Chapter VI. Imperfection
Before turning to the passive purifications and considering how they help to destroy the imperfections of beginners and proficients alike, we wish to return to a previously examined question1 much discussed lately in French, Belgium, and German reviews: the distinction between venial sin and imperfection. To understand the question better, we shall compare it to another similar problem, that of the lesser of two evils.
Everyone agrees that there are imperfections distinct from venial sin in actions done without deliberation; for example, in good or, at the very least, objectively indifferent acts, done mechanically because of involuntary inattention. One man's abstraction may be another man's distraction. The absentminded man who blunders noisily into chapel will certainly disturb diose praying there. And whenever we chant more quickly or more slowly than the rest of the choir because our minds are not on what we are doing, we annoy those around us. Life is full of such imperfections. In communities the chapter of faults is meant to remedy them, lest community life become a general torture that hinders the progress of souls toward perfection. Actions of this kind are not venial sins as long as they remain indeliberate and altogether invol- untary, but they should become less and less frequent in anyone truly tending toward perfection. Were we more closely united to God, more attentive in our duties, more delicate in regard to our neighbor, more reverential toward all that gives life value, such things would hardly happen at all. They had no place in the life of our Lord or His Blessed Mother.
Besides, we must not forget that troublesome indeliberate actions begin to be venial sins as soon as we can and should stop to consider and resolve to mend our ways but do not do so. Then our inadvertence is no longer absolutely involuntary but indirectly voluntary and partly culpable through negligence. The same is true of the first inordinate movements of sensuality or impatience. They begin to be culpable when we can and should notice and repress them but fail to do so. So far in diis matter almost everybody is agreed.
The lesser good — an evil?
But all are not agreed about whether it is in itself a venial sin deliberately to choose a lesser good when we know the greater good is better in itself and also better for us here and now. The problem assumes that the choice involves no contempt of counsel, no laziness or negligence, but simply less effort, less generosity, to advance in the way of perfection.
First of all, we should note that, when people prefer a lesser good to something better both objectively and subjectively, they often make that choice through laziness and negligence and thereby, of course, commit venial sin. We also agree with Billuart that it is illicit to omit a thing better for us solely because we are not bound to do it and wish to use our liberty. This is, as the Thomists say with good reason, a desire without
3 2o THE LOVE OF GOD a proper motive;2 and since no individual deliberate act is indifferent (for each must have a good end or be bad) the act in question is bad.
But it is not impossible to prefer a lesser to a greater good for a legitimate, though less good, motive. Many theologians express this view as follows: "A man accepts a lawful satisfaction, like eating between meals, smoking or using snuff, purely for pleasure and without necessity. Or he prolongs useful conversations he could have shortened. All these things remain within the circle of what is licit and therefore meritorious, too; but he would have progressed much more rapidly and merited much more intensely had he chosen the other alternative." 3
We find a similar example in the good doctor who, having assisted at Mass for nine consecutive days to obtain a special grace, notices that this half hour given to God each morning does no harm at all either to his medical studies or his practice. On the tenth morning he has this good thought : "I could continue to attend Mass daily, and it would be better in itself and better for me, although of course it is not obligatory. Not only would it do no harm to my work but it would even, in a higher sense, be good for it. My confrere assists at daily Mass without his duties as a faculty professor suffering from it and I could follow his example and thus do more good. This may be an inspiration of the Holy Ghost. It is, however, not an obligation but a counsel. I am far from despising it. I know it would be better for me to follow it but I commit no sin by employing this half hour every morning in study. I admit it is a lesser good and that, with more generosity, I could find time later for a half hour's work at my books. It is, then, less good, but still good. Let us not call something bad in itself when it is only less good in itself, and let us not say it is bad for me when it is only less good for me."
We find an analagous case in the priest who habitually makes a fifteen-minute thanksgiving after Mass and has this good thought: "If I really wished to, I certainly could give a half hour to my thanksgiving as so many of my friends do whose ministry seems much more fruitful than my own. However, I am not obliged to do it and I will not allow myself to become lazy but will study some philosophy or history at that time although that could, with more generosity, be put off until later." Surely this priest has no idea that he commits sin. Please God, he may not come to devote himself to study with such immoderate ardor that he will neglect prayer for it and let his prayer become no more than a moment of relaxation and pleasant idleness. Imperfections, especially when repeated, like lax virtuous acts, dispose us indirectly to venial sin by allowing tendencies to develop which we would do well to struggle against with more energy. 4
However, to return to the question whether whatever is less good for us is bad for us, those who deny the distinction between imperfection and venial sin answer that to prefer a lesser good to one that seems better for us here and now is a venial sin, the motive for doing it cannot be legitimate, and
- Because of their lack of intensity, actus remissi of charity, while good and meritorious, react but feebly in combating our inordinate tendencies and in that way dispose us indirccdy or per accident for venial sin. If we wish to content ourtelves with the mere avoidance of sin, God, who gives us beyond what is necessary, will give us fewer graces. Cf. Billuart, De caritate, diss. II, a. 2, de actibus remissis.
what some people would like to call less generosity is really sloth or negligence. 6
Theologians who take this stand are preoccupied with the relative side of the problem, the lesser good compared to the greater rather than the lesser good taken in itself, absolutely. They thus come to think at least implicidy that the lesser good, in comparison to what is better for us here and now, becomes an evil; and so they make no distinction between imperfection and venial sin which they view as differing only per accidens, lack of attention reducing sin to imperfection.
