SINAI
11
SINAI
evil, considprpfl as it proceeds from God and ia inflicted
in punishment of sin in accordance with the decrees of
Divine justice, is good, compensating for the violation
of order by sin. It is only in the subject affected
by it that it is evil.
Of moral evil (malum culpcp) God is not the cause (Counc. of Trent, sess. VI, can. vi), either directly or indirectly. Sin is a violation of order, and God orders all things to Himself, jis an ultimate end, consequently He cannot be the direct cause of sin. God's withdrawal of grace which would prevent the sin does not make Him the indirect cause of sin in- asmuch as this withdrawal is affected according to the decrees of His Divine wisdom and justice in punishment of previous sin. He is under no obligation of impeding the sin, consequently it cannot be imputed to Him as a cause (I-Il, Q. Ixxix, a. 1). When we read in Scripture and the Fathers that God inclines men to sin the sense is, either that in His just judgment He permits men to fall into sin by a punitive permi.ssion, exercising His justice in punishment of past sin; or that He directly causes, not sin, but certain exterior works, good in themselves, which are so abu.sed by the evil wills of men that here and now they commit evil; or that He gives them the power of accomplishing their evil designs. Of the physical act in sin God is the cause inasmuch aa it is an entity and good. Of the malice of sin man's evil will is the sufficient cause. God could not be impeded in the creation of man by the fact that He foresaw his fall. This would mean the limiting of His omnipotence by a creature, and would be destructive of Him. He was free to create man even though He foresaw his fall, and He created him, endowed him with free will, and gave him sufficient means of persevering in good had he so willed. We must sum U]3 our ignorance of the permission of evil by saying in the worils of St. Augustine, that God would not have pennitted evil had He not been powerful enough to bring good out of evil. God's end in creating this universe is Himself, not the good of man, and somehow or other gooil and evil serve His ends, and there shall finally be a restoration of violated order by Divine justice. No sin shall be without its punishment. The evil men do must be atoned for either in this world by penance (see Penance) or in the world to come in purgatory or hell, according as the sin that stains the soul, and is not repented of, is mortal or venial, and merits eternal or temporal punishment. (See Evil.) God has provided a remedy for sin and manifested His love and goodness in the face of man's ingratitude by the Incarnation of His Divine Son (see Incarn.\tion); by the institution of His Church to guide men and interpret to them His law, and administer to them the sacraments, seven chamiels of grace, which, rightly used, furnish an adequate remedy for sin and a means to imion with God in heaven, which is the end of His law.
Sense of Sin. — The understanding of sin, as far as it can be understood by our finite intelligence, serves to unite man more closely to God. It impresses him with a salutarj' fear, a fear of his ow^l powers, a fear, if left to himself, of falling from grace; with the necessity he lies under of seeking God's help and grace to stand firm in the fear and love of Gorl, and make progress in the spiritual life. Without the acknow^ledgment that the present moral state of man is not that in which God created him, that his powers are weakened; that he h.os a supernatural end to attain, which is impossible of attainment by his own unaided efforts, without grace there being no proportion between the end and the means; that the world, the flesh, and the devil are in reality active agents fighting against him and leading liim to serve them instead of God, sin cannot be under- stood. The evolutionarj- hypothesis would have it that
physical evolution accounts for the physical origin
of man, that science knows no condition of man in
which man exhibited the characteristics of the state
of original justice, no state of sinlessness. The fall
of man in this liypothesis is in reality a rise to a
higher grade of being. "A fall it might seem, just
as a vicious man sometimes seems degraded below
the beasts, but in promise and potency, a rise it
really was" (Sir O. Lodge, "Life and Matter", p. 79).
This teaching is destructive of the notion of sin as
t.aught by the Catholic Church. Sin is not a phase
of an upward struggle, it is rather a deliberate,
wilful refusal to struggle. If there has been no fall
from a higher to a lower state, then the teaching of
Scripture in regard to Redemption and the necessity
of a baptismal regeneration is unintelligible. The
Catholic teaching is the one that places sin in its
true light, that justifies the condemnation of sin we
find in Scripture.
