Return to Contents

Morality Prior To Conscience

Chapter 6

Our Teaching Confirmed On The Authority Of Sacred Sacripture

Article 1. Epilogue

104. We can now summarise what has been explained so far.

We have distinguished various states in which human beings can be found relative to morality before the formation of conscience. Morality, we said, consists in the state in which the will is found relative to the law. We spoke briefly about the will in so far as it conforms to the law, and more at length about the different states of the will when it is at odds with the law.
In general we said that when the supreme will clashes with the law it is in a state of sin, a state or act of the supreme will contrary to the law.

105. Sin, therefore, is for us the genus immorality. It has two species, to which a third can be added according to St. Paul's way of speaking when he calls sin the moral defect remaining in the baptised person after baptism (although properly speaking it is not sin).

The first species of sin is a simple moral defect: it is sin lacking damnation and imputation. In the baptized person, this sin consists in the will's retention of an inclination to moral evil and a certain opposition to the law. It does not, however, lead the person to damnation because salvation or damnation depends upon the supreme will which is not in question here. This evil inclination of the lower will is nevertheless the cause of temptation and brings in its wake the penalty of temporal affliction and death.

The second species of sin is sin accompanied by damnation. This sin consists in the state of the supreme will in opposition to the law. As long as the supreme will remains in this state, the person cannot attain salvation. In this case sin is imputed to nature, as it were, rather than to the person himself.

The third species of sin is sin accompanied by damnation and personal imputation. This sin is rightly called fault. It consists in a supreme will not only contrary to the law, but freely contrary to it. In the first two species the will is necessarily contrary to the law.

106. Normally speaking, the word 'sin' is used to indicate the third species of sin, and especially actual, rather than habitual, sin.

107. Applying these notions to Catholic doctrine about sins, and in particular to original sin, we noted that:

1. In the baptized person only the first species of sin is present, that is, sin without any damnation, because the supreme will of the human being is saved through the infusion of grace and the character. Only the lower will, called concupiscence, is defective. This in turn is destroyed with death and regenerated in the resurrection. Acts which unavoidably arise from the fomes of original concupiscence belong to this class of sin. An example of these acts are the first movements springing from our original, habitual sin, with which they form a single entity.

2. The second species of sin exists in the non-baptized human being whose supreme will is inclined to evil, but not freely. This malfunctioning of the will causes human downfall because it is present in the supreme will. In this way, damnation is the consequence of original sin. Actual sins arising unavoidably in a person not washed from original sin in baptism belong to this class because they form a single entity with original sin.

3. Finally, the third species of sin is present in the person who acts against the law with full knowledge and freedom. This sin gives rise to damnation and personal imputation, that is, to a positive sentence of condemnation.

Article 2. The authority of sacred scripture

108. We now have to show that this way of speaking is found in the Church's sacred scripture.

Our original stain is called sin. We are said to be conceived in sin;(74) to be sinners before we have lived a single day on earth.(75) The whole world is said to be subject to sin;(76) all have sinned, children not excepted.(77) A disorder, therefore, is present in the human spirit. In the language rightly used by scripture and the Church this disorder merits the name of sin, although it is committed necessarily, without any trace of freedom. The notion of sin in general, as it is presented in scripture and by the Church, does not contain any element of freedom, although will must be present. Without will our state would be one of physical defect, never of moral evil.

Moreover, although original sin does not spring from our freedom, but from that of our first parent, it brings damnation in its wake. The damnation we are speaking of does not result, however, from any personal fault of ours. It is a consequence of the fault of our first parent by which human beings in their entirety and in their highest principle of action are now damaged and lost. St. Paul says: 'We were by nature children of wrath';(78) he does not say that we were children of judgment. He does not speak of a judge who pronounces sentence, but of an angry master (with a truly just anger) whose servant has become odious. Again, St. Paul says: 'All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.'(79) Perdition is the lot of those without the law, and judgment of those with the law.

Thus St. Paul distinguished between damnation (perdition) and imputation, properly so-called. Although people perished even without the law, and hence before the law, St. Paul says explicitly that before the law sin was not imputed. 'For until the law sin was in the world: but sin was not imputed, when the law was not.'(80) According to the Apostle's way of speaking there was no imputation, although damnation and perdition were present. He goes on: 'Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam'(81) whose fault was free and actual. An original, habitual sin was present which brought damnation but not, strictly speaking, imputation which requires the free will that develops especially through knowledge of positive law. All human beings, therefore, exist with a malfunctioning will. There is no need to condemn them; it is sufficient to leave them in the grip of their disorder. No wrong is done to them; they are simply left with what is their own. The damage they suffer is like a physical evil, an unavoidable consequence of the fault of our first parent which only Christ can remedy.(82)

