Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Note 1. Sin, considered morally, has various, but chiefly seven respects, namely first to the subject in which it is, that is, the rational nature from which it obtains the notion of evil; since, as St. Augustine says in the Enchir. cap. 21., Sin most of all opposes the rational creature of nature, and is its first and greatest evil: for, as he says in book 3. De libero arbitrio, cap. 13., Every vice, by that very fact that it is vice, is against nature: since it formally opposes it, insofar as it is rational; for it is against the dictate of right reason, which is man's proper form, perfecting, integrating, and completing him. Second, sin has a respect to the end from which it is derived, since it declines from the rectitude which rational nature itself ought to regard in eliciting its acts, namely that they be right and honest, such as befit the rational nature operating. Third, it denotes a respect to the principle from which it is freely produced, namely to the will; for what is not free cannot have moral goodness or malice: by reason of which sin is called guilt, since indeed it is imputed to the one operating, because it depends upon his free operation: for to be blamed or praised is nothing other than to have the malice or goodness of an act imputed to another; but those things are imputed which depend upon free will. Fourth, it regards the law which it transgresses: (for sin, says St. Augustine in book 22. Contra Faustum, cap. 27., is a word, or deed, or desire against the eternal law; but the eternal law, he says there, is the divine reason, or the will of God, commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed.) By reason of which sin is called transgression, injustice, iniquity, prevarication, disobedience, which immediately regards the law, but mediately the lawgiver. Fifth, it regards God whom it offends: inasmuch as it is a virtual contempt of Him, postponing Him to creatures, in which the sinner virtually and interpretatively constitutes for himself the last end, while for love of them he forsakes God as his last end, and turns himself to them: for, says St. Augustine in De Civitate Dei, cap. 26., Christ is proved to have preferred earthly and temporal things who, despising the salutary precepts, commits what is unlawful; by reason of which sin is called the offense and injury of God, impiety, hatred, contempt, and also enmity with God. Sixth, sin regards the punishment which it incurs, by reason of which it is called guilt [reatus], which formally is the ordination to punishment prescribed for man by the supreme Judge when he exorbitates and sins. Seventh and last, it denotes a respect to the reward of which it is deprived, by reason of which it is called demerit: for sin not only merits and procures punishment for us, but also demerits and turns away the reward which God was about to grant to those keeping His precepts.

Note 2. From the Seraphic Doctor in 2. d. 35. in the explication of the sixth doubt, that although sin can be considered variously: either formally insofar as it is a privation, or materially insofar as it connotes the human and physical act which is a deviation from the prescribed rectitude, it also obtains various definitions. For, taken formally, and insofar as it denotes privation, it is used in a threefold way: for it either denotes a withdrawal from good, or a withdrawal from the rectitude of nature, or from every complement and perfection of good. Taken in the first way it obtains a threefold definition from St. Augustine: The first indeed in the book De Civitate Dei, where he says: Sin is the absence of good where it ought to be: The second in the book De vera religione: Sin is not the appetite of evil natures, but the desertion of better things: The third in the book De Natura boni, cap. 31.: Sin is the corruption of mode, species, and order. In the second way, namely insofar as sin denotes a withdrawal from the rectitude of nature, three of its definitions are also set forth: The first from St. Damascene in book 2. De Fide, cap. 30. where he says: Sin is the aversion from the good which is according to nature to that which is against nature: The second from St. Anselm in the book De Conceptu virginali, cap. 6.: Sin is the lack of due justice: The third from Augustine: Sin is a defect which, following the leader of rectitude, does not destroy nature, but obscures it. In the third way indeed, insofar as it denotes a withdrawal from every complement and perfection of good, a threefold definition of the same is also reported, which differ only in the manner of speaking, the first of which is taken from Augustine in the book De Libero arbitrio, cap. 10.: The will is an aversion from the unchangeable good: another from the same in the book De vera religione: Sin is to lack the unchangeable goods in which one ought to rejoice: the third is taken from the same Augustine, Enchir. cap. 23.: Sin is intelligible darkness, inasmuch namely as it deprives of the vision of the eternal light. — Similarly sin considered materially, and insofar as it imports the deriving act, also obtains various definitions, according to the threefold consideration which it has either to God whom it offends, or to the virtue which it excludes, or to the good which it pretends. In comparison indeed to God whom it offends, it is said first by Augustine in the book De Fide contra Manicheos, cap. 8.: Sin is to err in the precepts of truth, or in truth itself. Second by Ambrose in the book De Paradiso, cap. 5.: Sin is the prevarication of the divine law, and the inconveniencing of the heavenly precepts. Third by the same Augustine in book 22. Contra Faustum, cap. 27.: Sin is a word, or deed, or desire against the law of God. But if it be compared to the virtue which it excludes, it is also defined in a threefold way. First indeed by St. Basil: Sin is a disposition of the soul holding itself contrary to virtue. Second by St. Augustine in the book De Duabus animabus: Sin is the will of receiving, or attaining what justice forbids; for there justice is taken generally insofar as it embraces every virtue. Third by the same Augustine in the book De vera religione: Sin is to desire what Christ despised, or to despise what Christ desired; since Christ the Lord was the mirror and exemplar of all virtue. Finally, if sin be considered by comparison to the good which it pretends, a threefold definition of it can also be set forth. The first indeed by Augustine in the book De Natura boni, cap. 31.: Sin is to use a good badly: the second indeed by the same in book 9. De Trinitate, cap. 8.: Sin is to use things to be enjoyed, and to enjoy things to be used: the third finally is that of the same Augustine in the book De Libero arbitrio: Sin is, the unchangeable good neglected, to cling to changeable things. But these eighteen definitions, which the Seraphic Doctor collects and sets forth, are evidently rather descriptions of sin than its genuine definitions.

