Are sins of concupiscence always voluntary to some degree?

[fakename]

“Voluntas”= will, “Voluntarius”= of, or pertaining to, the will. As in “habitus voluntarius”- habit of the will.

I think “voluntarius” is being confused with “imperatus”- as in “actus imperatus”, an act which one chooses to do.

In English, what we call a ‘voluntary act’, is actually an “actus imperatus.” I suppose we use 'voluntary in English more for ‘imperatus’ (choosen, commanded, ‘willed’) than for ‘voluntarius’ (pertaining to the will).

But what makes you think that Aquinas meant the word in that way?

Was it just that he used phrases that are the same as the one you defined?

 

[Qoeleth]

But what makes you think that Aquinas meant the word in that way?

Was it just that he used phrases that are the same as the one you defined?

Well, it seems to make sense, and solve the problem- we do not ‘will’ to have concupiscence, but concupiscence does affect the will (it is “pertaining to will”). Concupiscence is therefore always “volitional” (maybe this is a better translation?)

I’m pretty sure that is what he means, but I am not a great Aquinas scholar.

 

[davidv]

Well, it seems to make sense, and solve the problem- we do not ‘will’ to have concupiscence, but concupiscence does affect the will (it is “pertaining to will”). Concupiscence is therefore always “volitional” (maybe this is a better translation?)

I’m pretty sure that is what he means, but I am not a great Aquinas scholar.

I seem to me that what is at work here varying definitions of concupiscence and volition.
In my understanding concupiscence is a defect in our human nature.

According to dictionary.com volitional is:

1. the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing: She left of her own volition.
2. a choice or decision made by the will.
3. the power of willing; will.

Concupiscence has neither will nor is it the result of any will. So, it cannot be volitional.

How are you seeing it differently?

 

[Qoeleth]

I seem to me that what is at work here varying definitions of concupiscence and volition.
In my understanding concupiscence is a defect in our human nature.

According to dictionary.com volitional is:

Concupiscence has neither will nor is it the result of any will. So, it cannot be volitional.

How are you seeing it differently?

I mean, concupiscence affects our will, i.e. it causes us to will certain things, without us willing that we will them. For example, concupiscence may cause me to desire to commit fornication- now I don’t will to will that I commit fornication. In the same way, the alcoholic desires to drink, without desiring that he desires.

In using the word “volitional”, I intended “pertaining to the will”. Perhaps there is a better word?

 

[fakename]

I mean, concupiscence affects our will, i.e. it causes us to will certain things, without us willing that we will them. For example, concupiscence may cause me to desire to commit fornication- now I don’t will to will that I commit fornication. In the same way, the alcoholic desires to drink, without desiring that he desires.

In using the word “volitional”, I intended “pertaining to the will”. Perhaps there is a better word?

To take your example, in order to show what I think Aquinas is saying, when someone commits fornication they do so because they want the pleasure of fornication and this pleasure makes it more voluntary unless the pleasure is so strong that it destroys the will.

So unless one is totally unable to control oneself, all sins that have some pleasure as their objects are at least partly voluntary.

Indeed, the correctness of this reading seems certain.

 

[fakename]

To take your example, in order to show what I think Aquinas is saying, when someone commits fornication they do so because they want the pleasure of fornication and this pleasure makes it more voluntary unless the pleasure is so strong that it destroys the will.

So unless one is totally unable to control oneself, all sins that have some pleasure as their objects are at least partly voluntary.

Indeed, the correctness of this reading seems certain.

But, I wonder, if this means a contradiction namely that some sins or virtues are non-voluntary in the sense they hold attraction for you even while you are fighting them?

For instance, I see a good sandwich, I want to eat it and this “want” makes the wanting even more voluntary but I also knew that the sandwich was too unhealthy so I try to stop my “want”. However no matter how I try, the mere recognition of the want is sufficient to make it voluntary. So at the same time something is both voluntary and involuntary and it is both pleasing to the will and displeasing to it.

Is there any answer to this?

 

[Qoeleth]

But, I wonder, if this means a contradiction namely that some sins or virtues are non-voluntary in the sense they hold attraction for you even while you are fighting them?

For instance, I see a good sandwich, I want to eat it and this “want” makes the wanting even more voluntary but I also knew that the sandwich was too unhealthy so I try to stop my “want”. However no matter how I try, the mere recognition of the want is sufficient to make it voluntary. So at the same time something is both voluntary and involuntary and it is both pleasing to the will and displeasing to it.

Is there any answer to this?

It becomes almost as if there are two wills. One wants (wills) the sandwich. The other wants (wills) that you don’t want the sandwich. A will and a meta-will?

 

[fakename]

It becomes almost as if there are two wills. One wants (wills) the sandwich. The other wants (wills) that you don’t want the sandwich. A will and a meta-will?

