The Stain of Sin

By Thomas L. C.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that sin has three principal effects on the sinner: by sin the soul is stained, the goods of human nature are corrupted or destroyed, and a tremendous debt of punishment is incurred.1 This article aims to explain the first of these effects, the stain of sin or macula peccati. In short, the soul of the sinner is stained insofar as it loses the beauty of grace due to the deformity of sin.

To be clear, this notion of the stain of sin is not an invention of medieval theologians, since it is found in the revealed word of God, in Sacred Scripture. Take for example this famous passage from Ephesians V:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish.

“Not having a spot” is the way the Rheims version translates the Latin “sine macula,” meaning “without stain.” Christ is preparing for himself a Church without any stain of sin, which he will take as his beautiful spouse. This is the destiny, the vocation of the Christian, which is first worked out by baptism, whose symbolism produces the effect it signifies: “just as water cleanses bodily stains, so grace cleanses spiritual stains.”2 In this way, our hearts can be likened to those of Jesus and Mary, which are always immaculate, i.e. without stain. The highest beauty of the Virgin Mother is in her spotless soul: “Thou art all beautiful, O Mary, and the original stain is not in thee.”3

This article aims to explain the stain of sin and is chiefly informed by the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas contained in his Commentary on the Sentences4 and in the Summa Theologiae.5 One main question drives St. Thomas’ inquiry, as well as this discussion. What sort of thing is the stain? Is it only the absence of grace in the soul, or is it the addition of something detrimental to the soul?

A Privation or a Disposition?

The central question is whether the stain of sin is a privation or something positive in the soul. Before answering, it is beneficial to take a moment to ensure that the question is properly understood.

First, I want to exclude a possible misconception. When we wonder whether the stain of sin is “something positive,” the question is not, of course, whether it would be something good for the soul. What is meant is whether the stain is something added to the soul, like a spill on a shirt, as opposed to a mere “lack or absence” of something in the soul.

Secondly, it is helpful to consider briefly the possible answers such a question might have. St. Thomas Aquinas identifies four possible manners or modes of existing.6

  1. substances, which “have a firm and solid being, as if existing of themselves.” These are the things we can point to, the things that we count, what we typically think of when we say “things.” For example, an apple is a substance.
  2. qualities, quantity and other properties of substances, which are being in a weaker sense in that they are not of themselves but in another, i.e. in a substance. For example, the shape and the color of the apple are qualities.
  3. motion, which is a passage from non-being to being, or being to non-being, and is thereby being in a yet weaker sense because it is a mixture of being and non-being. For example, when an apple ripens, it goes from non-ripe to ripe.
  4. privation and negation. These are being in the weakest sense, since privations or negations are only being in the mind, or in the statements we make,. However, in extra-mental reality, they are mere lack and absence of being. For example, the hole in the apple made by the worm is a privation, it is a lack or absence of apple-flesh where apple should be.

So there are four ways of existing: like an apple, like the color of an apple, like the ripening of an apple, or like the hole in an apple. The question at hand is then: Which one of these is the stain of sin like? Anything in (1) – (3) would count as “something positive.” The most likely candidate for something positive would be some kind of quality, like a new disposition or habit in the soul. To restate then the question one more time: Is the stain of sin a quality added to the soul by sin, or is it an absence, an emptiness, a privation, left in the soul by sin?

Spiritual Beauty

This question is answered primarily through an explanation of the metaphorical language of Sacred Scripture, which borrows the word “stain” from corporeal things to apply it to spiritual realities. In the corporeal world, stains are a common occurrence, for example from a piece of food falling on an article of clothing.