Note 3. That guilt or sin generically is divided into the sin of Omission and of Commission, all Theologians agree: that the sin of Omission formally consists in some privation, that is, in the free omission of a due act; for to sin against the precept of worshipping God, honoring parents, giving alms, hearing the sacred [rites] on a feast day, is to omit knowingly and freely such acts at that time when they are due from the prescription of natural or positive law: which omission is privative both on the part of the act which ought not to be put forth, and on the part of the will which does not act when it ought to act. But whether there be a pure and free omission of the will without a positive act will be determined below. But as to the sin of Commission, which is an act prohibited by some law, whether natural or positive, the opinion of Authors is various and manifold as to wherein its formal ratio is to be constituted. For several things come to be distinguished in the act itself: First indeed, the prohibition of that act by some law. Second, the disformity both to the law by which it is prohibited, and to right reason against whose dictate that sinful act is elicited. Third, the privation of rectitude and the negation of virtue; for that act is neither right nor virtuous, otherwise it would not be called sinful. Fourth, liberty, without which the act would not be moral, nor consequently blameworthy in any way. Fifth, the merit of eternal punishment both of loss and of sense. Sixth, the privation of sanctifying grace and of all supernatural charisms. Seventh and last, the diminution of the virtuous habit; since every sin fights against some virtue, and since habits are diminished by contrary acts and at last perish, it follows that if anyone sins who has the virtue opposed to the sinful act, that virtue is diminished by that sinful act itself. — Since, I say, the consideration of sin can be various; hence the opinion of Authors concerning its formal and essential ratio is manifold, but chiefly threefold and capital. For some will that the formal ratio of sin be constituted in something positive; and that either in the act itself which is prohibited: or in that formal aspect of the act by reason of which it is prohibited: or from the fact that the act freely tends to an object which is proposed as prohibited to the one eliciting such an act. Some agree with the Ferrariense in the third [book] contra Centum haereses, cap. 9. that the formal ratio of sin consists at once in the positive act and in the negation of sanctifying grace or of due rectitude. But the more common opinion both of the Older and of the More Recent Theologians is, that that formal ratio of sin is to be placed in the sole negation or privation, either of the due perfection of the subject which that lack harms, as the Seraphic Doctor teaches in 2. d. 35. art. 1. or in the privation of a supernatural good, namely sanctifying grace, as the Angelic Doctor affirms in 1. 2. qu. 86. art. 1. and 2. or in the privation of acquired habits, namely of virtues, as some conjecture: or, as the Subtle Doctor seems to judge more rightly in 2. d. 33. num. 6. and seqq., in the privation of the rectitude and conformity to the divine or human law which prescribes or prohibits such an act. That the truth of this opinion may appear, let

First Conclusion. — THE FORMAL RATIO OF SIN IS TO BE CONSTITUTED IN THE LACK OF THAT CONFORMITY WHICH THE SINFUL ACT OUGHT TO HAVE, AND HAS NOT, TO THE DIVINE OR HUMAN LAW, AGAINST WHOSE PRESCRIPTION IT IS ELICITED OR OMITTED. This is the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor, in the place cited: where, having impugned the other opinions, he concludes: I grant therefore, according to the promised solution of the question, that sin is formally the corruption of rectitude in act, in act the second, not indeed that which inheres, but which ought to inhere.

