goes on causing sin indefinitely,
which is absurd. Therefore no one sins through malice.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Job 34:27): "[Who] as it were on
purpose have revolted from God [Vulg.: 'Him'], and would not
understand all His ways." Now to revolt from God is to sin. Therefore
some sin purposely or through certain malice.

_I answer that,_ Man like any other being has naturally an appetite
for the good; and so if his appetite incline away to evil, this is
due to corruption or disorder in some one of the principles of man:
for it is thus that sin occurs in the actions of natural things. Now
the principles of human acts are the intellect, and the appetite,
both rational (i.e. the will) and sensitive. Therefore even as sin
occurs in human acts, sometimes through a defect of the intellect, as
when anyone sins through ignorance, and sometimes through a defect in
the sensitive appetite, as when anyone sins through passion, so too
does it occur through a defect consisting in a disorder of the will.
Now the will is out of order when it loves more the lesser good.
Again, the consequence of loving a thing less is that one chooses to
suffer some hurt in its regard, in order to obtain a good that one
loves more: as when a man, even knowingly, suffers the loss of a
limb, that he may save his life which he loves more. Accordingly when
an inordinate 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 malic