Prima Secundae
Lecture 187: Sin's Division: Affirmative Precepts, Manifestation, and Species

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an affirmative statement at all, right? There's got to be an affirmative statement to support a negative statement. You can't support by the soldierism. That's the greatest kind of argument. The soldierism is an argument which some statements lay down. Another one follows necessarily, right? Because the one's laid down, right? There's no way to lay down two negative statements to get a negative conclusion. You can't get any conclusion. And the only way to get an affirmative conclusion is to lay down two affirmative statements, right? Even that doesn't work all the time. But to get a negative conclusion, you have to lay down not only a negative statement, but an affirmative statement, right? And so an affirmative statement is necessary to prove a negative statement. There's an idea of cause there, right? I mean, the definition there, speech in which some statements lay down, another false necessarily, because of those laid down, right? But the premises are the cause of the conclusion, right? And forcing the mind to go to that conclusion. But one of those premises has to be affirmative before it can have a negative conclusion, huh? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But you gotta smoke it. You gotta think about it for a long time, huh? But, you know, Monsignor Dion would give one some statement, and I'd go around thinking about it all day, all night, and the next day, you know, and so on. Monsignor Dion says to me, do you remember everything I say? And I said, yes. I don't know if that was true, but... But you could take something that Thomas says, you know, and go around, you know, thinking about it, you know, for sometimes days, sometimes years, you know, and sometimes something else you read, right? I know myself, and I see something, and I say, you know, I don't fully understand that, you know, but maybe years later, I'm reading some other texts and cast some light upon it, and it becomes more and more clear to me, you know? De Connick, you know, said he was teaching the physics, you know, the book we were mentioning earlier there, since the 1930s, and he said, you still see something new when he goes through, right? Monsignor Dion finds something out in the physics, did De Connick. And he said, how could I have missed that after all these years of teaching? You know? Okay. Now, what about the second objection from the affirmative negative, right? I answer, the second should be said, it was necessary in the law of God to propose diverse, what? Affirmative and negative precepts, right? That men might be gradatuses in the Latin, right? Bit by bit, step by step, that's the way our mind grows. That men might be led into, 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... Forever. Yeah. I remember one time, like teacher Kusurik says to me, Guston says, the only part of logic worth teaching is the part about errors, how we make mistakes. I don't know where I'm guessing that said that. That's what Kusurik said. I don't know. But it's got a stakes to be here, right? You know? We mentioned negative precepts first, right? And thus, the affirmative and the negative precepts do not pertain to diverse virtues, but to diverse grades or steps in what? Virtue, right? And consequently, it's not necessary that they be contrary to diverse species according to diverse sins, according to species, right? This is awfully subtle, what Thomas is saying here, right? It's how often you've thought about those Ten Commandments and not seen the truth of what he's saying right here, right? Now, he says, sin does not have a species on the part of aversion because according to this, it is a negation or a privation, a lack, but on the part of what? Conversion, right? According to certain act. Whence according to diverse precepts of law are not diversified sins according to species. That sounds almost heretical, doesn't it? Tell that to your confessor. I don't know what he's saying. Just obey the commandment. Judge and say your penance. You hear Thomas' confession, right? Yeah. You put the compendium for it, right? That can be through this confession. To the third, it should be said that that objection proceeds about the material diversity of the species, huh? It should be known, however, that negation, although properly it is not in a species, nevertheless, it's constituted in a species by what? A kind of rejection to some, what? Affirmation which it follows. You realize there's almost all this subtlety here in distinguishing the sins, right? Yeah, I mean, it's... Not only avoiding it, right? Yeah, I mean, it's something here. Wherefore, the affirmative and negative precepts do not belong to different virtues, but to different degrees of virtue? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're talking about virtue. Yeah. You're talking about virtue. That's something affirmative, virtue, yeah. But since you've got to first stop doing these bad things, right? Mm-hmm. And then you've got to kind of work your way into doing the good things, right? Yeah, that's what, somewhere, I don't remember where, I just read it recently, but I think it's in the Catechism of Interpedoconiesis Development, one of them. Is it enough for a man to just not hurt people, not doing them well? Yeah. No, he has to do good work. Yeah, yeah. Who was the famous, the guy committing all those abortions there and then gave up abortions when he saw a kind of, what? Nathanson. Yeah, Nathanson, yeah, yeah. And he stopped committing this horrible sin, right? And then later on, he eventually converted, right? And he started to do a lot of good, right? He made the famous film there, you know, that Regan was showing in the White House, right? Yeah. You know, about the babies and so on, going on in the womb, right? Mm-hmm. And so he did a lot of good, right? He had to stop, you know, doing bad things. Iniquity first, you know? And he gradually grew and finally converted, you know? Bishop Sheena, I forget who it was that had something to do with his conversion, but I remember Bishop Sheena that kind of made you see now what it was. Mm-hmm. Maybe it was something else there in the world. It was supposed to be, that sound of the screen was supposed to be showing in the White House or what? Reagan was showing it to his staff, right? Reagan showed in the White House. He was doing, no. Because Reagan had a conversion too, right? I mean, he had been governor of California. He had signed something that was kind of, you know, pro-abortion, you know? and he gradually got to realize that this was not right. Yeah. So you've got to stop doing these bad things, I guess, first. A little break now? Okay. to Article 7, is it? To the seventh, one goes forward thus. It seems that unsuitably, sin is divided into a sin of the heart, a sin of the mouth, and a sin of what? Deed, huh? Doing. Augustine says in the 12th book of the Trinity, he lays down three grades, right, of sin, which the first is when a what? Yeah. A sense of sin. Carnal sense, right? Engenders a certain, what, unlawfulness, right, huh? Which is the sin of cogitationis, right, huh? Of thought, right? The second grade is when the what? With only the what? Pleasure. Pleasure of thought. So one is content, right? And the third grade is when something should be done, is discerned by what? Consent, right? But these three things pertain to what? The heart. Yeah. And this says here, it would seem that sins are infinitely divided into the sins of thought or in being. You said heart? Yeah. But here he's talking about a distinction of three that seems to be in it, right? I think of something, you know, and then start taking delight in it, you know, and then... And what they're translating is thought, he's saying it's heart. Okay, okay, yeah. Moreover, Gregory in the fourth of the Moralia lays down four grades of sin, right? Of which the first is guilt hidden in the heart. Secondly, when it is texterially published. Third, when it's strengthened with custom. Fourth, when it goes all the way to the resumption of divine mercy. Or desperation. Or desperation. And the man proceeds, right? Winston does not distinguish the sin of doing from the sin of the mouth. And he adds two other grades of sin. Therefore, unsuitable was the first division. Well, Thomas has a great deal of respect for Gregory and Augustine, right? They're two of the four great doctors of the Western Church. Gregory's quite an authority as well as Augustine. And moreover, there cannot be a sin in the mouth or indeed in the heart. Therefore, these sins do not differ in species. Therefore, they ought not to be divided against each other. It's the most frustrating writer, this Thomas, right? He's constantly conflicted. Constantly objecting to the truth, you know. Objecting to himself. Yeah. Against this is what Jerome says upon Ezekiel. Three are the general what? Offense. Yeah. That the human race is subject to. Either in thought or words or in words. Indeed, we stand. The answer should be said that some things are found to differ in species in two ways. In one way from this, they both have a complete what? Species. Just as the horse and the ox differ in species. I know about that now from being on the farm with my grandchildren. Another way according to diverse grades in some generation or motion are taken diverse species. Just as Efficatio, right? Yeah. It is a complete generation of a house but the gathering together the foundation and the erection of the wall are incomplete species. species as is clear through the philosopher in the book of the Ethics, right? The same can also be said in the generation of what? Animals, huh? Thus therefore sin is divided through these three with the sin of the mouth, the heart and the teeth not as through diverse, what? Complete species. For 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, what? 