206. Divine Providence, Blinding, Hardening, and the Devil's Role in Sin

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Part 1: Blinding and Hardening as Ordered to Salvation #

• The Central Question: Whether blinding (excaecatio) and hardening are always ordered to the salvation of the one blinded or hardened
• Two Categories of Divine Providence: Some evils are ordered to the salvation of those who suffer them (through mercy); others to damnation (through justice)
• The Role of Humility: Recognition of sin and subsequent humbling leads to conversion and healing; this is a primary mechanism of spiritual medicine

Part 2: The Nature of Blinding as Preambulum to Sin #

• Blinding as a Preliminary State (preambulum): Blinding precedes and disposes one toward sin
• Sin’s Double Ordering:
  • Per se (by its very nature): ordered to damnation
  • From divine mercy: ordered to healing, when the person recognizes and repents of sin
• The Medical Analogy: Just as a physician performs operations that are disagreeable in themselves but ordered to health, God permits blinding for the sake of eventual healing
• Augustine’s Example: Early Church virgins became proud of their virtue; spiritual blindness to this pride would have been worse than falling into fleshly sin, which would have humbled them

Part 3: The Distinction Between Evils of Guilt and Evils of Punishment #

• Evils of Guilt (mala culpae): Should not be done in order that good might come about (follows the principle that evil should not be done that good may result)
• Evils of Punishment (mala poenae): May be accounted for the sake of good outcomes, particularly the manifestation of divine justice
• Application: The blinding that leads to salvation is a malum poenae (evil of punishment/corrective trial), not a malum culpae

Part 4: The Devil’s Causality in Sin #

The Devil Cannot Be a Direct Cause of Sin #

• The Problem: If the devil directly causes sin, human will seems enslaved; but Augustine teaches that sin requires the voluntary consent of one’s own will
• The Solution: The devil is not a direct cause of sin because:
  • The proper principle of the act of sin is the will (since all sin is voluntary)
  • Only that which moves the will can directly cause sin
  • Only the will itself or God can inwardly move the will
  • God cannot be the cause of sin
  • Therefore, only the human will is the direct, internal cause of sin

The Devil’s Three Modes of External Influence #

The devil can move the will through objects in three ways:

1. By Proposing the Object Itself: Just as food excites appetite, the devil presents desirable objects
2. By Offering or Displaying Desirable Things: He makes sensible things attractive to the senses
3. By Persuasion: He convinces that a proposed object has the character of good (ratio boni)

In none of these three ways is the devil a sufficient cause, since the will is not moved of necessity by any object except the last end (ultimate happiness).

The Devil’s Internal Operations on Imagination and Sense Desire #

• The Devil’s Limitations: He cannot directly enlighten the intellect to truth; he operates primarily to darken reason

• The Devil’s Capabilities:

  • He can move the imagination (fantasium) by presenting imaginary forms
  • He can excite the sense-desiring power (potentia sensitiva desiderativa) through bodily movements
  • Through bodily locomotion (locomotio), he can cause humoral or spiritual changes that produce imaginative forms
  • These operations parallel how natural sleep produces dreams through the descent of blood to the sensitive power and the movement of impressions

• The Mechanism of Temptation: When passions are aroused in sense desire, the sensible intention (intentio sensibilis) is conveyed to the rational grasping principle. A person detained by passion judges what is proposed to the imagination as something to be pursued, because to one in passion, it appears good.

The Devil Cannot Impose Necessity to Sin #

• The Critical Distinction: The devil can move someone to do an act that is sinful in its genus, but cannot impose the necessity of sinning itself
• Why Not: Man resists sin through the use of reason and the sense-desiring power
  • When reason is bound (as in the severely mentally ill), whatever is done is not imputed as sin
  • Where reason retains freedom, it can resist through its own power
• The Role of Free Will: No power greater than man can move the human will except God alone
• Passion and Sin: When concupiscence of the flesh rises against the spirit, if reason actively resists, this is not sin but matter for exercising virtue. The devil cannot force reason to fail to resist.

Key Arguments #

Argument 1: All Evils Are Ordered to Good #

Premise: Augustine teaches that God, being supremely good (Summe bonus), would never permit evil unless He could draw good from it.

Application: God is the cause of blinding and hardening (as exterior causes disposing to sin), therefore these are ordered to good.

Objection Answered: Not all evils are ordered to the good of the one in whom the evil is found; sometimes they serve the good of another or the good of the universe—e.g., the guilt of tyrants serves the good of martyrs; the punishment of the damned manifests God’s justice.

Argument 2: God Does Not Delight in Loss or Destruction #

Premise: Wisdom 1 states God does not delight in the loss (perditio) of the impious.

