De gratia Redemptoris

It is clear that in this thesis the discourse is about human acts, that is, about free acts, with the necessary advertence of reason. The thesis therefore says that in unbelievers and sinners there are found also acts either indifferent, if such are possible in the individual, or morally good acts. In practice the discourse is about the latter. The thesis, however, does not of itself further determine whether those good acts are salutary or only morally good, whether they are placed with the help of grace or without it. The sense of the thesis can also be rendered thus: habitual grace is not required for good works, nor is faith; or thus: works are not sins for the reason that the subject acting is in a state of unbelief or of sin.

The innovators of the sixteenth century, the Baianists and the Jansenists deny the thesis, as is clear from what has been said above.

As to the matter itself, the question has already been solved in the preceding section; for both unbelievers and believing sinners must dispose themselves for justification by good acts with the help of grace. Nor is this necessity to be restricted to believing sinners only, but it holds also of unbelievers; for certain salutary acts precede the very reception of faith, acts which are comprehended under the name “the beginning of faith”.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

From the Council of Trent there pertain here the things brought forward above in thesis 6, part II. See pag. 141 f. Specifically the opposite opinion is condemned in can. 7: “If anyone says that all works done before justification, in whatever way they are done, are truly sins or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly anyone strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema”¹.

PIUS V condemned the following propositions of Baius. Prop. 25: “All the works of unbelievers are sins, and the virtues of the philosophers are vices”. — Prop. 35: “Whatever a sinner or a slave of sin does is sin”. — Prop. 38: “Every love of a rational creature is either a vicious cupidity, by which the world is loved, which John forbids, or that praiseworthy charity by which God is loved, poured forth in the heart through the Holy Spirit”. — Prop. 40: “In all his acts the sinner serves the ruling cupidity”².

ALEXANDER VIII condemned the following errors of the Jansenists, 1: “In the state of fallen nature, for mortal (formal) sin and demerit that liberty suffices by which it was voluntary and free in its cause, namely in original sin and in the will of Adam sinning”. — 2: “Even though invincible ignorance of the natural law be granted, in the state of fallen nature it does not excuse the one acting from formal sin”.

— 7: “Every deliberate human action is either the love of God or the love of the world: if of God, it is the charity of the Father; if of the world, it is the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, it is evil”. — 8: “It is necessary that the unbeliever sin in every work”. — 11: “Everything that is not from Christian supernatural faith, which works through love, is sin”³.

Clement XI condemned the errors of Paschasius Quesnel. 38: “The sinner is not free except to evil, without the grace of the Liberator”. — 45: “The love of God no longer reigning in the heart of sinners, it is necessary that carnal cupidity reign in it and corrupt all his actions”. — 59: “The prayer of the impious is a new sin; and what God grants them is a new judgment”⁴.

Pius VI condemned the errors of the synod of Pistoia concerning the twofold love. “23: The doctrine of the synod concerning the twofold love, of ruling cupidity and ruling charity, declaring that man without grace is under the power of sin and that in that state, through the general influx of ruling cupidity, he infects and corrupts all his actions; inasmuch as it insinuates that in man, while he is under the servitude or in the state of sin, destitute of that grace by which he is freed from the servitude of sin and is constituted a son of God, cupidity so rules that through its general influx all his actions are in themselves infected and corrupted, or that all works which are done before justification, in whatever way they are done, are sins; as if in all his acts the sinner served the ruling cupidity: — false, pernicious, leading into the error condemned by Trent as heretical, and again condemned in Baius art. 40. — 24: But in that part in which between ruling cupidity and ruling charity no middle affections are placed, implanted in nature itself and praiseworthy by their own nature, which have remained together with the love of beatitude and the natural propensity to good as the last lineaments and relics of the image of God; as if between the divine love which leads us to the kingdom and the illicit human love which is condemned there were no lawful human love which is not reprehended: — false, otherwise condemned”⁵.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Dan 4, 24: Nebuchadnezzar the king (an unbeliever) is admonished by Daniel: “Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences”. — Scripture exhorts sinners to do penance: Ez 18, 30: “Return, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin”. Cf. Eccli 21, 1; Zach 1, 3; others above pag. 143. — Rahab the harlot, who hid the spies⁶, is praised for her faith and works, Hebr 11, 31; Iac 2, 25. — To Cyrus king of the Persians (an unbeliever) the Lord commanded that he build him a house in Jerusalem⁷, of whom the Lord says: “Thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt fulfil all my will”⁸, — Of the Egyptian midwives (unbelievers), to whom the king had commanded to kill the males of the Hebrews, it is said: “But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children... Therefore God dealt well with the midwives... and because the midwives feared God, he built them houses”⁹. — Manasses the king for his impieties had been led captive to Babylon. “And after that he was in distress he prayed to the Lord his God: and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers. And he entreated him, and besought him earnestly: and he heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, and Manasses knew that the Lord was God”¹⁰. — The publican¹¹ and Zacchaeus¹² are proposed as examples.

