a. VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY SINS

The will of man plays a part in every sin, whether he is aware of it or not, and in that sense we might call all sins voluntary sins. But the will of man participates in the sin in varying degrees. In some cases the participation of the will is so pronounced that man plans the sin, though he may hide behind all manner of excuses, and executes it with heart and soul. Examples: Judas’ betrayal (Matt. 26:14-16); Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15). In this sense we speak of peccata voluntaria, proaeretica, malitiae (willful, premeditated, malicious sins). In other instances the will of man so recedes into the background that the sin is called forth by ignorance, by passions, such as fear, by natural love, by partisanship, etc. Examples: the two hundred who went with Absalom in ignorance of his evil plan (2 Samuel 15); Peter and his Gentile fellow Christians denied Christ out of fear (Luke 22:55 ff.; Gal. 2:12 ff.). In this sense we speak of peccata involuntaria, ignorantiae, praecipitantiae (involuntary sins, sins of ignorance, of rashness).

The term “sins of weakness” (peccata infirmitatis) should be reserved for Christians, since unbelievers do not sin from weakness, but because they are dead in sins and are wholly in the power of the devil (Eph. 2:1-2). We classify the evil thoughts, desires, and feelings which suddenly arise out of the flesh of Christians against their will as sins of weakness. Luther: “When you have wicked thoughts, you should not on this account despair; only be on your guard lest you be taken captive by them… . Wherever faith comes into being, there come a hundred evil thoughts and a hundred temptations more than before. Only see to it that you act the man; do not suffer yourself to be taken captive; continue to resist and to say: I will not, I will not.” (St. L. IX:1032.)

With regard to the sins of infants the statement of the baptismal act must stand: “… that there may be drowned and destroyed in him all that he hath inherited from Adam and himself added thereto.” (Liturgy and Agenda, p. 320.) While infants do not commit peccata proaeretica, premeditated sins (Deut. 1:39: “… your children, which in that day had no knowledge of good and evil”; Jonah 4:11), they do commit peccata actualia. Just as by the working of the Holy Ghost true faith and works of faith are found in infants (Ps. 8:2: “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength”), so we dare not, on the other hand, deny that since they are “flesh born of flesh” (John 3:6), their flesh stirs within them, though they are not conscious of these evil strivings. — The peccata actualia in infants are, of course, denied by all who, contrary to Scripture, make the voluntarium, or the conscious self-determination, an essential part of sin.