A. 2. Is Rebellion Always a Mortal Sin?
[This question is divided into two articles, one of which is translated here.]
We thus proceed to the second inquiry. It seems that rebellion is not always a mortal sin, for the following reasons:
Obj. 1. Rebellion signifies “a military insurrection,” as a gloss on 2 Cor. 12:20 makes clear.1 But war is not always a mortal sin and sometimes just and lawful, as I have maintained before.2 Therefore, much more can there be rebellion without mortal sin.
Obj. 2. Rebellion is a form of discord, as I have said.3 But there can be discord without mortal sin, and sometimes without any sin. Therefore, there can also be rebellion without mortal sin or any sin.
Obj. 3. We praise those who deliver a people from the power of a tyrant. But this cannot be easily done without a popular insurrection if some of the people strive to maintain the tyrant, and others strive to unseat him. Therefore, there can be rebellion without sin.
On the contrary, the Apostle in 2 Cor. 12:20 prohibits rebellion along with other sins that are mortal. Therefore, rebellion is a mortal sin.
I answer that, as I have said,4 rebellion is contrary to the unity of citizens (i.e., the people) of a political community or kingdom. But Augustine says in The City of God that wise persons define the people as “a popular assembly legally constituted and bound by common interest, not any popular assembly.”5 And so the unity contrary to rebellion is evidently one of law and common interest. Therefore, rebellion is obviously contrary to both justice and the common good. And so rebellion is by its nature a mortal sin and more serious insofar as the common {189} good, which rebellion subverts, surpasses private goods, which private disputes subvert.
And the leaders of rebellions indeed first and chiefly incur the sin of rebellion, and they sin most seriously. Second, supporters of rebellion who disturb the common good also incur the sin of rebellion. But we should not call those resisting the rebels and defending the common good seditious, just as we do not call those defending themselves brawlers, as I have said before.6
Reply Obj. 1. Lawful war is waged for the benefit of the community, as I have said before.7 But rebellion is waged against the common good of the people. And so rebellion is always a mortal sin.
Reply Obj. 2. Discord from what is not clearly good can occur without sin. But discord from what is clearly good cannot happen without sin. And rebellion, which is contrary to the unity of the people, something clearly good, is the latter kind of discord.
Reply Obj. 3. Tyrannical governance is unjust, since it is ordered to the private good of the ruler, not to the common good, as the Philosopher makes clear in the Politics8 and the Ethics.9 And so disturbance of such governance does not have the character of rebellion, except, perhaps, in cases where the tyrant’s governance is so inordinately disturbed that the subject people suffer greater harm from the resulting disturbance than from the tyrant’s governance. Rather, tyrants, who by seeking greater domination incite discontent and rebellion in the people subject to them, are the rebels. For governance is tyrannical when ordered to the ruler’s own good to the detriment of the people.
1Peter Lombard, Glossa, on 2 Cor. 12:20 (PL 192:89).
2ST II–II: Q. 40, A. 1; Q. 41, A. 1.
3Ibid., Q. 42, A. 1, ad 3.
4Ibid., A. 1.
5The City of God II, 21, n. 2 (PL 41:67).
6ST II–II, Q. 41, A. 1.
7Ibid., Q. 40, A. 1.
8Politics III, 5 (1279b6–10).
9EthicsVIII, 10 (1160b8–12).