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

85. The Effects of Sin

1. The good of human nature means one or all ofthree things: (a) the constitution and properties of human natureitself; (b) the inclination to virtue; (c) the original justice.Now, sin does not diminish or destroy the constitution of humannature. Nor does sin take away the original justice, for this wastaken away in the beginning by Adam's sin. Sin diminishes thegood of human nature inasmuch as this good is the inclination tovirtue.

2. Thus sin can never destroy the entire good of humannature, although it may go on diminishing a man's inclinationto virtue.

3. The wounds which sin inflicts on human nature may belisted as four: weakness, ignorance, malice, and concupiscence. Theconcupiscence mentioned here is an expression or stressing of theconcupiscence which is often used as a name for original sinitself.

4. A thing has good in its species, its mode, itsorder (cf. Ia, q. 5). Its species is a thing's completeessential kind. Its mode is discerned in both essential andaccidental qualities that it has. Its order is its purpose ordirection to an end or goal. Now, sin destroys or diminishes allthree types of goodness in the soul's inclinations,virtues, and actions. But sin does not diminish or destroy thegood of species, mode, and order in the soul's essence andsubstance.

5. By the sin of the first man, the original justice wasforfeited. In consequence, human nature was stricken with disorderin the soul, and, through this disorder, with corruption in thebody. Hence, death came by sin; bodily disorders and defects cameby sin.

6. Human nature, like every existing nature, tends topreserve itselfand to hold on to its perfections. In view ofthis fact, death and defects are not natural to man. Yet, despitethe inclination of bodily natures to preserve and perfectthemselves, the matter or bodiliness of their constitution cannotsupport them in endless existence. For matter as such is subject tocorruption, that is, to essential breakup. Therefore, in this view,death and defects are natural to man. In our firstparents, God supplied for the deficiency of matter, and bestowed onhuman nature the supernatural gift of incorruptibility orimmortality. This gift was rejected, together with the originaljustice, by human nature in Adam's sin. Hence, death camethrough sin, and is a penalty consequent upon sin.

"When the devil has failed in making a man fall, he puts forward all his energies to create distrust between the penitent and the confessor, and so by little and little he gains his end at last."
St Philip Neri

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"The Lord has always revealed to mortals the treasures of his wisdom and his spirit, but now that the face of evil bares itself more and more, so does the Lord bare his treasures more."
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church

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"As the flesh is nourished by food, so is man supported by prayers"
St Augustine

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