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, what? Work. So I want to keep with you, right? And then I start saying things and then somebody's suing the ballpark there, right? I went out to the New York teams playing, another team, the Dodgers playing, not the Dodgers, but the Mets. Giants. What it was, what it was, what it was, what it was, two different things and he got killed out there in the parking lot, right? You know, and they're trying to, trying to sue the park now, you know, about who's he, that's the soup. Safe enough. Yeah, but there's something said probably, you know, but he didn't like the way the game went and then something was said and some challenge and everything. Anyway, we'll see. And these three differ according to diverse grades of the sin, right? For these, it's clear that these three pertains to the same, what, perfect species of sin, right? Since they proceed from the same, what, motive, huh? For the angered man, right, huh? From this that he desires in dictum, right, revenge, first is disturbed in his, what? Heart. Yeah. Secondly, he breaks forth in tumelios, words. Third, he proceeds to what? Curious deeds. Yeah. The same thing is clear in luxury and in any other sin, huh? So what does Coriolanus do, right? First he gets angry, right, huh? And then he breaks out into words, right? And finally he goes and joins the enemy and marches against Rome, right, huh? Yeah. That's what he gets down in the east. To the first, therefore, it should be said that every sin of the heart comes together in the notion of something, what? Hidden. And according to this is laid down one grade, which nevertheless is distinguished through three grades, the thought, the pleasure, and the, what? Consent. So that's the division of one member of the first, what? Division, right? To the second, it should be said that the sin of, what? The mouth and of the deed come together in their being manifest, right? It was hidden before inside, right? It was now manifested in the tongue and to the deed. An account of this, they are computed by Gregory under one, huh? Jerome Arbor distinguishes them because in the sin of the mouth is manifestation only, right? And chiefly intended. In the sin of deed is principally the, what? The caring out, yeah. The interior conception of the heart. But the manifestation is from, what? Consent. Yeah. But custom and desperation are grades falling upon the perfect, what, species of the sin, huh? Just as youth and, or adolescents and youth are after the, what, perfect generation. Innovation of man, huh? Thomas has this thing about the, the spiritual sense there of the dead that are raised by Christ, right? And the one is the daughter of the, yeah, and that's kind of what the sin has remained within, right? and then there's the son of the woman and that's where it's perceived to the exterior, right? And then finally there's Lazarus, right, where he's been in the tomb. Yeah. Well, that's where you come accustomed to this sin, right? So that's kind of adding something after the complete ratio of the sin, right? You're dead the first day you're dead. but I mean once you've been in the tomb for a while then it's like you've been accustomed to this sin and it's second nature to you now, right? You don't get drunk every weekend, right? It's like it's custom, you know? Some people live that way, you know? It should be only every other weekend, right? You have to look for moderation. Yeah, yeah, moderation. Not too much, not too much drunkenness. It's just enough. There's always special. little sex on that in the ethics there, right? There's no mean of the extreme, huh? I'm going to get drunk moderately, right? So no, he ain't getting drunk instantly. Yeah, just steal a few minutes of wine. Or I'll be adult, it could be modern in adultery. Yeah, yeah. Shakespeare makes fun of that idea too. He doesn't see these as really contradictory in the other one. To the third, it should be said that the sin of the heart and the mouth are not distinguished from the sin of deed when together they are joined with it, right? Insofar as each of these is found by itself. Just as also the part of emotion is not distinguished from the whole motion, when the motion is what? Continuous, right? But only when the motion stops in the middle, right? So I didn't stop in Barrie, I just came and went right through. Yeah. So I had two voyages. I went to Barrie and then I went to Barrie to the monastery. It was just one trip to the monastery. Yeah. Time for another one here? Sure. To the eighth one proceeds thus, huh? It seems that the superabundance and defect do not diversify species of sin. For superabundance and defect differ according to more and less. But more and less do not diversify the species. Therefore, superabundance and defect do not diversify the species of sin, right? So if I'm a little bit angry or a lot angry, it's the same thing, angry. Same species of emotion, right? Moreover, just as a sin and things to be done