Which he indeed proves thus: Free will, he says, owes it that it elicit every act of its own conformably to the superior rule, namely according to the divine prescription, and therefore when it acts discordantly from that rule, it lacks the actual justice due. This is the justice which ought to inhere in the act, and does not: and this lack, insofar as it is the act of the deficient will, is formally actual sin.

Proof 2. Sin consists formally in some privation: but it does not consist in any other than the assigned one: therefore, etc. The Doctor proves the major there num. 7. First indeed by the authority of St. Augustine in the book De duabus animabus, where he says: Sin is the will of pursuing, or retaining, what justice forbids, and from which it is free to abstain. But, says the Doctor, sin is to will the forbidden, such that the will itself is there material, and on that account the whole is imputed to the will, because the whole is in its power; but the forbidden or prohibited is there the formal, which signifies the discord from the superior rule. He confirms it from St. Ambrose in the book De Paradiso, cap. 8.: What is sin but the prevarication of the divine law, and the transgression of the heavenly commandments, etc. To which accords what St. Augustine said in book 12. De Civitate, cap. 8.: In this, he says, the will becomes evil, as if it would not become evil unless it willed; and therefore not necessary, but voluntary defects, just punishment follows. For it fails not to evils, but badly, that is, not to evil natures, but because against the order of natures from Him who is the highest, to that which is less, etc. As if he would say, says the Doctor, that positive act of willing the creature is not formally sin, but the lack of the due order in that act, by which the creature ought to be loved on account of the highest good, from which the will resting in a created good fails; and this defect is formally sin. Thus the Doctor.

Next, if sin were something positive, it would really be a created being, and would have some effective cause: but it is neither a created being, nor does it acknowledge any effective cause of itself: therefore etc. The major is evident; for every positive being is either the Creator or a creature: sin, as is evident, cannot be called something divine: and therefore it ought to be something created. But the minor is proved by the authority of St. Augustine, who teaches in many places that sin is not a being, but nothing; likewise that it is not an effect, but a disclosure, and has not an efficient but a deficient cause. Thus in the first treatise In Ioannem, expounding those words Without Him was made nothing, he says: Sin was not made through Him, because sin is nothing, and men become nothing when they sin. Hence in book 12. De Civitate, cap. 7.: Let no one, he says, therefore seek the efficient cause of the evil will: for it is not efficient, but deficient; because neither is that an effecting, but a defecting: for to defect from Him who is the highest to that which is less, this is to begin to have an evil will. He adds: Moreover, to wish to find causes of these defects, when they are not efficient, as I said, but deficient, is the same as if anyone wished to see darkness, or to hear silence; which nevertheless both are known to us, neither that except through the eyes, nor this except through the ears, not indeed in species, but in the privation of species. Thence he concludes: Let no one therefore seek from me to know what I know that I do not know, unless perhaps that he may learn not to know, what ought to be known as not able to be known: for those things which are known not in species, but in its privation, if it may be said so that it may be understood, are in a certain way known by not knowing: or are not known by knowing. For since the acuteness even of the bodily eye runs through corporeal species, it nowhere sees darkness, except where it begins not to see. Nothing more evident than these things could have been said for confirming our assertion.

Finally, almost all the Holy Fathers constantly teach that sin is nothing other than a privation: especially St. Dionysius in the book De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 4. where, speaking of the sin of the demons, he says: for neither is this, namely evil, an appetite, but a declination of the true appetite, and, to say it summarily, evil, we have often said in a certain way, is infirmity, weakness, privation, either of knowledge, or of faith, or of appetite, or of good altogether. St. Gregory of Nyssa subscribes in the Catechetical Oration cap. 3. 6. and 7. where he says: Every vice and wickedness has its form and character in the privation of good, since it is not of itself, nor is it considered in that in which it consists; for no evil is per se situated outside the election of free will: but it is denominated from the fact that it is not true. St. Basil consents in the Monastic Constitutions cap. 3. where he says: Vice is nothing other than the desertion of virtue: and Homily 6.: Evil, he says, is the privation of good. The Nazianzene assents in Orat. 8. where he calls Evil the privation of good, as darkness is the absence of light. Whence Elias of Crete in the Comment. on that same oration says: Vice is the privation of virtue, as the dimness is of light turned away. Finally St. Anselm in the book De praescientia, et praedestinatione, cap. 1. having proved that sin is nothing other than injustice, of which God cannot be the author; finally defines that malice and injustice thus: The absence of this true rectitude, of which I speak, which is injustice, is from nothing except the will of the rational creature, which ought always to have justice.