I wish.

The answer here is not totally clear.

I know that there must be in someway, an involuntary voluntariness to some thoughts, or else why would people insist on not listening to certain music or not looking at certain things? If we had totally control, then we could feel unaffected by any stimulus and we could look upon certain people w/o any lust.

The answer to my question I feel, is to be found in answering why it is possible that people can habituate themselves to stimuli at first with difficulty, and later without it?

 

[davidv]

I wish.

The answer here is not totally clear.

I know that there must be in someway, an involuntary voluntariness to some thoughts,

To me, this is like saying there must be a way for there to be a squarable circle.

or else why would people insist on not listening to certain music or not looking at certain things? If we had totally control, then we could feel unaffected by any stimulus and we could look upon certain people w/o any lust.

The answer to my question I feel, is to be found in answering why it is possible that people can habituate themselves to stimuli at first with difficulty, and later without it?

Why is this question difficult to answer? New actions are always hard to do the first time. They require conscious thought to carry out. Frequent actions become memorized in our thoughts and some claim in the muscles.

 

[fakename]

To me, this is like saying there must be a way for there to be a squarable circle.

Why is this question difficult to answer? New actions are always hard to do the first time. They require conscious thought to carry out. Frequent actions become memorized in our thoughts and some claim in the muscles.

(1) there is a way for there to be a squarable circle (Bryson’s method of squaring the circle). It’s just not an essential way for a circle to be a square (obviously one cannot essentially be the other).

(2) It’s easy for one to concoct any answer to that question but it is difficult to know if that answer is the right one since it is difficult to come up with a direct proof for that answer.

For instance, the proof could be that all new actions are hard to do the first time you do them, all hard actions need conscious effort to carry out, So all new actions need conscious effort to do. But nothing that requires conscious effort is elastically responsive to our will, so no new actions will be elastically responsive to our will.

But is this proof true? I don’t think that it is necessarily the case that all new actions are hard the first time you do them: after all there are such people as “naturals”.

So the argument is certainly not sound and that is something that I am looking for.

Getting this, I think requires that I understand the concept of “disposition” more.

 

[davidv]

(1) there is a way for there to be a squarable circle (Bryson’s method of squaring the circle). It’s just not an essential way for a circle to be a square (obviously one cannot essentially be the other).

Once square, it is no longer a circle. Can you admit the illogic in your question. Simulataneous contradictories are logically impossible.

(2) It’s easy for one to concoct any answer to that question but it is difficult to know if that answer is the right one since it is difficult to come up with a direct proof for that answer.

If you think my answer was concocted, I don’t have anything else to say. I would say you confusion is of you own making.

For instance, the proof could be that all new actions are hard to do the first time you do them, all hard actions need conscious effort to carry out, So all new actions need conscious effort to do. But nothing that requires conscious effort is elastically responsive to our will, so no new actions will be elastically responsive to our will.

But is this proof true? I don’t think that it is necessarily the case that all new actions are hard the first time you do them: after all there are such people as “naturals”.

So the argument is certainly not sound and that is something that I am looking for.

Getting this, I think requires that I understand the concept of “disposition” more.

What do you think my argument was and which premise(s) was(were) false?

 

[Qoeleth]

I wish.

The answer here is not totally clear.

I know that there must be in someway, an involuntary voluntariness to some thoughts, or else why would people insist on not listening to certain music or not looking at certain things? If we had totally control, then we could feel unaffected by any stimulus and we could look upon certain people w/o any lust.

The answer to my question I feel, is to be found in answering why it is possible that people can habituate themselves to stimuli at first with difficulty, and later without it?

My understanding is we are ‘hard-wired’ with a bunch of ‘will’, some of which is affected by original sin (lust, gluttony, wrath, pride). We do not choose to have them, although they are ‘voluntary’ in the sense that they pertain to the will.

 

[perro_sarnoso]

Are sins of concupiscence always voluntary to some degree?

That is, is one always at least partly responsible for these?

I think there’s a good chance that they are and we do know that some things are willed no matter what happens (like the love of God in the afterlife).

With concupiscience it is us, all the way. Of course we get the influence of the world and the suggestions of the devil but, concupiscience is sufficiently strong to do us in all on our own.

I see; I covet and I act. "The benefit to me,me, me.

 

[fakename]

Once square, it is no longer a circle. Can you admit the illogic in your question. Simulataneous contradictories are logically impossible.

If you think my answer was concocted, I don’t have anything else to say. I would say you confusion is of you own making.

What do you think my argument was and which premise(s) was(were) false?

I said that a square could not be a circle but I also said that there is some way to prove (in a non-essential way) that it is (this is what Bryson did).

