ts
ought to be regulated, even as it is by the judgment of the reason
that the movements of the lower appetite should be regulated. And
thus, even as inordinate movements of the sensitive appetite cannot
help occurring since the lower appetite is not subject to reason, so
likewise, since man's reason is not entirely subject to God, the
consequence is that many disorders occur in the reason. For when
man's heart is not so fixed on God as to be unwilling to be parted
from Him for the sake of finding any good or avoiding any evil, many
things happen for the achieving or avoiding of which a man strays
from God and breaks His commandments, and thus sins mortally:
especially since, when surprised, a man acts according to his
preconceived end and his pre-existing habits, as the Philosopher says
(Ethic. iii); although with premeditation of his reason a man may do
something outside the order of his preconceived end and the
inclination of his habit. But because a man cannot always have this
premeditation, it cannot help occurring that he acts in accordance
with his will turned aside from God, unless, by grace, he is quickly
brought back to the due order.

Reply Obj. 1: Man can avoid each but not every act of sin, except by
grace, as stated above. Nevertheless, since it is by his own
shortcoming that he does not prepare himself to have grace, the fact
that he cannot avoid sin without grace does not excuse him from sin.

Reply Obj. 2: Correction is useful "in order that out of the sorrow
of correction may spring the wish to be regenerate; if indeed he who
is corrected is a son of promise, in such sort that whilst the noise
of correction is outwardly resounding and punishing, God by hidden
inspirations is inwardly causing to will," as Augustine says (De
Corr. et Gratia vi). Correction is therefore necessary, from the fact
that man's will is required in order to abstain from sin; yet it is
not sufficient without God's help. Hence it is written (Eccles.
7:14): "Consider the works of God that no man can correct whom He
hath despised."

Reply Obj. 3: As Augustine says (Hypognosticon iii [*Among the
spurious works of St. Augustine]), this saying is to be understood of
man in the state of perfect nature, when as yet he was not a slave of
sin. Hence he was able to sin and not to sin. Now, too, whatever a
man wills, is given to him; but his willing good, he has by God's
assistance.
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NINTH ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 10