is from this that one receives from the rightness of reason, so falsity and speculative matters is from this that one receives from the truth of the thing. But one does not diversify the species of falsity from this that someone says more or less than what is in the thing. Therefore, they do not diversify the species of sin from this, huh? The one receives from the rectitude of reason more or less, huh? So if I say 2 plus 2 is 5, or I say 2 plus 2 is 6, is 2 plus 2 is 6 more false than 2 plus 2 is 5? And further away from the truth, right? But it's, you know, another kind of falsity there? I remember that when you check your bank account, right? Because it never comes out, you know. It used to be in the old days, you know, where the automobile, the radios never seemed to work. I remember Brother Mark used to say, you know, that if you get by the car and the motor runs, I mean, the radio works. He said, be sure to take it in and get it fixed. Further from two species, one does not constitute one species, as Porphyry says. He's the big authority of genus, species, difference, property, and accident. But superabundance and defect united in one sin. For people who are at the same time illiberal and what? Prodigious. Prodigious. Of which, too, illiberality is a sin according to defect, but prodigality according to superabundance. Therefore, superabundance and defect do not diversify the species of sin. He walked around dictating these things, Thomas, and then he laid down on the bed. He kept on dictating. So, these descriptions of Thomas. But against this, contraries differ according to species. For contrariety is a difference according to form, as is said in the 10th book of the Metaphysics. But vices which differ according to superabundance and defect are contrary, as illiberality to prodigality. Therefore, they differ according to what? Species. By answer, it should be said that since in sin there are two things. To wit, the act itself and its disorder. We wouldn't say in English. In order, we'd say disorder. Insofar as one besieze from the order of reason and from the order of the divine law. But the species of sin are noted not from the side of the disorder, which is apart from the intention of the one sinning, but more on the side of the act itself, according as it ends in some object in which the intention of the one sinning is to rectify. And therefore, wherever there occurs a diverse motive inclining one's intention to sinning, there is a diverse species of what? Sin. Now, it's manifest that there's not the same motive for sinning in sins which are according to superabundance and in sins which are according to defect. Nay, rather, they are contrary motives, just as the motive in the sin of intemperance is the love of bodily pleasures. But the emotion of what? Insensibility. Yeah. Is there hatred of them? Is there hatred of them, right? I don't know. Aristotle in the Ethics says that we don't have a name for this insensibility, right? So he coins the word insensibility like the man lacks, what, sense of taste or something, right? You know, something that would... Turn off meaning. Yeah, yeah. Whence sins of this sort not only differ in species, but also are contrary to each other, right? And contraries are what? Species furthest apart in the same, what? Genes, right, huh? Now, what about the first objection, right? For more or less, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that more or less, although they are not the cause of the diversity of species, nevertheless, they follow sometimes upon what? Different species. Insofar as they are awry, they come from, what? Diverse forms. Just as if it is said that fire is lighter than, what? Air, right? Whence the philosopher says in the Eighth Book of the Ethics that those who lay down that there are not diverse, what? Species of friends. An account of this, that they are said, according to more or less, do not believe by sufficient sign, right? What's he saying there, right, huh? 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? You tell all kinds of jokes, so I enjoy your company, right? But I don't wish you good, right? But some of the guy over here, I wish good to him, right? Yeah, yeah. So you might say that he's more my friend and I'm more his friend than you and I, right? But this more or less follows up on a different kind of friendship, right? Or if you and I are friends because I need you in my campaign and you need me, you know? And someone else is based upon, what, virtue, right? Something like that. Then there's a different kind of friendship here, right? And one is more friendship than the other, right? But that follows up on a different kind of friendship. So it's not enough to say, you know, that all friendship is just a question. It's all the same thing. More or less. Yeah. It's not, huh? Because the more or less is following up on a different kind, then. You know, is theology more desirable than logic? Yeah. It depends on the sense of before