Is contrition suffering?
Is contrition suffering?
§ 76. (II) “Contrition is not passive suffering but rather action, and this is free, not forced.” As cited above, this is expressed quite clearly (Compend. theolog.): “Contrition is grief assumed voluntarily.”
** The Papists claim this in order to preserve their hypotheses, for they say that “contrition is meritorious.” Thomas writes ([ST,] supplem., q. 1, art. 2): “But everything that must be merited must be an act of virtue.” Since virtue is a habit of choice [habitus electivus], they conclude that “contrition is a free act which is voluntarily assumed and chosen by man.” Five things come together in contrition, according to Dr. Eckhard (De poen., ch. 4, p. 88). For (1) in the memory there is a recollection of sin; (2) in the mind, a consideration of the offense; (3) in the will, a loathing of the sins one has acknowledged, of which the beating of the breast, the tears coming from the eyes, and the confession of the mouth bear witness; (4) in the heart, fear of vengeance and the coming judgment; (5) in the conscience, wounded by the branding of the Law, follow horror, grief, pangs, and stinging. The first two steps indeed are internal acts; but the essence of contrition does not consist in those but rather in the latter three. The former do not so much constitute as effect the contrition; they are of the external impulsive cause, not of the essence [habent se προκαταρκτικῶς non οὐσιωδῶς]; they are the efficient but not the formal cause,7 which, to be sure, is nothing other than the suffering of the heart. This is proved: (1) From etymology. Thomas says ([ST,] supplem, ch. 2, art. 1): “Properly speaking, contrition is the crushing of anything whole and hard,” since a thing is said to be ground down [conteri] when a solid is made smaller and reduced to very small pieces. But every crushing with respect to the subject which is being diminished is suffering. Now, just as proper contrition is situated in the genus, so metaphorical contrition is situated in the species, which is of the human heart, which has stiffened by means of sins and hardened like adamant: crushing, puncturing, softening. (2) From its synonyms. Contrition is described only with passive descriptors, as all its synonyms teach. It is called a smiting of the heart (2 Sam. 24:10), a “troubling of the soul” (Ps. 6:3), the “sinking in of the Lord’s arrows” (Ps. 38:[2]), a “tribulation of the spirit and a breaking of the heart” (Ps. 51:[17]), a “trembling aroused by the voice of the Lord” (Isa. 66:2), “striking of the thigh and confusion” (Jer. 31:19), a “rending of the heart” (Joel 2:13), a “cutting (compunction)” (Acts 2:37). (3) From the definition of suffering [passio]. It is commonly defined as the receiving of an action or an accident according to which whatever is subject to it is said to suffer. But this definition describes contrition understood formally, for it is the receiving of the thunderbolts of the Law, and in accordance with this a person is said to suffer and to be crushed. (4) From the cause of contrition, which is not man himself but the Holy Spirit. “After You converted [me]” (Jer. 31:18). Since this does not proceed from man efficiently [efficienter]8 but is accomplished in man by God alone, this is suffering with respect to man. (5) From the very confession of our adversaries. For they define repentance as the vengeance of the grieving person: so Lombard (Sent., 4, dist. 14A) and Bonaventure ([Sent.,] 4, dist. 16, part 1, art. 1, q. 1, f. 226). By its essence, contrition is grief; they even define it as grief: so Durandus ([Sent.,] 4, dist. 17, q. 2), Costerus (Enchir., ch. 11, p. 370), Tolet. (De inst. sacerd., bk. 3, ch. 4, p. 417). **
We respond. Hypocritical contrition consisting of outward gestures and action can arise from the powers of free choice, but earnest and salutary contrition is not the work of human powers, for “whoever commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). No one can leave slavery but rather is held in this miserable slavery unless he is freed by the Son [John 8:36]. Outside of the grace of the Holy Spirit, our hearts are considered “hard and stony” (Ezek. 36:26) and do not know how to repent. Thus God must “take away the stony heart and give a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 11:19) so that He Himself converts man and “shapes a new vessel from the broken one by virtue of creating,” as Prosper says.