This point of view encounters serious objections in the very arguments invoked in favor of the contrary solution as proposed, among Thomists, by the Carmelites of Salamanca, 6 and stated in Christian Perfection and Contemplation.3 According to this second viewpoint, venial sin and imperfection are distinct in themselves, and the lesser good must be considered absolutely, as it is in itself, before being compared to something better. For example, in the case of the doctor just discussed, it would be better for him to continue going to daily Mass, but it is still good and legitimate for him to consecrate that half hour to studying medicine — an act that is good because of its object (the study to which he devotes himself without falling into either sloth or curiosity), because of its end (the care of the sick), and because of its circumstances, for we are assuming that he studies as he should, when he should, and where he should. Now, according to the prin-
6 In an article entitled "Peche veniel et imperfection," Ephemerides theol. Lovanienses, April, 1926, p. 179, M. E. Ranwez writes: "To choose what we know without doubt to be less good for our soul is a sin."
8 Cursus theol. de peccatis, tr. XHI, disp. 19, dub. t, nos. 8, 9. Cf. also Ilia, q. 15, a. 1, where St. Thomas shows that it would have been impossible for Christ to have had either venial sin or imperfection.
ciples St. Thomas enunciated in regard to the morality of human actions, 8 this action is good in its object, end, and circumstances. It is less good than assistance at Mass but, after all, what is only less good in itself need not be called bad in itself, and what is only less good for us here and now need not be called bad for us here and now. 9
The first reason for adopting this point of view is that human actions are specified by their objects and not by the relation of their objects to some greater good. Therefore, if the object and die motive for which it is willed and the circumstances in which it is done are all conformed to right reason, the act is good, although it may be less good than another which could be done at that time.
A second reason is based on the distinction between a counsel and a precept, a counsel by its nature not obliging but only inviting us to do what is better. And it cannot be said, as is sometimes claimed, that this is true of counsels in the abstract but not of a counsel in the concrete which, because it appears opportune to me here and now, thereby becomes obligatory. We might just as well say, as Billuart somewhere remarks, that in the concrete a counsel loses its nature, its very essence as a counsel, and becomes a command. This can no more be admitted than that a man, by being a particular man, loses his human nature. Should any counsel here and now oblige anyone, it would do so not of itself, but in a wholly accidental fashion, because not to follow the counsel would involve sloth or contempt. Sin has elsewhere been defined as any word, deed, or desire against the eternal law, whatever is contrary to a precept sub gravi or sub levi.
8 For the common teaching of Thomists concerning imperfect acts of charity, actus remissi, see Ila Ilae, q.24, a. 6, ad ium.
We admit that the perfection of charity falls under the great commandment to love God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength and with all thy mind." But perfection comes under the commandment not as matter, or as something to be immediately realized, but only as the end toward which every Christian should tend, each according to his state of life. 10 This is the sense in which every Christian ought to have the spirit of the counsels.
Sin occurs only through the transgression of a precept regarding the matter of that precept, obligatory sub gravi or sub levi. 11 Even an expedient counsel, some good inspiration about a matter of counsel, even when conformed to our vocation, does not suffice ipso facto to constitute an obligation. In the lives of the saints we see that the Holy Ghost sometimes makes them understand that a certain act is better for them (for example, to offer themselves as a victim for some great cause) but that they are not obliged to do it, unless they have made the vow to do what is most perfect. However, they are made to understand that, having offered themselves, they should not take back their gift. The virtuous act being specified by its object, the virtues should be considered, not apart from the commandments, but together with them. 12
A third reason could be added : that God Himself does not always choose what is best in itself, for He can create beings
11 Cf. ibid., ad 211m: "And since that which is a matter of precept can be fulfilled variously, one does not break a commandment through not fulfilling it in the best way, but it is enough to fulfill it in any way whatever. Now the perfection of divine love is a matter of precept for all without exception, so that even the perfection of heaven is not excepted from this precept, as Augustine says (De per/, jiistu. viii), 'one escapes transgressing the precept, in whatever measure one attains to the perfection of divine love.' "
more perfect than those to whom He has given existence. And to save men, He was not bound, but freely willed, to choose the Incarnation. It was, of course, wonderfully fitting, but the choice of some lower means of salvation would not have implied anything unfitting. God could have contented Himself with sending us a prophet to tell us that He would pardon us under certain conditions. Likewise, despite the fact that it was fitting for Him to create, God could very well not have created. The absolute optimism of Leibnitz, who declared that God would not be good or wise had He not created, is a grave error, a heresy. Between God and ourselves there is this undoubted difference: He is not greater for having created the universe, whereas we do become better by being more generous. However, analogously is also remains true that I can refrain from acting with great liberality to a poor man and content myself with giving him merely a little money — and still commit no sin.
