Author: Fr. Joseph Bolin

Aquinas on the Sin of Drunkenness

From the De Malo to the Summa Theologiae Aquinas apparently makes a shift in his judgment about drunkenness. While in the De Malo he says that getting drunk is of itself a venial sin, in the Summa Theologiae and in the Commentary on Romans (as well as the Commentary on 1 Corinthians), which are widely considered to be of a later date than the De Malo, he says that getting drunk is of itself a mortal sin.

De Malo

In the De Malo, q.2, a. 8, Aquinas asks whether a circumstance can make a venial sin into a mortal sin. The third objection argues that getting drunk once is a venial sin, while getting drunk many times is a mortal sin. Hence a circumstance (the frequency) makes a venial sin into a mortal one. He replies:

To the third it should be said that getting drunk many times is not a circumstance that constitutes a species of sin, and therefore as getting drunk once is a venial sin, so getting drunk many times is a venial sin, speaking per se; but accidentally and by way of disposition getting drunk many times can be a mortal sin, as for example, when by the custom of drinking someone comes to have so great complacency in drunkenness that he would be willing to get drunk even if it involved the contempt of a divine precept. (De Malo, q.2, a. 8 )

Again in q. 7, a. 4, where the same question comes up again, a similar objection is raised:

1. Augustine says in a sermon on Purgatory that if anger is held onto for a long time, and if drunkenness is a regular (assidua) occurence, they are then numbered among mortal sins. But such sins are generically venial sins–otherwise they would always be mortal sins. Therefore a venial sin becomes mortal through the circumstance of regularity or duration. (De Malo, q. 7, a. 4)

He makes a similar reply, though with a different argument.

It should be said about drunkenness, that it in itself makes the reason actually not turned toward God, i.e., so long as the drunkenness lasts the reason cannot be turned toward God. And since a man is not obliged at all times to actually turn his reason towards God, drunkenness is not always a mortal sin; but when a man gets drunk regularly, it seems that he is not concerned about whether his reason is turned toward God, and in such a case drunkenness is a mortal sin, for it seems that on account of the pleasure of wine he despises the turning of his reason toward God. (De Malo, q. 7, a. 4, ad 1)

Summa Theologiae

In I-II, q. 88, a. 5, he asks whether some circumstance of an act can make a venial sin into a mortal sin. The first objection is of particular interest, because it is almost exactly the same as that in De Malo, q. 7, a. 4. Aquinas writes:

Augustine says in a sermon on Purgatory that if anger is held onto for a long time, and if drunkenness is a regular (assidua) occurence, they are then numbered among mortal sins. But anger and drunkenness are not generically mortal sins, but venial sins–otherwise they would always be mortal sins. Therefore a circumstance makes a venial sin into a mortal sin. (I-II, q. 88, a. 5)

In reply, he says:

About drunkenness we should say that that it has in itself the character of a mortal sin; for when a man without necessity and merely for the sake of the pleasure in wine, make himself unable to use his reason, by which a man is directed to God and avoids committing many sins, such an act is expressly contrary to virtue. But it can be a venial sin on account of some sort of ignorance or weakness, as when a man is ignorant of the strength of the wine, or of his own incapacity (for drinking), so that he does not expect to get drunk; for in such a case the drunkenness is not imputed to him as a sin, but only the excessive drinking. If, however, he gets drunk frequently, this ignorance can no longer excuse him, and his will seems to choose drunkenness rather than refraining from an excess of wine; hence the sin becomes again what it is by its own nature [namely a mortal sin]. (I-II, q. 88, a. 5, ad 1)

Again in the Secunda Secundae, q. 150, a. 2, where he takes up drunkenness specifically, and asks whether it is a mortal sin, he gives the same reply:

Someone may be well aware that he is drinking immoderately and thereby getting drunk, and yet he would rather be drunk than abstain from drink. Such a man is the one who is properly speaking called a drunkard [in contrast to persons who drink too much without knowing it, or get drunk without expecting it], because moral character comes not from things that occur accidentally and aside from the intention, but from that which is directly intended. In this way drunkenness is a mortal sin, because then a man willingly and knowingly deprives himself of the use of reason, bu which he performs virtuous deeds and avoids sin, and thus he sins mortally by running the risk of committing  sin. For Ambrose says in the book On the Patriarchs: "We say that one should avoid drunkenness, since it keeps us from avoiding grievous sins. For the things we avoid when sober, we unknowingly commit through drunkenness." Therefore drunkenness, speaking per se, is a mortal sin. (Secunda Secundae, q. 150, a. 2)

In the reply to the first objection he interprets Augustine's saying in the same way as he does in the Prima Secundae.