Rom 1, 18 ff.: the Gentiles could know God from created things, and they ought according to this knowledge to worship God and give him thanks; and if they did not do this, it is their fault. — Rom 2, 14: “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do naturally those things that are of the law, such as have not the law are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ”¹³. Therefore the Gentiles have a knowledge and conscience of moral good and evil such that they are responsible in the judgment of God; and sometimes they do the things that are of the law. Therefore there can be found in them acts which are not sins.

THE FATHERS

Since the Fathers teach that sinners merit the clemency of God by their acts¹⁴ and acknowledge in sinners acts done with divine help, without doubt they do not hold all the acts of sinners to be sins.

ST GREGORY NAZIANZEN: “He (namely, his deceased father) was ours even before he had come over to our fold¹⁵. For his manner of life won him to us. For as many of our own are not with us, whom, that is, their life removes from the common body, so on the contrary many of those outside belong to us, whoever, namely, put faith after morals, and lack only the name while they hold the thing itself. In that number was my father too, a branch indeed alien, but stretching out to us by his life”¹⁶.

ST AUGUSTINE: “Charity is one thing divine, another human; human charity is one thing lawful, another unlawful... First, therefore, I speak of human charity that is lawful, which is not reprehended; then of human charity that is unlawful, which is condemned; thirdly of divine charity, which leads us to the kingdom. That I may therefore briefly suggest it: lawful is the human charity by which a wife is loved; unlawful that by which a harlot or another man's wife is loved... Have therefore lawful charity: it is human; but, as I said, it is lawful. Nor is it lawful only in the sense that it is conceded, but it is lawful in the sense that if it be lacking, it is reprehended. Be it lawful for you to love your spouses with human charity, to love your children, to love your friends, to love your fellow citizens. For all these names have the bond of kinship, and as it were the glue of charity. But you see that this charity can belong also to the impious, that is, to pagans, Jews, heretics. For who of them does not love his wife, his children, his brothers, his neighbours, his relatives, his friends, etc.? This charity, then, is human. If therefore anyone is carried away by such cruelty that he loses even the affection of human love, and does not love his children, and does not love his wife, he is not even to be numbered among men. For he is not to be praised who loves his children; but he is to be condemned who does not love his children. For let him still consider with whom this love ought to be common to him. The wild beasts love their children: the serpents love their children, the tigers love their children, the lions love their children. For there is no beast that does not murmur gently to its children... Therefore he who does not love his children is worse even than a lion. These things are human, and they are lawful”¹⁷.

Epistle 138, 17 praises the works of the early Romans: “Thanks be to the Lord our God, who against these evils sent us a singular help. For whom would that river of the horrible wickedness of the human race not sweep away, whom would it not involve, into what depth would it not plunge him, unless the cross of Christ were fixed more eminently and firmly in so great a mass, as it were, of authority; laying hold of whose strength we might stand, lest, carried away by the vast whirlpool of this world of those who persuade evil or impel to evil, we be swallowed up? For into that sink of the worst morals and of the old ruined discipline, the heavenly authority especially ought to have come and brought aid, which would persuade voluntary poverty, continence, benevolence, justice and concord, and true piety, and the other luminous and strong virtues of life; not only for the sake of passing this life most honourably, nor only for the sake of the most concordant fellowship of the earthly city; but also for the sake of obtaining eternal salvation, and the heavenly and divine commonwealth of a certain eternal people, whose citizens faith, hope and charity make us: so that, as long as we are pilgrims from it, we may bear with those, if we cannot correct them, who wish the commonwealth to stand with vices unpunished, which the early Romans established and increased by their virtues, although they had not true piety towards the true God, which could also lead them into the eternal city by a wholesome religion; yet preserving a certain probity of their own kind, which could suffice for establishing, increasing and preserving the earthly city. For God thus showed in the most opulent and illustrious empire of the Romans how much civil virtues avail even without true religion, so that it might be understood that with this added men become citizens of another city, whose king is truth, whose law is charity, whose measure is eternity”¹⁸.