me. But is theology more desirable than logic? In itself, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you talk, it's a different species of science, right? Because logic is about the syllogism and theology is about God and God's a better thing than, okay? Okay, so if theology is more desirable, then it's not different in kind from logic because it's being more desirable because it's a different kind of science, right? Okay. Or if I say that, you know... You know, it's a different kind of science, right? You know, it's a different kind of science, right? You know, it's a different kind of science, right? The love of God is more love than the love of candy. It's a different kind of love, right? Because of love of what? God should be a love of what? Wishing well, right? The love of candy is a love of concubiscence, right? Different kind of love, right? They still have to say to students, they say, you know, you go to the mixer, you know, and see a beautiful gorilla there, right? You love her, you like her right away, right? What kind of liking is that? Yeah, this is a good for me, you know? You're not wishing good to her, right? You know, cutie needs me, you know. No, she's the good I want for myself, right? So that's the love of what? Of wanting, right? Now, if you come to wish good to this woman, right, then you have a different kind of love, right? And that's more love than the other love, right? But that doesn't mean the two loves are really, what, the same? Just more or less the same thing, right? There's a real difference, huh? In the kind of love this is, right? So if the girl is a rich girl, you know, to love me or to love my money, right? You know? More or less. You love me or you love my money, right? Because if you want to marry her because of her money, right? Then you really, what, love the money, right? If I love her for her money, then she might say, you know, you love me now. See? What would I do? With your money? Yeah, what's up, what do I do? So I couldn't have quit, I do, yeah. How would you have got that money? Yeah, yeah. There was a beautiful play I saw years ago on the TV there called The Heiress. You know? It was set in Dutch to New York, right? And the wealthy man there, he had one daughter, right? And the young man wanted to marry his daughter, of course, and she wanted to marry him and so on. And her role was played by Vivi D'Avoli, you know, when I think Roscoe's and the other actors should be there. He was an actress. And the father is suspicious of the young man, right? So he confronts the young man, you know, privately and says, he offers him a sum of money, right? And he can have a sum of money and want to be, you know, tied down to this not-so-beautiful woman, right? And, of course, he takes the offer, right? And, of course, then this is, of course, proof that he doesn't really love the daughter. And she's done a good thing for his daughter, right? And, of course, she wanted to believe, though, right? So she turns against her father. But the interesting, you know, thing to see, you know, to illustrate the differences in kinds of love, right? Because if the man really loved her, he'd be insulted, you know, in fact, if anything, you know, offended, you know, that he'd offer him money, you know? It was the famous Capra movie, I think it was, it happened one night, where the heirs is fleeing from her father. She needs the reporter Clark Abel. And she's fleeing from a marriage to a cat who's a pilot. Yeah. He's after her money. And so that movie, sort of, it gives the perfect example of both. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We saw the first objection there, right? The second objection. Yeah. The second, it should be said, that the intention of the one sinning is not that he recede from reason, right? And therefore, it is not, what? Of the same reason, the sin of a, what? Superabundance, a defect, on account of the recess from the same, what? Rectitude of reason. But, whenever I guess, the one who says the false intends to, what? Hide the truth. Whence, as regards this, it does not differ whether he says more or what? Less, huh? If, however, to recede from the truth is outside his intention, then is manifest, that is, from diverse causes, that someone has moved to saying more or less. And according to this, diverse is the ratio falsitude. Just as the boaster, right? Mm-hmm. Who excels in saying the false, seeking what? Glory, right? In Shakespeare's character there, paroles. Which means... Word. Yeah, yeah. That's his name, paroles. Paroles. And the deceiver, who diminishes, right? Evading the solution of debt. Whence, certain false opinions are, what? Contrary. Contrary to each other, huh? It's different there between the boaster, right? And who's winning your reputation, right? To the theory, it should be said that the prodigious man, prodigal, and illiberal one, can be, someone can be according to diverse things. And one be, what? Illiberal in taking what he ought not, right? Mm-hmm. And prodigal in giving what he ought not, huh? Nothing other prevents, contrary, to being the same person, according to diverse things. Shall we feature the last article? Yes, we got that. We got that. Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. To the ninth one proceeds thus, it seems that vices and sins differ in species according to diverse circumstances. Because, as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter, the divine names, sin, or evil rather, happens from singular defects. But singular defects are corruptions of singular circumstances. Therefore, from singular circumstances, corrupt singular species of sins are what? 15 years. Here we go. Moreover, sins are certain human acts. But human acts sometimes receive species from circumstances as it has been said above. Okay, it's a long way back. Therefore, sins differ in species according to diverse circumstances. The diverse circumstances are corrupted. Moreover, diverse species of what? Blood and blood. Are signed according to particulars in this verse. Preparate, laute, nimis, ardente, studiose. Preparate. Preparate outside of propriety, I would guess, but even at the wrong time. Too soon, yeah. Laute. Sumptuously, too much, greedily, deeply. What? Hastily, sumptuously, too much, greedily, deeply. But these pertain to diverse circumstances, huh? Because potpourri is before one ought to do something, right? You know, okay? Nimi, my daughter-in-law, she insists, you know, but before you say prairie, nobody starts eating anything, right? Someone says, you know, I don't fight for you. Wait for saying prairie. She's quite consistent upon that. Nimi's more than one ought to, right? And so on, clearly the other ones. Too desiring, right? Studio sing, huh? Warren Murray says he's gone to some gourmet's club or something like that, right? So he goes to the annual feast of the group, you know? And he just sits down and there's a stranger there who's come there, you know, and he's on the club. The guy's talking about the preparations for the meal, and he had to fly something in from here and this thing over there, and they almost didn't get this, you know? And the guy was almost in a finesse of Warren Quintess. It's kind of funny, you know? You may describe this guy as, we almost didn't get the special mushrooms, you know, we get the special. That's what Chesterton said about it. I don't take my body that seriously. Yeah. Again, this is what the philosopher says, and the third and fourth of the ethics. Singular vices, sin by doing, or then when not, and when when not, and so on, right? According to all the circumstances. Therefore, according to what? This. Therefore, not according to this, should be the species of sin. Sin. The answer should be said, as has been said, that where there occurs another motive to sinning, there is another species of sin, right? Because the motive to sinning is the end and the object. Now, it happens sometimes that in the corruptions of diverse circumstances, there's the same motive, right? Just as the illiberal man, from the same is moved that he except when he ought not, right? And where he ought not, huh? And more than he ought, right? And similarly of other circumstances. For this, he makes an account of a disordered desire of gathering together money, right? And in such diverse circumstances, corruptions do not diversify, what? Species of sin. Of sin. But they pertain to one and the same species of sin, right? Sometimes, though, corruptions or diverse circumstances come from diverse motives, right? For when someone, what? Yeah. You see, it couldn't arrive from this that a man is not able to bear the, what? Delay of food. An account of his, what? Easy consumption of his humidity, right? What however pertains that he desires immodern food, huh? Can happen in account of a, what? A power of his nature, potent to converting much food, right? That however someone desires food that are delicately prepared, it can happen in account of the appetite of pleasure which is in the food, right? Once in such circumstances of diverse things, once corruptions in such, corruptions of diverse circumstances and such things can induce diverse species of, what? Sin, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that evil as such is a lack, right? And therefore, it is diversified in species according to those things which are lack, right? Just as in the case of other privations. But sin does not get its species on the part of lack or aversion, as has been said above, but from conversion to the object of the act. To the second, it should be said that a circumstance never transfers act to another species except when it is a, what? Another motive. To the third, it should be said that in diverse species of clitoris, there are diverse motives. I didn't know how bad I was. Now I know. Okay, we're not going to see each other until the, uh... Partying is such sweet sorrow, as Shakespeare says, but like MacArthur, I shall return.