The Sensitive Appetites as the Cause of Sin

Sense-passion or appetite cannot directly move the will to sin, but it can work indirectly upon the will. For the judgment of reason sometimes follows sense-tendency, and the will’schoice follows this judgment.

When passion is so intense that a person loses the use of reason,the consequent act is not a human act at all, andthe person who performs the act is guilty only in so far as he knowingly permitted the wild passion to take hold on him. But,short of this insane excess, a person is responsible for his act,although this responsibility is lessened by high passion. It is possible for a person, in responsible acts performed under stress of passion, to allow reason to be so strongly swayed that he acts against his knowledge of what is right and sane. Thus a man, in an outburst of wild temper, will say and do things that he knows”at the very moment” are futile and foolish. And a man,well aware of a truth, may, through passion, fail to recognize or apply it in a particular case, and thus may deny what he really knows to be true.

Therefore, a sin committed through passion is a sin of weakness. As the body is weak because of disorder in its parts, sothe soul is weak when passion disorders the right rule of reason.

Sin comes from loving or willing a temporal good as though it were the eternal good. And back of the desire for such agood lies the inordinate love of self. For the sinner wants to have his own way; he wants to please himself. Hence, every sin is truly the fruit of inordinate self-love.

The influences which bear upon reason to induce it tosin are rightly set forth in Sacred Scripture (I John 2:16) as follows: (a) the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, passionate desire for bodily delights; (b) the concupiscence of the eyes, thatis, inordinate desire for wealth and temporal goods; (c) pride oflife, that is, the soul’s hunger for honors, praise, and power to rule.

Passion that precedes sin (that is, antecedent passion) not only brings urgency upon the will, but also obscuresthe judgment of the thinking mind that guides the will; hence,antecedent passion diminishes sin. But consequent passion,that is, passion stirred up by the will itself (as in one who deliberately works himself into a rage, or nerves himself to do an evil thing) rather increases a sin than diminishes it, for such passion shows the intensity of the will’s determination tosin.

Passion so great as to destroy free choice excuses from sin. But if this great passion comes from the will’s faulty neglect to prevent it, it does not wholly excuse from sin.

In serious matters sins committed through passion, even through passion that diminishes responsibility, are mortal sins. For as long as passion does not render a man temporarily insane, it can be allayed. A man can work to banish the passionate urge, and can prevent it from having its sinful effect. If he fails to do this, he sins, and, in serious matters, he sins mortally.