His treatment in his Commentary on Romans and on 1 Corinthians is very much like that in the Summa Theologiae.

How to Account for the Difference?

The divergence between the account in the De Malo and in the later writings could be explained in several ways:

(1) Aquinas may have become stricter in general, and thus stricter in his judgment of drunkenness. (This would be an interesting subject of research. I don't know of any studies investigating such a line of thought).

(1b) He may have gained more experience of the harmful things people do when drunk, and pronounces judgment accordingly.

(2) He may be envisioning quite different contexts. In the De Malo he may be envisioning, e.g., a monk in his cell who gets drunk by drinking too much wine, and the principal or only harmful consequence is that he can't pray or contemplate at that time, while in the other works he is envisioning a person engaged in various activities and in active relationships with other persons, who is liable to damage things or injure other persons if he is drunk.

Mortal Sin and Fundamental Option

One of the reasons why many theologians have been attracted to the theory of a "fundamental option" is that it seems in certain respects to correspond better to real-life experience. If we consider visible human relationships, between two married persons for example,we don't find persons who go frequently back and forth from being totally committed to each other, to selfishly rejecting each other, back to total commitment, and so on. As a rule, the relationship will overall either be gradually improving or deteriorating, and individual quarrels don't completely disrupt the relationship. If a man ceases to love his wife on account of a single dispute or fight, that would be taken as a sign he didn't really love her in the first place, or that he had been neglecting his love for her, letting various selfish interests break it down, and that the quarrel is only the terminus of a long process.

Leaving aside the theological aspect, based on God's covenant with man, the supernatural virtue of charity, etc., what is happening when a person resolves to live a certain manner of life, and yet occasionally, or perhaps frequently, performs concrete acts that are inconsistent with that? For example, he resolves to live for his family, and looks for his happiness within his family (and in the wider sense, within his society). But he sometimes performs acts, such as staying out excessively late drinking with his fellow workers, that don't make sense within that framework, but only make sense on the supposition of a preference for something else above happiness as a member of his family, within a framework in which what he wants is the ultimate point of reference, where self-love is the final measure. Or in other words, in terms of the end/means relationship, certain acts he does objectively can't be truly ordered towards the end of family happiness as a final goal, but only towards some other end, that may be thought of more vaguely (living a pleasant life), but that at any rate is some other final goal.

One might explain the situation in several ways:

1. The ultimate goal of his life is, and remains, the common good of his family and his happiness within that family, though he performs individual acts that don't make sense and are unreasonable in terms of that goal.

2. The ultimate goal of his life is all along some vague goal (living a good life, a social and pleasant life, or the like), in which his family's good is one element among others, though an important one.

3. The ultimate goal of his life is the good of his family most of the time, but when he does acts objectively contrary to that goal, then when he is doing those acts, he thereby re-orientates himself towards another final end, and remains directed towards that end until he makes a fresh resolve to live his life as a whole for his family.

The first and second explanations do seem, on the face of it, more plausible interpretations of what is going on than the third.

If we accept the first explanation, what would that mean in terms of the voluntariness of the man's acts? Since whatever one wills, one wills for the sake of one's final end, the man is therefore willing, for the sake of his final end, to do something actually inconsistent with that final end. This would seem to imply that his act is not perfectly voluntary, at least not in the respect in which it is contrary to his ultimate end. (This distinction, though it is often forgotten or overlooked, is an important one. An act may be completely voluntary in the sense that it is the result of a very conscious and explicit choice, without all of the goodness or badness of that act necessarily being voluntary).

The analogy one might make with love for God and the performance of sinful acts is, I think, clear. For the time we will continue to leave aside the issues pertaining to charity as an virtue infused by God and dependent on grace. A person who resolves to life his live above all for God, and yet on not so infrequent occasions does things objectively inconsistent with taking God as the rule for one's life, is like the man in the example above, who resolves to live for his family, and yet fails at certain times to act in consistency with that resolve. If one held that he continues, in fact, to be seeking God as his ultimate end, it seems one would similarly have to say that the acts objectively inconsistent with that end, or at any rate the badness and stupidity of those acts, are not entirely voluntary. Thus they would constitute venial sins by reason of a lack of full voluntariness.

But on this account, would any acts be fully voluntary? I'll return to this question in another post.

Fundamental Option and Salvation

The CDF in Persona Humana (1975) and Pope John Paul II in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (1984) and in Veritatis Splendor (1993) reject the theological theory of a fundamental option insofar as such a theory is understood or interpreted in a manner that denies the traditional doctrine concerning mortal sin, whereby any one conscious and deliberate grave violation of the moral order, which is rooted upon love of God and neighbor, is enough to separate a person from God.

