Aquinas, Sin and Fundamental Option

In the previous post I summarized various evidence pertaining to a fundamental option in the sense of an orientation that changes through a series of acts. This post attempts a sketch that does justice to all of the evidence, as far as that is possible.

(1) A person who is strongly committed to the love of God and neighbor, to following the commandments, does not generally turn away from that path by a single choice and act taken in isolation, but by a gradual process of neglecting that love. This process may indeed culminate in a habitual state or act that is gravely contrary to charity, but the voluntariness of that habit or act must be referred to the persistent previous neglect of charity. An act objectively contrary to charity performed by a person strongly committed to the love of charity, if it is not the culmination of previous acts, is probably not fully voluntary. Conversely, if an objectively disordered act truly is fully voluntary, it is probably the culmination of a long process of neglect of relationships to other human beings, to God, to oneself, and only as a culmination of this voluntary process is the evil of the act fully voluntary.

This position harmonizes with the qualification made by Persona Humana: "[The fundamental option] can be completely changed by particular acts, especially when, as often happens, these have been prepared for by previous more superficial acts" (Persona Humana, n. 10).

The flip side: just as an anomalous bad action performed by a virtuous person is probably not fully voluntary, so an occasional repentance of a person set upon vice could be a superficial repentance, that does not really involve full voluntary acceptance of God's love and full willingness to turn from sin.

(2) On the other hand, if a person is not strongly set on any particular goal, it does not seem impossible to frequently, and in a short period of time, change the goal that he does have, including changing from a life directed toward God to a life directed toward himself, by mortal sin, especially inasmuch as supernatural grace and charity, by a which a person is in the highest manner directed toward God, transcend human experience.

This view of moral life has practical consequences. It means, for example, that greater weight should be given to patterns of behavior than to individual acts–not that individual acts are unimportant, but that they are important inasmuch as they express the interior of a person, one's will, which is more surely expressed in the way one lives one's commitments and furthers one's relationships than in individual acts taken in isolation.

Summary of Evidence on Rapidity of Sin or Conversion

In this post and the next I will try to wrap up the considerations of sin, fundamental option, etc., which I have been considering in recent posts.

If we somewhat generalize the theory that mortal sin and conversion consist in the exercise of a single, fundamental option that lies at a deeper level than the freedom of choice involved in individual acts, we are left with the following position: mortal sin (turning away from God) normally occurs over a fairly long period of time, and is expressed in many concrete acts, none of which taken in isolation would constitute mortal sin; the will to perform a gravely disordered act normally has the character of full consent only when it is the summing up of a voluntary pattern of behavior, the term of a series of disordered acts. Similarly according to this view, and leaving aside miraculous conversions, the openness for grace and intention to avoid sin normally comes to be over a longish period of time, is only fully willed when it is the summing up of a series of acceptance of actual graces.

The opposite position would say that mortal sin always consists in the performance of a single act, which taken on its own would constitute a mortal sin. A middle position would say that mortal sin frequently consists in a single willed act,  but also frequently consists in a wickedness of will that is voluntary only in reference to a whole series of willed acts.

Below follows an attempt to sum up the evidence for the two positions:

In support of the possibility of sin or conversion taking place gradually (as experienced psychologically)

1. The existence of mortal sins arising from or consisting in the neglect to form one's conscience. (There is usually not one extra special moment when a person is particularly aware and conscious of neglect.)
2. Aquinas's affirmation that a person receives grace as soon as they are capable of acting morally, and being responsible for their choice of good or evil (this affirmation is implied, in, for example, ST I-II 89:6, which I haven't since the transition from immaturity to responsibility is psycholoigcally a gradual one.)

In support of changes in man's final goal actually being rare or generally occurring over longer periods of time
1. The affirmation that "it is not easy for the person who has grace to commit a mortal sin."
2. The early Church practice where penance was rare, and for grave sins could only be given once.
3. The psychological difficulty or unusualness of rapidly changing one's orientation and commitment, going from being strongly and totally committed to one goal to giving up that goal as the supreme guiding principle of one's life, to taking it up again etc.

In support of the possibility of sin or conversion being located in a single act

1. The Church's teaching on mortal sin, that a single mortal sin committed with full knowledge and consent is sufficient to deprive one of charity.
2. The fact that grace and charity depend on God's gift, and transcend experience, mean that a single act by which one draws toward God or away from him may suffice to gain or lose the habit of charity, even though psychologically one act just on its own cannot normally generate or destroy a habit.

In support of sin and conversion actually being frequently or normally located in a single act

1. The practice of lay Christians and confessors of treating every objectively disordered act that proceeded from an act of choice as a mortal sin depriving the doer of charity.
2. Similarly, the practice of not treating patterns of behavior as involving mortal sin unless they include individual concrete acts that are considered to be mortal sins.
3. The fact that for mortal sin a person need not orient himself toward a totally new end, but only fail to take God as the rule for an end they were seeking all along (e.g., a person formerly seeking honor in subordination to God on one occasion seeks honor without subordinating to God, and in a manner incompatible with a life lived for God).