Analogy: A physician would seem to delight in the affliction of the sick if the medicine or operation were not ordered to health.

Conclusion: God converts blindness to the good of those blinded.

Argument 3: God Is Not an Acceptor of Persons #

Premise: Acts 10:34 states God is not an acceptor of persons.

Evidence: Some Jews were blinded so they did not believe in Christ; through this, they were later converted (Acts 2:37).

Conclusion: God converts the blindness of all to their salvation.

Objection Answered: This applies only to those for whom “all things cooperate in the good” (Romans 8). For others, blinding is ordered to damnation. This manifests divine justice rather than violating the principle of non-acceptance of persons.

Argument 4: The Devil Cannot Be a Direct Cause of Sin #

Premise 1: Sin is a voluntary act; thus, its proper principle is the will.

Premise 2: Only that which moves the will can be a direct cause of sin.

Premise 3: The will is moved inwardly only by itself or by God.

Conclusion: Only the human will (not the devil) is the direct internal cause of sin.

Corollary: The devil operates only through external propositions and persuasion, which are not sufficient causes of sin.

Argument 5: The Devil Cannot Impose Necessity to Sin #

Premise: Man resists sin through the use of reason.

The Devil’s Limitation: The devil can excite passions but cannot bind reason entirely.

Conclusion: Where reason remains free, it can resist; therefore, the devil cannot impose necessity to sin.

Authority: 1 Peter 5 warns against the devil “as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,” but exhorts readers to “resist strong in faith”—a command that would be vain if man were compelled by necessity.

Important Definitions #

• Excaecatio (blinding): A hardening of the heart or spiritual blindness that disposes one toward sin; functioning as a preambulum (preliminary state) to sin
• Praebulum (going before): A preliminary disposition that precedes sin without being sin itself
• Malum culpae (evil of guilt): An evil that consists in culpability; should not be perpetrated for the sake of good
• Malum poenae (evil of punishment): A corrective or punitive evil that can be ordered to good outcomes; includes divine chastisements and trials
• Summe bonus (supremely good): God’s absolute goodness, which permits no evil without drawing good from it
• Ratio boni (character/aspect of good): The appearance of goodness by which the devil persuades that something is desirable
• Fantasium (imagination): The imaginative power through which the devil can present imaginary forms to the mind
• Locomotio (locomotion): Physical movement of bodies and spirits; the primary mode by which the devil can affect material and bodily states
• Intentio sensibilis (sensible intention): The sensory grasp or perception of an object, conveyed from sense desire to the rational faculty
• Potentia sensitiva desiderativa (sense-desiring power): The sensitive appetite; can be excited by the devil through bodily motions

Examples & Illustrations #

The Checkers Game #

Berquist recounts his childhood experience learning humility through repeated victories followed by defeat. Playing checkers confidently against his brother and cousins, he won repeatedly until his family arranged for his uncle (a teacher) to play him. Confident and careless at first, the uncle defeated him. Berquist reflects: “They would have been good for me. Him beating me out.” This exemplifies how a form of blinding (overconfidence) is corrected through humbling experience—ordered to the good of learning virtue.

The Serpent and the Senses #

Berquist references the devil creeping through all the sensual intenses (intenses sensua), giving figures to evil, accommodating it to colors (sight), sounds (hearing), tastes, and other sensations. This illustrates the devil’s operation through sense impression and imagination rather than direct internal causality.

The Sleep and Dreams Analogy #

Following Aristotle’s De Somno et Vigilia (On Sleep and Waking), Berquist explains: when animals sleep, blood descends to the sensitive power, carrying with it motions and impressions left from sensible experiences stored in the imagination. The devil, by moving spirits and humors, can produce similar effects—causing men to imagine things as if external sensory changes were occurring. This shows the devil’s operation is not outside the order of nature but follows from bodily locomotion.

Adam’s Disobedience and Eve’s Temptation #

The devil’s temptation of Eve is analyzed as a sequence: first distraction, then attraction, then persuasion. The devil’s question (“Did God tell you…”) and lie (“You will not die”) demonstrate persuasion that a proposed object (the fruit) has the character of good, followed by the presentation of the sensible object itself.

The Roaring Lion #

Berquist uses the metaphor from 1 Peter 5 of the devil as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He notes that a lion (like Christ as the Lion of Judah) is a metaphor that can represent both good and evil, illustrating the importance of distinguishing metaphorical sense from literal meaning and the danger of misinterpretation.

Questions Addressed #

Question 1: Whether Blinding and Hardening Are Always Ordered to Salvation #

Resolution: Not always. For some, blinding is ordered to their salvation (through mercy and the opportunity for repentance); for others, it is ordered to damnation (manifesting divine justice). This does not violate God’s non-acceptance of persons, since the difference lies in God’s providential response to each person’s response to grace.

