Chapter 8
A Comment On The Probabilists' Boast
That Their System Has Removed Sin Where Sin Once Existed
816. We must add a few words more about probabilists who have undoubtedly made the extraordinary boast that their system has made 'sin no longer exist where sin once existed'. Such a proposition has also undoubtedly offended many people and caused great scandal. But is the proposition as false and absurd as it seems? Only now, I think, after our long discussion, can we make a balanced judgment about the proposition. I shall therefore add a few words on the matter.
817. First of all, we must note that the claim implicitly contains two things: the possibility that what formerly was truly sin may no longer be sin; that in many cases this has been brought about by the moral system called probabilism. The first point is theoretical, the second merely factual. I will comment on both.
818. Relative to the first, we accept as true, if correctly understood, that 'what is sin at one time can indeed be entirely lawful at another'. We say 'if correctly understood' because the only immutable law is eternal law, and to maintain that this law can change would be blasphemy. But if we are asking whether the quality of an action can change from being sinful to being lawful, the immutability of the eternal law is not in question. The sinfulness of an action relative to human beings does not depend solely on eternal law but on many other circumstances. In the first place, the lawfulness of an action sometimes depends on positive law, and positive laws change; new laws are promulgated, old laws abrogated, derogated, prescribed, abandoned. Therefore what was once forbidden can now be permitted, and vice versa.
819. In the second place, the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an action depends on the conditions of the subject on whom the law imposes an obligation. It is not sufficient for the law to exist in itself; it must also be applied to and bind a subject. Thus, in the case of the mentally handicapped, for example, although the law exists, it does not bind; the law cannot oblige them because they lack the necessary condition for being bound by it. A law does not in itself always produce the same obligation for everybody (cf. 667, 694-724). Its principles are fixed, but they apply only when the title of the application is present in a fact. Moreover, the applications, as corollaries of the abstract principles, are not clear to everybody, nor deducible by all (cf. 274-284). In fact the final corollaries are so difficult to know that even amongst the great teachers they cause irreconcilable disagreements. Thus we said with St. Thomas that relative to the remote consequences of the natural law invincible ignorance can be present in many people and excuse anyone who, because of inculpable ignorance, does not follow its dictate.
Furthermore, we expressly considered the successive progress of natural legislation in the human race, and saw how it developed and grew like other theories found in human understanding. We saw this development take place principally according to the law regarding the different levels of reflection to which the human race raises itself. The knowledge gained gave rise to new duties, and hence to new imperative formulas. These were successively clarified and classified into grades corresponding to the levels of reflection (cf. 145-194).
820. This development of moral teachings revealed duties not previously noted and, because unnoted, not obligatory. But is it possible that earlier duties ceased, and that some previous obligations no longer had any binding force? This was the real point at issue when we asked 'whether actions that were sinful in the past, can be sinful no longer.' And the answer is still in the affirmative. Duties decrease just as much as they increase with the changing level and nature of human knowledge and of the reflections producing this knowledge. If higher reflection is absent, it is obvious that we may be obliged to something to which we would not be obliged if we had reflected at a higher level. This was precisely the situation of tutiorism in earlier times, and of the simple-minded, whom we have mentioned. If we consider ourselves obliged, then we are truly obliged, since our conscience is the proximate rule of our action which binds us.
In this book we have given not one but many examples of this situation. Amongst others, we observed that persons can believe themselves obliged, and therefore are obliged, to an exacting effort that destroys them. But all they need do is reflect on the result of their action to know that the effort is too much. If fulfilling the obligation would greatly damage their health, they may even be obliged not to undertake it. But they do not reflect on the matter; they think only of performing the duty as they see it, and that they sin if they do not do it. In this erroneous conscience they have a duty that ceases simply with more reflection.
Many judgments can be rectified in this way, that is, by a higher reflection which is therefore safer and more universal. However, as long as the reflections are not made, such consciences, even if erroneous, oblige fully. There are, therefore, undoubtedly, innumerable obligations that can cease.
821. More important, however, (and I have already pointed it out in describing the progress of moral formulas (cf. 145-194)), is that this does not occur only in individuals and by accident. It is a law applicable to mankind and human societies as they gradually progress from lower to higher levels of reflection. This progress takes place at different times and intervals by means of certain movements which are not accidental, despite appearances to the contrary. While humanity progresses from lower to higher reflection, the moral order obviously undergoes a noticeable modification, and writers of moral science announce new duties and declare others obsolete. This can only cause scandal to those who cannot keep pace with progress in the world, or are unable to explain the change.
822. We will apply these observations to the well-known system of probabilism, a system that has created as many enemies as it has attracted followers. The question we proposed is: 'Is it true that since the arrival of the moral system of probabilism, some things which were formerly sins, have ceased to be sins?'.
If what is affirmed is true, then it could not have come about by a change in divine laws (as we said),(537) but only through some change in human beings, that is, in the subject to whom the laws are applied. This change can only result in a higher level of reflections which enables human beings to solve problems better than they could previously, and to deduce new moral consequences. In this way they form new consciences, or rectify and perfect older consciences. For example, a person at a certain level of reflection reasons as follows: 'I do not know if there is a law commanding abstinence from meat today. I doubt it, but I cannot verify it. If I eat meat I run the risk of breaking the Church's law, and I sin. Therefore, I will not eat meat.' This reasoning is natural and simple. People reasoning no further than than this are certainly obliged to abstain because of their doubt about eating meat, so that if they do eat it, they undoubtedly sin because they are persuaded they sin.
