Chapter IX: Sins that are at the Same Time the Cause and Punishment of Sins, § 30.
CHAPTER IX: ON SINS THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME THE CAUSE
AND PUNISHMENT OF SINS
Some sins are only sins; some are at the same time sins and the cause and punishment of sins.
§ 30. Now we come to the fourth division of sins. Some sins are only sins; some are simultaneously both sins and the cause and punishment of sins. Augustine teaches (Contra Julian., bk. 5, ch. 3):
Thus corrupt concupiscence is sin because in it there is a disobedience against the domination of the mind. It is both the punishment of sin, because it is the repayment due to the merits of disobedience, and the cause of sin, by the defection of the person who consents to it or by the contagion of the person who produces it. Thus a great many actual sins
(with the exception of the first sin of the first parents)
are the punishments of preceding sins and
(with the exception of the last sin of each person)
the causes of the sins which follow. Also, in strange and wretched ways a person who sins is caught and bound by the snares of Satan so that he slides from one sin into another.
Augustine (on Psalm 57):
Each person is bound by the tendrils of his own sins [cf. Prov. 5:22]. Sins are not just chains but also tendrils. They are tendrils because they do their work by entangling, that is, because you weave sins to sins. “Woe to those who drag their sins like a long rope,” Isaiah cries [5:18]. What else is this but: “Woe to those whose hands weave iniquity!” etc. [cf. Ps. 58:2; Ps. 57:3 Vg]? The first sin is pride, and the last punishment is eternal fire. Between that first sin and that last punishment are middle things which are both sins and punishments of sins. For the apostle says that a great many things that are detestable sins happen on account of these, and yet he says that these are punishments, etc.
Gregory (on Ezekiel 1, homily 11): “Sin which is not erased very quickly through repentance is sin and the cause of sin, or it is sin and the punishment of sin, or it is at the same time sin and the cause and punishment of sin.” See Lombard (Sent., 2, dist. 36, throughout).
How one sin is the cause of another.
§ 31. Dr. Chemnitz (Loci, part 1, p. 636) lists four ways in which one sin is the cause and punishment of another: “(1) As the efficient cause, that is, through accident, when it empties faith, grace, and the Holy Spirit. (2) As the disposing cause, because an evil cause leaves a disposition which inclines to similar actions. (3) As the material cause, the way gluttony is the matter of lechery and drunkenness is the matter of profligacy. (4) As the final cause, as when someone commits homicide in order to complete revenge.” See our earlier discussion On Providence [Commonplace IX], § 140.