Question 2: How Can God Permit Evil That Serves His Justice? #

Resolution: God permits evils of punishment (mala poenae) for the manifestation of His justice. The punishment of the damned glorifies God’s justice just as the salvation of the converted glorifies His mercy. Both reveal aspects of His divine nature.

Question 3: Whether the Devil Is a Direct Cause of Sin #

Resolution: No. The devil is not a direct or sufficient cause of sin. He can only propose objects, display them, or persuade regarding them. He cannot move the will to sin; only the human will itself (or God) can do so directly. The will is not moved of necessity by any object except the ultimate end.

Question 4: How Does the Devil Induce Sin Through Internal Motions? #

Resolution: The devil operates on the imagination and sense desire through bodily locomotion. He can cause imaginative forms to appear and excite passions. When a person in the grip of passion views a proposed object, it appears good. In this way, the devil inwardly induces one to sin—not by forcing the will, but by arousing conditions that incline (but do not compel) the will toward sin.

Question 5: Whether the Devil Can Impose Necessity to Sin #

Resolution: No. The devil cannot impose necessity to sin because:

• Man resists through the use of reason
• Where reason is free (not entirely bound), it can resist
• The devil cannot bind reason entirely
• Only God can move the will; the devil cannot
• Therefore, the devil cannot compel sin

Connections #

• St. Augustine: Enchiridion (on God’s providence drawing good from evil); On Free Will (books 1 and 3, on the will as the sole internal cause of sin); On the Trinity (book 4, on the devil inspiring malign affections); Nature and Grace (on humility through recognition of sin); Questions on the Gospels (book 3, on the conversion of blinded Jews)
• St. Jerome: Referenced for the principle that as God is the perfecter of good, the devil is the perfecter of evil
• St. Isidore: On the Highest Good, on the devil filling hearts with hidden desires
• Scripture:
  • Enchiridion / Manual of Faith (Augustine)
  • Wisdom 1 (God does not delight in the loss of the impious)
  • Acts 10:34 (God is not an acceptor of persons)
  • Acts 5 (the devil drawing the soul into malice)
  • Acts 2:37 (conversion of Jews after blinding)
  • Romans 8 (all things cooperate in good for those called)
  • 1 Peter 5 (the devil as a roaring lion; resist in faith)
  • Ezekiel 18 (son does not bear father’s guilt)
  • Psalm references (on opening mercy and fearing justice)
  • Magnificat (Mary’s song, on fear and mercy)
  • Job 41 (on the devil’s power compared to earthly creatures)
  • 1 Peter 1 Epistle (the adversary seeking whom he may devour)
  • Psalms (opening divine mercy and fearing divine justice)
• Aristotle:
  • Nicomachean Ethics III (on extrinsic principles of counsel; that human counsel concerns both good and bad; on human nature and the defects one is not criticized for)
  • De Somno et Vigilia (On Sleep and Waking; on blood descent to sensitive power and dream production)
  • De Anima III (on understanding without imagination)
  • Reference to the philosopher’s approval of the need for extrinsic beginning of human counsel
• St. Thomas Aquinas: Implicit throughout; the lecture follows Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae treatment of divine causality in sin, blinding, and demonic temptation
• Christian Spirituality: Berquist references Christian Spirituality by “Reverend P. Kura” (possibly P. Kureev or similar), available through University of Toronto electronic versions, noting its treatment of early Church virgins and the development of monasticism
• Personal Reflection: Berquist’s dream about a judge’s wife knocked down in Europe, illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing genuine vs. false imagination
• Contemporary Context: Brief reference to “low-information voters” (possibly coined by a Fox News commentator) as an analogy for spiritual ignorance
• Historical References: Passing mention of Hitler and Stalin’s final moments (Hitler’s suicide, Stalin’s cursing attendants) as examples of those for whom blinding may be ordered to damnation rather than salvation

Notable Quotes #

“God, who is supremely good (Summe bonus), in no way would permit some evil to come about unless he could from any evil draw something good.” — Augustine, Enchiridion

“Blinding is a certain preambulum to sin.” — Thomas Aquinas (as taught by Berquist)

“Sin is ordered to two things: to one, per se, to wit, to damnation; but to another, from the merciful Providence of God, to wit, to healing.” — Central formula of the lecture’s resolution

“The devil is not a cause of sin directly and sufficiently, but only by way of persuading or of proposing the desirable thing.” — Core principle on demonic causality

“The devil does not impose necessity to sinning.” — Key limitation of demonic power