Whether Presumption Is More Opposed to Fear Than to Hope?
Objection 1: It would seem that presumption is more opposed to fear
than to hope. Because inordinate fear is opposed to right fear. Now
presumption seems to pertain to inordinate fear, for it is written
(Wis. 17:10): "A troubled conscience always presumes [Douay:
'forecasteth'] grievous things," and (Wis. 17:11) that "fear is a
help to presumption [*Vulg.: 'Fear is nothing else but a yielding up
of the succours from thought.']." Therefore presumption is opposed to
fear rather than to hope.
Obj. 2: Further, contraries are most distant from one another. Now
presumption is more distant from fear than from hope, because
presumption implies movement to something, just as hope does, whereas
fear denotes movement from a thing. Therefore presumption is contrary
to fear rather than to hope.
Obj. 3: Further, presumption excludes fear altogether, whereas it
does not exclude hope altogether, but only the rectitude of hope.
Since therefore contraries destroy one another, it seems that
presumption is contrary to fear rather than to hope.
_On the contrary,_ When two vices are opposed to one another they are
contrary to the same virtue, as timidity and audacity are opposed to
fortitude. Now the sin of presumption is contrary to the sin of
despair, which is directly opposed to hope. Therefore it seems that
presumption also is more directly opposed to hope.
_I answer that,_ As Augustine states (Contra Julian. iv, 3), "every
virtue not only has a contrary vice manifestly distinct from it, as
temerity is opposed to prudence, but also a sort of kindred vice,
alike, not in truth but only in its deceitful appearance, as cunning
is opposed to prudence." This agrees with the Philosopher who says
(Ethic. ii, 8) that a virtue seems to have more in common with one of
the contrary vices than with the other, as temperance with
insensibility, and fortitude with audacity.
Accordingly presumption appears to be manifestly opposed to fear,
especially servile fear, which looks at the punishment arising from
God's justice, the remission of which presumption hopes for; yet by a
kind of false likeness it is more opposed to hope, since it denotes
an inordinate hope in God. And since things are more directly opposed
when they belong to the same genus, than when they belong to
different genera, it follows that presumption is more directly
opposed to hope than to fear. For they both regard and rely on the
same object, hope inordinately, presumption inordinately.
Reply Obj. 1: Just as hope is misused in speaking of evils, and
properly applied in speaking of good, so is presumption: it is in
this way that inordinate fear is called presumption.
Reply Obj. 2: Contraries are things that are most distant from one
another within the same genus. Now presumption and hope denote a
movement of the same genus, which can be either ordinate or
inordinate. Hence presumption is more directly opposed to hope than
to fear, since it is opposed to hope in respect of its specific
difference, as an inordinate thing to an ordinate one, whereas it is
opposed to fear, in respect of its generic difference, which is the
movement of hope.
Reply Obj. 3: Presumption is opposed to fear by a generic
contrariety, and to the virtue of hope by a specific contrariety.
Hence presumption excludes fear altogether even generically, whereas
it does not exclude hope except by reason of its difference, by
excluding its ordinateness.
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