74. Is sin due to ignorance?
74. IS SIN DUE TO IGNORANCE?
Plato thinks it is. He argues that if we were not ignorant—of the fact that choosing evil always makes us miserable and choosing good always makes us happy—we would never choose evil, because no one ever chooses to be unhappy. Even sulking resentment is chosen because it makes us feel good by feeling self-righteous. If sin didn’t feel like fun, we’d all be saints.
Yet we all know from experience that we often sin not because we are ignorant of this fact—because we’re not! We also know that education, which lessens ignorance, does not necessarily lessen sin. In fact, educated people can justify sins more easily than uneducated people can, because they are clever enough to rationalize their sins away.
But how can we sin knowing, as we do, that sin will always make us miserable? Are we insane?
St. Thomas, as usual, gives us the bigger picture, in which both of the above truths, which apparently contradict each other, are reconciled. He shows that Plato is right but only half right.
If ignorance causes a choice to be involuntary, then it excuses the choice. And sometimes this happens. But sometimes it does not. St. Thomas explains the difference by distinguishing three kinds of ignorance: (1) “antecedent” ignorance, before the choice, that influences the choice (this is the most complex case); (2) “concomitant” ignorance, during the choice, and (3) “consequent” ignorance, after and caused by the choice. Only the first makes the choice involuntary.
If ignorance causes involuntariness, it is in so far as it deprives one of knowledge, which is a necessary condition of voluntariness. . . . But it is not every ignorance that deprives one of this knowledge. Accordingly, we must take note that ignorance has a threefold relationship to the act of the will: in one way, concomitantly; in another, consequently; in a third way, antecedently.
Concomitantly, when there is ignorance of what is done . . . [when] even if it were known, it would be done . . . thus in the example given, a man did indeed wish to kill his foe but killed him in ignorance, thinking to kill a stag. And ignorance of this kind, as the Philosopher states, does not cause involuntariness, since it is not the cause of anything that is repugnant to the will. . .
Ignorance is consequent to the act of will in so far as ignorance itself is voluntary . . . as when a man wishes not to know, so that he may have an excuse for sin, or that he may not be withheld from sin; according to Job 21:14: We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. And this is called affected ignorance. . . . Ignorance is [also] said to be voluntary when it regards that which one can and ought to know . . . when does not take the trouble to acquire the knowledge which one ought to have. . . .
Ignorance is antecedent to the act of will when it is not voluntary and yet is the cause of the man’s willing what he would not will otherwise . . . for instance, a man, after taking proper precaution, may not know that someone is coming along the road, so that he shoots an arrow and slays a passer-by. Such ignorance causes involuntariness. . . (I-II,6,8).
An immensely practical conclusion follows: When we sin, we must first blind our mind to the truth. We do this voluntarily, by our free will, even if it is done subconsciously rather than consciously, i.e., even if we are not consciously aware of it as we are doing it. We are still doing it, and we are responsible for this. This is what Plato forgot: that the will can move the mind as well as the mind moving the will. The will can slap the mind’s lips shut.
St. Thomas explains how this works, in his usual very practical and commonsensical psychology:
The will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act. But as to the determination (content, meaning, information) of the act . . . the intellect moves the will (I-II,9,1 ad 3).
The will, like a ship’s captain, commands the intellect, which is like the navigator, to speak and to show him the maps and charts or to go away and shut up. The will is the “efficient cause”, the mover, of the mind. The mind is the “formal cause”, the designer, of the act. The mind informs the will about what is good and what is evil. But the mind does this only if the will allows it or commands it. We can make ourselves morally deaf. We can shut the lips of our own conscience. But we cannot kill it. There is always a moral navigator on board.
That explains the negative half: that we can blind our own minds. Here is the positive half: We can always choose to begin by listening to our conscience, our moral reason.
That is why Brother Lawrence’s classic The Practice of the Presence of God is so deservedly popular. It is a very simple and effective aid to becoming a saint. Our very first choice is whether or not to “practice the presence of God”, to look at the truth of God’s reality and presence and will rather than only at our own desires. As Buddha said, “All that we are is determined by our thoughts.” Let Christ be their Lord too.
Plato was right when he said that all evil comes from ignorance. He forgot that ignorance also comes from evil. He also forgot that we are not in Heaven yet. In Heaven there will be no sin because there will be no ignorance, and there will be no ignorance because all will practice the presence of God perfectly, and all will do this because all will see God’s beauty face to face in the Beatific Vision. There will be no sin because there will be no temptation; the beauty of holiness will shine forth clearly as the sun, and never be dimmed by the deceptions of the Devil.
The Devil is a clever fisherman: he fishes for human souls by baiting his horrible hook with delicious-looking worms. In Heaven we will see through all the worms. We will see through his two main deceptions: that sin is fun and that sanctity is boring.
So the closer we can get to that Heavenly wisdom here on earth, the easier holiness will be for us, the more effortlessly we will choose the good. But it takes lifelong effort to get to that effortlessness.