Chapter 109 — That sin is possible in the demons, and how

That sin of the will is in the demons is clear from the authority of Scripture. For it is said that the devil has sinned from the beginning (1 John 3:8); and it is said that the devil is a liar and the father of lies, and that he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44); and that through the devil’s envy death entered the world (Wis 2:24).

If anyone chose to follow the opinions of the Platonists, he would easily explain these authorities. For they assert that demons have a body composed of air, and so, since they have a body united to them, there can be a faculty of sense in them. Hence they ascribe to them passions which in us are a cause of sin—anger, hate and the like—and thus Apuleius says that they are passive in mind.

Moreover, independently of their being united to bodies, as the Platonists aver, perhaps yet another kind of knowledge might be assigned to them besides that of the intellect. For, according to Plato, the sensitive soul also is incorruptible, (See bk. 2, ch. 82.) so that it must have an operation in which the body does not concur. Consequently, nothing prevents the operation of the sensitive soul, and therefore the passions, from being in an intellectual substance, even though it be not united to a body. Hence the same source of sin is seated in them as in us.

But both of these explanations are impossible. For it has been proved above (Bk. 2, ch. 90.) that with the exception of human souls, no other intellectual substances are united to bodies. And the operations of the sensitive soul are impossible apart from a body is clear from the fact that when a sensorial organ is destroyed, the one operation of the sense is destroyed: thus sight ceases with the loss of an eye. For this reason as soon as the organ of touch is destroyed, the animal must die, for it cannot live without it. (On the Soul 2.2.)

In order to solve the question proposed, then, we must observe that just as there is order among active causes, so too is there in final causes, namely, so that the secondary end depends on the principal end, even as the secondary agent depends on the principal agent. Now, a fault occurs in active causes when the secondary agent strays from the order of the principal agent; just as when through being crooked the tibia fails to accomplish the movement commanded by the appetitive power, and the result is a limping gait. In the same way, therefore, in final causes, when the secondary end is not subordinate to the principal end, there is sin in the will, whose object is the good and the end.

Now every will naturally desires that which is the proper good of the willer, namely perfect being, nor can it will anything contrary to this. Accordingly, no sin of the will can occur in a willer whose proper good is the ultimate end, which is not subordinate to any other end, and to which all other ends are subordinate. Such a willer is God, whose being is the highest good, which is the ultimate end. Therefore, there can be no sin of the will in God.

But in every other willer, whose proper good must be subordinate to another good, sin of the will can occur if we consider him in his nature. For, though the natural inclination of the will in every willer be to will and love his own perfection, so that it cannot will anything contrary thereto, yet it is not naturally implanted in him so that he directs his perfection to another end unfailingly, since the higher end is not his proper end, but that of the superior nature. Therefore, it is left to his discretion to direct his own perfection to a higher end. For beings endowed with a will differ from those which are not so endowed in that the former direct themselves and what is theirs to an end; therefore, they are said to have free-will. But the latter do not direct themselves to an end, but are directed by a higher agent, being, as it were, moved to the end by another’s action, and not by their own.

Hence there could be sin in the will of a separate substance through his not directing his own good and perfection to his last end, and adhering to his own good as his end. And since rules of action must be taken from the end, the consequence was that, through making himself his own end, he pretended to submit other things to his rule, and that his will was not subject to another higher than himself. But this belongs to God alone. In this sense, then, we are to understand that he desired to be equal to God (Isa 14:13–14): not that his good might be equal to the divine good, because such a thing could not come into his mind, and because by desiring it he would desire not to be, since the distinction of species is according to the various degrees of things, as is clear from what has been said above. (Ch. 97; bk. 2, ch. 95.)

Now, the will to rule others, and the refusal to submit one’s will to the ruling of a superior, is the will to be supreme and in a certain way not to be subject, which is the sin of pride. Hence it is reasonably said that the demon’s first sin was pride. But as errors various and manifold result from one error about a principle, so from the first disorder in the demon’s will there arose all manner of sins in his will, both of hatred towards God as resisting his pride and most justly punishing his fault, and of envy towards man, and of many such sins.

We must also observe that, as the proper good of a thing is subordinate to several higher goods, the willer is free to depart from the order of one superior, and not from the order of another that is either higher or lower than the former. Thus a soldier who is subordinate both to his king and to his general can direct his will to the good of the general, and not that of the king, or vice versa. But if the general depart from the order of the king, the will of the soldier will be good if he departs from the will of his general, and directs his own will to his king, and the will of the soldier who obeys the will of his general against the will of his king will be evil. For the order of the lower principle depends on the order of the higher. Now, separate substances are not only subordinate to God, but one of them is subordinate to another, from the first to the last, as we proved in the second book. (Ch. 95.) And since in every willer under God there can be sin of the will, if he is considered in his nature, it was possible for one of the higher separate substances, or even the highest of all, to sin in his will. And this indeed is not improbable; for he would not have rested in his good as his end unless that good were very perfect. It could have happened, then, that some of the lower separate substances directed their good to him by their own will, thus departing from the divine order, and so sinned even as he did, while others, adhering to the divine order by the movement of their will, rightly departed from the order of the one who sinned, although he was higher than they in the natural order. In the fourth book, (Ch. 92. seqq.) we shall show how in either case that will of theirs continues unchangeable, for this regards the punishments or rewards of the good or wicked.

There is, however, this difference between a man and a separated substance: in any one man there are several appetitive powers which are subordinated one to the other. But this is not the case with separate substances, although one substance is subordinated to another. Now sin occurs in the will whenever the inferior appetite is turned aside. Therefore, just as sin would be brought about in a separate substance either by its being turned aside from the divine order or because an inferior substance is turned aside from its order to a superior one, which latter remains under the divine order, so in a man sin occurs in two ways. It occurs in one way from the fact that the human will does not direct its proper good to God; this sin is common both to man and to separate substances. It occurs in another way from the fact that the lower appetite is not regulated with regard to the higher: for instance, as when we will the delights of the flesh, towards which the concupiscible appetite tends, not in accordance with reason. But this kind of sin is not found in separate substances.