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Q.

Dear Father Angelo,

I need your help once again.

I would like to understand why the tendency to the good (synderesis) and lust exist at the same time in human’s soul. I seem to remember St Thomas Aquinas mentioned the first and St Augustine the latter. I hope I did not get confused. I have to confess that I tried to figure it out myself but I failed.

Thank you for your kind answer, I ask for pray

Yours sincerely

Giancarlo

A.

Dear Giancarlo,

1.    St Thomas’ ideas, although different in form from St Augustine, is not that different in the content.

They both recognize that the natural inclination is good, because it comes from God. They both recognize that the original sin comes from chaos.

2. I start with St Augustine, who had to fight against Pelagian.

They affirmed that man with his own strength could become perfect and virtuous. On the other side, St Augustine highlights that man is evil from the original sin – here comes the concupiscence – and with his own strength he cannot be virtuous neither saint.

However, St Augustine believed that man is good by nature and he underlines this by fighting against Manichees, who said that there are two principles at the beginning of the world, the Good and the Evil. The Good would be the creator of spiritual realities and the Evil would be the author of material things. The fact that everything that is material is also evil follows naturally.

3. Here’s a quotation from Confessions by St Augustine, where he recognizes the good in man’s natural inclination, such as, for example, those that lead to the attainment of goods necessary for our life, but which with sin are undermined by disorder, by concupiscence: “There is yet another “evil of the day” to which I wish I were sufficient. By eating and drinking we restore the daily losses of the body until that day when thou destroyest both food and stomach, when thou wilt destroy this emptiness with an amazing fullness and wilt clothe this corruptible with an eternal incorruption. But now the necessity of habit is sweet to me, and against this sweetness must I fight, lest I be enthralled by it. Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly “bringing my body into subjection,” after which my pains are banished by pleasure. For hunger and thirst are actual pain. They consume and destroy like fever does, unless the medicine of food is at hand to relieve us. And since this medicine at hand comes from the comfort we receive in thy gifts (by means of which land and water and air serve our infirmity), even our calamity is called pleasure.

This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as medicine. But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me. For the passage itself is pleasant; there is no other way of passing thither, and necessity compels us to pass. And while health is the reason for our eating and drinking, yet a perilous delight joins itself to them as a handmaid; and indeed, she tries to take precedence in order that I may want to do for her sake what I say I want to do for health’s sake. They do not both have the same limit either. What is sufficient for health is not enough for pleasure. And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served. In this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense. It is glad that it is not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure. These temptations I daily endeavor to resist and I summon thy right hand to my help and cast my perplexities onto thee, for I have not yet reached a firm conclusion in this matter.” (Confessions X, 31, 43-44).

4. St Thomas similarly pointed out that the natural inclination come from God, thus they are good. I quote: “No king justly punishes those who do not resist his ordinances. Therefore, if there were nothing opposed to God’s ordinances, then no one would be justly punished by God. Each thing is subject to the order of God’s governance. […] This is clear from two considerations. First, it is clear from the fact that the order of God’s governance tends as a whole toward the good, and each thing, in its operations and inclinations, tends only toward the good, since, as Dionysius puts it, “No one acts with an eye toward evil.” Second, the same point is apparent from the fact that, as was explained above (aa. 1 and 5), every inclination of a natural or voluntary being is nothing other than a certain impression that comes from the first mover, just as an arrow’s inclination toward a determinate target is nothing other than a certain impression that comes from the archer. […] This is why God is said to “dispose all things agreeably.”” (Summa theologiae, I, 103, 8)

5. However, those inclinations are tackled by evil and chaos; from this comes sin. Here his words again: “man has by his nature an inclination toward virtue, this inclination toward virtue is itself a certain good of the nature. Third, one can call the gift of original justice a certain good of the nature that was given to the whole of human nature in the first man. Thus, the first good of the nature is neither destroyed nor diminished by sin. The third good of the nature, on the other hand, was completely taken away because of the sin of the first parent. By contrast, the second good of the nature, viz., the natural inclination toward virtue, is diminished by sin. For as was established above human acts effect a certain inclination toward similar acts (per actus humanos fit quaedam inclinatio ad similes actus). But by the fact that something is inclined toward one of two contraries, it must be the case that its inclination toward the other contrary is diminished. Hence, since sin is contrary to virtue, by the very fact that a man sins, the good of his nature, i.e., his inclination toward virtue, is diminished.” (Summa theologiae, I-II, 85, 3).

6. This is not only St Augustine and St Thomas’ anthropology, but also the Catholic one.

I wish you well, I remember you in pray and I bless you

Father Angelo

Translated by Rossella Roma