Whether Penance Should Be Assigned Any Parts?
Objection 1: It would seem that parts should not be assigned to
Penance. For it is the Divine power that works our salvation most
secretly in the sacraments. Now the Divine power is one and simple.
Therefore Penance, being a sacrament, should have no parts assigned
to it.
Obj. 2: Further, Penance is both a virtue and a sacrament. Now no
parts are assigned to it as a virtue, since virtue is a habit, which
is a simple quality of the mind. In like manner, it seems that parts
should not be assigned to Penance as a sacrament, because no parts
are assigned to Baptism and the other sacraments. Therefore no parts
at all should be assigned to Penance.
Obj. 3: Further, the matter of Penance is sin, as stated above (Q.
84, A. 2). But no parts are assigned to sin. Neither, therefore,
should parts be assigned to Penance.
_On the contrary,_ The parts of a thing are those out of which the
whole is composed. Now the perfection of Penance is composed of
several things, viz. contrition, confession, and satisfaction.
Therefore Penance has parts.
_I answer that,_ The parts of a thing are those into which the whole
is divided materially, for the parts of a thing are to the whole,
what matter is to the form; wherefore the parts are reckoned as a
kind of material cause, and the whole as a kind of formal cause
(Phys. ii). Accordingly wherever, on the part of matter, we find a
kind of plurality, there we shall find a reason for assigning parts.
Now it has been stated above (Q. 84, AA. 2, 3), that, in the
sacrament of Penance, human actions stand as matter: and so, since
several actions are requisite for the perfection of Penance, viz.,
contrition, confession, and satisfaction, as we shall show further on
(A. 2), it follows that the sacrament of Penance has parts.
Reply Obj. 1: Every sacrament is something simple by reason of the
Divine power, which operates therein: but the Divine power is so
great that it can operate both through one and through many, and by
reason of these many, parts may be assigned to a particular sacrament.
Reply Obj. 2: Parts are not assigned to penance as a virtue: because
the human acts of which there are several in penance, are related to
the habit of virtue, not as its parts, but as its effects. It
follows, therefore, that parts are assigned to Penance as a
sacrament, to which the human acts are related as matter: whereas in
the other sacraments the matter does not consist of human acts, but
of some one external thing, either simple, as water or oil, or
compound, as chrism, and so parts are not assigned to the other
sacraments.
Reply Obj. 3: Sins are the remote matter of Penance, inasmuch, to
wit, as they are the matter or object of the human acts, which are
the proper matter of Penance as a sacrament.
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