The three reasons just given have not been really refuted by those theologians who reject the distinction between venial sin and imperfection. Their answering objection comes to this: that the refusal of a greater good cannot be referred to God and is therefore a venial sin.
To which the reply is, that the refusal of a greater good cannot be referred to God when this greater good is obligatory or when, in a matter of the counsel, the refusal is made with contempt of the counsel or through sloth or negligence. But the same cannot be said when, for a legitimate motive, a man, to do something less good, omits some greater good that is counseled. For example, if the doctor we were speaking about a little while ago stayed away from Mass when it was not obligatory to give himself to study, even if he recognized that with more generosity he could find time to do both, he would commit no sin. Besides, as has already been said in agreement with the theologians of Salamanca, the absence of perfection in the less generous act is not good, but the less perfect act itself is still good because of its object, end, and circumstances, and it can be referred to God. You can climb mountains by direct and difficult footpaths or by zigzaz roads that wind upward less steeply. If you choose the winding highway in preference to the short but hard assent, you move ahead more slowly to the summit but you still go on, you do not come down. What is less hot it not cold. Because ten degrees of temperature is lower than twenty, it does not equal zero.
Although we may not find it easy to distinguish between the highest degree of vegetative life and the lowest degree of sensitive life, and the question arises whether a sponge is a plant or an animal, yet the distinction between these two orders holds. The highest degree of the lower order in some way touches the lowest degree of the higher order, but the vegetable and the animal kingdoms are distinct. Likewise, in the concrete reality of life it may be anything but easy to distinguish between slight venial sins and imperfections. However, unless everything is to become confounded, there is surely a difference between what is purely and simply evil and what is only less good in itself and for us. Before comparing a lesser with a greater good, which is a relative matter, we should consider the lesser good absolutely, as it is in itself. As such it can be referred to God. Effort is indeed withheld, yet this is not to stand still on the mountainside and not to retrace the steps already taken, but only to go forward more slowly by an easier route. We have merely to recall the design made by St. John of the Cross for the ascent of Mt. Car- mel to see that, besides the middle course, the narrow way that mounts direcdy and steeply to the summit by complete abnegation, and the way of the misguided spirit which leads away from God, there is a third path — that of the imperfect soul. As this route spirals its slow, sloping way up the mountainside, it offers much slower travel than the narrow way of perfection, but it still goes upward. St. John of the Cross has managed, in this design and its headings, to preserve all the nuances needed to safeguard so delicate a subject, and his doctrine prompts the generous to holy austerity without discouraging those less generous but still good.
The lesser evil
The question of the lesser evil — whether it is lawful to choose a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater — throws light on the subject under discussion. Nobody doubts that lesser physical evils may be chosen, for example, the amputation of some part of the body to save the whole. But may a man choose a lesser moral evil ?
Some theologians answer affirmatively, saying that the lesser evil takes on the nature of good when compared to the greater evil to be avoided. The comparison of the lesser to the greater evil, a relative consideration, takes precedence over the consideration of the lesser evil taken in itself, absolutely. A little while back we saw how this precedence of the relative ' over the absolute led to a certain rigorism by confusing the lesser good with evil, and imperfection with venial sin. Now it results in a sort of laxism by confusing the lesser evil with good. Such inconsistent fluctuation between two extremes appears to be the sign and seal of relativism.
St. Thomas seems to give the solution to this problem when he takes up the question whether lying is always a sin. The objection states that we must choose a lesser evil to avoid a greater and goes on to say that, as a doctor amputates a limb to save the body, so a lie may cause error in another's mind to prevent a homicide, since a lie works less harm than such a crime. St. Thomas gives his answer: "A lie is sinful not only because of an injury to one's neighbor, but also on account of its inordinateness, for speech is by its nature made for the expression of thought, just as the intelligence is made to know truth. Now it is not allowed to make use of anything inordinate in order to ward off injury or defect to another. . . . Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless it is lawful to hide the truth" 13 because hiding the truth is not speaking against it. Actually, when the saints found themselves in difficulties of this kind, since they were habitually united to God, they received from the Holy Ghost through the gift of counsel an inspiration which supplied for the imperfection in their prudence and made them avoid lying while keeping their secret when it was absolutely necessary that it be kept. Our Lord said to His disciples: "When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak." 14
It follows from St. Thomas' answer that no one may will something intrinsically evil in order to avoid a greater evil. Human acts are in fact specified by their objects. If the object' of an act is essentially evil from a moral point of view, the act specified by it is morally bad. But if certain things or persons, a man running for some public office, for instance, possess
enough good for us to be able not positively to choose but merely to tolerate the evil in them, we may have recourse to them to avoid greater evils, as long as we cannot by other means avoid the evil they entail. Yet we ought to try either to find other means or to create them, so as not to prolong a critical situation and cooperate in its disorders. We have a duty, for instance, to do what we can to have good candidates run for office.