There must also be a distinction between the contrition of those not yet reborn along with those who have fallen into sins against conscience and the daily mortification of the flesh, which is demanded of the reborn. When we say that contrition is passive and attribute it completely to the Holy Spirit, we are considering the conversion of those not yet reborn and those who have fallen into mortal sins. Yet we do not deny that the reborn are the co-workers of God both in all good works and in the daily mortification of the flesh (which some people call contrition). But they act not by their own powers but by the new powers endowed by the Holy Spirit.
To prove his thesis, Bellarmine produces: (1) “The commands by which the Lord orders man to rend his heart, to make himself a new heart, to cast away his sins.” From these he attempts to conclude that man truly does cooperate in his contrition.
We respond. We have shown in its own place [§§ 37–38] that our ability [for conversion] does not follow from these commands, since, through his fall, man has fallen into a powerlessness to perform the things required by the divine Law. Moreover, those very commands and threats are the salutary means through which God works true contrition in people. From this one can by no means infer that man cooperates with God out of the powers of his free choice.
(2) “Contrition pleases God, but a forced suffering is not God-pleasing.”
We respond. Contrition is God-pleasing only when it is united with faith in Christ: “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).
(3) “It is within our power to apply our mind to that which arouses fear.”
We respond. Although the application of the mind to that which arouses contrition—that is, the external hearing of the Word and the consideration of punishments—may somehow lie within our power, nevertheless inner, salutary contrition is the work of the Holy Spirit, as we have taught in greater detail in our treatise On Predestination and Free Choice [Commonplace XIV, §§ 32–101].
** Furthermore, they say that contrition is grief, but still an action, and to carry this point they use this little distinction. Grief is understood in two ways: (1) “as a discord of the will”; (2) “as suffering resulting in a feeling because of that discord, a feeling which causes a person to burst out in tears” (Bonaventure, loc. cit.). Or as Durandus says, “Grief is understood (1) as a dissatisfaction of the will and (2) as the suffering of the sensitive part9 [of the soul].” They think that the second grief is “an effect of contrition,” but the first is “the form of contrition.” We respond. (a) Contrition does not consist formally in bare discord but rather in the torment and trembling of the spirit because of sins committed. This torment includes discord but is not discord itself. If this same disharmony of the will is formally an action, why do they call it grief? For how is that which is formally grief an act in essence? To Bellarmine’s first argument [we respond]: (α) Contrition is suffering, but it is neither compelled nor violent but is aroused by the Law. For not everything is compelled which proceeds from an origin on the outside. Faith is not the result of our own powers but is kindled by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 10:17), yet faith is not a violent act. In the same way, drawing the conclusion of a free act from a command is invalid. All people are commanded to turn away from sin, to be cleansed, to believe in Christ, etc. Therefore are all of these things free acts within our power? Christ commanded the dead girl and Lazarus to get up, etc. Finally, though we do not deny that some acts of ours do occur in contrition—for instance, the remembrance of sins, consideration of the Law, meditation on the wrath of God, etc.—with respect to these, it can be said that contrition is commanded, but it does not consist of these actions formally but rather in grief and torment by reason of which the heart is said to be crushed [contritum]. (β) Contrition is indeed passive suffering, but it is aroused by God Himself and not elicited from us by force. Examples bear witness that some things please God which are in some way involuntary, such as the circumcision of Moses’ son (Exod. 4:26), the violent death of the martyrs (Ps. 116:[15]), and Ahab’s contrition (1 Kings 21:27). There must be a distinction between the contrition of the despairing and of those who believe. (γ) In response to his third argument [we respond]: “The question here is not what sort of suffering contrition is, whether it is free or otherwise, but whether specifically it is passive or active.” Nor does this follow: some preparatory things are within our power; therefore salutary contrition is also in our power. For otherwise faith would be our voluntary act. The use of means is one thing; the production of the effect is another. The first is placed within our powers, but not the latter. (Meisner, Sobr. phil., part 2, sec. 2, ch. 1, q. 5). **