15.5 Rewards and Punishments (SCG 3,142–146)
15.5 Rewards and Punishments (SCG 3,142–146)
The notion of law seems to be bound up with that of reward and punishment. A legally appointed judge might declare that we should be compensated or punished in some way. Laws are typically enforced in human societies with a view to reparation and retribution. It is, therefore, not surprising that in SCG 3,142–146 Aquinas turns to reward and punishment. If there is such a thing as divine law, are there rewards for acting in accordance with it? And does not acting in accordance with divine law come with retribution? These questions are what Aquinas has in mind in SCG 3,142–145, while in SCG 3,146 he discusses punishment inflicted by human beings on other human beings.
He begins by claiming that “not all rewards and punishments are equal” (quod non omnia praemia et poenae sunt aequales).70 By this he means that rewards and punishments should match that to which they stand as rewards or punishments. If you care for my cat for a week, I might reasonably reward you by, say, taking you out to dinner. But I can hardly be expected to reward you by giving you all the money that I possess. Again, you may think that I should be punished for stealing your cat. Yet would you think that I should be hanged for doing so? Presumably not. So you might think, as does Aquinas, that rewards and punishments should be varied and admit of degrees, which is the thesis of SCG 3,142.
In SCG 3,143, however, and with the notion of punishment in mind, Aquinas turns to a distinction between what he calls “mortal” and “venial” sin. Its biblical basis lies in 1 John 5:16–17, where we read: “If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.” The author of these verses is evidently thinking that some sins are very grave, while some are less grave, and this is what Aquinas has in mind when distinguishing between mortal and venial sin.
It is possible, he says, to sin in two ways.
One way is such that the mental intention is entirely broken away from the order to God, who is called the ultimate end of all good people; and this is mortal sin. The second way is such that, while the ordering of the human mind to the ultimate end remains, some impediment is brought in whereby one is held back from freely tending toward the end; and this is called venial sin.71
In short, Aquinas takes mortal sin decisively to separate those who commit it from God, while he takes venial sin to be less disastrous in its consequences.72 In his view, mortal sin warrants those who commit it to be “cut off from the end of human beings,” while venial sin does not.
Aquinas recognizes that someone who sins mortally might repent and get back on course when it comes to conforming to the law of God.73 He is clear, though, that there is no room for repentance after death. Why so? Because he thinks that death deprives people of their human capacity to aim for their ultimate end. He says: “The soul needs a body for the obtaining of its end, in so far as it acquires perfection through the body, both in knowledge and in virtue. But the soul, after it has been separated from its body, will not again return to this state in which it receives perfection through the body.”74 In SCG 3,144, therefore, Aquinas maintains that to die in mortal sin is to be eternally deprived of the beatific vision. He agrees that punishment inflicted on human beings by other human beings can be intended as corrective and, therefore, should come to an end. Yet, he insists, those who die in mortal sin are deprived of the context in which they can correct themselves. He also notes that some people are legally executed, though not with a view to their improvement. One is not, thinks Aquinas, forced to admit “that all punishments are purgatorial and terminable.”75 In fact, he says, those who die in mortal sin “are not only to be punished by their exclusion from perpetual happiness, but also by the experience of something painful.”76 He continues:
Punishments are inflicted for faults so that people may be restrained by the fear of these punishments. … But we do not fear to lose what we do not desire to obtain. So, those who have their will turned away from the ultimate end do not fear to be cut off from it. Thus they cannot be restrained from sinning simply by exclusion from the ultimate end. Therefore, another punishment must also be used for sinners, which they may fear while they are sinners. … This punishment is due to sinners, that from those things in which they set their end they receive affliction and injury.77
What though of punishment inflicted on people by people? Is this justifiable? Aquinas argues that it can be since we might be deterred from acting unjustly given laws that allow judges to punish us for so acting. He also maintains that “divine providence requires the good to be rewarded and the evil to be punished” and that “people who are in authority over others do no wrong when they reward the good and punish the evil.”78
Yet what about capital punishment? Is that permissible? We might agree that society needs laws that come with penalties for those breaking them. It is not hard to appreciate why Aquinas is not against punishment as such, especially given his view that there is such a thing as divine law that aims to draw people to what is humanly good. But should anyone condemn someone else to death? And should anyone execute someone else? Aquinas’s answer is that capital punishment is defensible.
He bases his argument on the notion of there being a common good that can override that of an individual. This common good, he thinks, justifies the existence of laws that come with penalties attached. He also thinks that not executing certain people might endanger the good of others. So his approach to capital punishment is preventative. He holds that capital punishment is justified insofar as it protects people. Many have said that capital punishment is required by justice since people can commit crimes that obviously require that they die for committing them.79 But that is not Aquinas’s line. He thinks that capital punishment is justified with an eye on avoiding harm that might be done by the one scheduled for execution. We therefore find him arguing:
The common good is better than the particular good of one person. So, the particular good should be preserved in order to preserve the common good. But the life of certain pestiferous people is an impediment to the common good which is the concord of human society. Therefore, certain individuals must be removed by death from human society. … The ruler of a state executes pestiferous people justly and sinlessly in order that the peace of the state may not be disrupted.80
In SCG 3,146, Aquinas’s approach to capital punishment is not retributive. It is defensive. He thinks that some people should be put to death so that others may be protected from them. He does not, as we might, consider the possibility of guaranteeing, with some reason, that certain people who have done certain things can be ensured never again to be able to harm others. However, Aquinas did not live in a world that contained the high-security jails with which we are now familiar. He lived in a world in which “pestiferous” people might easily be expected to escape confinement so as to return to being “pestiferous.”81 At the end of SCG 3,146 he notes that those about to be executed might express contrition for what they have done. Yet, he drily observes: “The danger that threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement.”82