To return to the question of imperfection, it should be remarked that if the lesser evil does not become a good simply by being chosen to avoid a greater evil, neither does a lesser good become an evil simply because it is chosen in preference to something better both in itself and for us. Acts are specified by their objects. If the object is intrinsically bad, even if less bad than another, the choice specified by it is bad. If the object is good, even if less good than another, the choice specified by it is still good.
Conformity to the divine will
Conformity to the will of God differs on earth and in heaven, during our exile and in our homeland. In this life, as we travel toward eternity, we are bound to conform our will to the divine will by willing for the same motive as that for which God Himself wills — for the good and the glory of God; but, except in the case of a precept, we are not bound to will each thing that God wills, such as the death of a father when it comes time for him to die. What is actually a good from the universal viewpoint of Providence may not be good from the particular point of view of some living Christian individual or family. 15 Filial piety itself makes i^s grieve to lose
father or friend, even while we submit to the divine will. Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus. When God sends us some humiliation or temporal affliction, we do better, of course, to will the event itself, but we are not obliged to do so and need only will the accomplishment of divine justice and the order of Providence. 16
In heaven the blessed see in God everything they are to desire and will and they not only never fail to will God's glory but diey also will all that He wills so that they are no longer saddened by what would have legitimately grieved them here on earth. 17 Indeed they no longer see all things in the limited, particular way they saw them during their earthly pilgrimage, but from the higher, eternal viewpoint of divine Providence. Evidently no imperfection exists in heaven although we find it on earth and know it as distinct from venial sin. What is less white is not therefore black, the lesser good is not an evil, and less generosity becomes neither sloth nor negligence by being compared with greater generosity.
Nevertheless imperfect actions dispose us indirectly for venial sin because, as in the case of the man with five talents who acts as though he had but two, they allow tendencies to develop in us which we would do well to struggle against with more energy. 18
Shortly an exact statement of this doctrine will be found in studying what St. John of the Cross has to say about the role of the passive purifications in perfecting souls — in beginners by means of the purification of the senses, in the more advanced through the night of the soul.
17 Ibid., end of the article.
18 Cf. Billuart, Deiaritate, diss. II, a.2.
Difficulties about the question of imperfection
In the preceding pages the question has been asked whether not to act with the maximum generosity of which we are here and now morally capable is in itself a venial sin. Suppose I can attend Mass daily without great difficulty and know that I can, must I do so or commit venial sin? Or may I use the time which attendance at Mass would take to do some other work less good in itself and less good for me ? Suppose I know it would be better for me to bind myself by vow to fast for nine days than merely to fast without making a vow, must I, under pain of venial sin, make the vow? Or, as theologians commonly teach, am I merely less generous ? Is the lesser good an evil ? The difficulty of the question offers no excuse for confusing good and evil, but gives us an opportunity for solving the problem through the application of self-evident principles.
To know what St. Thomas really teaches on this point, since his opinion has been invoked as contrary to the opinion generally accepted, all his texts relative to the subject should be consulted, both where he treats the question ex professo in the Summa theologica, his definitive thought expositively taught, and where the subject comes up in his other works. Having seen the reasons for his doctrine, we can then turn to an examination of opposing difficulties.
Important Thomistic texts
In his treatise on the New Law, 19 answering the question whether it was fitting to add counsels to commandments, St. Thomas says: "The difference between a counsel and a com-
mandment is that a commandment implies obligation, whereas a counsel is left to the option of die one to whom it is given. . . . We must therefore understand the commandments of the New Law to have been given about matters that are necessary to gain the end of eternal bliss ... but that the counsels are about matters that render the gaining of this end more assured and expeditious."
This is true not only of the three counsels properly speaking but even of the others, for at the end of the same article St. Thomas adds: "For instance, when anyone gives an alms to a poor man, not being bound so to do, he follows the counsels in that particular case. In like manner, when a man for some fixed time refrains from legitimate carnal pleasures that he may give himself to prayer, he follows the counsel for that particular time. And again, when a man follows not his will as to some deed he might do lawfully, he follows the counsel in that particular case: for instance, if he do good to his enemies when he is not bound to, or if he forgive an injury of which he might justly seek to be avenged."