If, however, a person rises to a higher level of reflection, the reasoning changes dramatically: 'I do not know if a law prescribes abstinence from meat on this day. I doubt it but I cannot verify it. If I eat meat, do I run the risk of breaking the Church's law? Does the Church's law (this is the higher reflection) have the force of obliging me in conscience while I am unable, through no fault of my own, to verify the existence of the law? The Church certainly does not wish to oblige me to that. Therefore, in this case, I am not obliged by the law. I can safely eat meat without sinning.'
At one time the world certainly found itself at these two intellectual levels of lower and higher reflection. When people reasoned in the first way, eating meat while in doubt was sinful. Later they reasoned in the second way, and it was no longer a sin. But we should not be surprised at this, if the fault is a subjective act which originates and changes according to the consciences of the subject.
823. These observations, or rather this history of the two intellective states of the world, explains many apparent contradictions in opinions amongst experts, and in laws themselves. When the world, in the first state, was persuaded of sin while acting against a doubtful law, experts used to decide and laws used to command what they had to decide and command, namely, that in doubt the safer way was to be followed, and that the opposite was sinful.
Thus, canon law often gives the general rule: 'In the case of doubt the safer way is to be followed.'(538) The rule was founded precisely on the persuasion that to act otherwise is to run the risk of breaking the law; the persuasion makes the rule true and necessary. Canon law itself shows the rule is founded on this persuasion common to all, when it says: 'What is harmless in one person must be feared as a great danger in another.'(539) Granted, therefore, that this danger of sin is removed, the rule itself need no longer be applied. It remains true, but doubt about it ceases because of further reflection.
824. It is clear therefore that when tutiorists or probabilists appeal to the writings of earlier experts, the writings, although true, prove nothing in their favour because the writings are valid only for those periods when it was supposed 'that a person had a certain or doubtful conscience that he was committing mortal sin by acting.' But when reflection at a higher level has removed the supposition and reformed conscience, the principle stated by the authors, although true, is no longer useful because the occasion for applying it has passed.
825. No one who examines the problem dispassionately can deny that the controversies caused by probabilism have raised the human mind to view the question from a higher level, and have dissipated and rectified erroneous consciences. This has happened in the case of doubtful positive law, which has been shown to have no obligation at all. Thus, where there is no longer doubt, there is no longer danger of sin, and we can proceed safely using our own judgment.
826. Although probabilism has certainly done much harm, it would be wrong to think that the system contains nothing true. To do so would be an injustice to all the good, intelligent people who followed it, and would demonstrate ignorance of human things. No human being has ever devised an entirely true system. To say the least, there is always something false as well as true in any new system. This gives rise to controversies and disputes amongst authors which continue without solution or reconciliation until time has separated the good from the bad, the true from the false, and both sides of the dispute are seen to be right and wrong. Only when reflection has moved to a third level can judgment be made about how much each side's argument is supported by reason. Agreement (always desired by the good) is now possible, and the system which was once a mixture of heterogeneous parts is refined into a homogeneous whole.
827. As long as the important demarcation was not drawn between things intrinsically unlawful and things lawful in themselves, the problem about doubt remained so complex and unrefined that it was impossible to note the difference between natural, essential law and positive law. Consequently it was necessary to adhere to the safer way in order to avoid the accusation of courting the danger of formal sin. Probabilist authors viewed the matter from the point of view of positive law, and to that extent were correct. But doubt remained because they failed to distinguish between doubt about something upright or about something intrinsically and essentially blameworthy. In this sense the system was false and opened the door to broad interpretations. Before it can be used to solve doubt, therefore, it has to be confined to its own limits. Different kinds of doubt must first be distinguished (in the way we have shown) and simplified. We would then see where the probabilist principle could be applied or not, and where its truth and falsity lie.
828. This, it seems to me, outlines the whole history of probabilism. We have seen its errors: it went too far by applying to every obligation, even those derived from a natural, rational dictate, the reflection which is perfectly correct in the case of positive law. This distinction had to be made (as we said) at the third level of reflection, which had still to be achieved. It would result in a higher principle which, although common to all, had not yet been fully applied. We stated it thus: 'An action is certainly forbidden if we doubt its intrinsic unlawfulness.' If, on the one hand, we do not expose ourselves to this danger, we exclude laxism; if, on the other, we admit that doubtful positive law does not oblige, we avoid rigorism. Here then, expressed in a few words, is the total content of this long work.
829. I humbly submit it, like everything else I do, to the judgment of the Church and the Apostolic See. It contains the opinion of one man, a priest, who for love of truth and the salvation of souls expects his fellow priests, and perhaps others, not to approve the opinion simply because it is his own, but to examine and correct it carefully, and where necessary refute it. Only when they are satisfied that it is true, or have made it true by their own reflection and studies, does he expect them to accept it. In this way all of us will possess the truth and live in its unity.
Notes
(537) Fagnani, therefore, makes a great mistake when he argues: 'If probabilism has made what was once sin, no longer sin, opinions are above the law of God.' He says: 'If this is true, probable opinions are above the law of God and of nature' (Dist. de op. prob., n. 332).
(538) Decretal., bk. 5, t. 11 and 18.
(539) Ibid., c. 18. Decret. Grat., caus. 33, q. 3, dist. 7, c. 2 and 4. Calderini observes (Cons., 147) that the canonical rule of following the safer path is founded on the danger of sin, that is, the case expressed in law means 'every time this danger is present'. Therefore, when the danger ceases, we may conclude differently.