Do you agree with Aquinas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Charlemagne_III
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
…But it remains a mortal sin against the virtue of Faith. What exactly is a “sin against knowledge” anyway? What is his source for that?
What “remains a mortal sin against the virtue of Faith”?

Kreeft’s writing appears clear to me. If you seek clarification or citation, best to ask him.
You would have to ask Kreeft:
Phone: 617-552-3871
Fax: 617-552-3874
E-mail: peter.kreeft@bc.edu
 
What “remains a mortal sin against the virtue of Faith”?

Kreeft’s writing appears clear to me. If you seek clarification or citation, best to ask him.
[/email]
Severing oneself from the Church.

I’ve looked around a bit, his is the only relevant statement that comes up with my search keywords. 🤷
 
Severing oneself from the Church.

I’ve looked around a bit, his is the only relevant statement that comes up with my search keywords. 🤷
I think the sin against faith Kreeft refers to is incredulity (material, not formal heresy).

Incredulity may be mortal but is not necessarily so, circumstances withstanding, e.g., age, emotional state, invincible ignorance. Nor does incredulity automatically result in severing one from the Church. Self-excommunication (latae sententiae) applies only to one who is formally, that is guilty or culpable as a heretic – one who willingly embraces what one knows to be contrary to revealed truth.
 
A Catholic who in good conscience disagrees with the Magisterium on a fundamental doctrine has erred intellectually. He venially sins against his faith.

Now he must decide whether or not to sin against his conscience. If he remains in the Church and continues to call himself Catholic he mortally sins acting in opposition to his conscience (acquires a “bad” conscience). If he leaves the Church then he acts consistent with his good conscience and sins only against his faith, that is against faith’s infused knowledge.
This is balderdash! There is no such thing as a bad conscience according to Aquinas.

Do you just make things up as you go along? :confused:
 
You have completely misunderstood Thomas.

He also says that, if the conscience is malformed, there are cases where it is impossible for one to avoid sin. See the Article in Disputed Questions we were referencing.

Here’s an example:

“It is irresponsible for me to have a child now, but I am pregnant. So it would be wrong of me to allow my fetus to come to term, as it would cause me and my child and others a lot of pain and suffering. So I ought to have an abortion. It is the right thing to do.”

She thinks it is immoral to allow the child to live because of a precept of justice. So to allow it to be born is now a sin - because then she attempts to violate justice. It is formal sin with no material sin.

When having an abortion, she violates justice in reality, but does not do so according to her conscience. It is now formal sin and material sin.

She has a malformed conscience… it is impossible for her not to sin, unless she changes her conscience to be conformed to truth.

Conscience is not infallible. It is our attempt to understand and apply the moral law in our lives. A perfectly formed conscience which is constantly adverted to would be capable of what you are suggesting…

This a clear teaching in the CCC. Whence the confusion? :confused:
The confusion is throughout your post. Conscience is never malformed. Intellect and will together can violate the conscience (immediate knowledge of right and wrong) which remains pure despite the malformations of intellect and will surrounding it. Again, this is why conscience can break through and reasserts itself when we sin according to the defects of our intellect and will as they submit to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Unless they are insane, people who do evil KNOW they have done evil even when or after they exert themselves mightily by intellect and will to justify their evil actions.

"Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee. If anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous … I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.” Thomas Aquinas

Here is an instance of Aquinas asserting that his views might be in error because of the weakness of his intellect, yet his conscience is not in error because he submits all his intellectual errors to correction by the Church. Contrast this with the arrogance of Martin Luther who supposedly followed his conscience but in fact sinned against humility.
 
This is balderdash! There is no such thing as a bad conscience according to Aquinas.

Do you just make things up as you go along? :confused:
Why did you skip the Kreeft quote in your reply? I only offered a preamble paraphrasing what the good professor teaches. I could hardly be making it up if I cite Kreeft as an authority. Where is your authority? Cite where Aquinas writes “there is no such thing as a bad conscience.”

If you cannot find a citation from Aquinas then define for us what you think differs in a “bad” conscience and “good” conscience.
 
For most of my life I did not believe the Eucharist to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Symbolically true, for sure; but matter being reality, how could it be anything other than a particular arrangement of carbohydrates. During those times I attended mass regularly to participate in communal prayer and worship. It was the right to do, as it was to do so privately, to help my neighbour, and to contemplate holy scripture. I would not say all of the Creed, just those parts I believed; but I did consider their meaning and the possibility that they were true. I did not take communion for the same reason; to do otherwise would have been to be untrue to myself as well as insulting to the church of people holding that belief.

