extent a morally ignorant agent is responsible for his or her exterior moral act). Third, the topic of imputation leads to examining Aquinas's distinction between formal and material sin on the part of the agent, where material sin involves a disordered exterior moral act as measured in light of God and right reason. After seeking to establish these points on a textual basis, a final observation is given here regarding a proper Thomistic interpretation of John Paul II's statement in Veritatis splendor §78.

Aquinas's TextsThe Historical Context of Aquinas's Moral Theology

In his mature work, Ethica (c. 1139),33 Abelard teaches that, when God evaluates the moral character of a person, God is concerned with the agent's intention, not his or her action. He writes, "God doesn't think about the things that are done but rather in what mind they are done. The merit or praiseworthiness of the doer doesn't consist in the deed but in the intention."34 Abelard maintains that the word "sin" thus has two meanings: either as applied to the deed or as applied to the agent's intention, where the latter is given emphasis. In this respect, he considers whether Christ's executioners sinned. "Those who persecuted Christ or his followers," Abelard writes, "and believed they should be persecuted, we say sinned through action. Nevertheless, they would have sinned more seriously through fault if they had spared them contrary to conscience."35 While an unintentional "sin through action" or a sin of ignorance involves a misdeed, it does not, for Abelard, involve guilt. As another example, Abelard mentions adultery through ignorance (an example to which the discussion will return when considering Aquinas's texts below).36

Abelard was interpreted by his contemporaries to deny that there are genuine sins of ignorance. Bernard of Clairvaux likely had already encountered Abelard's ethical teachings when Hugh of St. Victor, upon becoming the head of the abbey school at St. Victor, wrote to Bernard regarding an unnamed theologian whose work was popular at that

33 For the Latin and English, see D. E. Luscombe, trans., Peter Abelard's Ethics (New York: Clarendon, 1971). See also Peter Abelard, Ethics, in Ethical Writings, trans. Paul Vincent Spade (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995).34 Abelard, Ethics 1.3, no. 57 (Abelard's Ethics, 28).35 Ibid., 1.14, no. 131; (Abelard's Ethics, 66).36 Ibid., 1.3, no. 49 (Abelard's Ethics, 24).

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Aquinas and the Sins of Ignorance

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