If, however, in the sin of omission, we consider also the causes, or occasions of the omission, then the sin of omission must of necessity include some act.  For there is no sin of omission, unless we omit what we can do or not do:  and that we turn aside so as not to do what we can do or not do, must needs be due to some cause or occasion, either united with the omission or preceding it.  Now if this cause be not in man’s power, the omission will not be sinful, as when anyone omits going to church on account of sickness:  but if the cause or occasion be subject to the will, the omission is sinful; and such cause, in so far as it is voluntary, must needs always include some act, at least the interior act of the will:  which act sometimes bears directly on the omission, as when a man wills not to go to church, because it is too much trouble; and in this case this act, of its very nature, belongs to the omission, because the volition of any sin whatever, pertains, of itself, to that sin, since voluntariness is essential to sin.  Sometimes, however, the act of the will bears directly on something else which hinders man from doing what he ought, whether this something else be united with the omission, as when a man wills to play at the time he ought to go to church—­or, precede the omission, as when a man wills to sit up late at night, the result being that he does not go to church in the morning.  In this case the act, interior or exterior, is accidental to the omission, since the omission follows outside the intention, and that which is outside the intention is said to be accidental (Phys. ii, text. 49, 50).  Wherefore it is evident that then the sin of omission has indeed an act united with, or preceding the omission, but that this act is accidental to the sin of omission.

Now in judging about things, we must be guided by that which is proper to them, and not by that which is accidental:  and consequently it is truer to say that a sin can be without any act; else the circumstantial acts and occasions would be essential to other actual sins.

Reply Obj. 1:  More things are required for good than for evil, since “good results from a whole and entire cause, whereas evil results from each single defect,” as Dionysius states (Div.  Nom. iv):  so that sin may arise from a man doing what he ought not, or by his not doing what he ought; while there can be no merit, unless a man do willingly what he ought to do:  wherefore there can be no merit without act, whereas there can be sin without act.

Reply Obj. 2:  The term “voluntary” is applied not only to that on which the act of the will is brought to bear, but also to that which we have the power to do or not to do, as stated in Ethic. iii, 5.  Hence even not to will may be called voluntary, in so far as man has it in his power to will, and not to will.

Reply Obj. 3:  The sin of omission is contrary to an affirmative precept which binds always, but not for always.  Hence, by omitting to act, a man sins only for the time at which the affirmative precept binds him to act. ________________________