The Doctor proves the minor there: If sin formally consisted in some privation other than the assigned ones, especially either in the privation of some perfection of the subject in which it is, or in the privation of sanctifying grace, or finally in the privation of acquired habits: but neither can legitimately be affirmed. Not indeed in the privation of the perfection of the subject, because it would take away either the whole natural perfection of that subject, or only some. Not the first: for if sin took away the whole perfection of the subject in which it is, it would follow that it would at once be and not be in the subject: it would indeed be, because that privation is supposed to inhere in the subject: but it would not be, because it would destroy the whole natural perfection of the subject, and so the whole entity, and thus the whole subject. The second also cannot be said: both because if it took away some part of the natural perfection of the subject, especially of the will or of the soul, which certainly cannot be affirmed, since each is incorruptible, and also indivisible, and without parts: and because if by any sin whatever some part of the subject were destroyed, it could happen that at some time, from repeated sins, the whole subject would perish: for since that subject is finite, and since by the repeated taking away and subtraction of some finite good, at last that whole good is exhausted and consumed: it follows that that subject would at some time perish.

Neither does the formal ratio of sin consist in the privation of sanctifying grace. First because, says the Doctor, from this it would follow that a second sin would by no means be mortal, nor would it have the ratio of sin: since indeed it would elicit no privation of grace in the subject, seeing that through the preceding sin grace was already absent from the subject. Second, because grace is created: therefore it cannot be physically taken away by a sinful act, and consequently the sinful act does not denote a physical privation of grace. Third, since grace does not have a necessary connexion with the good act to which the evil act is opposed; therefore the evil act ought not necessarily take away grace. Fourth and finally, it would follow that sins would not be distinguished in species, inasmuch as grace is of the same species in all.

The third, finally, also cannot be affirmed, namely that sin is to be constituted formally in the privation of acquired habits: both because the privation of those habits can be in the just man as well as in the sinner: since indeed while some perverse and inveterate sinner is converted and justified, he truly becomes just; yet he has not the acquired habit of temperance, for example, if he was previously a drunkard; nor of chastity if he was previously a fornicator; therefore the formal ratio of sin is not to be constituted in the very privation of acquired habits. Next, those habits of acquired virtue do not have a necessary connexion with the good act: therefore they are not necessarily taken away by an evil and sinful act; nay, the habit mostly remains even after the sinful act opposed to them. For just as it is acquired successively through the repetition of acts, so too it ought to be destroyed through the frequentation of contrary acts, not however through a single opposed act. Then finally because even if those habits were incompossible, the act would no less be judged sinful and worthy of punishment if it were elicited against the prescription of divine or human law. Therefore in neither of the three aforementioned privations does the formal ratio of sin consist; and consequently it follows that it is to be constituted in the privation alone of conformity to the law.

Thirdly, finally, it cannot even be affirmed that sin is to be constituted formally in the privation of acquired habits: both because the privation of those habits can be as much in the just man as in the sinner: since while some perverse and inveterate sinner is converted and justified, he truly becomes just; yet he has not the acquired habit of temperance, for example, if he was before a drunkard; nor of chastity if he was previously a fornicator; therefore the formal ratio of sin is not to be constituted in the very privation of acquired habits. Then, those acquired habits of virtue have no necessary connection with the good act: therefore they are not necessarily removed by an evil and sinful act; nay, for the most part the habit remains even after the sinful act opposed to them. For as it is acquired successively by the repetition of acts, so also it ought to be destroyed by the frequentation of contrary acts, not however by a single opposite act. Finally also because even if those habits were incompossible, the acts would be judged no less

