Whether Man Without Grace Can Avoid Sin?
Objection 1: It would seem that without grace man can avoid sin.
Because "no one sins in what he cannot avoid," as Augustine says (De
Duab. Anim. x, xi; De Libero Arbit. iii, 18). Hence if a man in
mortal sin cannot avoid sin, it would seem that in sinning he does
not sin, which is impossible.
Obj. 2: Further, men are corrected that they may not sin. If
therefore a man in mortal sin cannot avoid sin, correction would seem
to be given to no purpose; which is absurd.
Obj. 3: Further, it is written (Ecclus. 15:18): "Before man is life
and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given
him." But by sinning no one ceases to be a man. Hence it is still in
his power to choose good or evil; and thus man can avoid sin without
grace.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Perfect Just. xxi): "Whoever
denies that we ought to say the prayer 'Lead us not into temptation'
(and they deny it who maintain that the help of God's grace is not
necessary to man for salvation, but that the gift of the law is
enough for the human will) ought without doubt to be removed beyond
all hearing, and to be anathematized by the tongues of all."
_I answer that,_ We may speak of man in two ways: first, in the state
of perfect nature; secondly, in the state of corrupted nature. Now in
the state of perfect nature, man, without habitual grace, could avoid
sinning either mortally or venially; since to sin is nothing else
than to stray from what is according to our nature--and in the state
of perfect nature man could avoid this. Nevertheless he could not
have done it without God's help to uphold him in good, since if this
had been withdrawn, even his nature would have fallen back into
nothingness.
But in the state of corrupt nature man needs grace to heal his nature
in order that he may entirely abstain from sin. And in the present
life this healing is wrought in the mind--the carnal appetite being
not yet restored. Hence the Apostle (Rom. 7:25) says in the person of
one who is restored: "I myself, with the mind, serve the law of God,
but with the flesh, the law of sin." And in this state man can
abstain from all mortal sin, which takes its stand in his reason, as
stated above (Q. 74, A. 5); but man cannot abstain from all venial
sin on account of the corruption of his lower appetite of sensuality.
For man can, indeed, repress each of its movements (and hence they
are sinful and voluntary), but not all, because whilst he is
resisting one, another may arise, and also because the reason is not
always alert to avoid these movements, as was said above (Q. 74, A.
3, ad 2).
So, too, before man's reason, wherein is mortal sin, is restored by
justifying grace, he can avoid each mortal sin, and for a time, since
it is not necessary that he should be always actually sinning. But it
cannot be that he remains for a long time without mortal sin. Hence
Gregory says (Super Ezech. Hom. xi) that "a sin not at once taken
away by repentance, by its weight drags us down to other sins": and
this because, as the lower appetite ought to be subject to the
reason, so should the reason be subject to God, and should place in
Him the end of its will. Now it is by the end that all human acts
ought to be regulated, even as it is by the judgment of the reason
that the movements of the lower appetite should be regulated. And
thus, even as inordinate movements of the sensitive appetite cannot
help occurring since the lower appetite is not subject to reason, so
likewise, since man's reason is not entirely subject to God, the
consequence is that many disorders occur in the reason. For when
man's heart is not so fixed on God as to be unwilling to be parted
from Him for the sake of finding any good or avoiding any evil, many
things happen for the achieving or avoiding of which a man strays
from God and breaks His commandments, and thus sins mortally:
especially since, when surprised, a man acts according to his
preconceived end and his pre-existing habits, as the Philosopher says
(Ethic. iii); although with premeditation of his reason a man may do
something outside the order of his preconceived end and the
inclination of his habit. But because a man cannot always have this
premeditation, it cannot help occurring that he acts in accordance
with his will turned aside from God, unless, by grace, he is quickly
brought back to the due order.
Reply Obj. 1: Man can avoid each but not every act of sin, except by
grace, as stated above. Nevertheless, since it is by his own
shortcoming that he does not prepare himself to have grace, the fact
that he cannot avoid sin without grace does not excuse him from sin.
Reply Obj. 2: Correction is useful "in order that out of the sorrow
of correction may spring the wish to be regenerate; if indeed he who
is corrected is a son of promise, in such sort that whilst the noise
of correction is outwardly resounding and punishing, God by hidden
inspirations is inwardly causing to will," as Augustine says (De
Corr. et Gratia vi). Correction is therefore necessary, from the fact
that man's will is required in order to abstain from sin; yet it is
not sufficient without God's help. Hence it is written (Eccles.
7:14): "Consider the works of God that no man can correct whom He
hath despised."
Reply Obj. 3: As Augustine says (Hypognosticon iii [*Among the
spurious works of St. Augustine]), this saying is to be understood of
man in the state of perfect nature, when as yet he was not a slave of
sin. Hence he was able to sin and not to sin. Now, too, whatever a
man wills, is given to him; but his willing good, he has by God's
assistance.
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