There are those who go as far as to affirm that mortal sin, which causes separation from God, only exists in the formal refusal directly opposed to God's call, or in that selfishness which completely and deliberately closes itself to the love of neighbor. They say that it is only then that there comes into play the fundamental option, that is to say the decision which totally commits the person and which is necessary if mortal sin is to exist; by this option the person, from the depths of the personality, takes up or ratifies a fundamental attitude towards God or people.
…

In reality, it is precisely the fundamental option which in the last resort defines a person's moral disposition. But it can be completely changed by particular acts, especially when, as often happens, these have been prepared for by previous more superficial acts. Whatever the case, it is wrong to say that particular acts are not enough to constitute mortal sin.

According to the Church's teaching, mortal sin, which is opposed to God, does not consist only in formal and direct resistance to the commandment of charity. It is equally to be found in this opposition to authentic love which is included in every deliberate transgression, in serious matter, of each of the moral laws.
… A person therefore sins mortally not only when his action comes from direct contempt for love of God and neighbor, but also when he consciously and freely, for whatever reason, chooses something which is seriously disordered (Persona Humana, n. 10, emphasis added).

Two distinct principles are here affirmed. First, the orientation of one's life is not a decision made in abstract from the concrete choices to act in the here-and-now. That to which one ultimately orients of one's life (one's final end) must be, at least virtually, the end of every voluntary human action. If an action is in fact incompatible with one's end, the voluntary performance of that action is implicitly a redirection of one's life towards some other end, with which that choice is compatible. Thus a person who once made a decision to life for God, and then, for the sake of money or pleasure, gravely violates the order of charity, is implicitly redirecting his life towards money, pleasure, or, more likely, towards some broader and vaguer goal, such as "the kind of life I decide on" (in this case one makes oneself, rather than God, the ultimate measure of one's life).

Secondly, Persona Humana affirms not only that one's fundamental orientation can be changed by concrete choices, but that one individual concrete choice of something gravely disordered can change one's orientation. (Note, however, that it does not very clearly affirm that one individual choice totally on its own can change one's orientation, though it suggests it by the wording "especially when, as often happens, these [particular acts] have been prepared for by previous more superficial acts."

Later Statements

The same principles are affirmed in Reconciliation and Penance, n. 17: (1) "Mortal sin exists also when a person knowingly and willingly, for whatever reason, chooses something gravely disordered. In fact, such a choice already includes contempt for the divine law, a rejection of God's love for humanity and the whole of creation; the person turns away from God and loses charity."  The concrete choice to do things that are incompatible with having God as one's final end, can alter one's orientation to the final end. (2) "Thus the fundamental orientation can be radically changed by individual acts." A single act may suffice for this change of orientation.

And again, in Veritatis Splendor, n. 68:

Man does not suffer perdition only by being unfaithful to that fundamental option whereby he has made "a free self-commitment to God" (Dei Verbum, 5; cf. Persona Humana, n. 10) . With every freely committed mortal sin, he offends God as the giver of the law and as a result becomes guilty with regard to the entire law (cf. Jas 2:8-11); even if he perseveres in faith, he loses "sanctifying grace", "charity" and "eternal happiness" (cf. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17)

Veritatis Splendor, n. 70, quotes the section of Reconciliatio et Paenitentia that we quoted above, reaffirming this teaching.

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

Pope Benedict in Spe Salvi takes a position that sounds quite similar to the theory of a fundamental option. He is speaking directly about salvation or damnation, but in accordance with the teaching of the Church that "to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1033), what he says has implications about mortal sin.

Persona Humana says, "There are those who go as far as to affirm that mortal sin, which causes separation from God, only exists in the formal refusal directly opposed to God's call, or in that selfishness which completely and deliberately closes itself to the love of neighbor" (emphasis added).

Pope Benedict XVI says in Spe Salvi:

With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. [While this does not actually imply that an individual choice doesn't, or doesn't frequently alter one's "life-choice", it does suggest it to some extent.] There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. [This sounds very much like the position of the theologians mentioned in Persona Humana.] This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1033-1037). On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbors—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfillment what they already are (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1023-1029).
…
46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter?
47…
In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgment we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi – emphasis added)

The Pope seems to be saying that those persons who have not descended so far as to have "totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love," and who "have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves," have not definitively rejected Christ, but are living in such a way that he is still their final end, though their orientation towards this end is covered up (contradicted?) by numerous concrete choices they make and actions they perform, and that they will be saved, though "as through fire." Unless we posit a moment of revelation and conversion in the very instant of death or afterward, this would imply that the "great majority of people" is not in a state of mortal sin.

Do any of my readers know of passages from Pope Benedict XVI/Cardinal Ratzinger that would shed light on his understanding of a fundamental option/life-choice?

