ARTICLE V

In the Fifth Article We Ask: CAN THERE BE SIN IN SENSUALITY?

Difficulties:

It seems that there cannot, for

1. According to Augustine no sin is ever committed except by the will. But sensuality is distinguished from the will. Sin is therefore not in sensuality.

2. [No difficulty is given for this number.]

3. Sins remain in the separated soul. But sensuality does not remain in the separated soul, since it is a power of the composite; for its act is exercised by means of the body. "But the act belongs to the same subject as the power," as the Philosopher says. Consequently there is no sin in sensuality.

4. According to Augustine there is something which acts and is not acted upon, that is, God; and in this there is no sin. There is something else which acts and is acted upon, namely, the will; and in this there is clearly sin. And there is something else which is acted upon and does not act, that is, sensuality. Then sin is not in this either.

5. The answer was given that there can be sin in sensuality by the mere fact that reason can prevent its movement.--On the contrary, the fact that reason can prevent it and does not, merely indicates the interpretative consent of reason, which is not sufficient for sin since nothing less than express consent suffices for merit. "For God is more ready to have mercy than to punish," as is said in the Gloss in a comment upon the beginning of Jeremias. Then not even for this reason can it be said that there is sin in sensuality.

6. No one sins in doing something which he cannot avoid. But we cannot keep the movements of sensuality from being inordinate; for, as Augustine says, because man was unwilling to avoid sin when he was able, there has been inflicted upon him the inability to avoid it when he so wills. There is therefore no sin in sensuality.

7. When the movement of sensuality is to something licit, there is no sin, as when a husband is aroused in regard to his wife. But sensuality does not distinguish between what is licit and what is illicit. Then not even when it is moved to something illicit will there be sin in it.

8. Virtue and vice are contraries. But virtue cannot be in sensuality. Then neither can vice.

9. Sin is in that to which it is imputed. But since sensuality does not have control over its own act, sin is not imputed to it, but rather to the will. There is therefore no sin in sensuality.

10. The material element of mortal sin can be in sensuality; and yet we do not say that mortal sin is there, because the formal element of mortal sin is not found in it. But the formal element of venial sin, the privation of due order, is not in sensuality but in reason, whose business it is to put things in order. Consequently venial sin is not found in sensuality.

11. If a blind man being led by one who sees falls into a ditch, it is not the fault of the blind man but of the one who sees. Since sensuality is, so to speak, blind in regard to divine things, should it fall into something illicit, that will not be its own sin but that of reason, which is supposed to guide it.

12. Like sensuality, the external members are guided by reason; and yet we do not say that there is sin in them. Then neither is it in sensuality.

13. Disposition and form are in the same subject, because the acts of active principles are in the thing acted upon and disposed. But venial sin is a disposition for mortal sin. Therefore, since mortal sin cannot be in sensuality, neither can venial sin.

14. The act of fornication is nearer to sensuality than to reason. If, then, there could be any sin in sensuality, it would be a mortal sin, namely, that of fornication. But since that is false, it seems that there cannot be any sin in it.

To the Contrary:

1'. Augustine says: "There is some fault when the flesh lusts against the spirit." Now that lust of the flesh belongs to sensuality. There can therefore be some sin in sensuality.

2'. The Master says that there is venial sin in sensuality.

REPLY:

Sin is nothing but an act which lacks the right order which it was supposed to have. It is in this sense that "sin" or defect is taken in matters applying to nature and to art, as the Philosopher says. But there is question of mortal sin only when the defective act is moral.

An act is moral by the fact that it is somehow in our power, for thus it deserves praise or blame. Consequently an act which is completely in our power is completely moral and is capable of verifying the full notion of mortal sin. Such are the acts which the will elicits or commands. The act of sensuality, however, is not completely in our power, because it precedes the judgment of reason; yet it is in our power to some extent inasmuch as sensuality is subject to reason, as appears from what has been said. Its act accordingly attains to the genus of moral acts, but incompletely. In sensuality there consequently cannot be mortal sin, which is complete sin, but only venial sin, in which the incomplete character of mortal sin is found.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. The subject of a thing is of either of two kinds: it is either first or secondary, as a surface is the first subject of color, and a body is its secondary subject inasmuch as it is the subject of the surface. Similarly we must say that the first subject of sin is the will, but sensuality is the subject of sin inasmuch as it in some way shares in the will.

