Attrition

ATTRITION (from Latin attero = I strike down, I crush). - It is the act by which man detests sin for a supernatural motive but one inferior to pure love. For a twofold love of God is distinguished: that of concupiscence, by which one adheres to the divine goodness not for its intrinsic perfections but because it is beneficent toward us; and that of benevolence, by which one desires union with God not because He is good to us but because He is infinitely lovable in Himself. Now if one detests sin because one loses the friendship of the Being perfect in Himself, one elicits an act of contrition (v.); if instead one hates sin because one loses God's benefits by falling under His vengeance, one performs an act of a.[ttrition]. Since God's punishment is manifested above all in eternal damnation, the most common motive that induces the sinner to repentance is the fear of hell (Council of Trent, sess. XIV, cap. 5; cf. Denz-U, 896). Now this fear is called simply servile if it detaches the sinner not only from the act but also from the affection for sin; it is called instead servilely servile if it prevents the material action but does not smother in the heart the attachment to evil.

According to Luther the fear, even simply servile, of hell is dishonest and makes man a hypocrite; the Jansenists, on the other hand, consider it a «vitiosa cupiditas», while liberal Protestants stigmatize it with the nickname «Galgenreue», that is, gallows repentance.

The Church, however, both in the Tridentine definitions (sess. VI, can. 8; sess. XIV, can. 5; Denz-U, 818, 915) and in the condemnations against the Jansenists (Denz-U, 1304-1305; 1410-16; 1525), affirms that a.[ttrition] conceived through fear (simply servile, that is) of hell is a good act and capable of uprooting every attachment to sin. This doctrine is well founded in Scripture, which presents the Prophets (Jer. 31, 18-20; Ezek. 36, 31-32; Dan. 3, 38-40), Jesus Christ (Mt. 5, 20-30; 10, 28-33; 13, 41; Lk. 7, 44; 3, 5; Jn. 6, 14), the Apostles (Acts 8, 23; II Pt. 3, 3-9) as preachers of penance, who appeal above all to the fear of eternal punishments. The Fathers of the Church follow the same path when they regard the fear of hell as an effective medicine for every evil and as the key to Paradise. Typical is the expression of St. Augustine: «Good is this fear, indeed useful, even if it is not yet that chaste fear which will endure forever in heaven». (Enarr. in Ps. 127, n. 8: PL 47, 1682).

Moreover, reason too demonstrates the soundness of this doctrine. For in the fear of hell three moments can be considered: the will to avoid the punishment, the sincere detestation of sin as a means of escaping it, and the subordination of this means to the desired end; now all three acts are honorable: it is a good thing to wish to avoid damnation, it is moreover most honorable to detest sin, and finally it is lawful to subordinate the detachment from sin to the escape from punishment, because even if the means (the hatred of sin) is more noble than the immediate end (avoiding hell), this imperfect end is not thereby excluded from the intimate relation it has with the higher end, which is the possession of God infinitely lovable, which is obtained only by avoiding hell.

As for the place that a.[ttrition] occupies in the process of justification, a domestic controversy has prevailed for seven centuries. Some theologians say that a.[ttrition] is sufficient to obtain grace when it is joined to the sacrament of Penance (these are the attritionists); others instead affirm that even in the Sacrament contrition is required (contritionists). Before the Council of Trent, Peter Lombard, Richard of St. Victor, St. Albert the Great, and Gabriel Biel were declared contritionists; St. Thomas, though strongly inclined toward contritionism, laid down certain principles favorable to the other tendency (for example, the great value attributed to absolution), of which Scotus, Durandus, Aureolus, and Cano proved fervent followers, against whom however Cajetan set himself. Thus the controversy was brought to the Council of Trent, which, while abstaining from a decided position, indirectly favored attritionism, which was illustrated by Vega, Soto, Vásquez, Bellarmine, Suárez, Gonet, Ripalda, and Lugo. In the 17th century the Jansenists arose, whose rigid contritionism, with a Calvinist flavor, influenced Morin and Launoy somewhat, rekindling the fire of the dormant controversy. Indeed in 1666 the Louvain hermits Christian Wolf (Lupus) and Francis Farvaques undertook to defend contritionism warmly and in the name of St. Augustine. The Jesuit Maximilian Le Dent responded immediately and with a certain liveliness. The matter was referred to Rome: Alexander VII by decree of the Holy Office (5 May 1667) imposed on the parties to abstain from mutual insults and at the same time affirmed that attritionism was more common among theologians (Denz-U, 1146).

In the judgment of Benedict XIV the decree favored attritionism to such an extent that it became universal, finding in St. Alphonsus its greatest champion. At the same time, however, the Dominican Billuart indicated a middle way between the two extremes, asserting that in the Sacrament a love of benevolence is required (against the attritionists), which however was not to be identified with charity since it lacks reciprocity on God's part (against the contritionists). But the Dominican's teaching remained a dead letter, until it was taken up in our own time and expounded with much erudition by Hugon, Diekamp, Perinelle, Garrigou-Lagrange, and Dondaine. It seems, however, that this attempt is destined to fail, first because, by not taking into account the doctrinal development matured through the long controversy and the constant practice of three centuries, it pushes penitential theology back to its timid beginnings, and then because attritionism is founded on bases that are difficult to undermine. Indeed, besides the arguments drawn from the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, cap. 5-4; Denz-U, 896, 898) which all the manualists develop and which recently De Blic has placed in a new light, there always remains the fundamental observation that on the hypothesis of contritionism absolution would be almost useless, that Penance would become a sacrament of the living, and that the way of salvation would be harsher under the law of love than under that of fear. Moreover, the distinction introduced by Billuart between love of benevolence and charity, in the light of St. Thomas's thought, is untenable, as Galtier demonstrated against Perinelle. As for the clause of the Council of Trent, sess. VI, cap. 6: «Disponuntur (peccatores) fide, timore, spe et Deum tamquam omnis iustitiae fontem diligere incipiunt» (Denz-U, 798), which the contritionists often object, the reply is that it also finds a plausible explanation in attritionism, because in every love of concupiscence there is an innate tendency toward perfect charity; indeed, whoever wishes to avoid hell necessarily aspires to paradise, where charity reigns supreme. Moreover, it is historically well known that the very A. Vega and P. Soto, who were among the drafters of that formula, did not see in it the necessity of a perfect love.

Once attritionism is granted, the celebrated saying «in confession attrition becomes contrition: ex attrito fit contritus» is to be understood not in the sense that a.[ttrition] changes nature and becomes contrition, but in the sense that with the coming of Grace, to which infused charity is connected, attrition finds itself in the same condition as the contrite person, that is, it is justified and in the possibility of eliciting an act of perfect charity, because the passage from the infused habit to the act is easy.

Extrait des Mélanges de science religieuse, Lille 1946 (responds with verve and learning to Dondaine). For an overall view cf.: A. Beugnet, s. v. in DThC, coll. 2235-58; P. Galtier, De poenitentia, Paris 1931, pp. 64-77; 287-97; A. García, El P. Hernández O. P. y la doctrina atricionista en el Tomismo, Manila 1936 (thesis of the Angelicum); C. Boyer, De poenitentia, Rome 1942, pp. 327-28; A. Piolanti, De sacramentis, 2nd ed., Turin 1946, pp. 348-54.

Antonio Piolanti