ST FULGENTIUS: “That law of works, which cannot justify man, since by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified, can indeed be naturally in the heart of the Gentiles and in the heart of unbelieving Jews; yet without the faith of Christ it in no way justifies its followers, but holds them bound by the chain of impiety”¹⁹.

THE THEOLOGIANS

THE MASTER OF THE SENTENCES²⁰, asking “whether every intention or action of unbelievers is evil”, lays down two opinions: “And since intention, as has been said above, makes the work good, and faith directs the intention, it may not unreasonably be asked whether every intention and every work of those who have not faith is evil. For if faith directs the intention, and the intention makes the work good, where there is no faith neither the intention nor the work seems to be good. This is asserted not unreasonably by some, who say that all the actions and wills of a man without faith are evil, which, faith being had, exist as good... Others indeed, who make a threefold distinction of acts, assert that all works which are done for the support of nature are always good. But what Augustine says, that they are evil if they have evil causes, is not so to be taken as though they were themselves evil, but because they sin and are evil who do them for an evil end. Likewise that other point too, namely that ‘intention makes the work good, and faith directs the intention’, they determine by saying that the good there named is what is rewardable unto life, not that this alone is a good work, but that even many other things are good, although not for the reason by which that is done”.

ST BONAVENTURE, in doubt 2 on the letter of the Master, answers: “It must be said that unbelievers do not sin in every action of theirs; for when their action is not repugnant to faith nor to good morals, there is no reason why there should be sin in it. What therefore is said in the letter, that ‘all the life of unbelievers is sin’, must be said not because every action which they perform in their whole life is culpable and demeritorious, but this is said because by no action which they perform are they freed from guilt as long as they persist in unbelief”.

On the same text of the Master St THOMAS notes in his exposition of the text: “What is asserted by some irrationally²¹ etc. If it be understood that any action whatever is evil and sin, the opinion is irrational; but if it be understood that whatever they do, they always remain in sin while they are without faith, the opinion is rational”. In question 1, article 2 he says: “it is not necessary that every act of theirs be evil, but only that it be of deficient goodness, just as although a horse falls short of the rationality which man has, it is not therefore evil, but has a goodness deficient from the goodness of man”. In the Summa 2, 2, q. 10 a. 4 he asks whether every action of an unbeliever is sin, and answers: “Mortal sin takes away sanctifying grace, but does not wholly corrupt the good of nature; whence, since unbelief is a certain mortal sin, unbelievers indeed lack grace, yet there remains in them some good of nature; whence it is manifest that unbelievers cannot do the good works which are from grace, namely meritorious works; yet the good works for which the good of nature suffices they can in some way do; whence it is not necessary that they sin in every work of theirs, but whenever they do any work from unbelief, then they sin; for as one who has faith can commit some sin in an act which he does not refer to the end of faith, sinning either venially or even mortally, so too an unbeliever can do some good act in that which he does not refer to the end of unbelief”.

Objections

1. Matth 7, 17 ff. “So every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit”. Therefore a sinner cannot do good works.

I answer. a) The Lord warns his hearers to beware of evil prophets, “who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves”. That such they are is known from their fruits (v. 20). A true prophet sent by God, and his doctrine, does not produce evil fruits; but those who feign themselves prophets betray themselves by evil works. In the context, therefore, the discourse is not about our question²².

b) If the text is understood universally of the works of sinners, a distinction could be made: those which he does as a sinner, I grant; those which he does as one who is a sinner, I deny.

c) For the text to prove anything for the opposite opinion, it would have to be understood universally and exclusively, that is, the sense would have to be: a good tree can bring forth only good fruits, an evil tree only evil; and the application to human works would be: the just man can only act well, he cannot sin; the sinner, however, can only sin. But it is evident that the just man can sin, nor is this denied by the adversaries.