By means of these different cases, St. Thomas shows us that, although some acts are better than others both in themselves and for the man performing them, they are still not obligatory for him at the time. They are acts which may be lawfully left undone, not merely without mortal sin but without venial sin as well. St. Thomas' meaning is plain because he has just said, "He could lawfully follow his own will." Now no one can ever lawfully commit a sin. We are, in the strict sense of the word, bound to avoid every venial sin, bound sub levi, according to St. Thomas and all theologians. 20
The definition of sin given by St. Augustine (dictum, vel factum, vel concupitum contra legem aeternam) applies not only to mortal sin, but, analogically, to venial sin as well. If the latter is not against the eternal law, properly speaking, in the sense that it does not turn us away from our last end, it departs from the law as a disorder in the use of means to our last end. Consequently it is not a lesser good but an evil, and we are bound to avoid it. 21 (On this point Passerini, when appealed to in the discussion, has the same thing to say as the other commentators.) 22 The case of good but less generous acts is quite different and a man may, as St. Thomas has just said, licitly decide to do something less perfect.
In the same article of the Summa, 23 St. Thomas notes, as theologians commonly do, that in regard to the counsels a distinction must be made between what is better in itself and what is better for us here and now. Thus virginity, in itself more perfect than marriage, is not expedient for us all. "He that can take, let him take it." 24 Simply because of this distinction we may not conclude that, according to St. Thomas, whatever appears better here and now, not only in itself but for us, becomes by that very fact obligatory for us; for St. Thomas has just said, in the body of the same article, that at the very moment when accomplishing a better act of this
22 Cf. Passerini, De hominum statibits et officiis, q. 184, a. 3, no. 37; "Quaestio de voce crit disputare an peccatum veniale sit vel non contra legem, non enim de re est dubium, sed est ccrtum adesse aliquam obligationem vitandi illud; unde dici potest quod loquendo communitcr, peccatum veniale est contra legem, licet magis proprie loquendo dicatur quod est praeter legem." The other text from Passerini cited as contrary to commonly accepted doctrine has long been known to the author and seems not to emphasize sufficiently that the perfection of charity is of precept non ul materia, sed ut finis. Passerini admits and explains this distinction elsewhere. Ibid., p. 50, no. 72.
kind, we can licitly abstain from doing it. Likewise, when explaining in his Commentary on St. Matthew the "Qui potest capere, capiat," he says: "He who has received from God the grace to comprehend the value of absolute chastity is counseled to practice it"— counseled, but not therefore obliged under pain of venial sin. 25
As a matter of fact, the holy doctor had already noted in his Commentary on the Sentences 26 that a counsel never obliges of itself but only on account of particular circumstances, when it may have the force of a command. For example, someone who has not made a vow of absolute chastity may be obliged to practice it for a certain time because of circumstances. 27
All this obviously harmonizes with the Thomistic principle already discussed at length 28 — that the perfection of charity comes under the commandment of love, not as matter or something to be realized immediately but as the end toward which all ought to tend, each according to his state of life. 29 For St. Thomas, as well as for St. Augustine, the commandment of love embraces even the perfection of charity realizable only in heaven, 30 clearly not as matter to be immediately effected but as the final end and summit toward which all should go, some with great strides, some with less, some by the steep and generous bypath of perfect abnegation where the saints climb upward, others over the gendy sloping, slower route of less perfect souls. 31
20 St. Thomas in Matthaeum, xix, 12: "Uncle qui potest per firmitatem voluntatis capere, capiat, et non a natura, sed a Deo. Unde qui hoc a Deo habct, consulimus quod hoc capiat et conuneat."
28 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 429.
29 Ila Ilae. q. 184, a.3; q. 186, a. 2, ad 2um; Comm. in Rom., xii, lect. 1, in medio. *° Ila Ilae, q. 184, a.3.
Moreover, even in the case of religious, St. Thomas teaches in the Summa: 32 "Hence he who enters the religious state is not bound to have perfect charity, but he is bound to tend to this, and use his endeavors to have perfect charity. For the same reason he is not bound to fulfill those things that result from the perfection of charity, although he is bound to intend to fulfill them: against which intention he acts if he despises them, wherefore he sins not by omitting them but by contempt of them. In like manner he is not bound to observe all the practices whereby perfection may be attained, but only those which are definitely prescribed to him by the rule which he has professed." 33
In the same article he remarks: 34 "Yet there is a certain wholeness of perfection which cannot be omitted without sin, and another wholeness which can be omitted without sin, provided there be no contempt. . . . So too, all, both religious and seculars, are bound in a certain measure to do whatever good they can ... as required by the conditions of their state of life." 85 In other words, as expressed in the body of the article, all ought to tend toward perfecdon — without having to do right now whatever seems best, without being obliged to push ahead as fast as they can by the quickest and most
83 "Ille qui statum rcligionis assumit, non tenetur habere perfectam caritatem; sed tenetur ad hoc tendere et operam dare, ut habcat caritatem perfectam."