The Doctor confirms this same truth in the same place num. 3, in these words: the inferior agent is bound in acting to conform himself to the superior agent; which, if it be in his power to conform himself to him, not to conform himself to him is sin: therefore speaking of sin, whether against the divine law or against the human law, something is said to be sin because the sinner could have conformed himself to the law of the superior agent, and discord: therefore that act, which is in the power of the one in discord, and thereby voluntary, is not formally sin: because if it had been concordant with the superior rule, it would not be sin: therefore in that act the precise ratio of sin is the privation of that concord. — He adds num. 7 another reason, whereby, confirming the authorities of the SS. Fathers brought forward by him for the opinion of his assertion, he says: every sin is injustice formally, and such a sin such an injustice, and by consequence the privation of such justice; therefore actual sin is formally actual injustice; therefore also the privation of actual justice, namely of the justice which

All the aforesaid reasons are confirmed: Sin is formally transgression of the law: therefore the formal ratio of sin is to be constituted in the very transgression, or disconformity to the law: but this disconformity is nothing else than non-conformity, or the lack of conformity to the law, which prohibits or commands the act: therefore in that lack the formal ratio of sin is to be constituted. The major is plain from the Apostle Romans 4: Where there is no law, neither is there transgression: and so it is essential to every sin to be against some law, but especially against the eternal law of God, from which all laws hang, according to that of Prov. 8: By me kings reign, and the makers of laws decree just things. Which reason indeed St. Ambrose proves, book De Paradiso, cap. 8, saying: Sin would not stand, if there had been no interdiction: for what is sin, except the transgression of the divine law, and disobedience to the heavenly precepts? St. Augustine likewise confirms it: for weighing these words Ps. 118.: All prevaricators are reputed

This same truth is also urged by reason: for sin of whatsoever kind is moral evil: but any moral evil imports essentially disconformity and disagreement to right reason and the eternal law: for there is a twofold rule of human will in its genus: one proximate and homogeneous, namely human reason, or the dictate of reason, and that natural light signed upon our minds, according to Psalm 4: The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us. Whence St. Ambrose, book 5 De Paradiso, cap. 11, says: This law is not inscribed, but innascitur: nor is it perceived by any reading, but is expressed in each one by a certain profitable fountain of nature. But the other rule of the human will is the eternal law itself, which is as it were the ratio of God, whereby he administers all things at his pleasure: since the law is nothing else than the dictate of practical reason existing in the Prince who rules and moderates some community, it follows that since God directs and administers by his providence the whole machine of the world,

The Angelic Doctor accords with the Subtle Doctor for the most part, 1 p., quaest. 48, art. 3, where he teaches that evil consists in the subtraction of the due operation, which in voluntary things has the ratio of fault. For this, he says, is imputed to anyone as a fault when it falls short of perfect action. And there ad 1: Not every lack of a good is an evil, but the lack of a good that ought to be had. In 1 2, q. 71, a. 6, in the body: A human act has that it is evil from this, that it lacks due commensuration. And quite distinctly he says: Augustine in the definition of sin put two things: one which pertains to the substance of the human act, which is quasi-material in sin, when he said word, or deed, or concupiscence; but the other which pertains to the ratio of evil, which is quasi-formal in sin, when he said against the eternal law. In 2 2, q. 118, a. 5, in the body thus: Every sin from the very fact that it is evil consists in a certain corruption or privation of some good. Which he explains there at the end of the body: Because corruption or privation of good formally

They object 1. The adversaries against the first assertion of our Conclusion, namely that sin formally consists in the privation of rectitude: The privation constituting sin formally in the state of fault must be culpable: therefore it must be the privation of something possible and morally due which one is bound to do and does not do: but in hatred of virtue and similar sins of commission intrinsically evil, moral rectitude is neither due nor possible: therefore the formal ratio of sin does not consist in the privation of rectitude due to them. The major is plain: for neither is he culpable who does not do that act right, which he ought not and cannot do right. But the minor is proved, because such acts are incapable of rectitude: since by a bad power it can come about that they be done rightly, and not be base, and unlike right reason, and therefore culpable and worthy of punishment if freely done: nor can any circumstances be applied by which they are rendered good. But what we say concerning acts simply and intri

The adversaries urge: Privation is the lack of the form due in a subject apt for the form: but no goodness is due to a human act generically considered. It is proved: if some rectitude and goodness were due to a human act considered according to its genus, then either all specific and numerical goodnesses, or only one determinate, or confusedly some this or that goodness would be due to it: but neither can be affirmed. Not indeed the first: otherwise in every sin of commission there would be innumerable malices: for in it are innumerable lacks of innumerable goodnesses, and all evil acts would be extensively at least equally evil with formal malice: because deprived of all rectitude, or lacking all goodness. Add that no other privation of rectitude ought to be found in an act than that which the operator ought to induce into his act: but the operator was not bound to induce every rectitude: therefore that act has not the privation of all conceivable rectitude. See also what must be answered: because there is no reason why this goodness rather should be due, than