In a coming post or posts I'll try to delve into some of the difficulties from a Thomistic perspective.

Perfect Contrition and the Sacrament of Penance

I was struck today by a potentially misleading formulation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the necessity of intending to confess one's sins in the Sacrament of Penance.

A certain inseparability of remission of sins and the Sacrament of Penance is taught by the Council of Trent and by Pope John Paul II:

Council of Trent

Docet praeterea etsi contritionem hanc aliquando charitate perfectam esse contigat hominem que Deo reconciliare priusquam hoc sacramentum actu suscipiatur ipsam nihilominus reconciliationem ipsi contritioni sine sacramenti voto quod in illa includitur non esse adscribendam.

[The Council] teaches, further, that although this contrition is sometimes perfected by charity and reconciles man with God before this sacrament [of confession] is actually received, this reconciliation is still not to be ascribed to that contrition without the intention of receiving the sacrament [sacramenti voto] that is included in that contrition.

God willed reconciliation to take place in Christ and in his Mystical Body, the Church, in a visible manner. True repentance for sin and love for God implies a desire to accept God's will in this, as in other matters. Hence it includes a desire to sensibly receive reconciliation, in the instrument instituted by Christ, namely sacramental confession. The Council, responding to the Protestant position, insists that one must make reference to this means established by Christ in giving an account of how reconciliation now takes place in Christ.

Reconciliation and Penance (Pope John Paul II)

This same understanding is presented by John Paul II from a pastoral point of view in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Reconciliation and Penance). For the believer, the doctrine about the sacrament of confession has as a practical consequence that one desire to receive the grace of reconciliation in an "incarnate" manner, that is in the sacrament.

The first conviction is that for a Christian the sacrament of penance is the primary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sin committed after baptism. Certainly the Savior and his salvific action are not so bound to a sacramental sign as to be unable in any period or area of the history of salvation to work outside and above the sacraments. But in the school of faith we learn that the same Savior desired and provided that the simple and precious sacraments of faith would ordinarily be the effective means through which his redemptive power passes and operates. It would therefore be foolish, as well as presumptuous, to wish arbitrarily to disregard the means of grace and salvation which the Lord has provided and, in the specific case, to claim to receive forgiveness while doing without the sacrament which was instituted by Christ precisely for forgiveness.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism of the Catholic Church seems to make an attempt to simplify the teaching:

1452 Contritio cum ex amore provenit Dei super omnia amati, « perfecta » appellatur (caritatis contritio). Talis contritio veniales remittit defectus; etiam veniam obtinet peccatorum mortalium, si firmum implicat propositum ad confessionem sacramentalem recurrendi quam primum possibile sit. (Cf Concilium Tridentinum, Sess. 14a, Doctrina de sacramento Paenitentiae, c. 4: DS 1677.)

1452 When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called "perfect" (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible. (Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1677.)

However, this way of expressing the need for the sacrament of Penance is potentially quite misleading. Rather than saying something along the lines of "it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins–genuine contrition includes the firm resolution etc." it says that contrition arising from love of God above all things (charity) "obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution etc." The intention of the author(s) of this text may have been to say, in a subtle way, "one who is really contrite and loves God above all things will desire to observe the visible expression of reconciliation established by God (the Sacrament of Penance); one who is unwilling to observe this visible expression is deceiving himself if he thinks that his contrition is genuinely motivated by love of God." But as it stands, the text suggests that it is possible to have contrition arising from charity, and yet remain burdened by unforgiven mortal sin. This is practically a contradiction in terms, since charity is friendship with God, and a share in God's own love and life, while mortal sin consists in the loss of the divine life in us, and in separation from God. Moreover, if we granted that it were possible to have charity without sins being forgiven, in the event that one was not resolved to have recourse to sacramental confession, we would, in effect, be treating the sign of reconciliation with God (the Sacrament) as more important than the reality of friendship with God and participation in his life (charity).

Natural Law and Natural Inclinations

Why do natural inclinations of human nature give rise to an obligation of natural law?

Is it the mere fact that humans are inclined to this or that good? If so, must one concede the argument in favor of homosexual relationships, that some persons are just naturally inclined to such relationships (granting the premise that it is a natural inclination or at least a natural predisposition triggered by some experiences of one kind or another)?

Or is a natural inclination merely an objective fact, which receives moral value extrinsically, from the purpose imposed on it by human reason. Is a natural law connected with human inclinations only because human reason judges that the good involved in these inclinations (e.g., the good of reproduction, the continuation of the human species in time) is a kind of ultimate good that one cannot reject without in some sense rejecting goodness itself, and offending one's own humanity? In that case, isn't the notion of natural inclination irrelevant? Wouldn't it be just as good, for example, to preserve our lives, and just as bad to commit suicide, even if we didn't have a natural inclination to self-preservation? It is the judgment of reason and the seeking of what is good that is important, not the physical/biological facts.

