CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 2A:

• Man's Last End
• Human Acts
• The Passions
• Habits in General
• Virtues
• Vices and Sins
  • 71. Vice and Sin
  • 72. The Distinction of Sin
  • 73. The Standing of Sins Toward One Another
  • 74. The Subject of Sin
  • 75. The Cause of Sin
  • 76. Ignorance as a Cause of Sin
  • 77. The Sensitive Appetites as the Cause of Sin
  • 78. Malice as the Cause of Sin
  • 79. External Causes of Sin
  • 80. The Devil as the Cause of Sin
  • 81. Human Beings as the Cause of Sin
  • 82. The Essence of Original Sin
  • 83. The Subject of Original Sin
  • 84. One Sin as the Cause of Another
  • 85. The Effects of Sin
  • 86. The Stain of Sin
  • 87. The Debt of Punishment for Sin
  • 88. Venial and Mortal Sin
  • 89. Venial Sin
• Law
• Grace

75. The Cause of Sin

1. The direct cause of sin is the will inasmuch as itculpably lacks the direction of right reason (the trulyenlightening and counseling intellect) and God's law, and isintent upon some creatural good.

2. Thus the interior and proximate cause of sinis found in the will.We usually say that this interior andproximate cause of sin is in the reason, meaning by the word reasonthe whole intellective element or part of man, that is, hisintellect and will together. The remote, as contrastedwith the proximate, interior cause of sin is the influence of thesentient appetites and the imagination. This remote interior causeof sin is never the complete cause; it must be admitted into theintellective part of man by free will before it can becomethoroughly effective.

3. Exterior things can be, in some sense, thecause of sin, but only partially and incompletely in so far asexternal objects can stir the senses and, through the senses,exercise an influence on reason. Thus a precious gem may stir aperson to desire it, to dwell imaginatively upon the joy ofpossessing it, and so lead him to steal it. But, in the lastanalysis, the theft is not truly caused by the gem itself; thetheft is caused by the thief's will, acting without the rightordering of reason.

4. One sin may be said to cause another, since a human actmay dispose a person to perform its like. One breakthrough of therestraints that keep a person from sin may invite, so to speak,other sins to follow in the wake of the first. But, in each case,the complete cause of the sin is the will, the reason, of thesinner.

"There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good."
St Philip Neri

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"Obedience is the true holocaust which we sacrifice to God on the altar of our hearts."
St Philip Neri

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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine

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