I deny the minor, and to its proof I say that a human act generically considered is said to be deprived of rectitude, not indeed of every possible one, nor even of this or that confusedly and indeterminately: but of the rectitude which it ought respectively to have received from the law commanding or prohibiting such an act. Since however the divine or human law, prohibiting or commanding a human act, intends a special rectitude to be induced into the act elicited, or omitted, inasmuch namely as the will of the one eliciting will be conformable to that law and subservient to it: hence it comes about that when that act is elicited by the will of an enemy against the prescription of the law, it lacks that rectitude which it would have had, if in truth the will, conformably to the edict of the law, had posited or suspended the act. And this holds especially, as the Subtle Doctor said above, from the fact that every created will is bound to conform itself to the will of a superior in all acts. Whence every act of that will, by reason of that dependence and ordination to the rule, ought also to be conformed to the law

They insist: That a human act generically regarded ought to be elicited conformably to the law and the will of the superior, even generically regarded, is nothing else than that a created will ought to conform itself to the law, whether divine or human: therefore that lack of rectitude and conformation is to be referred not to the act elicited, but to the faculty eliciting: therefore if that act be said to be only deprived of the rectitude due to it according to its genus, that privation will have to be placed not in the act itself, but in the operator himself, and consequently it will not be a privation of rectitude which ought to inhere in the act.

I distinguish the antecedent: that the will itself ought to conform itself to the will and law of the superior, inasmuch as it is the faculty operating in act first, I deny: inasmuch as operating in act second, I concede: for the will indeed, inasmuch as it is considered in act first, has only the ratio of a faculty: but as operating in act second, it obtains not so much the ratio of a faculty as of an act, since as such it pours out its whole self into the act: but the law prohibiting or commanding is not directed to the will regarded in act first, but in act second: since it prohibits or commands not the will itself, but its act: and therefore that rectitude to be induced by conformity to the law is to be referred not into the will itself as a faculty, but into the very act.

They object 2. Various contexts of Scripture, in which sin is expounded by resistance, transgression, prevarication, and fornication: but all these are something positive: therefore sin truly is also something positive. The major is plain from that of John cap. 9: Who hath resisted me, and had peace? In Ecclesiasticus cap. 31 sin is expounded by positive transgression in these words: Eternal glory shall be his who could transgress and did not transgress, do evil and did not do it: and everywhere among the Prophets the same sin is expounded by prevarication and fornication, which are acts of the will freely turning itself away from God. Similarly St. Augustine, above by us once and again cited, defining sin, says it is a word, or deed, or concupiscence against the law of God: but to speak, to be silent, and to concupiscence is something positive: therefore sin formally is something positive. — I distinguish the minor: all these acts are something positive inasmuch as they are considered materially and entitatively, and

They object 3. That belongs to the formal ratio of sin, by which sin is formally distinguished: but sins are distinguished by various conversion to creatures: therefore those conversions are of their formal ratio: but those conversions are positive acts: therefore etc. It is confirmed from St. Augustine, book 12. Confessionum, c. 11, where speaking to God he says: this alone is not of thee, what is not, and the motion of the will from thee who art, to that which is less, because such a motion is offense and sin: therefore Augustine holds sin to be something positive, namely a motion of the will. — I distinguish the minor: Sins are distinguished by the diverse conversion materially considered, and inasmuch as it is a motion of the human will, I deny: formally considered, and inasmuch namely as that motion lacks rectitude and conformity to the law commanding or prohibiting, I concede; but as such it is not something positive. By similar reason the authority of St. Augustine must be solved, or negat

You will object 4. Sin is a privation insofar as it is the corruption of a good due to the subject: but it does not appear of what good sin can be the corruption: therefore it cannot be such; and consequently neither privation.

I deny the minor, says the Doctor in the same place: for it is the corruption of that rectitude which ought to inhere in the act and does not: whence, he says, it follows indeed that that rectitude is not corrupted by a corruption whereby there is a change from being to not-being: but it is corrupted formally by this, that its privation inheres, and not itself; as original sin corrupts original justice by depriving one of it, yet not as previously inexisting, and so corrupts it formally.