So the proof is this: In any genus in which one can find a greater and a lesser than something, one can find what is equal; but in the genus of squares one can find a greater and a lesser than a circle; therefore, one can also find a square equal to a circle.

That’s not a demonstration that a square is or can be essentially a circle.

Anyway I said that your premise that all newly done actions require conscious, onerous effort is false.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Yeah, that could be a problem but I doubt Aquinas would’ve missed such an obvious logical problem.

So how does one solve the problem? I think the answer is that concupiscence renders an act voluntary in the sense that all attraction is something that makes an act more voluntary than not. We see this in everyday life when people are not considered less responsible for something just because they had an incentive to do it. Indeed, it is by assigning an incentive ( a motive) that one also assigns guilt or innocence in a trial.

The act is involuntary in the sense that we cannot control the nature of the mind and the body so that supposing that we did meet with an incentive, then we could avoid being drawn to it.

That’s the way which Aquinas talks about free will and desire. Therefore the incentive cannot be overpoweringly strong or else freedom would be diminished.​

No. You don’t understand. Every man who ever lived except Jesus Christ and perhaps His mother, Mary suffered from concupiscence. Have they all sinned? No. All the Saints suffered from concupiscence, all of them!!! Yet they over came, at least in the end, the natural attraction to evil thoughts, desires, feelings. But these attractions are never sins, no matter how violent they are as long as we do not give full concent to them.

With the grace of God, with the sacraments, with prayer, with fasting, with attending to our duties of state, with perseverence, we can all conquer concupiscence or at least reach the point where we will not concent to these temptations. Now wether or not God will give us total relief is doubtful - that would be in the order of a moral miracle, though this was given to a few saints. But God in His mercy, will permit a lessening of their frequency or violence. We can only pray and be calm.

 

[fakename]

fakename;9403657:

Yeah, that could be a problem but I doubt Aquinas would’ve missed such an obvious logical problem.

So how does one solve the problem? I think the answer is that concupiscence renders an act voluntary in the sense that all attraction is something that makes an act more voluntary than not. We see this in everyday life when people are not considered less responsible for something just because they had an incentive to do it. Indeed, it is by assigning an incentive ( a motive) that one also assigns guilt or innocence in a trial.

The act is involuntary in the sense that we cannot control the nature of the mind and the body so that supposing that we did meet with an incentive, then we could avoid being drawn to it.

That’s the way which Aquinas talks about free will and desire. Therefore the incentive cannot be overpoweringly strong or else freedom would be diminished.​

No. You don’t understand. Every man who ever lived except Jesus Christ and perhaps His mother, Mary suffered from concupiscence. Have they all sinned? No. All the Saints suffered from concupiscence, all of them!!! Yet they over came, at least in the end, the natural attraction to evil thoughts, desires, feelings. But these attractions are never sins, no matter how violent they are as long as we do not give full concent to them.

With the grace of God, with the sacraments, with prayer, with fasting, with attending to our duties of state, with perseverence, we can all conquer concupiscence or at least reach the point where we will not concent to these temptations. Now wether or not God will give us total relief is doubtful - that would be in the order of a moral miracle, though this was given to a few saints. But God in His mercy, will permit a lessening of their frequency or violence. We can only pray and be calm.

This post allows me to clear up a couple of things even to myself.

Firstly, I only mean that a sin committed out of temptation is rendered more voluntary and not less, and this is indicated in the fact that if someone killed someone else out of a love of gold, the fact that he did what he did out of love for something else renders a motive, and in trials, a motive is a necessary condition for someone to be guilty.

Secondly, a temptation is not a sin, it is true. But what are temptations? These are merely proposals like “you can either do or not do x” (but not all proposals are probably temptations so temptations are not essentially proposals, what are they I know not, perhaps we should call them undecided moral questions). Now when someone starts to make a choice one or the other way, then one is entering the area of sin and not sin and so, since somethings are more or less appealing, there is greater or less chance that a person will choose either excess or defect in these things.

 

[lulu88]

Linusthe2nd;9485339:

This post allows me to clear up a couple of things even to myself.

Firstly, I only mean that a sin committed out of temptation is rendered more voluntary and not less, and this is indicated in the fact that if someone killed someone else out of a love of gold, the fact that he did what he did out of love for something else renders a motive, and in trials, a motive is a necessary condition for someone to be guilty.

Secondly, a temptation is not a sin, it is true. But what are temptations? These are merely proposals like “you can either do or not do x” (but not all proposals are probably temptations so temptations are not essentially proposals, what are they I know not, perhaps we should call them undecided moral questions). Now when someone starts to make a choice one or the other way, then one is entering the area of sin and not sin and so, since somethings are more or less appealing, there is greater or less chance that a person will choose either excess or defect in these things.

**
Well said, I concur, what makes a sin, is the INTENT.

Lulu:thumbsup:**