2. Hebr 11, 6: “But without faith it is impossible to please God”. Therefore the acts of unbelievers do not please God, they are evil. — I answer. Without faith man cannot please God, that is, come to justice, I grant; without faith every work of man is a new sin, I deny.

3. But every work which is not from faith is sin. Rom 14, 23: “But all that is not of faith is sin”. — I answer. In the context the discourse is clearly not about the faith by which one believes in Christ, but about conscience and its dictate (v. 2: “for one believeth that he may eat all things”; cf. 1 Cor 8. 10-12). If therefore the text is applied to the works of unbelievers, it is to be understood according to Rom 2, 14 ff., namely that the Gentiles too have a law inscribed in their hearts; if they act against it, they sin and are responsible in the judgment of God. The Fourth Lateran Council employs the text to show the necessity of good faith in prescription²³ therefore “not from faith” is the same as “not from a good faith”, “without good faith”²⁴.

4. But St Augustine explicitly teaches that all works outside faith are sins, and applies Rom 14, 23 in this sense.

I answer. a) It is true that St Augustine so applied those words, to show against the Pelagians that grace is necessary. “However much the works of unbelievers be extolled, we know the sentence of the same apostle to be true and invincible: All that is not of faith is sin. Hence he often says that justice is imputed to us not from works but from faith, since rather faith works through love, lest anyone think that faith itself is attained by the merits of works, when it is itself the beginning from which good works begin; because, as has been said, what is not from it is sin”²⁵. “Not therefore, as certain men say that we say, and as he dares besides to write, are all men forced into sin as it were unwillingly by the necessity of their flesh; but if they are already of an age to use the judgment of their own mind, they are both held in sin by their own will, and are hurled from sin into sin by their own will. For he who persuades and deceives does not work in them except that they commit sin by their will, either by ignorance of the truth, or by delight in iniquity, or by both evils, of blindness and of infirmity. But this will which is free in evils, because it delights in evils, is therefore not free in goods, because it has not been liberated. Nor can man will anything good, unless he be helped by him who cannot will evil, that is, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For all that is not of faith is sin. And by this, the good will which withdraws itself from sin is faithful, because the just man lives by faith. But to faith it belongs to believe in Christ. And no one can believe in him, that is, come to him, unless it be given him. No one therefore can have a good and just will, unless, with no merits preceding, he has received the true, that is, the gratuitous grace from above”²⁶. From these examples it appears that St Augustine does indeed apply this text to the works of unbelievers, but does not properly give its exegetical explanation; in this application, however, the consensus of the Fathers is not had²⁷.

b) That true virtues are not found in unbelievers St Augustine expounds against the Pelagians, who say that “those alien to the faith abound in virtues, in whom without the help of grace there is only the good of nature, though enslaved to superstitions, who by the mere powers of inborn liberty are often found merciful, modest, chaste and sober”²⁸. To these Augustine says: “But far be it that there be true virtue in anyone unless he be just. And far be it that anyone be truly just unless he live by faith: for the just man lives by faith²⁹. Who moreover of those who wish to be considered Christians, except the Pelagians alone, or perhaps even among them you alone, would have called an unbeliever just, called an impious man just, called a man enslaved to the devil just? Let him be Fabricius, let him be Fabius, let him be Scipio, let him be Regulus, by whose names you thought I was to be frightened, as though we were speaking in the ancient Roman senate-house. Yet in this cause, even if you appeal to the school of Pythagoras or of Plato, where most erudite and most learned men, ennobled by a far more excellent philosophy than the rest, said that there are no true virtues except those which are in some way imprinted on the mind by the form of that eternal and unchangeable substance which is God; even there against you, as much as he grants who has called us, I will cry out with the freedom of piety: Nor is there true justice in them. The just man lives by faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ: the end of the law is Christ unto justice to every one that believeth³⁰. How are they truly just, to whom the humility of the true just man is cheap? For the further they approached by understanding, the further they withdrew by pride: because knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools³¹. How is there true justice in them, in whom there is no true wisdom? Which if we grant them, there will be no reason why we should not say that they too come to that kingdom, of which it is written: The desire of wisdom brings to the kingdom³². And by this Christ died in vain, if men come without the faith of Christ to the true faith, to true virtue, to true justice, to true wisdom, by any other thing or any other way. Just as the Apostle says most truly of the law: If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain³³, so it is most truly said: If justice be by nature and the will, then Christ died in vain. If by the doctrines of men there be any justice whatever, then Christ died in vain. For by what there is true justice, by that same there is also the kingdom of God. For God himself, which be far from us, would be unjust, if a true just man were not admitted to his kingdom: since his kingdom is itself justice, as it is written: The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but justice, and peace, and joy³⁴. Moreover if the impious have not true justice, assuredly neither have they the other virtues, its companions and associates, if they have any, as true (because when the gifts of God are not referred to their author, by that very fact those who use them evilly are made unjust): and by this neither is continence or chastity a true virtue in the impious”³⁵.