When something is stained, it loses its original beauty. Beautiful things are proportionate and vivid, or in the language of medieval aesthetics, they have proportio and claritas. If the Gothic arches of a cathedral like Notre Dame de Paris are the embodiment of proportion, then it is its stain glass windows which are the embodiment of vividness, claritas. Furthermore, claritas is associated with two important visual features: color and light. “The beauty of a human body consists in proportionate members and vividness of color [coloris claritate].”7

This conception of physical beauty also applies, mutatis mutandis, to the spiritual realm: “similarly, spiritual beauty consists in this, that the conversations or actions of man be well proportioned according to the clarity of spiritual reason.”8 When a bright or vividly colored body (e.g. a nice shirt) loses something of its brightness from contact with another body (e.g. ketchup), we say that it is stained. Similarly, when man adheres by love to some created thing against the light of reason and the light of grace, the soul is stained. Spiritual beauty consists fundamentally in the presence of sanctifying grace in the soul, and sin deprives the soul of the vividness of grace, the claritas gratiae, which renders it beautiful.

The Shadow of Death

In the Old Testament, the psalmist David characterized the present life and its tribulations as “the shadow of death.”9 This can be understood to refer to the darkness of sin, indeed the greatest evil of the present life. This darkness is opposed to the light of grace, and to the One whom St. John calls “the true light, lux vera.” To live in the darkness of sin, then, is to live deprived of this light of grace, deprived of the life of God. It is in just this manner that St. Thomas explains the stain of sin:

As the perception of the brightness of the sun is impeded from reaching us by some interposed obstacle, so also the brightness of grace is impeded from reaching the soul by sins committed, which cause a division between us and God.10

Per this similitude, the soul is stained because it stands in the shadow of the sins it has committed. Like an obstacle blocking the light of the sun, sin stands between the soul and God and impedes the illumination of grace from reaching the soul. The stain of sin is therefore to be understood as a privation, a lack or absence in the soul, and not as a new quality or disposition added to the soul.

At this point St. Thomas raises some objections. Thinking through difficult objections was something he spent much time doing because in the search for their solutions, he would discover many new insights. Here I’ll consider two objections.

The first objection may be stated as follows. If the stain of sin were just a privation of grace, and a single mortal sin completely removes grace from the soul, then further sins would not cause further stains, and there would be one stain for all the (unrepented) sins that a sinner has committed. However, the traditional view is that each mortal sin causes a new stain, and stains are spoken of in the plural. Therefore, it seems that the stain of sin cannot be just a privation.

The metaphor of the interposed obstacle allows Aquinas to answer this objection: although the stains of sin do not differ in themselves, as privations of grace, they can differ as regards their causes. In this way new sins add new stains, each supposing a new obstacle to grace.11 Here is what Aquinas says:

The stain is not something positive in the soul, nor does it signify a privation only, but it signifies some privation of the splendor of the soul with an order to its cause which is sin. And therefore different sins bring different stains. And this is similar to a shadow, which is the privation of light by the projection of some body: different projections make different shadows.12

Although all shadows are a privation of light, they bear the outline of their cause, as when in shadow puppetry, the dancing shadows on the screen have the outline of the hands of the puppeteer. Similarly, the stain of sin is a privation, but it is one which still bears a connection to its cause, namely the sin committed.13

Note that St. Thomas answers this first objection by explaining more carefully the metaphor of the interposed object he was already using. To reply to the second objection, he will have to say that the metaphor is faulty, and employ another, complementary metaphor.

So what is this second objection? It runs something like this: once the act of sin has passed, then the obstacle is no longer present, which would imply that the stain of sin does not remain after the sin has been committed. Consequently, for the soul of the sinner to be delivered from the stain of sin, all that would be required is that he stop sinning; repentance and the sacraments would not be necessary. St. Thomas simply replies that this is a respect in which the metaphor is lacking:

To [this argument] it must be said that once the blocking body passes, the illuminated [diaphanum] body remains equally near to the illuminating body, and therefore the shadow passes instantly. But after the act of sin has passed, the relationship of the soul to God is not the same. And therefore the comparison does not hold.14

St. Thomas is compelled to appeal to another similitude: the stain of sin is like what happens when one person walks away from another. They do not find themselves near the person again just as soon as they stop walking away; they have to walk back and thus return by some contrary movement.15 The stain is some defect of brightness due to a moving out of the light of reason or of divine law. So long as man remains outside of this light, the stain of sin remains in him. For the stain to cease, he must return to the light, which only happens by the grace of God and a contrary movement of the will. This grace of course is chiefly given or restored by the sacraments of baptism and confession. “And he brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death; and broke their bonds in sunder.”16

A Note on Venial Sins

Finally, it is worth noting that venial sin, while an offense to God, does not, properly speaking, produce a stain in the soul. Here is why.