It wasn’t stubbornness or a refusal to accept the truth. I just didn’t get it. But, what conscience also dictated was to keep an open heart and mind in response to the tension between my world view and that presented by the Church. Awareness of the depth of one’s ignorance makes this pretty easy.

I’m not going to get into those times when I would act against conscience. Suffice to say there were times when I would not ask to be led out of temptation, knowing how much I desired to succumb to it. These situations, every one ended very badly.

Regardless of one’s beliefs and understanding, one’s conscience is at work, requiring one to be honest, humble and open to the truth. To my mind, conscience is an awareness of God’s love and compassion, as understood from where we are in relation to Him, our world and our neighbour. We see ourselves and our situation, darkly but through His heart. As we journey to meet Him who calls us, the challenges we face, will change.
 
The confusion is throughout your post. Conscience is never malformed. Intellect and will together can violate the conscience (immediate knowledge of right and wrong) which remains pure despite the malformations of intellect and will surrounding it. Again, this is why conscience can break through and reasserts itself when we sin according to the defects of our intellect and will as they submit to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Unless they are insane, people who do evil KNOW they have done evil even when or after they exert themselves mightily by intellect and will to justify their evil actions.

"Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee. If anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous … I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.” Thomas Aquinas

Here is an instance of Aquinas asserting that his views might be in error because of the weakness of his intellect, yet his conscience is not in error because he submits all his intellectual errors to correction by the Church. Contrast this with the arrogance of Martin Luther who supposedly followed his conscience but in fact sinned against humility.
Friend, I don’t know what to say. You just don’t understand what the conscience is, and you ignore the facts of human experience. It is plain to see.

Here is the CCC on the topic.

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.

1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

This is the teaching of the Church, within the context of its understanding of what conscience actually is.

And yes, some people who do evil really believe they have done good. Could they eventually understand that what they did was evil? Sure. But that is a matter of forming the conscience rather than using it.

I can be of no more help in this thread. The truth is very clear that we are bound to follow our conscience in every case in which it makes a real judgment, or else we become evil-doers simply by seeking to do what we believe is wrong.

Peace.
 
“Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.” Thomas Aquinas

Do you agree or disagree? Why?
I don’t agree with him. Conscience is simply the result of all our experiences (thoughts, emotions, believes, etcetera) and what we are (our genes). We need conscience to make sure that our decisions and actions are in the right directions. I think conscience is simply wisdom.
 
I don’t agree with him. Conscience is simply the result of all our experiences (thoughts, emotions, believes, etcetera) and what we are (our genes). We need conscience to make sure that our decisions and actions are in the right directions. I think conscience is simply wisdom.
I don’t understand why you would disagree with Aquinas.
Are you saying that we should not follow the path that wisdom sets out for us?
 
I don’t understand why you would disagree with Aquinas.
Are you saying that we should not follow the path that wisdom sets out for us?
It depends. Think of the case of a serial killer. She/he is of course wise on what she/he is doing but what she/he is doing is wrong.

STT
 
It depends. Think of the case of a serial killer. She/he is of course wise on what she/he is doing but what she/he is doing is wrong.

STT
So conscience requires some sort of experience built on given capacities to know and understand, but involves an awareness of goodness. And, none of us being entirely good, we would need Commandments or other guides to discern right from wrong.
 
So conscience requires some sort of experience built on given capacities to know and understand, but involves an awareness of goodness. And, none of us being entirely good, we would need Commandments or other guides to discern right from wrong.
Yes. We cannot totally depend on conscience. It is a good source of (name removed by moderator)ut but we need to constantly feed it with proper (name removed by moderator)uts (right thoughts, decisions, etc) to take the advantage of it.

STT
 
Friend, I don’t know what to say. You just don’t understand what the conscience is, and you ignore the facts of human experience. It is plain to see.

Here is the CCC on the topic.

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.

1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

This is the teaching of the Church, within the context of its understanding of what conscience actually is.

And yes, some people who do evil really believe they have done good. Could they eventually understand that what they did was evil? Sure. But that is a matter of forming the conscience rather than using it.

I can be of no more help in this thread. The truth is very clear that we are bound to follow our conscience in every case in which it makes a real judgment, or else we become evil-doers simply by seeking to do what we believe is wrong.

Peace.
“When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong.” (Romans 2:14,15

It is not conscience that deceives, for conscience has been planted in us by God as a right path back home to him. It is intellect and will (rebellious will!) that conspire against us to deceive us and ruin us by way of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Only by the grace of God can conscience break through these deceptions and overcome them, as it so often does when intellect and will are shamed into the realization that they have sinned against the natural law (conscience) God has planted in our hearts.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top