Peripateticus Palatinus (16)
Abelard's ethical teaching gets its particular edge from his reading of
Stoic ethics in Cicero and Seneca. He is by no means uncritical of
Stoicism. He is unable for instance to accept the Stoic view that all sins
are equal. He remarks that such a view is manifest stupidity (manifesta
stulticia). But it was a genuine and original contribution of Abelard to
apply the Stoic notion of assent to that of sin in a Christian context. He
made a permanent mark on Christian ethical thinking.
David Luscombe comments: 'Once the storm of anger had abated, attention was
constructively focused upon Abelard's theory of the moral indifference of
all human actions, even the killing of Christ, and upon the sense in which
ignorance as such did not constitute sin unless it was positively willed.
They were led to agree with Abelard that actions on the whole are neither
good nor bad, and Peter Lombard, for example, gave a place to this thesis in
his Sentences. But they could not support the view that even the most
scandalous acts were not intrinsically sinful or could be performed without
prevarication. The Lombard argued that certain actions were in themselves
evil and his view prevailed in the later twelfth century.'
In fact, the later scholastics evolved a definition of mortal sin, as
opposed to venial sin, which still remains in use today. A mortal sin is
said to have three characteristics: first, knowledge. You can't commit a
mortal sin in ignorance; you have to know it's a sin. Second, intention:
you must do it with the full intention of committing a sin. And thirdly, it
must be a serious matter in itself: if the action is in itself trivial then
it is not a mortal sin, even if you knew it was wrong and intended to do it.
Abelard would have heartily agreed with the first two conditions, and indeed
the notion of intention was his particular contribution to the debate; but
he would have denied that an action could be morally serious or trivial in
itself. This was the contribution of the more conservative tradition,
represented especially by the Lombard.
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Elasticus
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