187. Sin's Division: Affirmative Precepts, Manifestation, and Species

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Necessity of Affirmative Statements in Logic #

• Negative conclusions require at least one affirmative (positive) premise; two negative statements alone cannot yield any conclusion
• The affirmative statement is the cause (via premises) that forces the mind to arrive at a conclusion
• This principle has deep implications for understanding how negation and privation relate to positive being

Affirmative and Negative Precepts as Stages of Moral Development #

• Divine law proposes both affirmative and negative precepts out of necessity for gradual moral growth (Latin: gradatim - step by step)
• Negative precepts (prohibitions against evil) represent the first stage: abstaining from vice
• Affirmative precepts (commands to do good) represent the second stage: actively pursuing virtue
• These do not pertain to diverse virtues but to diverse grades or steps within the same virtue
• The distinction is developmental: one must first stop doing bad things before one can effectively do good things

The Three Grades of Sin: Heart, Mouth, and Deed #

• Augustine distinguishes three grades of sin in the De Trinitate (Book 12): thought (cogitatio), pleasure in thought, and consent
• Gregory the Great (in Moralia) provides four grades: guilt hidden in the heart, externally published, strengthened by custom, and reaching desperation
• These grades represent stages of manifestation, not diverse complete species
• Heart: The first foundation or beginning of sin; the interior disturbance (e.g., anger arising in the heart)
• Mouth: Breaking forth into words; manifestation of the heart’s conception
• Deed: The consummation or completion of sin in external action
• All three pertain to the same perfect species of sin when they proceed from the same motive
• Example: The angry man seeking revenge is first disturbed in his heart, then breaks forth in words, then proceeds to deeds—all from the single motive of revenge

Superabundance and Defect in Sin #

• Sins divided by excess versus deficiency (e.g., prodigality vs. illiberality) differ not merely in degree but in species
• These represent contrary motives: prodigality stems from love of pleasure; insensibility (the vice of deficiency in this matter) stems from hatred of bodily pleasure
• Contraries represent species furthest apart within the same genus
• The mere fact that one differs by “more or less” does not prove the same species—different forms underlie apparent quantitative differences

Circumstances and the Species of Sin #

• Not all corruptions of circumstances diversify the species of sin
• When diverse circumstances flow from the same motive (e.g., the illiberal man excepting money when he ought not, where he ought not, more than he ought—all from disordered desire for wealth), they constitute one species
• Diverse circumstances corrupted from diverse motives do diversify species
• A circumstance transfers an act to another species only when it introduces another motive

Key Arguments #

Against the View that Affirmative and Negative Precepts Address Different Virtues #

• Argument: Precepts are instruments of grace leading to virtue progressively, not simultaneously
• One cannot actively do good while habituated to doing evil
• The natural progression: remove the obstacle (vice) first, then build the virtue (good act)
• Therefore: both precepts pertain to degrees of one virtue, not to distinct virtues

Against the View that Sins of Heart, Mouth, and Deed Are Completely Distinct Species #

• Argument: All three proceed from the same motive when unified
• Example: Coriolanus gets angry (heart), breaks into speech (mouth), then joins the enemy and marches against Rome (deed)
• The three are like stages in a motion: they are not distinguished when the motion is continuous, only when the motion stops in the middle
• The perfection of sin consists in the deed; the heart and mouth are incomplete stages of the same sin

Against the View that More and Less Do Not Indicate Different Species #

• Argument: More and less themselves do not cause diversity of species, but they follow upon diversity of species
• When a quantitative difference reflects an underlying difference in form or motive, it indicates diverse species
• Example: Utility friendship vs. virtue friendship—both called friendship, but they are truly different kinds with the virtue friendship being “more” friendship
• Example: Love of God (wishing well) vs. love of concupiscence (desiring good for oneself)—different kinds, not same kind more or less

Important Definitions #

Cogitatio (Thought) #

• The first interior movement of sin in the mind; the disturbance of the intellect or imagination
• Part of Augustine’s three-stage analysis of sin’s genesis

Gaudium (Pleasure/Delight) #

• The second stage: taking pleasure in the thought or imagination of the sinful act
• A movement of the appetitive faculty toward the imagined good

Consensio (Consent) #

• The third and completing stage of interior sin: the will’s assent to the sinful act
• Completes the sin in the heart even before external manifestation

Aversion (Turning Away) #

• The privative aspect of sin: departure from the order of reason and divine law
• Not the formal cause of sin’s species

Conversio (Turning Toward) #

• The positive aspect of sin: the actual inclination toward some apparent good or object
• The formal cause of sin’s species and what determines its character

Motiva (Motives) #

• The intention or end that moves the will to sin
• Diversity of motives creates diversity of species in sin
• The motive is the internal principle distinguishing one sin from another

Rectitudo Rationis (Rectitude/Right Reason) #

• The proper measure and ordering of acts according to reason and divine law
• Departure from right reason constitutes the formal disorder of sin