The International Theological Commission, in its recent document on Universal Ethics and Natural Law holds a mean between these two positions:

79. The rehabilitation of nature and of corporeality in ethics cannot be equated with any kind of "physicalism." Some modern presentations of natural law have seriously denied the necessary integration of natural inclinations in the unity of the person. Neglecting to consider the unity of the human person, they absolutize the natural inclinations of the different "parts" of human nature, approaching them without hierarchizing them, and failing to integrate them in the unity of the entire plan of the subject. [This criticism would (also) apply to the "new natural law" approach taken by Germain Grisez, who enumerates many inclinations (e.g., the inclination to live, to avoid pain, to play, to enjoy aesthetic experiences, to know theoretical truths) which he sees as irreducible, and thus as absolutes–although he sees them as immediate givens of experience, rather than as deduced from the observation of one's inclinations.] Now, John Paul II explains, "natural inclinations do not acquire a moral quality, except insofar as they are connected to the human person and to his authentic realization" (Veritatis splendor, n. 50). Today therefore there is need to hold fast to two truths. On the one hand, the human subject is not a union or juxtaposition of diverse and autonomous natural inclinations, but a substantial and personal whole called to respond to the love of God and to unite himself through a recognized orientation towards a last end, which hierarchizes the partial goods manifested by diverse natural tendencies. Such a unification of natural tendencies in service of the higher ends of the spirit, i.e., such a humanization of the dynamisms inscribed in human nature, does not at all constitute a violence done to it. On the contrary, it is the realization of a promise already inscribed in them.74 For example, the high spiritual value that is manifested in the gift of self in the reciprocal love of spouses is already inscribed in the very nature of the sexual body, which finds in this spiritual realization its ultimate reason for being. [Holding to this one point, we must reject the extreme of "physicalism," which would take the natural inclinations as absolutes that are not subordinate to any higher principle.] On the other hand, in this organic whole, each part preserves a proper and irreducible meaning, ["irreducible" probably means here that the role and value of each part of human nature is not reduced simply to its utilitarian aspect (what does it produce for me?), but that each part of human nature participates in its own way in the human good.] of which reason should take account in the elaboration of the entire plan of the human person. The doctrine of the natural moral law should therefore affirm the central role of reason in the actualization of a properly human plan of life, and at the same time the consistency and the proper meaning of natural pre-rational dynamisms.75 [Holding to this point, we must reject the other extreme, which would take the natural inclinations as mere "matter" for human action, devoid of any intrinsic human teleology. This is explained in further detail in the footnote.]

Notes
[74] The duty to humanize the nature in man is inseparable from the duty to humanize external nature. This justifies the immense effort made by men to emancipate themselves from the coercions of physical nature in the measure in which they hinder properly human values. The struggle against illness, the prevention of hostile natural phenomena, the improvement of the conditions of life are of themselves works that attest to the greatness of man called to fill the earth and to subdue it (cf. Gen 1:28). Cf. Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, n. 57.

[75] Reacting to the danger of physicalism and rightly insisting on the decisive role of reason in the elaboration of the natural law, some contemporary theories of natural law [e.g., those of Josef Fuchs, Charles Curran, or Richard McCormick] neglect, or rather reject, the moral significance of the natural pre-rational dynamisms. [According to these theories] the natural law would be called "natural" only in reference to reason, which would define the whole nature of man. To obey the natural law would be therefore reduced to acting in a rational manner, i.e., to applying to the totality of behaviors a univocal ideal of rationality generated by practical reason alone. This means wrongly identifying the rationality of the natural law with the rationality of reason alone, without taking account of the rationality inherent in nature. [An example in the text of such inherent rationality is the "gift of self" that is "already inscribed in the very nature of the sexual body."]

[Paraphrase/exposition of the note: Reacting to the one extreme, some theories see the "lawfulness" of the natural l-aw as entirely constituted by human reason, rather than as recognized and ordered by human reason, yet originally constituted by God's "reason". Practical reason does not perceive any moral value and signification in natural inclinations, but only "practical" value. While recognizing the truth that law is a work of reason, this position overlooks the fact that the natural law in us is a participation in the eternal law, which is a work of God's reason. This participation is found both in that which is essentially rational–the reason–and in that which reason by participation–the inclinations, which participate in God's plan as being directed by it.]

