264. The occasions of sin are of various kinds. (a) They are proximate or remote, according as it is morally certain, or only likely that they will lead to sin. (b) Occasions are necessary or free, according as one is able or not able to abandon them without difficulty. For example, one who chooses dishonest persons as his associates is in a free occasion of sin; one who is imprisoned with criminals is in a necessary occasion of sin. An occasion of sin is also necessary when the impossibility of leaving it is not physical, but moral. Examples: A wife who is bound to a provoking husband; a person who cannot give up an employment that offers many temptations, without suffering great temporal or spiritual injury, or without incurring a worse condition. (c) Occasions are present or absent, according as one has the occasion with him or must go to seek it. Examples; Intoxicants kept in his home are a present occasion of sin for a drunkard; atheistic lectures are an absent occasion of sin for one who has to go out to hear them.
265. It is not lawful to remain in a free occasion of sin,, whether it be present or absent; for to do so is to expose oneself rashly to the danger of sin (see 258 sqq.).
266. It is not lawful for one who is in a necessary occasion of sin to neglect means that are adapted to preserve him from the moral contagion by which he is surrounded; for to neglect spiritual safeguards and protections in such a case is to refuse to resist temptation (see 252 sqq.). The means that should be used depend on circumstances, but prayer and firm resolves to avoid sin should be employed in every case.
267. The gravity of the sin committed by one who freely remains in an occasion of sin, or who does not use the requisite spiritual helps in a necessary occasion, depends on various factors: (a) if the sin to which he is tempted is light, he does not sin gravely; (b) if the sin to which he is tempted is serious, and the occasion is proximate, he sins gravely; (c) if the occasion is remote, he sins venially.
268. The Motives of Sin.—The purposes that lead men to sin can be considered as follows: (a) according to the predominant vices of individual men, which are for them motives for committing their other sins (particular motives)—e.g., a man whose chief sin is unbelief and who is led by it to intolerance, blasphemy, despair, etc.; (b) according to the natural relationship and sequence between sins themselves, by which some are usually the motives for others _in all men (general motives)_.
269. The predominant individual motives for sin are as numerous as the different characters of those addicted to sin, and hence it is impossible to classify them. The predominant general motives for sin, on the contrary, can be assigned according to the principal goods that most often move or repel with wills of all who commit sin, as follows: (a) goods of the soul, such as praise and honor, inordinately pursued (the vice of pride); (b) goods of the body, inordinately desired (the views of lust and gluttony); (c) goods that are external, unduly loved (the vice of avarice); (d) one’s own good, not sufficiently wished (the vice of sloth); (e) the neighbor’s good, not suffiviently desired (the vices of envy and anger).
270. The seven vices mentioned above are usually calle the capital, or head vices, since the other sins are directed by them just as the other parts of the body are directed by the head.
271. Among the seven capital vices there are two that have principality over the others: (a) in the intention of the sinner the motive force that impels to sin is always some inordinate desire of his own personal excellence, and hence pride is the beginning of all sin; (b) in the execution of the sin the opportunity for satisfying every base desire is afforded by money, and thus avarice is the root of nourishment of all evils.
272. The Results of Sin.—There are two kinds of sins from the viewpoint of origin: (a) original sin, which is inherited from Adam by all his descendants (except Christ and the Blessed Virgin); (b) actual sin, which is committed by the personal will of each sinner.
273. The immediate consequences of original sin were that Adam lost for himself and his posterity the gifts of the state of original innocence. Thus: (a) the soul in subjection to God was endowed with the beauty of holiness, to which succeeded the deformity of enmity against Him; (b) the powers of the soul were in harmony, the lower subject to the higher, but to this succeeded a state of disunion and rebellion and what are called the four wounds of nature, the intellect and will becoming prone to error and sin, and the sensitive appetites tending inordinately towards delights or away from difficulties; (c) the body which had been in subjection to the soul and endowed with freedom from suffering and mortality, became burdensome to the soul and subject to pain and death.