85 St. Thomas closes by saying: "Yet there is a way of fulfilling this precept so as to avoid sin, namely, if one do what one can as required by the conditions of one's state of life; provided there be no contempt of doing better things, which contempt sets the mind against spiritual progress." Between these words and the thought expressed in la Ilae, q.108, a. 4, there is no quarrel: "And again, when a man follows not his will as to some deed which he might do lawfully, he follows the counsel in that particular case; for instance, if he do good to his enemies when he is not bound to, or, if he forgive an injury of which he might justly seek to be avenged."
direct route, to attain at every moment the maximum generosity which they are capable of. The case would be different if they had made a vow to do always what is most perfect. The Summa theologica contains many other similar passages.
Moreover, not only in the Summa but in many other of his works St. Thomas reiterates this view. The early Thomists knew these passages well, as we can see from the Tabula aurea operum S. Thomae of Peter of Bergamo where, under the words imperfectio 38 and even more precisely, melius, quotations to the point are cited. 37 These different passages he sums up in two propositions: first, that all are bound to aspire to what is better but not to accomplish it, for not to care for what is better is to be contemptuous of good ; secondly, that all are bound to prefer the better of two goods — in judging between these goods but not in now choosing and acting upon them.
One of the characteristic passages quoted by Peter of Bergamo is from the De veritate and treats of conformity to God's will. The objection is made that sin consists chiefly in perverse choice or election and that to prefer a lesser to a greater good is to make a perverse choice and therefore—. To this St. Thomas makes the answer that choice involves both an act of judgment and an act of will. If in judging a man prefers what is less good to what is better, he acts perversely; but if his preference is a matter of will only, he is not bound to will
86 In the Tabula aurea, under the word imperjectio a number of passages from St. Thomas are summarized in the following proposition: "Imperfcctum dicitur quadrupliciter: scilicet non valcns implere omnia opera sua, tendens ad perjeclioncm pel non firmatus in ea, cui deficit aliquid debitum ei, et quod non potest facere sibi simile." In the second sense given above, the word does not necessarily imply venial sin. As the references indicate, this kind of imperfection is found in good but imperfect acts and in the virtues of those still in an imperfect state, whose spiritual progress is still weak. In motion not only direction but speed is to be considered: and in the way of perfection the pace of its travelers varies.
or do what is better, unless it be a matter of precept. Were this not so, every man who could follow the counsels would be bound to do so. Again in his Commentary on St. Matthew?* when considering our Lord's words, "Qui potest capere, capiat," St. Thomas tells us that, although a man is obliged to aspire to what is better, he need not do it here and now.
The crux of the question
Although a divergence of opinion exists between the common view of dieologians, especially the Carmelites of Salamanca, and the opposing view already set down as unacceptable here, we need to keep the proper perspective in regard to this difference and not to exaggerate it. As remarked earlier, a man often chooses a lesser good through laziness or negligence and to be lazy or negligent is to sin. Further, we agree with Billuart that not to choose what is better simply because we are not bound to do so and wish to act freely is not lawful. Although quoted as opposed to the view expressed in this present work, 39 St. Thomas' statement amounts to this — that to prefer a delectable to a true good is always sinful, because unreasonable. Even the most elementary psychology tells us such is the case of a seminarian who had a real vocation and who quits the seminary because he is seduced by the sensible charms of a cousin whom he wishes to marry. In this he resembles the young man of the Gospel who did not follow our Lord's call, being too much attached to worldly goods. Even if the call was not obligatory, his rejection of the call contained a sin, that of being too much attached to worldly goods. In the case of our seminarian his conduct involves not less generosity in forging ahead on the way of perfection but
an evident and outright turning back on the path, whatever pretexts may be called upon to defend the action. 40
A case of this kind is altogether different from the cases given earlier. 41 They involve no preference of a delectable to a true good, but the choice of a true good, easier to achieve than one more difficult although realizable, as evidenced in the example of die teaching priest who daily devoted an hour and a quarter to his prayers before beginning work. Having said Prime, made his meditation, celebrated Mass and spent some time in thanksgiving, he realizes that, like some of his confreres, he could, with more generosity, give two hours to our Lord before beginning his daily tasks. But he does not do so, not through contempt of the idea or because of sloth, but to study philosophy, a thing he could do at some other time, were he more generous. On Sunday, too, having said his own Mass, he says his breviary while attending a High Mass, although with more effort he could say his breviary earlier and so perform two good works instead of one. The problem is whether such choices are always venial sins of negligence or sloth or whether diey sometimes simply constitute less generosity.
