On Charity: Article 13: Whether charity is lost through a single act of mortal sin
On Charity giver does not appear to be defeated, since it is not his role to force people into virtue.
() Through marriage, a woman loses the power over her own body.
But the soul does not through charity lose the power of free judgement.
Therefore the reasoning does not follow.
Article : Whether charity is lost through a single act of mortal sin Objections It seems not, because:
() Origen says [Prin ..], 'Sometimes people who remain on the highest and perfect level might feel they have had enough. If so, I do not thinkthattheycansuddenlybeemptiedandfall,butitwillbenecessaryfor themtoslipdowngradually,bitbybit.Inthisway,itcansometimeshappen that those who slip briefly, and quickly come back to their senses, do not seem to collapse completely.' But someone who loses charity, collapses completely, according to St Paul in Corinthians :: 'If I do not possess charity,Iamnothing.'Thereforecharityisnotlostthroughasinglemortal sin, which can sometimes happen suddenly.
() Bernardsays that when Peter denied Christ, charity was not extinguished in him, but put to sleep. However, when he denied Christ, this was a mortal sin. Therefore charity is not lost through a single act of mortal sin.
() Pope Leo says in a sermon on the Passion [Serm .], addressing Peter, 'The Lord did not see in you either defeated faith or deserted love, but rather your steadfastness that was shaken. Your tears overflowed as your feelings had not dried up. This fountain of love washed away the words of fear.' Therefore the love of charity did not disappear in Peter through an act of mortal sin.
() Charity is stronger than acquired virtue. But acquired virtue is not destroyed by a single act of sin, just as it is not generated by one. For Aristotle says [NE .., b] that virtue is destroyed and generated by the same things. Therefore much less will charity be lost by a single act of mortal sin.
Actually William of Saint Thierry, in On the Nature and Dignity of Love, ch. .
Article () One contrary is only driven out by the corresponding contrary.
However, the opposite of the disposition of charity is not a sinful action, but a sinful disposition, and this cannot be generated by a single action.
Therefore charity is not lost through a single sinful action.
() Charity stands to the many things that should be loved with charity in the way that faith stands to the many things that should be believed.
But someone who believes the opposite of one article of faith does not thereby lose faith in all the others. Therefore someone who sins against one thing that charity should love does not thereby lose charity in respect of the other things that should be loved. In this way, charity is not lost through a single mortal sin.
But on the other hand John :says, 'If anyone has sufficient of this world's goods and sees a brother in a state of need and closes his heart against him, how can God's charity remain in him?' Therefore it seems that one can lose charity by a sin of omission. But a sin of commission is no less serious than a sin of omission. Therefore charity can be removed by whichever type of sin.
My reply There is no doubt that the disposition of charity is destroyed by any act of mortal sin. Otherwise, it would not be called a mortal sin, if one did not die spiritually through it. That cannot happen when charity is present, for charity is the life of the soul. Similarly, mortal sin also makes a person worthy of eternal death, according to Romans :, 'The wages of sin are death.' Anyone who possesses charity, though, merits the possession of eternal life: for the Lord promises to reveal himself to those who love him, and eternal life consists in just that. Therefore we have to say that someone loses charity through any act of mortal sin.
Now it is clear that every act of mortal sin involves turning away from the unchanging good, to which charity unites us; thus any act of mortal sin is opposed to charity. But since an act is directly contrary not to a disposition, but to another act, it could seem to someone that an act of mortal sin would hinder an opposed act of charity, but not so as to remove the disposition itself. This is the case for the acquired virtues: we do not lose the disposition of speaking grammatically by making one grammatical error.
On Charity But the case is different with the disposition of charity. For this does not depend on a cause that is in its subject, but is totally dependent on an external cause. For 'charity is poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit, who has been given to us', as Romans :says. Moreover, God does not cause charity in the soul in the sense of only being the cause of its coming into existence, and not of its continuing; i.e. he is not like a builder who only causes a house to come into existence, so that when he goes away the house still stays there. Instead, God causes charity and grace both to come into existence and to remain in the soul, i.e. in the way that the sun causes light in the air. Consequently, just as the light in the air disappears if some obstacle gets in the way, so the disposition of charity in the soul disappears when the soul turns itself away from God through sin. This is what Augustine means when he says [LCG .]: 'God, when he justifies us, does not make us just in such a way that if he leaves, when he has gone what he has done will still be there. Rather, just as the air is not made luminous by the presence of light, but instead becomes luminous, so too, we are enlightened when God is present in us, but when he goes away, we are immediately in the dark again.'
Replies to objections () (i) Origen's words can be understood to mean that someone who is in a condition of perfection does not suddenly move to commit a mortal sin, but only through first being inattentive. (ii) But because he adds the point about, 'those who slip briefly', it seems better to say that by 'be emptied and fall' he means fall by sinning out of ill-intention.That cannot happen immediately from the beginning, because, as Aristotle says [NE .., a], it is not easy for a just person all at once to do something unjust in the same way that an unjust person would do it, i.e. simply by deciding.
Therefore it is possible to lose charity by a single act of mortal sin.
However, as long as one does not in fact lose charity through ill-intention, a few traces of the perfection one previously had will remain.
() Charity can be lost in two ways, (i) directly and (ii) indirectly. (i) It is lost directly through actually scorning God, as happens with those who say to God, 'Leave us alone, for we do not want to know your ways', to quote
Job :. (ii) It is lost indirectly when someone who is not thinking about Cf. DQChar ad .
Article God consents, because of some emotion of fear or excessive sensual desire, to doing something against a precept, and as a consequence loses charity.
Bernard's meaning, therefore, is that charity was not extinguished in Peter in the first sense, but only lost in the second sense, and he calls this
'going to sleep'.
() We should interpret Pope Leo's words in the same way. This is clear from what follows: 'The remedy of washing away sin can be speedy where the will's judgement was not involved.' For Peter's denial was forced out of him through fear rather than being based on the will's deliberate judgement. This makes clear the answer to ().
() Acquired virtue is caused by its subject and is not wholly dependent on something external as charity is. Therefore the reasoning works differently.
() In the case of contraries that are not contradictories one can disappear without the other one appearing. The dispositions of virtues and vices are contraries but not contradictories. That is why Aristotle says
[Cat , a] that there is something in the middle between good and evil, which is neither good nor evil. Hence someone can lose the disposition of a virtue without immediately acquiring the disposition of the opposite vice.
() A disposition in itself corresponds to the object in its formal character rather than to the object in the sense of matter. For this reason, if the formal character of the object is removed, then that type of disposition cannot remain. Where faith is concerned, the object in its formal character is the first truth as revealed through the teaching of the Church, in the same way that in the case of knowledge, its formal character consists in the intermediate stages of the proof. Now those who memorise the conclusions of geometrical proofs do not thereby know geometry, if they do not accept these conclusions because of the intermediate arguments; they will, rather, hold the conclusions just as opinions. In the same way those who hold the contents of faith, but do not assent to them because of the authority of catholic teaching, will not possess the disposition of faith. For those who assent to one thing because of catholic teaching will assent to everything else held by catholic teaching. Otherwise, they would be believing themselves rather than the teaching of the Church. From all this, it is clear that someone who stubbornly fails to believe one article of faith does not have faith in the other articles – I mean faith in the sense of an infused disposition – but holds the contents of faith only as opinions.