In accordance with the one truth, that reason exercises a discernment in regard to natural inclinations, we must recognize the possibility that reason discerns in a particular case that a natural inclination does not represent such "inherent rationality," but is rather contrary to reason. The affirmation that the inclination of nature is a participation in and expression of God's plan does not mean that every particular inclination of every particular nature is such. According to Thomas Aquinas, some individuals have a natural inclination to particular sins, on account of a corruption of nature, (ST I-II, 78:3) and he also, following Aristotle, states that something contrary to the human species may become per accidens natural to an individual, (ST I-II, 31:7) on account of a corruption of some natural principle–as evidenced in a connatural desire to eat dirt or coal or other human beings, or to have bestial or homosexual intercourse. Indeed, one might argue that there are very frequently present in men some natural inclinations that exceed the bounds of reason, as an inclination for a man to kill an adulterous wife, or (inordinate in a context where food is always plentiful) to eat a great deal whenever plenty of good food is available.

In accordance with the other truth, the goods and potential evils involved in the use of various human faculties is sufficiently determined by human nature itself, and sufficiently luminous to be not only a locus, but also a source of moral insight. Although the actual moral value of any particular action depends on our reason and will (what we do involuntarily or without appreciation of what we're doing may be good or bad, but not morally good or bad in the full sense of the term), "What we're doing" when we make use of those human faculties isn't so much imposed by us, as recognized by us.

The rehabilitation of nature and of corporeality in ethics cannot, however, be equated with any kind of "physicalism." In fact some modern presentations of natural law have seriously denied the necessary integration of natural inclinations in the unity of the person. Neglecting to consider the unity of the human person, they absolutize the natural inclinations of the different "parts" of human nature, approaching them without hierarchizing them and omitting to integrate them in the unity of the entire plan of the subject. Now, John Paul II explains, "natural inclinations do not acquire a moral quality, except insofar as they are connected to the human person and to his authentic realization" (Veritatis splendor, n. 50). Today therefore there is need to hold fast to two truths. On the one hand, the human subject is not a union or juxtaposition of diverse and autonomous natural inclinations, but a substantial and personal whole called to respond to the love of God and to unite himself through a recognized orientation towards a last end, which hierarchizes the partial goods manifested by diverse natural tendencies. Such a unification of natural tendencies in service of the higher ends of the spirit, i.e., such a humanization of the dynamisms inscribed in human nature, does not at all constitute a violence done to it. On the contrary, it is the realization of a promise already inscribed in them.74 For example, the high spiritual value that is manifested in the gift of self in the reciprocal love of spouses is already inscribed in the very nature of the sexual body, which finds in this spiritual realization its ultimate reason for being. On the other hand, in this organic whole, each part preserves a proper and irreducible meaning, of which reason should take account in the elaboration of the entire plan of the human person. The doctrine of the natural moral law should therefore affirm the central role of reason in the actualization of a properly human plan of life, and at the same time the consistency and the proper meaning of natural pre-rational dynamisms.75

Legionaries of Christ – Communiqué

The leaders of the Legionary of Christ, gathered for their annual meeting, wrote a communiqué to the members of the Legion of Christ and of Regnum Christi, their friends, and to all those affected or hurt by the reprehensible actions of their founder, Fr Marcial Maciel, apologizing for the harm done and for the failure to take seriously those who had brought the issues to their attention.

There follow some excerpts from this communiqué: read the entire document (link is to PDF format).

COMMUNIQUÉ
regarding the current circumstances
of the Legion of Christ
and the Regnum Christi Movement

…

It has taken us time to come to terms with these facts regarding his life. For many, especially the victims, this time has been too long and very painful….

1. Regarding some facts in the life of our founder, Fr Marcial Maciel, LC (1920-2008)

We had thought and hoped that the accusations brought against our founder were false and unfounded, since they conflicted with our experience of him personally and his work. However… [through the canonical investigation] the CDF reached sufficient moral certainty to impose serious canonical sanctions related to the accusations made against Fr Maciel, which included the sexual abuse of minor seminarians. Therefore, though it causes us consternation, we have to say that these acts did take place.

….

2. The Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement in the face of these facts

We express our sorrow and grief to each and every person damaged by our founder’s actions….

We ask all those who accused him in the past to forgive us, those whom we did not believe or were incapable of giving a hearing to, since at the time we could not imagine that such behavior took place.

…

We also ask our families, friends and benefactors to forgive us, and all other people of good will who have felt that their trust has been wounded.
In addition, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ we feel the need to expiate his sins and the scandal they caused, making reparation with a Christian spirit. We ask all the members of our religious family to intensify their prayer and sacrifice.

…

For his own mysterious reasons, God chose Fr Maciel as an instrument to found the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, and we thank God for the good he did. At the same time, we accept and regret that, given the gravity of his faults, we cannot take his person as a model of Christian or priestly life.