If the priest's action is good, although less perfect than the alternative proposed, there is all the more reason for coming to the same conclusion about the doctor who, after making a novena of Masses, considers the possibility of continuing
40 Suppose the case concerns someone who has not yet entered the novitiate or the seminary, is it a sin for him not to answer the call to the religious or priestly life? St. Alphonsus Liquori gives us the answer: "Respondemus quod neligcre vocationem religiosam per se non est peccatum; divina enim consilia per se non obligant ad culpam. Id tamen, ratione periculi acternae salutis, cui vocatus se committit, electionem status faciens non juxta divinum beneplacitum, non potest ab aliqua culpa excusari." In addition, as we see from the lives of the saints, divine inspiration may take the form either of a counsel or of a command.
the practice of daily Mass but decides not to and devotes himself to studying medicine instead. The doctor is not, like the seminarian, retracing his steps; he is going ahead, though by an easier and slower route than he might have chosen. He is not preferring a delectable to a true good, but a true good of less worth than another which would demand more effort of him. 42
The basis for the distinction between imperfection and venial sin
The basis for the distinction between imperfection and venial sin has already been pointed out in the Salmanticenses. 43 From the very first they remark that not St. Thomas but Scotus maintains the opinion that failure to follow a counsel is in itself a venial sin. The principal argument they use against the Scotist position amounts to what has already been said here: that no lesser good becomes evil from the fact that a man chooses it in preference to something better in itself and better, as well as more difficult, for him. 44 Everybody agrees it would be confounding good and evil to call something bad in itself when it is only less good in itself. We are not to condemn marriage because it constitutes a less perfect
42 It may be objected that if we are logical we would say that it is better for the doctor not to go to Mass at all out of devotion, for when he does he exposes himself to the danger of entertaining voluntary distractions and so committing venial sin; it would seem, then, that the better and safer thing for him to do would be to stay at home and spend his time in some interesting professional study. The answer is, of course, that assistance at Mass, even when accompanied by voluntary distractions, can be more meritorious than such study pursued without any sin whatever. The mountain climber may take some falls as he works his way up the mountain side but in the end he stands far above the man following his course without mishap along the plain below. St. Teresa pointed this out for us many times.
43 Cursus thcol., de peccatis, tr. XIII, disp. 19, dub. 1, nos. 8, 9; also De incarnatione in Ilia S. Thomae, q.15, a. I, concerning the sinlessness of Christ, where it is proved that our Lord had neither venial sin nor imperfection of any kind.
Cf. Salmanticenses, De peccatis, he. at.
34° THE LOVE OF GOD state of life than perpetual virginity consecrated to God. Likewise, we must not call things bad for us when they are only less good for us. Like the seminarian seeking a pretext for leaving the seminary so that he can marry, others, too, have abused this doctrine; but abuses of diis kind take away none of the value of the argument itself which is immediately founded on the fundamental principle of all morality: the distinction between good and evil.
We must keep in mind that virtue does not consist in one indivisible unit, a maximum generosity below which there is no room for anything except venial and mortal sin. Virtue has its degrees. Fortitude, for example, is the just mean between cowardice and foolhardiness; but this just mean is capable of acquiring new heights without deviating either to right or left until it reaches the perfect exercise of the acquired virtue of fortitude; the infused virtue of the same name is still higher, and the gift of fortitude, higher yet. Degrees of virtue inferior to this final height are not a disorder, like venial sins of cowardice and recklessness. The disorder of venial sin (a deordination of means to our last end) is evil. A lower degree of virtue is not evil; it is good, although it has less goodness than greater virtue has. 45
The same is true of charity. A man with ten talents of charity who acts as if he had but two talents acts imperfectly, whether it be apparent to others or not, but his imperfect acts of charity are not therefore venial sins. His actions are, as St. Thomas says, meritorious although they do not immediately
15 Anyone who, for a good motive, does some becoming action which is admittedly not as good as something else he might have done, is still imitating God Himself who, out of many possible or potential goods, has not always chosen the best, although whatever He has brought into actuality is well done. The plant is a less perfect creature than the animal but not less perfecdy organized, given the end for which it was made. Cf. Ia, q.25, a. 6, ad ium.
IMPERFECTION 34 1 obtain that increase of charity to which they give him the right."
In answer to the question whether a lesser good becomes evil from the fact that it prevents a greater good, the answer is No, unless the good it prevents is obligatory. But no single good, simply because it is greater than another, is here and now obligatory, as St. Thomas tells us. Our Lord has inspired some of the saints to offer themselves as victims for some great cause, at the same time making them understand they were free to do it or not, but that once having made the offering they should not take back their gift.
Not to follow a good counsel because of sloth or negligence or a spirit of contradiction or to respond to a counsel with light-hearted contempt is certainly sinful. Such sins can become habitual and lead to a real lack of judgment. Nevertheless a man can omit following a good counsel that he may do something less good but still legitimate because inspired by a good motive. In such an instance, according to the principle that acts are specified by their objects, the act is good in its object, its end, and its circumstances, as in the case of the doctor referred to earlier. All the arguments educed are still maintained, with special emphasis on the fact that, if we confound the lesser good with evil, we must logically, as relativists, come to admit that a lesser evil is therefore a good.