2. The act of sensuality is in our power in some fashion, not from the nature of sensuality, but in so far as the powers of sensuality are rational by participation.

3. The marks of our sins remain in our conscience, regardless of which faculty it may have been by which they were committed. Granted, then, that sensuality does not remain at all, in the sense explained above, the sin of sensuality can remain. The problem whether sensuality remains, however, is to be discussed elsewhere.

4. Although it is not the function of sensuality considered in itself to act, it is its function in so far as it in some measure participates in reason.

5. The reason why sin is said to be in sensuality is not the interpretative consent of reason. When the movement of sensuality precedes the judgment of reason, there is no consent either interpreted or expressed; but from the very fact that sensuality is able to be subjected to reason its act, even though it precedes reason, has the character of sin. It should, however, be borne in mind that, even though interpreted consent sometimes may suffice for sin, it does not have to suffice for merit. There are more requisites for good than for evil, since evil occurs from individual defects, whereas good depends upon a total situation not vitiated in any particular, as Dionysius says.

6. We can in fact avoid individual sins of sensuality, though not all, as is clear from what was said in another question.

7. When a man approaches his wife from concupiscence there is venial sin, provided that he does not exceed the bounds of wedded life. It is accordingly clear that the very movement of concupiscence preceding reason in a married person is a venial sin. But when reason determines what one may licitly crave, then even though sensuality goes out to it, there will be no sin.

8. Moral virtue is in the powers of sensuality, the irascible and the concupiscible, as the Philosopher makes clear when he says that temperance and fortitude belong to the non-rational parts. But because sensuality designates these powers as having an inclination which is natural to sense but to something contrary to reason, and not as participating in reason, on this account vice is more properly said to be in sensuality, and virtue to be in the irascible and the concupiscible powers. The sin which is in sensuality, however, is not opposed to virtue as its contrary. Hence the conclusion does not follow.

9. Every sin is imputed to man inasmuch as he has a will; and yet sin is said to be in some sense in that power whose act happens to be deformed.

10. The material element in mortal sin can be taken in three ways: (1) In so far as the object is the matter of the act. In this sense the matter of mortal sin is sometimes in sensuality, as when a person consents to sensual pleasure. (2) In so far as the external act is called material with reference to the internal act, which is the formal element in mortal sin, since the external and the internal act constitute one sin. In this sense too the act of sensuality can be regarded as the material element in mortal sin. (3) In so far as the material element in mortal sin is the turning towards a changeable good as one's end, whereas the formal element is the turning away from the unchangeable good. In this sense the material element in mortal sin cannot be in sensuality. Nor does it follow (for the reason given above*) that, if mortal sin cannot be found there, then there is no venial sin there either.

11. Sin is said to be in sensuality, not as being imputed to that power, but as being committed through its act. Sin is rather imputed to the man inasmuch as that act is in his power.

12. The external members are merely moved, whereas the lower appetitive powers do the moving somewhat like the will. In so far, then, as they in some sense participate in the will, they can be the subject of sin.

13. Dispositions are of two kinds. There is one by which a patient is disposed to receive a form. Such a disposition is in the same subject as the form. There is another disposition by which an agent is disposed to act. Regarding this kind it is not true that it is in the same subject as the form for which it disposes. Venial sin, which is in sensuality, is this kind of disposition to mortal sin, which is in reason; for sensuality is like an agent in regard to mortal sin, since it inclines reason to sin.

14. Although the act of fornication is closer to the concupiscible power than to reason as regards the nature of the object, it is nonetheless closer to reason as regards the nature of command. The external members are applied to the act only by the command of reason. Mortal sin can accordingly be in them but not in the act of sensuality, which precedes the judgment of reason.