Examples & Illustrations #

The Angry Man (Coriolanus) #

• From a single motive of revenge: first disturbed in heart, then breaks forth in tumultuous words, finally proceeds to deeds (joining the enemy, marching against Rome)
• Illustrates how three grades of manifestation proceed from one species of sin

Nathanson and Conversion #

• A man committed abortions, then gave them up when he perceived the wrongness (stopping the evil)
• Later converted to Christianity and began active good works (pursuing the good)
• Exemplifies the progression from negative to affirmative precepts in actual moral transformation
• Made a famous film shown in the White House by Reagan

The Heiress (Play) #

• A wealthy father tests his daughter’s suitor by offering him money
• The suitor accepts, proving he loves the money, not the daughter
• If he truly loved her, he would be insulted by the offer
• Illustrates the difference between love of concupiscence (for what one wants) and love of benevolence (wishing good to the beloved)

It Happened One Night (Capra Film) #

• An heiress fleeing from her father meets a reporter
• She’s being pursued by a pilot who wants her for her money
• Exemplifies both types of love: the pilot’s false love (for money) vs. potential true love (for the person)

The Prodigal and Illiberal Man #

• Prodigal: gives away money excessively from love of pleasure and display
• Illiberal: refuses to give or spend from miserly desire to hoard
• Both sins concern money but have contrary motives, making them contrary vices
• One can be prodigal in giving and illiberal in taking (diverse circumstances, diverse motives)

Friendship Kinds (Aristotle’s Ethics) #

• Utility friendship: friends for mutual advantage
• Pleasure friendship: friends for enjoyment of company
• Virtue friendship: friends for wishing good to one another
• More and less (utility < pleasure < virtue) follow upon real differences in kind, not mere quantity

Drunkenness #

• Getting drunk moderately vs. moderately is a contradiction (there is no mean of the extreme in this vice)
• Some who drink every weekend vs. every other weekend shows more/less following upon the same vice
• Illustrates that quantitative differences can indicate the same species when motive is identical

The Gourmet Club Member #

• A member discusses elaborate preparations (flying in special mushrooms, etc.) with such refinement that the listener almost enters into desperation from admiring the preparations
• Illustrates studium (studious, careful attention to delicate pleasures) as a circumstance of gluttony

Questions Addressed #

Q: Why does Thomas say affirmative statements are necessary to prove negative conclusions? #

A: Because privation and negation are not self-subsisting; they depend on the positive being they negate. To prove something lacks an order requires establishing what the positive order would be. Logically, two negative premises cannot force the mind to any conclusion because negation has no positive motive force.

Q: Why are negative and affirmative precepts not for different virtues? #

A: Because both are instruments leading the will toward virtue through stages of moral development. The negative precept removes obstacles (in via - on the way); the affirmative precept builds the virtue. One cannot perform good consistently until the opposing vice is eliminated. They are stages (gradatim) in one virtue, not distinct virtues.

Q: How can sins of the heart, mouth, and deed be one species when they seem so different? #

A: They are not distinguished as complete species but as incomplete manifestations of one species. Just as a motion that continues uninterrupted through multiple stages is one motion (not diversified), so sin that proceeds from one motive through thought, speech, and deed remains one species. The deed is the complete realization; the heart and mouth are its foundations and intermediate stages.

Q: Do “more and less” indicate different species of sin? #

A: Not by themselves. But when “more and less” follow upon different forms or motives, they indicate real diversity of species. The quantitative difference is a sign, not a cause, of the specific difference. Example: saying “2+2=5” vs. “2+2=6” are different falsities only if they proceed from different causes; otherwise they are the same false statement more or less extended.

Q: How can diverse circumstances corrupt into different species of sin? #

A: Circumstances corrupt acts into different species only when they introduce a different motive. When circumstances (time, place, quantity, manner) all flow from the same disordered intention, they do not multiply the species—they remain one sin with various corruptions. But when a circumstance changes the motive (e.g., desiring food at wrong time from inability to endure delay vs. desiring delicate food from appetite for pleasure), the species changes.

Notable Quotes #

“There’s got to be an affirmative statement to support a negative statement. You can’t support by the soldierism [solecism?]. That’s the greatest kind of argument.” — Berquist, on the logical necessity of affirmative premises

“Men might be led, step by step, to virtue, right? First, by abstaining from the bad, to which we are led through the negative precepts to abstain from it, right? And afterwards, to making the good, to which we are induced through [affirmative precepts].” — Thomas Aquinas, as cited by Berquist

“The consummation of the sin is in the doing, right? Whence the sin of doing as a complete species. But the first beginning of it is his worst foundation in the heart. The second is in the mouth according as a man breaks forth easily to manifesting the concept of his heart. The third grade is when it is now in the consummation of his work.” — Thomas Aquinas, on the three grades of sin’s manifestation

“Contraries are what? Species furthest apart in the same genus, right?” — Berquist, on how superabundance and defect relate as contrary vices

“If you and I are friends because I enjoy your company, right? And then you and I are friends because I wish good to you, right? Is that the same kind of friendship?” — Berquist, on how “more and less” can indicate distinct kinds, not mere quantity