They object 5. Against the second part of the conclusion, namely that that lack of rectitude is the privation of conformity to the law: A certain human act can be sinful although it were not prohibited: therefore the formal ratio of sin does not consist in that lack of conformity to the prohibiting law. The antecedent is plain: hatred of God, and blasphemy, for example, whether prohibited or not, always has the ratio of evil and of sin: therefore its malice does not depend necessarily on disconformity with the prohibiting law. — I distinguish the antecedent: a human act can be evil and sinful formally and completely although it be not prohibited, I deny: materially and initiatively, I concede. A human act therefore can be considered in two ways: either inasmuch as it is opposed to some divine perfection, as hatred to divine goodness, lying to supreme truth etc., and as such they have a certain initiative malice, inasmuch namely as they repugn to some one of the divine perfections of the supreme being

Corollarium. — ON THE DEFINITION OF PERSONAL SIN. — From these the definition of personal sin must be gathered, which I judge to be thus framed, that it may be legitimate: Personal sin is a voluntary action or omission, transient or subsistent, morally an offense of God, inasmuch as it is against the divine law. The truth of which definition indeed will stand from the declaration of each of its parts.

First therefore it is called action or omission: for St. Augustine says in the book De perfectione iustitiae, cap. 5: Every sin is committed either by doing what is prohibited, or by omitting what is commanded. Whence he adds that all divine precepts are to be reduced to these two: Thou shalt love, and thou shalt not concupiscence: For whatsoever we are prohibited and whatsoever we are commanded to do in the law of God, we are prohibited and commanded for this end, that we fulfill these. And perhaps the general prohibition is thou shalt not concupiscence, and the general command thou shalt love. Hence briefly the Apostle Paul embraces both in a certain place namely Romans 12: first there is the prohibition: Be not conformed to this world: but the command: But be renewed in the newness of your mind. That pertains to not concupiscencing, this to loving; that to continency, this to justice; that to declining from evil, this to doing good: for by not concupiscencing injustice is stripped off, and by loving we are clothed with unity.

Secondly is added voluntary: for St. Augustine says book 3 De libero arbitrio, cap. 19: Unless properly sin, which is committed by free will and knowingly. But he speaks generally of sin properly so called: for he adds there, that from such a sin punishment necessarily follows; sometimes even that is called sin, but improperly. Hence in the book De vera religione, cap. 14 he pronounces expressly: Sin is so much a voluntary evil, that in no way is it sin if it be not voluntary: and this indeed is so manifest, that hence no multitude of the learned, none crowd of the unlearned dissents. Wherefore either sin must be denied to be committed, or it must be confessed to be committed voluntarily; nor does he rightly deny that the soul has sinned who both attempts to correct her by punishing her, and that pardon is given to the penitent, and that she persevering in sins is condemned by the just law of God. Lastly if we do not will, we do not do ill, no one is altogether to be reproved or moved; which things removed, the Christian law and discipline wo

There is added thirdly transient or subsistent, by which is comprehended sin as well actual as habitual; for actual is an operation or omission transient: habitual however the same action or omission morally persevering, as will appear below.

Fourthly is subjoined, offense of God: for every sin is an offense of God, not that it effectively harms him: for, as Job says cap. 35: If thou sin, what shalt thou hurt him? and if thy iniquities be multiplied, what shalt thou do against him? but because it harms him in the affection of the sinner: everyone inasmuch as in him lies inflicts on him the greatest injury: for he who knowingly and willingly transgresses a law prescribed by anyone truly offends the Lawgiver himself; because he contradicts his will, and denies him due subjection and obedience. Nor that only, but he also offends him as a just judge, making light of the penalties threatened by him and the redoubled torments: as witness, neither reverencing nor attending to his presence: as supreme and highest Lord, denying him due servitude: as friend and benefactor, showing himself his adversary and ungrateful: as first cause and first principle, abusing his concurrence for breaking his law: finally as highest good Finally it is said against the divine law; for every sin is transgression of the divine law, as we said above: For, as St. Ambrose says book 1 De Paradiso, cap. 8, sin would not stand if there had been no interdiction; for what is sin, except transgression of the divine law, and disobedience to the heavenly precepts?

Finally it is said against the divine law; for every sin is transgression of the divine law, as we said above: For, as St. Ambrose says book 1 De Paradiso, cap. 8, sin would not stand if there had been no interdiction; for what is sin, except transgression of the divine law, and disobedience to the heavenly precepts?