As explained before, “stain” signifies the loss of beauty as a result of some contact. Bodily beauty can be understood in two ways: as proceeding from an intrinsic disposition and color, or as resulting from an external brightness. In other words, there is the beauty that a thing has in itself and then the manifestation of that beauty. If we cover up a beautiful painting with a cloth, it’s still a beautiful painting, but this beauty is not showing. It’s the same in the spiritual order:

A stain can be in two ways. In one way, by a privation of beauty: and in this manner venial sin does not leave any stain, because it does not remove grace, which is the beauty of the soul. In another manner, by impeding beauty, so that it does not appear externally, as when dust sullies the beauty of the face. And such stain is left by venial sin, because it impedes the splendor of grace so that it does not show in external actions. Therefore such a stain does not need to be removed by an infusion of grace, but by the act which the impediment to grace excludes.17

By contrition and acts of contrary virtue, animated by the charity which is still in the soul, the soul can, of its own life as it were, shake off the dust of its venial sins.

Summary and Conclusion

Here are six main takeaways from this discussion on the stain of sin:

  1. The stain of sin is the privation of the beauty of divine grace in the soul.
  2. The stain is caused by an inordinate love.
  3. The stain of sin is a kind of spiritual darkness; it is the shadow of sin.
  4. Each mortal sin adds a new stain to the soul.
  5. Stains remains after the sin has been committed; they are like a distance between us and God.
  6. Venial sins do not, properly speaking, cause a stain in the soul.

The stain of sin is a great spiritual tragedy: it is complete spiritual darkness, the death of the soul to God’s life, and an infinite distance between our soul and the God for whose love we were made. What’s more, this greatest of evils is one entirely of our own doing. But no matter how burdened we may be by sin and how tragic our life may be, we must never lose hope: God’s light is always shining, and this light is chasing us, it came into the world, so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.18 Let us pray with St. Thomas: “deliver me from the twofold darkness in which I was born, the darkness of sin and of ignorance.”19

Endnotes

1 I-II, q. 109, a. 7, co.

2 Scriptum super Sententiis Lib. 4, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 5, ad 3.

3 Alleluia verse of the Mass of the Immaculate Conception.

4 Super Sent. Lib. 4, d. 18, q. 1, a. 2

5 I-II, q. 86

6 In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Expositio Lib. 4, l. 1, n. 540-543.

7 II-II, q.145, a. 2, co.

8 Ibid.

9 Ps. 22:4

10 Super Sent. Lib. 4, d. 18, q. 1, a.2, qc. 1, co.

11 Ibid. qc. 1, ad 1

12 I-II, q. 86, a. 1, ad 3

13 How can this be? Let’s take some examples that illustrate the difficulty. If I consider a hole in my kitchen towel, it may have some distinctive shape that reveals the object that pierced it, but this supposes that some part of the towel remains. Similarly, a shadow might have a distinctive outline, but only if some light still shines. There are no shadows in total darkness. However, when it comes to the loss of divine grace by sin, grace is lost completely, not in part. How then can the loss of grace point to its cause? How is the tell-tale outline cast? One possible way to answer is to say that the stain has something like an outline against the background of human nature, or in the light of human reason. Sin is not just against God, but also against reason and against the good of human nature. It pokes holes in human nature or casts a shadow in the light of reason. Against the background of human nature which yearns for the total human good and ultimately the immutable good, each act of inordinate love for some limited, corruptible good appears as a distinct corruption. Perhaps then, it is also against the background of human nature and reason that the cause of the privation of divine grace appears, casting as it were a distinct shadow.

14 I-II, q. 86, a. 2, ad 2

15 I-II, q. 86, a. 2, co.

16 Ps. 107:14

17 Super Sent. Lib. 4, d. 16, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 1, ad 1.

18 Jn. 10:10

19 From St. Thomas’ Prayer Before Study.

 

TITLE IMAGE: The Prodigal Son, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528).