Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

(On Sins of Malice)

S. Th. I-II, q. 78; II-II, q. 14; De Malo q. 3, a. 12-15.

471. On the part of the will the cause of sin is malice or depravity and perversity (Ps. LI) by which the will, with no ignorance or passion influencing, of itself knowingly and purposefully chooses evil (Job XXXIV, 27), not because it wills evil as evil, which is impossible, but inasmuch as it prefers the privation of a spiritual good to the absence of a temporal good, and loves the lesser good more. Then the will is said to do evil not only choosing but from choice, as happens a) in affected ignorance which it chooses for the sake of sinning more freely; or b) in passion which it studiously excites for the more intense sinning; or c) in an evil habit voluntarily and freely admitted. Which can also be done in venial [sins].

472. Sins from an evil habit are done from malice. — For since a vicious habit is freely acquired, if also at present it is freely preserved by the will not withdrawing it, man who does not act from inadvertence or passion according to the habit, but knowingly and freely uses his habit, sins from malice, because he acts from a will confirmed in evil or from an evil inclination of the will by which it is established in evil. Then the will is said to do evil, not according to habit but from habit. — Nevertheless not every sin from malice is from habit; but man can also without habit purposefully choose evil (as the evil angels and the first man did), whether from an innate or acquired predisposition of body, or from the removal of a hindrance of faith, hope, fear, etc.

473. Principle. It is graver, other things being equal, to sin from malice than from passion (or, a fortiori, from ignorance), because 1) it is done from a movement more proper to the will, since in no way is the will moved by an impulse extrinsic to it (such as passion) but entirely of itself; « whence sin is so much the more aggravated as the malice is more vehement, and is so much the more diminished as the passion is more vehement »; — 2) he who sins from passion, since this quickly passes, easily returns to the good proposed, but he who sins from malice often sins from habit and therefore more lastingly; — 3) he who sins from passion has the will ordinarily ordered to good: for he proposes and seeks good, but sometimes withdraws from the proposal because of passion; but he who sins from malice is badly disposed as to the very end itself, because he has a firm resolve of sinning. The end, however, in moral matters is the first principle. Whence he who sins from malice sins more gravely because a defect of the principle is worst, and more dangerously because he is not easily recalled from sin.

474. Special of malice are sins against the Holy Spirit. — These are those which are done directly against the good which is attributed to the Holy Spirit by appropriation, namely the goodness and love of God, and indeed from malice or choice of evil. Which name taken from Scripture (Mt. XII, 31; Mk. III, 29, Lk. XII, 10), there designates that sin of the Pharisees by which the miraculous works of Christ, done by the power of the Holy Spirit that men might be saved and withdrawn from evil, out of malice they attributed to the devil; which is to fight against the truth manifested and clearly proposed and known. By the Fathers and Scholastics however by analogy it was extended to designate all similar sins, which maliciously despise the means granted by the Holy Spirit to convert man and withdraw him from sin.

For these, therefore, two things are required: a) that they be from malice, i.e. not from a sudden movement of passion (as can also happen for despair, hatred of God, etc.), but from the will alone deliberating and moving itself to evil. But this does not suffice, otherwise all who sinned from habit would sin against the Holy Spirit; but b) a special malice is required, from this, that one despises and casts away the things which could have impeded sin or procured its remission; which means are the effects of the grace of the Holy Spirit in us, and therefore he who thus acts from malice, properly sins against the Holy Spirit. Therefore these are those sins by which man through contempt casts away the means granted by the goodness of the Holy Spirit by which he could have been withdrawn from sin.

475. Six are numbered by the Scholastics as sins against the Holy Spirit. — For man is withdrawn from sin: a) on the part of divine judgment, either 1° by consideration of mercy through hope, which is cast away by despair; or 2° by consideration of justice through fear, which is taken away by that presumption by which one wishes to obtain glory by God's mercy alone and without merits or penitence; b) on the part of the gifts of God, either 3° by the knowledge of truth through faith, against which is set impugnment of the known truth, that with greater license one may sin; or 4° by interior help of grace, against which is set envy of fraternal grace, while someone is grieved not only by the good of neighbor but by the very increase of grace in souls; c) on the part of sin, either 5° by the inordination and baseness of sin, which, by actual grace moving, lead to penitence, and to this is opposed impenitence, which is not the mere death in sin but the resolve of not doing penance; or 6° by the smallness and brevity of the good which is found in sin, which, by actual grace moving, induce man to this, that in sin he not be confirmed, and to this is opposed obstinacy, i.e. a firm resolve of persisting in sin.

Hatred of God, although of itself it is a sin of the greatest malice, is not placed among the sins against the Holy Spirit, because it is more grave than they, and because in some way it is implicitly contained in all.

476. Sin against the Holy Spirit is called irremissible: not as if it could not be remitted by the grace of God, nor because in fact it is never remitted, but it is such by its nature, because it directly excludes those things by which the remission of sins is accomplished, and includes the disposition of obstinacy which of itself is permanent, and while it remains is an obstacle of positive resistance to the action of divine grace. Whence it is remitted most difficultly and rarely and only as it were miraculously, because, despising the gifts necessary for remission, it directly fights against every conversion to God.

477. Observation. — Sins of malice which are from the inclination of habit are never first, because they presuppose the acts from which the habit was caused. Sins against the Holy Spirit ordinarily presuppose other sins, because man is wont to proceed from the more imperfect and lesser sin to the perfect and greater; however someone can, because of the freedom of choice¹, even in the first act sin from contempt against the Holy Spirit.