliter ordinantur in naturalibus et voluntariis. Nam in naturalibus ex malo agentis sequitur malum actionis, sicut ex tibia curva sequitur claudicatio; in voluntariis autem, e converso, ex malo actionis, quod est culpa, sequitur malum agentis, quod est poena, divina providentia culpam per poenam ordinante. Secundo modo differt poena a culpa per hoc quod est secundum voluntatem et contra voluntatem esse. . . . Tertia vero per hoc quod culpa est in agenda, poena vera in patiendo.' De Ma., Q. I, a. 4, o.