The Church strives continually to impress her children with a sense of the awfulness of sin that they may fear it and avoid it. We are fallen creatures, and our spiritual life on earth is a warfare. Sin is our enemy, and while of our own strength we cannot avoid sin, with God's grace we can. If we but place no obstacle to the workings of grace we can avoid all deliberate sin. If we have the misfortune to sin, and seek God's grace and pardon with a contrite and humble heart. He will not repel us. Sin has its remedy in grace, which is given us by God, through the merits of His only-begotten Son, Who has re- deemed us, restoring by His pa.ssion and death the order violated by the sin of our first parents, and mak- ing us once again children of God and heirs of heaven. Where sin is looked on as a necessary and un- avoidable condition of things human, where inability to avoid sin is conceived as necessary, discouragement naturally follows. Where the Catholic doctrine of the creation of man in a superior state, his fall by a wilful transgression, the effects of which fall are by Divine decree transmitted to his posterity, destroying the balance of the human faculties and leaving man inclined to evil; where the dogmas of redemption and grace in reparation of sin are kept in mind, there is no discouragement. Left to our- selves we fall, by keeping close to God and continually seeking His help we can stand and struggle against sin, and if faithful in the battle we must wage shall be crowned by God in heaven. (See Conscience; Justification; Scandal.)
Dogmatic Works: St. Thomas, Summatheot., I-II, QQ. Ixxi- Ixxxix; Idem, Contra gentes. tr. Rickaby, Ofdod and His Creatures (IvOndon, 1905): Idem, Qucest. dispufata^: De malo in Opera omnia (Paris, 1875): BiLLUABT, De peccods (Paris, 1867-72); Suabez, De pecc. in Opera omnia (Paris, 1878); Salmanticenses, De pecc. in Curs, theol. (Paris, 1877) ; Gonet, Clypeus theol. Ihom. (Venice, 1772) ; John of St. Thomas. De pecc. in Curs, theol. (Paris, 1886); Sylvius, Be pecc. (Antwerp, 1698) : Catechismus Romanus, tr.DONO- v.t.n. Catechism of the Council of Trent (Dublin, 1829); Scheeben, Handbuch d. kath. Dogmatik (Freiburg, 1873-87); Wilbelm and ScANNEi.L, Manual of Catholic Theology, II (London, 1908); Manning, Sin and its Consequences (New York, 1904) ; Sharps, Principles of Christianity (London, 1904); Idem, Evil, its Nature and Cause (Ix>ndon, 1906) ; Billot. De not. et rat. peccati personalia (Kome. 1900); Tanquerey, Synopsis theol.. I (New York. 1907).
Cf. following on moral theology: — Lehmkuhl, Theol. moralia (Freiburg. 1910); Gopfert, Mora'ltheologie. I (Paderborn, 1899); Marc, Inst. mor. alphonsin^ (Rome, 1902): Noldin, Summa theol. mor. flnnsbruck, 1906); Genicot, Theol. mor. inst., I (Ix>uvain, 1905) ; .Sabetti-Barrett. Compend. theol. mor. (Ratia- bon, 1906) ; Schieler-Heitser. Theory and Practice of the Con- fessional (New York. 1906): Slater. Afanual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908) ; Koch, Moraltheologie (.3rd ed., Freiburg. 1910).
A. C. O'Neil.
Sinai ("3"C, SikS, Sinai and Sina), the mountain on which the Mosaic Law was given. Horeb and Sinai were thought svnonymous by St. Jerome ("De situ et nom. Hebr., in" P. L., "XXIII, 889), W. Gesenius ('^'C 2"n), and, more recently, G. Ebera (p. .381). Ewald, Delitzsch, Ed. Robinson, E. H. P.almer, and others think Horeb denoted the w^hole mountiiinous region about Sinai (Ex., x^•ii, 6). The