109. Another principle is indeed introduced into human nature, not through the work of free will, but of necessity, when the grace of our Redeemer is infused into us. Damnation is immediately removed; we are saved. Although a wound remains in our lower powers and in our natural will, the new principle — the new supernatural will — is whole and entire and, as the superior power, governs the natural will. Moral defect still exists in this state, but it does not merit the name sin in the previous exact sense because it does not bring damnation in its wake. In other words, an inclination to evil is present in the natural will, but it does not damn human beings in whom is found the saving power of the supernatural will. St. Paul says: 'Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.'(83) Nevertheless, the Apostle does say that sin still dwells in us, although it cannot harm us. Continuing with his explanation of this singular teaching on sin, which dwells in us without leading to our damnation, he says that the law has power over us as long as we live; but that when we die, the law can no longer be applied to us. We are like a married woman who is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but free after his death. In the same way the law of sin is bound to the 'old man' as long as he lives, but cannot be applied to him after his death; the 'new man' is free from sin.(84)

What are the old man and the new man according to St. Paul? They are the two personal wills, natural and supernatural. As long as the natural will alone is present in the human being, it is that person's superior and personal will which, if disordered, brings perdition in its wake. When the supernatural will appears in us, however, it subjects and governs the natural will. The supernatural will is now the unique, personal will in us, and because it is good, it saves us. It is true that the supernatural will cannot prevent the disorder in the lower powers; its acts of choice, although good and holy, will not always have the strength to ensure obedience to its commands from the lower powers. This is a disorder that only death can take away.

All this is taught by St. Paul where he says: 'I do not understand my own actions' (the actions of my lower powers). 'For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate . . . ' (he cannot command his lower powers). 'So then it is no longer I' (personal pronoun, it is no longer myself as a person) 'that do it, but sin which dwells within me' (that is: MYSELF is constituted by the supernatural will that desires what is good; but there is also within me a natural will that tends to evil, although this is no longer me, but sin, the moral defect remaining after my rebirth and dwelling in me without me). He goes on: 'For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh' (he says: 'in his flesh,' because the disorder in the will comes from the infirm flesh). 'I can will what is right,' (with his acts of choice) 'but I cannot do it' (with the acts commanding his lower powers). 'For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.'

And he shows that this tendency to evil does not constitute his personality by adding: 'Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I' (my person) 'that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,' (the supernatural will) 'but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin.'(85)

Therefore, through faith in Christ and through baptism, our higher part is renewed, although our lower part, called flesh or even body in scripture, remains disordered. It is in fact the flesh, or the body, that imparts the evil twist, or sin, to our natural will. When the flesh has been removed through death, we are completely purified: 'If Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.'(86)

110. The more we consider this order of justification in us, the more apt we shall find scripture's way of saying that God covers certain sins, without imputing them. Baptism does not destroy the evil natural will, but adds a supernatural will to it. This 'covers', as it were, the natural will, preventing it from damning us by the way in which the supernatural principle has changed the nature of our original disorder. Sin and consequent damnation are present in us no longer.

As the Psalmist says:

Transgression is forgiven, but sin is covered, where perhaps transgressions are free, actual sins, and sins are non-free defects, leaving unharmed the persons who belong to the people of God.

Here perhaps the Psalmist refers to non-imputed sins. In this case his meaning would be: Blessed is the man who, although he cannot avoid in his human weakness all clashes with the law, commits only those sins that God does not impute to him, that is, sins in which knowledge and deliberate will are not sufficient for imputation. This, I think, is the interpretation given to the passage by St. Paul when he uses it to prove that we are not justified before God through works, because each of us is full of sin, children not excepted; we are justified through the act of divine mercy which renews us in virtue of the merits of our Redeemer.(88)

Notes

(74) Ps 50 [51]: 7.

(75) Job 14: 4. In the Septuagint, according to St. Leo, Serm. 1, De Nativitate Dom., and according to St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. 1, chap. 7.

(76) John the Baptist speaks of the sin of the world (Jn 1: 29).

(77) 'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' (Rom 3: 23); cf. Job 14: 4.

(78) Eph 2: 3.

(79) Rom 2: 12.

(80) Rom 5: 13. Cf. St. Augustine, De Nuptiis et concup., bk. 2, chap. 28.

(81) Rom 5: 14.

(82) 'What shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us . . .? By no means!' (Rom 3: 5).

(83) Rom 5: 9. But when original sin is considered relative to Adam who committed it freely, it is imputed to him as the head of the human family: 'For JUDGMENT indeed was BY ONE unto condemnation.' Judgment is 'by one'; condemnation is common to all, 'unto condemnation' (Rom 5: 16 [Douai]).

(84) 'Do you not know, brethren — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit' (Rom 7: 1-6).

(85) Rom 7: 15, 17-25.

(86) Rom 8: 10.

(87) Ps 31 [32]: 1, 2.

(88) 'I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written:

(that is, no one possesses an upright practical judgment). In scripture an intelligent person is held to be upright because the principle of morality consists in a will that understands uprightly, as I showed in PE.

The Jews themselves could not claim exemption from the universal corruption of the sin infecting human nature as the Apostle observes: 'Whatever the law' (that is, holy scripture) 'says it speaks to those who are tinder the law' (the Jews), 'so that 'every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God" ' (Rom 3: 9-12, 19).