Apostolic Visitation

…We will embrace with filial obedience whatever indications and recommendations the Holy Father gives us as a result of the apostolic visitation, and we are committed to putting them into practice.

Looking toward the future

… Humbly and gratefully we acknowledge the blessings and fruits that the Lord has granted us up to now, and we accept our responsibility to deepen our understanding of our history, charism, and spirituality.

We face the future with hope, knowing that our one support is God. We trust totally in him and in his all-powerful love which, as St Paul says, “makes all things work for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28). We know that as we follow this path we will be aided by the Holy Spirit and the Church’s motherly guidance.

Rational Civil Authority and Marriage

How should a rational civil authority regulate marriage, supposing that the state does not accept a particular religious revelation or tradition as definitive, and that the citizens of the state recognize various religious authorities? Since most of us live in civil states like this, the question is not unimportant for us. This is the actual situation.

Two basic possibilities suggest themselves: the state could make the decisions about marriage, or the various religious authorities could make the decisions.

(1) The state could alone make decisions about marriage: e.g., judge what are the conditions intrinsically required to marry validly; establish impediments to marriage; judge whether the requirements of the natural law admit of exceptions, and if so, in what instances exceptions should be made.

(2) The state could leave all decisions about marriage to the various religions.

The first possibility is problematic, since marriage has an intrinsically religious character, and therefore judgment and determination about it should properly belong to religious authority.

The second possibility cannot be consistently upheld, if the state itself is to have any recognition of marriage, and if it is to uphold natural law. For in an instance where the spouses belong to different religions, or after a religious conversion where the second religion has a different view on marriage, one religious authority may maintain that a marriage is valid, while the other religious authority maintains that it is invalid. Moreover, a religion could mandate conditions of marriage contrary to natural law (requiring women to marry even without their consent, allowing divorce and remarriage under any conditions, at the simple request of the spouses, etc.).

It seems therefore necessary to qualify the qualify the second possibility.

(2b) The state could leave decisions about marriage to the various religions, unless the pertinent religions have no position or disagree, or a religion stipulates something about marriage contrary to that which natural law considered in itself requires, in which case the state must decide the case.

Of course, one who is convinced of the truth and reasonableness of his faith will see the ideal as a situation where the state recognizes that revelation as true, and accepts its religious understanding of marriage, but where that is not possible, this second approach seems to be the best.

What are the consequences of this position? Consider the quality of marriage that it be between one man and one woman, and that it be indissoluble. Now, if these qualities belong to natural law, and according to natural law admit of no exception, it seems the state should refuse to recognize the dissolution of a marriage by the Catholic Church (by way of the "Petrine privilige") or through a second marriage in the faith (by way of the "Pauline Privilege"). This consequence doesn't seem very desirable to most Catholics; nor does it seem to be wished for by the 20th-century Papal writings on marriage that address political issues.

If, on the other hand, though the qualities of marital unity and indissolubility belong to natural law, they are the kind of natural law admits of exceptions, then the state can do one of the following: (1) recognize all exceptions that religious authorities recognize; thus the state will accept all divorces accepted by Catholics, protestants, Jews, Muslims, all second marriages recognized by the religions, etc; from a Catholic point of view, this also seems problematic; (2) recognize those exceptions that seem particularly reasonable; this doesn't seem ultimately all that different from the first approach, where the state itself make decisions about marriage; nonetheless, I wonder whether it might not be the most reasonable approach for a civil authority that recognizes natural law but doesn't accept one specific religious tradition as being the recipient of the fullness of truth.

Regardless of the particular answer one might give to the question, "How should the state regulate marriage," I think it's important to reflect on the question, and to have some coherent answer, rather than, with the claim to be arguing from natural law, to push essentially for an assimilation of the state's regulation to that of the Catholic Church–this kind of arguing can give the impression of simple bias and partisanship.

Why We Need Habits

Why do we need habits? If what makes people different from animals is their ability to know truth as such, wherever it is to be found, and not only some limited environment, and again, their capacity to love and seek for goodness, wherever it is to be found, habituation seems to be a kind of degradation of the human being. To act from habit is like acting from instinct, rather than from judgment and choice, insight and love.

To this I would say that it might, indeed, in some sense be ideal if we could have complete insight into the situations in which we live, know all of the implications and effects on human goods and relationships that various possible actions would have, and in view of all this, make a conscious choice before doing any new action.

