will loves some temporal good, e.g. riches or pleasure, more than the order of reason or Divine law, or Divine charity, or some such thing, it follows that it is willing to suffer the loss of some spiritual good, so that it may obtain possession of some temporal good.  Now evil is merely the privation of some good; and so a man wishes knowingly a spiritual evil, which is evil simply, whereby he is deprived of a spiritual good, in order to possess a temporal good:  wherefore he is said to sin through certain malice or on purpose, because he chooses evil knowingly.

Reply Obj. 1:  Ignorance sometimes excludes the simple knowledge that a particular action is evil, and then man is said to sin through ignorance:  sometimes it excludes the knowledge that a particular action is evil at this particular moment, as when he sins through passion:  and sometimes it excludes the knowledge that a particular evil is not to be suffered for the sake of possessing a particular good, but not the simple knowledge that it is an evil:  it is thus that a man is ignorant, when he sins through certain malice.

Reply Obj. 2:  Evil cannot be intended by anyone for its own sake; but it can be intended for the sake of avoiding another evil, or obtaining another good, as stated above:  and in this case anyone would choose to obtain a good intended for its own sake, without suffering loss of the other good; even as a lustful man would wish to enjoy a pleasure without offending God; but with the two set before him to choose from, he prefers sinning and thereby incurring God’s anger, to being deprived of the pleasure.

Reply Obj. 3:  The malice through which anyone sins, may be taken to denote habitual malice, in the sense in which the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 1) calls an evil habit by the name of malice, just as a good habit is called virtue:  and in this way anyone is said to sin through malice when he sins through the inclination of a habit.  It may also denote actual malice, whether by malice we mean the choice itself of evil (and thus anyone is said to sin through malice, in so far as he sins through making a choice of evil), or whether by malice we mean some previous fault that gives rise to a subsequent fault, as when anyone impugns the grace of his brother through envy.  Nor does this imply that a thing is its own cause:  for the interior act is the cause of the exterior act, and one sin is the cause of another; not indefinitely, however, since we can trace it back to some previous sin, which is not caused by any previous sin, as was explained above (Q. 75, A. 4, ad 3). ________________________

SECOND ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 78, Art. 2]

Whether Everyone That Sins Through Habit, Sins Through Certain
Malice?

Objection 1:  It would seem that not every one who sins through habit, sins through certain malice.  Because sin committed through certain malice, seems to be most grievous.  Now it happens sometimes that a man commits a slight sin through habit, as when he utters an idle word.  Therefore sin committed from habit is not always committed through certain malice.