Nr. 21. “Know therefore that virtues are to be discerned from vices not by their offices but by their ends. For an office is what is to be done; an end is that for the sake of which it is to be done. When therefore a man does something in which he does not seem to sin, if he does it not for that for the sake of which he ought to do it, he is convicted of sinning. Which you not attending to, you separated ends from offices, and said that true virtues are offices without ends. From which so great an absurdity follows upon you that you are compelled to call true justice even that whose mistress you find to be avarice. For indeed for the hand to abstain from another's property, if you consider the office, can seem to be of justice; but when it is asked why it is done, and the answer is: lest more money be lost in lawsuits, how can this deed now be of true justice, since it serves avarice? Such virtues Epicurus brought in as handmaids of pleasure, which whatever they did, they did for the sake of obtaining it or keeping it. But far be it that true virtues serve anyone, except him or for his sake to whom we say: O God of hosts, convert us³⁶. Hence the virtues which serve carnal delights, or any temporal conveniences and emoluments, cannot be altogether true. But those which wish to serve nothing, neither are they themselves true. For true virtues serve God in men, by whom they are given to men; they serve God in the angels, by whom they are given also to the angels. But whatever good is done by a man, and is not done for that for the sake of which true wisdom commands it to be done, even if it seem good by its office, it is sin by its own wrong end. (22) Some good things therefore can be done by those who do not do them well. For it is good that a man in danger be helped, especially an innocent man: but he who does this, if by loving the glory of men rather than of God he does it, does not do the good well; because he does not do it as a good man, since he does it not with a good will. For far be it that the will be or be called good which glories in others, or in itself, and not in the Lord. And by this neither is this fruit of it to be called good; for an evil tree does not bring forth good fruits; but rather it is the good work of him who does good even through evil men. Wherefore it cannot be said how much this opinion of yours deceives you, by which you said that “all virtues are affections by which we are fruitfully or barrenly good”. For it cannot be that we are barrenly good: but we are not good whatever we are barrenly. For a good tree brings forth good fruits. But far be it that God, who is good, from whom the axe is prepared for the trees that do not bring forth good fruit, should cut down and send into the fire the good trees. In no way therefore are men barrenly good: but those who are not good can be, some less, some more, evil”³⁷.

And when Julian had said that men are barrenly good, “who, not doing for God's sake the good things they do, do not obtain eternal life from him”, Augustine answers: “Certainly, since at least you concede that the works of unbelievers, which seem to you to be good, do not nevertheless lead them to eternal salvation and the kingdom; know that we say that that good of men, that good will, that good work, cannot be conferred on anyone without the grace of God which is given through the one Mediator of God and men, through which alone man can be led to the eternal house and kingdom of God. All other things therefore which seem to have some praise among men, let them seem to you true virtues, let them seem good works, and done without any sin. As far as I am concerned, this I know, that a good will does not do them: for the will of an unbeliever and impious man is not good. Let such wills be called by you good trees, it suffices that they are barren before God, and by this not good; let them be fruitful among men, among whom they are even good, with you as author, you as praiser, if you wish even as planter; provided that, whether you will or no, I obtain this, that the love of the world, by which each one is a friend of this world, is not from God; and the love of enjoying any creatures whatever without the love of the Creator is not from God; but the love of God by which one comes to God is not except from God the Father through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. By this love of the Creator each one uses even creatures well. Without this love of the Creator, no one uses any creatures well”³⁸.