All this, however, is mere fantasy, or at least speculation (maybe Adam could actually have made decisions that way before the fall). It is totally impossible for us to have every single aspect of a situation in mind, and to explicitly trace all of the particular goods involved in our actions (health, pleasure, the good of laughter, relationship with friends, material goods, etc.) in a detailed manner back to the supreme good, God himself. If we were to attempt to do so, we would take a ridiculous length of time to decide, for instance, when shopping, whether to buy a cheaper but slightly less good tasting or less healthy food  or a more expensive but better food.

In order to make decisions in a reasonable time frame and to act upon our decisions, we need to be immediately inclined to many particular goods to be loved and pursued: to the good of our family and friends, the good of society, the good of studying, the good of music, etc. Moreover, we need to be able to easily and readily make a judgment of the proportion of one good to another, as in the example of spending a little more money for better food.

This "readiness" and inclination to pursue certain goods, to favor one over another, to make a certain balance between them, is the result of a conditioning that occurs over time, as the result of many particular actions and we do, reactions we have to events that happen, our favorable or unfavorable perceptions of other person's behavior, especially those we consciously or unconsciously see as role models. When this conditioning acquires a kind of stability, it is what Aristotle and St. Thomas call a "habit."

In English we reserve the name "habit" for the kinds of conditioning that lead us regularly to a particular action, even without thinking about it. We don't give the name "habit" to primarily perceptive capacities, such as an acquired ability to readily recognize the music of Chopin, or to the acquired capability of quickly weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of one purchase or another. The name "habit" is mostly restricted to inclinations to actually perform a certain action. And even then, we usually don't use the term "habit" to the disposition to perform a certain action if a conscious decision is involved. E.g., if a husband has acquired the readiness to stop watching television, or to take out the trash, or other such things, as soon as his wife asks, we wouldn't tend the use the term "habit." But essentially the same kind of conditioning has occurred that occurs when we get into the habit of pressing the snooze on our alarm clock in the morning, of ruffling our hair, of arriving early (or late), etc. The main difference is that some of these habits (or dispositions) involve mostly our reasoning or perceptive faculties, others involve our instincts, others involve the whole person, with thought, choice, and emotion. We speak of habits mostly in reference to those dispositions that involve instinctive or even mostly unconscious action.

One disadvantage of this usage in speech is that we may not recognize all the parallels between this sort of conditioning, and the conditioning of our person–thought processes,  decision making processes, and emotional reactions–that is essential for virtuous behavior.

More Notes on the Goodness of the Passions

When a man is affected by a passion, things seem to him greater or smaller than they really are, as to a lover, what he loves seems better, and to him who fears, what he fears seems more dreadful. Consequently owing to the defect of right judgment, every passion, considered in itself, hinders the ability of deliberating well. (Summa Theologiae 44:2).

St. Thomas thus argues that while fear inclines us to think about how to avoid the thing or danger we are afraid of, it has the tendency to distort our judgment of the matter. From this it might seem to follow that it would be ideal never to feel fear, that we would thus act most reasonably and humanly. Thomas does not, however, draw this consequence, but affirms the value of fear for human, rational action.

If fear is moderate, not disturbing the reason very much, it conduces to acting well, insofar as it causes a certain solicitude, and makes a man deliberate and act with greater attention. If, however, fear increases so much as to disturb the reason, it hinders action even on the part of the soul. (Summa Theologiae 44:4)

In this passage Aquinas grants the point he made above, that even moderate fear has a certain tendency to incline our judgment to it, and in this way to make our judgment less objective. But when fear is moderate, and when it is directed to something that is a real danger, a real possible evil, then the benefits outweigh the harm.

In general the effect of such emotions, which is to make us focus on certain aspects of what is before us, and to judge them accordingly, has potential benefits and potential risks: (1a) Though an emotion such as fear may make us overestimate the fearfulness of an evil, (1b) if we would otherwise have underestimated it, then it brings our estimation closer to the truth; again, (2a) though the emotion may make us overlook certain things, (2b) it may also bring certain things to our attention, which we would otherwise not have given attention to.

In the larger picture, the largest factor determining whether passions and emotions are beneficial or detrimental for truly human action, is the formation of the emotions, which takes place through the acquisition of virtue. When an emotion itself is a formed and reasonable passion, the overall effect is almost always good.

A note on Aquinas's use of scripture here: In the Sed Contra of 44:4 he cites St. Paul, "With fear and trembling work out your salvation" (Phil 2:12), and remarks in the body of the article that though excessive fear hinders us from acting well, St. Paul is not speaking of this kind of fear. This seems to be an indication that Aquinas is not simply using St. Paul as a "proof text" for an opinion he gets from, say, Aristotle, but sees a real and significant doctrine on the role of emotions in Christian life in the Sacred Scriptures, though of course, in this systematic work, he does not go into all detail of exegetical questions.

With fear and trembling work out your salvation