Whether Gluttony Is a Sin?
Objection 1: It would seem that gluttony is not a sin. For our Lord
said (Matt. 15:11): "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a
man." Now gluttony regards food which goes into a man. Therefore,
since every sin defiles a man, it seems that gluttony is not a sin.
Obj. 2: Further, "No man sins in what he cannot avoid" [*Ep. lxxi, ad
Lucin.]. Now gluttony is immoderation in food; and man cannot avoid
this, for Gregory says (Moral. xxx, 18): "Since in eating pleasure
and necessity go together, we fail to discern between the call of
necessity and the seduction of pleasure," and Augustine says
(Confess. x, 31): "Who is it, Lord, that does not eat a little more
than necessary?" Therefore gluttony is not a sin.
Obj. 3: Further, in every kind of sin the first movement is a sin.
But the first movement in taking food is not a sin, else hunger and
thirst would be sinful. Therefore gluttony is not a sin.
_On the contrary,_ Gregory says (Moral. xxx, 18) that "unless we
first tame the enemy dwelling within us, namely our gluttonous
appetite, we have not even stood up to engage in the spiritual
combat." But man's inward enemy is sin. Therefore gluttony is a sin.
_I answer that,_ Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and
drinking, but an inordinate desire. Now desire is said to be
inordinate through leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of
moral virtue consists: and a thing is said to be a sin through being
contrary to virtue. Wherefore it is evident that gluttony is a sin.
Reply Obj. 1: That which goes into man by way of food, by reason of
its substance and nature, does not defile a man spiritually. But the
Jews, against whom our Lord is speaking, and the Manichees deemed
certain foods to make a man unclean, not on account of their
signification, but by reason of their nature [*Cf. I-II, Q. 102, A.
6, ad 1]. It is the inordinate desire of food that defiles a man
spiritually.
Reply Obj. 2: As stated above, the vice of gluttony does not regard
the substance of food, but in the desire thereof not being regulated
by reason. Wherefore if a man exceed in quantity of food, not from
desire of food, but through deeming it necessary to him, this
pertains, not to gluttony, but to some kind of inexperience. It is a
case of gluttony only when a man knowingly exceeds the measure in
eating, from a desire for the pleasures of the palate.
Reply Obj. 3: The appetite is twofold. There is the natural appetite,
which belongs to the powers of the vegetal soul. In these powers
virtue and vice are impossible, since they cannot be subject to
reason; wherefore the appetitive power is differentiated from the
powers of secretion, digestion, and excretion, and to it hunger and
thirst are to be referred. Besides this there is another, the
sensitive appetite, and it is in the concupiscence of this appetite
that the vice of gluttony consists. Hence the first movement of
gluttony denotes inordinateness in the sensitive appetite, and this
is not without sin.
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