So St Augustine in the place where he treats this question on purpose. First of all it appears that he speaks of the merely natural acts of unbelievers, done without grace; for the principal argument is: if anything good were found, it would be without grace, and Christ would have died in vain. In these words therefore nothing is said directly about the acts of unbelievers which were placed under the influx of grace. Moreover Augustine supposes that unbelievers act with an unbelieving and impious will, and hence that their acts are sins. The defect of those acts which seem to be virtuous lies in this, that they are not well done, because they are done for an evil end (not to glory in God, avarice, pride, pleasure). Finally Augustine understands good works as fruitful works; barren good works he does not admit. A good work, then, for him is one that contributes to salvation. So much for what he has in the work against Julian.

How the whole doctrine of St Augustine on the works of unbelievers is to be understood and explained is set out in various ways by Catholic theologians. It hardly seems possible to give a single explanation, or to establish a single principle from which all things may be explained; but the different explanations must complete one another³⁹.

a) The works of unbelievers are sins inasmuch as they not only are not from faith but proceed from unbelief. So without doubt often in the work “Against Julian”. Sometimes, however, the mind of St Augustine seems to be that precisely because of the defect of faith the unbeliever already acts with an unbelieving will. St Bonaventure, in 2 dist. 41 doubt 2; St Thomas 2, 2 q. 10 a. 4 ad 1: “That word⁴⁰ is to be understood either because the life of unbelievers cannot be without sin, since sins are not taken away by faith; or because whatever they do from unbelief is sin”.

b) The works of unbelievers are called sins because there is lacking to them that perfection, the ordering to God, which they ought to have in the present order. So many Catholics against the Protestants and Jansenists. So too many things in St Augustine can be understood.

c) Just as man before justification is found in habitual sin, in original sin, deprived of sanctifying grace, which privation truly has the character of fault, so too in all the acts of such a man there is a similar defect, they are deprived of that supernatural goodness which ought to be present, which defect is in like manner culpable, as is original sin itself; hence those acts can rightly be called sins. They are not indeed a new personal sin, nor a new fault, but they are comprehended under the fault of original sin. So Ernst, whom Lange follows.

d) Against the semi-Pelagians the Fathers altogether admitted salutary acts which lead to and prepare faith itself; but to these acts they could not suppose faith itself already formal without open contradiction; therefore they undoubtedly acknowledged acts not sinful before faith properly so called. When therefore they say that whatever is not from faith is sin, the name of faith is to be understood in them in a broader sense, for a faithful and devout will towards God. “A man, as often as he acts honestly and follows the dictate of his conscience, acknowledges a law over himself, to which he subjects himself; but this law is God himself, dictating what is to be done and what is to be omitted.

Therefore the man who acts honestly submits himself to God speaking. This is therefore some faith, broadly so called, it is a will faithful towards God and a certain initial pious affection of belief. In this sense the Apostle calls the obedience given to the dictate of conscience faith: All that is not of faith is sin”⁴¹. So Scheeben⁴² developing and modifying the opinion of Ripalda⁴³, whom (Scheeben) Pesch seems to have followed.

5. Man is directed in his acts either by divine charity or by evil worldly cupidity; but the sinner and the unbeliever, since they do not have divine charity, are necessarily led by worldly cupidity; therefore they sin in every work.

I answer. The supposition of the whole argumentation must be denied. For it is false that a just man always acts from charity towards God; for he can sin mortally and lose charity, and he can sin venially and remain in charity. For free will remains in him for good and for evil. Similarly, he who does not have charity remains free and can not sin, and that the more if he is helped by divine grace, which is not denied to sinners. As the habit of charity ought not necessarily to influence every act, so neither should the habit of earthly cupidity, if the sinner has acquired such a habit.

6. A good act ought to be ordered to God as the last end; but an unbeliever cannot order his act to God; therefore from the defect of intention his act is always evil.

I answer. I distinguish the major: it ought to be ordered to God explicitly, I deny; implicitly, inasmuch as it is placed as conformed to the norm of honesty, according to the dictate of conscience, I grant. The minor can be simply denied; for the unbeliever has or can have knowledge of the true God, and so it is not impossible for him to refer his act explicitly to God; but if he had no knowledge of God at all, this would not be without his own fault, and on the supposition of such ignorance he could indeed not refer his act explicitly to God. But even if it is not explicitly referred to God, the act can be honest, if a man acts according to the dictate of conscience. For in this law inscribed in the heart of all men the will of God is manifested, and the man who acts according to this law obeys God and acts honestly.