Chapter 5 “Sin and Morality”
Authentic Freedom and Conscience:
(to be used in conjunction with classroom discussion)
Mr. Leonard
The question before us is, “Why do we so often freely choose to do what we know is wrong?”1
For example, St. Paul –who was no spiritual slouch - also seemed to experience this dilemma. He
exclaims in Rm 7:15: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very
thing I hate.” Like Paul, we all intend to do good, to live right by God and others, and yet we so often
catch ourselves committing sin. Like Paul “[we] do not do what [we] want, but do the very thing [we]
hate.”
This is a bit mystifying. After all, we are decent people who want to do good. But if we’re honest, we
often find ourselves acting in inappropriate, sinful ways. Then, our thinking might go something like: “I
really didn’t intend to commit sin, so what I did wrong really doesn’t count as sin” or “I think I sinned but
I didn’t really mean to sin, so what I did really isn’t sin.” Many people go around thinking, I suppose,
they really don’t commit any sin because they never intend to commit sin.
This is the point: We usually don’t commit sin because we want to act badly or do evil. Rather, we do
wrong because we are seeking something good in the wrong things we do. There must be something
good that we see in every evil or bad thing we do or we wouldn’t do it. So we’re seeking the good that
the evil deed can bring us, not to do the evil deed itself.
For example, I may yell and scream at my wife – regrettably - not because I want to be rude or unloving
but to relieve frustration or to vent impatience. The good I am seeking is to relieve my frustration or my
impatience, my goal is not to be rude or unloving. Another person may steal something because that item
might help them accomplish something worthwhile. They steal not to do evil, but to gain something of
value. The pleasure one takes in an impure thought or an impure act is (as pleasure) a good in and of itself
– though it is achieved illegitimately or inappropriately. A student may enjoy watching a great basketball
game on TV, but at a time when studying for an exam should be the top priority. You may enjoy some
great brownies, but at a time when dieting is of critical importance.
If all these wrong things didn’t have something good about them, people committing them wouldn’t have
acted improperly in the first place! Still, in every one of these examples, although a good is being
pursued, it is not being pursued properly. The good we are seeking is not a properly ordered good –
it is disordered – it is an “out of order” good. 2
In other words, when placed in context of our ultimate goal – love of God, neighbor, and our self –
we can see that these goods (or good things) were pursued out of order. These good things were
pursued either at the wrong time (sex before marriage), or with the wrong person (adultery), or in the
wrong way (theft to get money for something truly good), or in the wrong place (people-watching during
Mass), or in the wrong manner (plagiarism - cheating).
In each instance the good thing pursued was out of order – or disordered. Sex is good, but if it’s before
marriage it is out of order because it does not respect the marriage commitment that it represents, or the
child that may result. Having helpful material possessions is a good thing, but stealing them is out-oforder because it does not respect the good of private property or the good of being trustworthy that
stealing prevents.
In every wrongdoing we do, not only do we take a good thing out of order but, as you’ve noticed, we
also prevent another good thing from existing. For example, in stealing we prevent the good of
trustworthiness to exist. In lying we prevent the good of honesty to exist; in adultery we prevent the good
of faithfulness and commitment within marriage to exist; in people watching during Mass we prevent the
worship due God to exist; in yelling at one’s spouse we prevent the honor and dignity due to the one
loved to exist, and so on.
1
This, then, reveals a deeper mystery. As St. Thomas Aquinas pithily says, “Good and being are
convertible.” This means that when we do good things we create or permit more good ordered things
into the universe.2On the other hand, when we sin, when we choose disorder, we prevent that being –
that goodness, whether trustworthiness, honesty, faithfulness, the worship due God, or the honor
and dignity due our loved one, or whatever, from being present.
So whenever we commit wrongdoing we introduce a privation – a loss of something that ought to be
there – because the good we choose is out of order. For example, when we cheat there is a lack of
honesty that ought to be present, in adultery there is a lack of marital commitment and faithfulness that
ought to be present, in lying there is a lack of honesty that ought to be present, so on and so forth. This
wrongdoing may achieve some perceived good for us, but because the good we achieve is out of
order, this wrongdoing also introduces a privation – something that ought to exist is prevented
from existing or “being.” Sin is thus the privation of a due good. 3Again, for example, in lying we
prevent the good of honesty that ought to be present from existing.
This capacity to effect being itself, by our actions, is at once frightening – due to the responsibility it
entails – and awesome – due to the dignity it allows man. For – and this is how to understand the mystery
- by grace, Christ himself appears in our moral acts. Each action we do is meant to be an expression
of Christ’s grace and a participation in God’s creative 3 power. I shutter to think of the being, the
goodness, the right order, I prevented from “be-ing” through my sin, through seeking goods out of order,
out of proper alignment with love of God, neighbor and self.
At any rate, this explains “Why something that feels so good can be so bad.” Sin is the choice of a
good thing that is out of order with authentic love of God, neighbor, and self. All sin is a choice of a
good thing not only out of order with authentic love of God, neighbor and self, but all sin is against our
authentic freedom to be all that God is calling us to be and to do.
One last step. It is God that decides the proper order of things. So what happens when we choose
good things out of God’s proper order (for example, sex before marriage)? We refuse to
acknowledge Him as the ultimate authority of what is right and wrong. 4
Ah, but what if we don’t believe in God, or don’t have much of a Catholic education. The Ten
Commandments and “basic right and wrong” is part of the Natural Law that is written upon our heart,
which with a little thought we can all know, even without the help of the Bible, the Church, or religion.
The Natural Law we have already discussed.
But as was stated, when we choose good things out of God’s proper order, we refuse to acknowledge Him
as the ultimate authority of what is right and wrong. And, this sin in a sense involves idolatry: We are
worshiping another God other than the one true God when we put our self and our will before God and
His will.5 The moral life is living the good life, reaping the benefits of participating in the good things as
ordered properly by God. By living in God’s order we reveal our love for Him first, and our love for
others as our self. Only goods thus ordered can truly satisfy us.
1Adapted
from Mark Lowery, Living the Good Life: What every Catholic Needs to Know About Moral Issues (Ann
Arbor, MI: Servant, 2003) 27-36.
2 See St. Thomas, Summa Theologia I, q.79, a. 12, as well as I-II, q. 94, a. 2.
3 See St. Thomas, ST I-II, q. 75, a. 1, ad. 1. Thomas’ meditations on sin are found in questions 71 through 89 of ST I-II.
4 St Thomas’ Treatise on Happiness (in ST I-II, qq. 1-5) establishes the existence of this “highest good” toward which
all must be ordered if we are to be happy. Thomas shows that wealth, honor, fame, glory, power, bodily goods,
pleasure, or indeed any other created good, ultimately cannot fulfill man.
5 “The proper and direct cause of sin is to be considered on the part of the adherence to immutable good; in which
respect every sinful act proceeds from inordinate desire for some temporal good. Now the fact that anyone desires
a temporal good inordinately, is due to the fact that he loves himself inordinately; for to wish anyone some good is
to love him. Therefore it is evident that inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin” (ST I-II, q. 77, a. 4 )
2