Counterfeit Charity

St. Francis de Sales in his Treatise on the Love of God devotes the fourth book to describing how we may lose charity, and there notes how charity, which is properly a share we have in God's own love, produces a likeness of itself on the human level. So long as charity remains, this is all fine and as it ought to be, and charity indeed makes use of this human love. But a certain danger exists that one may fall away from charity, and be deceived by this merely human love into thinking that one still possesses charity.

When holy charity residents for a long time in a receptive soul, she produces a second love, which is not a love of charity, though it proceeds from charity; it is a human love, yet it is so much like charity that even if afterward charity perishes in the soul it seems to be still there, inasmuch as it leaves behind this picture and likeness of itself, which so represents charity that one who was ignorant would be thereby deceived. (Treatise on the Love of God, book IV, ch. 9)

When separated from charity, this human love, no longer being opened upon the unlimited and divine good, must be restricted in its scope. One is willing to do some things for this sake of this love, but not others.

And yet there is a great difference between charity and the human love it produces in us: for the voice of charity declares, impresses, and effects all the commandments of God in our hearts; the human love which remains after it does indeed sometimes declare and impress all the commandments, yet it never effects them all, but some few only. (Ibid.)

One who fails in watchfulness, who lets his commitments slide, as it were, and over a period of time neglects the love of God or neighbor, may not notice any sudden fall from charity, but may seem to themselves and to others to still be in a state of charity.

I have seen certain young people, well brought up in the love of God, who, putting themselves out of that path, remained for some time during their miserable decay still giving great signs of their past virtue, and, the habit acquired in time of charity resisting present vice, scarcely could one for some months discern whether they were out of charity or not, and whether they were virtuous or vicious, till such time as the course of things made it clear that these virtuous exercises proceeded not from present charity but from past, not from perfect but from imperfect love, which charity had left behind her, as a sign that she had lodged in those souls (ibid., ch. 10).

Hence, while this human love is certainly good, its capability of appearing as true charity is a danger for us, who may think we have charity when we do not.

Though this imperfect love be good in itself, yet it is perilous for us; for oftentimes we are contented with it alone, because having many exterior and interior marks of charity, we, thinking we have charity, deceive ourselves and think we are holy, while, in this vain persuasion, the sins which deprived us of charity increase, grow great, and multiply so fast that in the end they make themselves masters of our heart (ibid.).

The way to discern whether or not one loves with true charity, whether charity or merely its counterfeit is present, is by considering what would be willing to do for God, should friendship with God require it. If there is anything we would not be willing to do for God even if friendship with him demanded it, our love is not the true love of charity, but a merely human love that appears like it.

But, you will ask me, what means is there to discern whether it be Rachel or Lia, charity or imperfect love, which gives me the feelings of devotion wherewith I am touched? If when you examine in particular the objects of the desires, affections and designs which you have at the time, you find any one for which you would go against the will and good-pleasure of God by sinning mortally, it is then beyond doubt that all the feeling, all the facility and promptitude which you have in God's service, issue from no other source than human and imperfect love: for if perfect love reigned in us—Ah! it would break every affection, every desire, every design, the object of which was so pernicious, and it would not endure that your heart should behold it. (Ch. 11)

Though St. Francis de Sales does not explicitly speak about the other result of the examination–that one finds nothing for which one would go against the will and good-pleasure of God by sinning mortally–since the question is how to "discern whether it be… charity or imperfect love", it seems the logical conclusion that if in examining oneself, one finds nothing for which one would go against the will of God by sinning mortally (and the basic attitude one seeks to have toward God is one of love rather than, say, fear of hell), that one should have confidence that God's grace has kept one in his love.

One note of caution on this: St. Francis de Sales takes for granted that one has the capacity and willingness to make an honest examination of oneself; if one is unwillingly to examine oneself honestly before God and in God's light, then a lack of awareness of anything for which one would violate God's will by mortal sin would not seem to constitute particularly good evidence for the presence of charity.

Permanence of Grace

In discussing what grace is, Aquinas raises an objection that it cannot be a habit, because it is easily lost: "if grace is something in the soul, it seems that it must be a habit… but it is not a habit, for a habit is a quality that is not easily altered, as the Philosopher says in the Categories, while grace is removed with the greatest ease, since it is lost by one act of mortal sin. Therefore grace is not something in the soul" (De Veritate, q. 27, a. 1, obj 9).

In response, Aquinas denies the premise of the objection, that grace is easily lost. "Although grace is lost through a single act of mortal sin, grace is not easily lost; for it is not easy for the person who has grace to do such an act, on account of his contrary inclination, as Aristotle says in Ethics V, that it is difficult for the just man to do unjust deeds."