ATTRITION (from Lat. *attero* = I wear down, crush). — It is the act by which a man detests sin for a supernatural motive, but one inferior to pure love. Indeed, a twofold love of God is distinguished: that of concupiscence, by which one clings to divine goodness not for its intrinsic perfections, but because it is beneficial to 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 supremely perfect Being, an act of contrition (v.) is performed; but if one hates sin because one loses God’s benefits and incurs His vengeance, an act of attrition is performed. Since God’s punishment is manifested above all in eternal damnation, the most common motive that induces the sinner to repent 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 not only deters the sinner from the act but also from the affection for sin; it is called servilely servile if it prevents the material act but does not extinguish in the heart the attachment to evil.
According to Luther, even the simply servile fear 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,” i.e., gallows repentance.
The Church, however, both in the Tridentine definitions (sess. VI, can. 8; sess. XIV, can. 5; Denz-U, 818, 915) and in its condemnations of the Jansenists (Denz-U, 1304-1305; 1410-16; 1525), affirms that attrition conceived out of fear (simply servile, that is) of hell is a good act and capable of uprooting every attachment to sin. This doctrine is well grounded in Scripture, which presents the Prophets (Jer. 31, 18-20; Ez. 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), and the Apostles (Acts 8, 22; 2 Pt. 3, 3-9) as preachers of repentance, who appeal above all to the fear of eternal punishment. The Fathers of the Church follow the same path when they consider the fear of hell as an effective remedy 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 last forever in heaven” (Enarr. in Ps. 127, n. 8: PL 47, 1682).
Moreover, reason itself demonstrates the soundness of this doctrine. For in the fear of hell three moments can be considered: the will to avoid punishment, the sincere detestation of sin as a means to escape it, and the subordination of this means to the desired end; now all three acts are honest: it is good to wish to avoid damnation, it is moreover most honest to detest sin, and it is finally lawful to subordinate detachment from sin to the avoidance of punishment, because even if the means (hatred of sin) is more noble than the immediate end (avoiding hell), the intimate relation that it has with the higher end, which is the possession of God infinitely lovable, which alone is obtained by avoiding hell, is not excluded from this imperfect end.
As for the place that attrition occupies in the process of justification, a domestic controversy has been raging for seven centuries. Some theologians say that attrition is sufficient to obtain grace when united to the sacrament of Penance (these are the attritionists), while others maintain 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, although strongly inclined toward contritionism, laid down certain principles favorable to the other tendency (e.g., the great value attributed to absolution), of which Scotus, Durand, Aureolus, Cano, and others became fervent followers, though Cajetan opposed them. Thus the controversy was brought before the Council of Trent, which, although refraining from a definitive stance, indirectly favored attritionism, which was illustrated by Vega, Soto, Vázquez, Bellarmine, Suárez, Gonet, Ripalda, and Lugo. In the 17th century the Jansenists arose, whose rigid contritionism, of Calvinist flavor, somewhat influenced Morin and Launoy, fanning the flames of the dormant controversy. Indeed, in 1666 the Augustinian hermits of Louvain, Christian Wolf (Lupus) and François Fervacques, vigorously defended contritionism in the name of St. Augustine. The Jesuit Maximilian Le Dent immediately responded with some vehemence. The matter was referred to Rome: Alexander VII, by decree of the Holy Office (May 5, 1667), ordered the parties to refrain 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 so favored attritionism that it became universal, finding in St. Alphonsus its greatest champion. Yet at the same time 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), but that this was not to be identified with charity, being devoid of reciprocity on God’s part (against the contritionists). But the Dominican’s teaching remained a dead letter until our own time, when it was revived and expounded with great erudition by Hugon, Diekamp, Perinelle, Garrigou-Lagrange, and Dondaine. Yet this attempt seems doomed to failure, first because it fails to take into account the doctrinal development that has matured through the long-standing controversy and the constant practice of three centuries, pushing penitential theology back to its timid beginnings, and second because attritionism is founded on bases that are difficult to undermine. Indeed, in addition to the arguments drawn from the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, cap. 3-4; Denz-U, 896, 898), which all manualists develop and which De Blic has recently highlighted anew, the fundamental observation remains that in the contritionist hypothesis 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 has shown against Perinelle. As for the Tridentine Council’s aside, sess. VI, cap. 6: “Disponuntur (peccatores) fide, timore, spe et Deum tamquam omnis iustitiae fontem diligere incipium” (Denz-U, 798), which contritionists often object to, it is replied that even in attritionism a plausible explanation is found, because in every love of knowledge 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 same A. Vega and P. Soto, who were among the drafters of that formula, did not see in it the necessity of perfect love.
Granted attritionism, the famous saying “in confession attrition becomes contrition: *ex attrito fit contritus*” must be understood not in the sense that attrition changes its nature and becomes contrition, but in the sense that with the arrival of grace, to which infused charity is connected, attrition finds itself in the same condition as contrition, i.e., it is justified and in the possibility of performing an act of perfect charity, because the transition from habit to act is easy.
Extrait des Mélanges de science religieuse, Lille 1946 (brilliant and learned reply to Dondaine). For a comprehensive view, cf.: A. Beugnet, s. V. in DTHC, cols. 2235-58; P. Galtier, De poenitentia, Paris 1931, pp. 64-77; 287-97; A. García, El P. Hernández O. P., y la doctrina articulista en el Tounino, Manila 1936 (thesis of the Angelicum); C. Boyer, De paenitentia, Roma 1942, pp. 327-28; A. Piolanti, De sacramentis, 2nd ed., Torino 1946, pp. 348-54.