Whether Servile Fear Is Good?
Objection 1: It would seem that servile fear is not good. For if the
use of a thing is evil, the thing itself is evil. Now the use of
servile fear is evil, for according to a gloss on Rom. 8:15, "if a man
do anything through fear, although the deed be good, it is not well
done." Therefore servile fear is not good.
Obj. 2: Further, no good grows from a sinful root. Now servile fear
grows from a sinful root, because when commenting on Job 3:11, "Why
did I not die in the womb?" Gregory says (Moral. iv, 25): "When a man
dreads the punishment which confronts him for his sin and no longer
loves the friendship of God which he has lost, his fear is born of
pride, not of humility." Therefore servile fear is evil.
Obj. 3: Further, just as mercenary love is opposed to the love of
charity, so is servile fear, apparently, opposed to chaste fear. But
mercenary love is always evil. Therefore servile fear is also.
_On the contrary,_ Nothing evil is from the Holy Ghost. But servile fear
is from the Holy Ghost, since a gloss on Rom. 8:15, "You have not
received the spirit of bondage," etc. says: "It is the one same spirit
that bestows two fears, viz. servile and chaste fear." Therefore
servile fear is not evil.
_I answer that,_ It is owing to its servility that servile fear may be
evil. For servitude is opposed to freedom. Since, then, "what is free
is cause of itself" (Metaph. i, 2), a slave is one who does not act as
cause of his own action, but as though moved from without. Now whoever
does a thing through love, does it of himself so to speak, because it
is by his own inclination that he is moved to act: so that it is
contrary to the very notion of servility that one should act from
love. Consequently servile fear as such is contrary to charity: so
that if servility were essential to fear, servile fear would be evil
simply, even as adultery is evil simply, because that which makes it
contrary to charity belongs to its very species.
This servility, however, does not belong to the species of servile
fear, even as neither does lifelessness to the species of lifeless
faith. For the species of a moral habit or act is taken from the
object. Now the object of servile fear is punishment, and it is by
accident that, either the good to which the punishment is contrary,
is loved as the last end, and that consequently the punishment is
feared as the greatest evil, which is the case with one who is devoid
of charity, or that the punishment is directed to God as its end, and
that, consequently, it is not feared as the greatest evil, which is
the case with one who has charity. For the species of a habit is not
destroyed through its object or end being directed to a further end.
Consequently servile fear is substantially good, but is servility is
evil.
Reply Obj. 1: This saying of Augustine is to be applied to a man who
does something through servile fear as such, so that he loves not
justice, and fears nothing but the punishment.
Reply Obj. 2: Servile fear as to its substance is not born of pride,
but its servility is, inasmuch as man is unwilling, by love, to
subject his affections to the yoke of justice.
Reply Obj. 3: Mercenary love is that whereby God is loved for the
sake of worldly goods, and this is, of itself, contrary to charity,
so that mercenary love is always evil. But servile fear, as to its
substance, implies merely fear of punishment, whether or not this be
feared as the principal evil.
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