Chapter 70 — On the sacrament of penance: first, that it is possible for a man to sin after receiving sacramental grace

Although the aforesaid sacraments confer grace on man, the grace bestowed on him does not make him impeccable.

Gratuitous gifts are received into the soul like habitual dispositions, for man does not always act in accordance with them. Now nothing prevents the man who has a habit from acting either in accordance with it, or against it: thus a grammarian may speak either grammatically or ungrammatically. It is the same with the habits of moral virtue: thus a man who has the habit of justice may perform just actions, and may act unjustly. The reason is because the use of habits is subject to our will, and the will may be borne to either of two opposite alternatives. It is therefore clear that the man who has received gratuitous gifts can sin by acting against grace.

Again. There can be no impeccability in man without unchangeableness of will. Now man’s will cannot be unchangeable except through his obtaining his last end, because the will is rendered unchangeable by being so wholly fulfilled that there is nothing to turn it away from the object on which it is fixed. But such a fulfilment of his will is not becoming to man unless he has obtained his last end, since, as long as something remains to be desired, the will is not fulfilled. Accordingly, man cannot be impeccable until he has reached his last end; this is not granted to man by sacramental grace, because the sacraments are intended to assist man on his way to that end. Therefore, sacramental grace does not make man impeccable.

Further. Every sin is the result of ignorance. Hence the Philosopher says that every bad man is ignorant; (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.1.) and it is said: They err that devise evil (Prov 14:22). Consequently, man is only safe from sin as regards his will when he is safe from ignorance and error in his intellect. Now it is evident that sacramental grace does not deliver man from all ignorance and error, since this is the privilege of those whose intellectual gaze is fixed on that truth which is the supreme criterion of all truth—namely, of those who have obtained their last end, as shown above. (Bk. 3, ch. 51.) Therefore, man is not made impeccable by the grace of the sacraments.

Moreover. Man’s changeableness in vice and virtue depends not a little on his changeableness in the soul’s passions: for when those passions are curbed by his reason, man becomes and remains virtuous; but he becomes wicked when his reason obeys the impulse of his passions. Therefore, as long as man is subject to change in his passions, he is also changeable in vice and virtue. Now the changeableness which results from the soul’s passions is not removed by sacramental grace, but remains in man as long as his soul is united to a passible body. It is therefore evident that man is not made impeccable by sacramental grace.

Further. It would seem unnecessary to warn against sin those who cannot sin. Nevertheless, the faithful who have already received the grace of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments are admonished by the teaching both of the Gospels and of the Apostle. Thus it is said: See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble (Heb 12:15); and: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed (Eph 4:30); and: Let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12). Again, the Apostle says of himself: I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor 9:27). Therefore, men are not rendered impeccable by the grace they receive in the sacrament.

This excludes the error of those heretics who say that a man cannot sin after receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit: and that if a man sins, he never had that grace.

They base their error on that which is said in 1 Cor 13:8: Charity never falls away; and on 1 John 3:6: No one who abides in him sins; whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him; and on 1 John 3:9, which is still more explicit: No one born of God commits sin; for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

These texts, however, do not avail to support their contention. Charity is said never to fall away not as though a man who has charity cannot lose it, since it is said: I have this against you, that you have abandoned the charity you had at first (Rev 2:4), but because the other gifts of the Holy Spirit imply some kind of imperfection (as, for instance, the spirit of prophecy and the like). Therefore, they are made void when that which is perfect is come, but charity will remain in that state of perfection.

The sense of the texts quoted from the epistle of John is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which man is adopted or is born again as a son of God, have such great power that they can keep man from sin as far as they are concerned. Man cannot sin as long as he lives in accordance with them, but he can act against them, and sin by abandoning them. Thus it is said that he cannot sin because he is born of God (1 John 3:9) in the same sense as one might say that what is hot cannot make a thing cool—yet it can become cool, and then it will cool something else. Or one could say that a just man does not perform unjust actions—that is, as long as he acts as a just man.