As the Carmelites of Salamanca remark, what we call an imperfection is an act lacking perfection. The absence of perfection in the action, taken formally, cannot be good (for it lacks being, and being and goodness are really identified) ; were the privation of something obligatory the act would constitute a sin; but if there is no immediate obligation, there is no sin but only the absence of higher perfecdon, of greater
generosity, as in an imperfect act of charity.' 47 St. Thomas tells us exactly the same thing: "And again, when a man follows not his own will as to some deed which he might do lawfully, he follows the counsel in that particular case: for instance, if he does good to his enemies when he is not bound to, or if he forgives an injury of which he might justly seek to be avenged." 48
We read also: "It belongs to a well-disposed mind that a man tend to perfect righteousness, and consequently deem himself guilty, not only if he falls short of common righteousness, which is truly a sin, but also if he falls short of perfect righteousness, which sometimes is not a sin." 49 In other words, a humble man may call his lack of perfection a sin when it is only an imperfection. On the other hand, St. Thomas also leaves us this statement: "Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever." 50 To lie to get another out of great danger is always a venial sin and not merely an imperfection. We are allowed to hide the truth but we may not speak against it.
A Christian mother who loves God above all things with the love of esteem but loves the child in her arms more intensely, more emotionally, loves imperfectly but not sinfully. The intensity of her mother love simply results from the condition of our nature, more attracted by the visible and the concrete than by the invisible, even when incomparably more precious. In heaven, where we shall see God face to face, we shall be freed from this imperfection. Meanwhile, on earth, we should tend toward loving God with the intensity of heaven just as we tend toward heaven itself.
- T Cf. Salmanticcnses, De peccalis, disp. XIX, dub. r, no. 8.
To lack this intensity here is not, however, a venial sin.
Admittedly, some casuists have made wrong use of the distinction between imperfection and venial sin, being too ready to see imperfection where venial sin really exists. However, the distinction itself was not invented by them but was given by good spiritual authors, both ascetical and mystical, who have leaned neidier toward laxism nor toward negligence but have studied attentively all the subtleties of human actions, calling attention not only to venial sins but even to what should be avoided in order to advance with generosity on the way of perfection. 51
The imperfections we should especially eliminate are those St. John of the Cross finds existing in the proficient. These the passive purifications should destroy. The saint says that, while the narrow way of complete abnegation mounts straight toward the summit to be attained, the way of the imperfect but not wayward spirit is a winding road where the traveler goes ahead with less effort, less speed, and less success. We ought to have a keener appreciation of the reason why he wrote on the diagram at the beginning of the Ascent of Mount Carmel all along the way followed by the imperfect soul : "Not having taken the straight way I push on slowly and shall not reach the heights I might have attained." On the contrary, on the footpath which goes straight to the top, he wrote: "Nothing, nothing, nothing. . . . Since I desire nothing through self-love, everything is given to me without my seeking for it. Since I am attached to nothing, I find that nothing
61 The opposite opinion may seem the better at first sight and formerly had some appeal for the author. Further reflection seems to show that it detracts from the greatness of Christian perfection, not giving enough thought to the imperfections of the advanced souls as St. ]ohn of the Cross points them out in treating of the dark night of the soul. Above and beyond evil, before coming to perfection, we find the lesser good which we do well to surpass by pushing on toward perfection with ever-increasing generosity. Cf. Cajctan, De indulgenliis , q.3, initio.
is lacking to me." The lesser good is not an evil, but in all truth a lesser good.
Of those who fail to rid themselves of these imperfections, St. John of the Cross says that diey suffer "from a deadening of the mind and the natural roughness which every man contracts through sin, and the distraction and outward clinging of the spirit, which must be enlightened, refined, and recollected by the afflictions and perils of that night. These habitual imperfections belong to all those who have not passed beyond this state of the proficient; they cannot co-exist, as we say, with the perfect state of union." 52 St. Teresa tells us the same thing. 53
Only in such union is there realized, so far as it can be realized in this life, the full perfection toward which the great commandment bids us tend: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all diy mind and with all thy strength." Then will the just man accomplish not imperfectly but perfectly the great commandment and be truly a worshiper in spirit and in truth. 64
63 Sec the quotation given in the following footnote.
" In regard to souls who have arrived at transforming union, St. Teresa writes: "Do not fancy that in spite of the strong desire and determination of these souls that they do not commit imperfections and even fall into many sins: that is, not wilfully; for such people arc given special grace from God on this point: I mean venial sins." The Interior Castle, seventh mansion, chap. 4, tr. Benedictines of Stanbrook (London: Baker, 1921).
Footnotes
Chapter 12 of 37