Before you enter
Benjamin Elswick, Daniel Lee, and Dan Bateman reference these sources as students. We are not authorities on them.
Any error in our material is ours, not the fault of the sources. Every panel names its sources, so you can read them for yourself.
Iron & IncenseThomistic Psychology
These pages study the soul, its powers and its habits, read with St Thomas Aquinas, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the talks of Fr Chad Ripperger.
The panels
The powers of the soul rightly ordered
Reason, lit by God, rules the lower powers: the agent intellect lights the phantasm, and the will is ordered to the good.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1704, 1711, 36 · ST I q.79 a.3–4 (the agent intellect); I q.84 a.5 (our light a participated likeness of the uncreated light)
Temptation: an object set before the imagination
A thing is presented to the senses and the imagination. To be tempted is not yet to sin.
Sources for this panel
CCC 2847, 2846, 1707 · ST I-II q.74 a.6 · Ripperger, Angels and demons acting on memory, imagination and the passions
Pride, the beginning of sin
Man prefers himself to God, and the mind's grasp of the truth begins to dim.
Sources for this panel
CCC 398, 1850, 1866 · ST I-II q.84 a.2; II-II q.162 a.3 ad 1
The consent of the will
Passion moves the will only indirectly. The will consents, and the sin is committed.
Sources for this panel
CCC 2846, 1853, 1857, 1859 · ST I-II q.74 a.7; I-II q.77 a.1
How repeated acts become a habit
Each repeated act deepens a disposition. A bad habit is a vice.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1865, 1863 · ST I-II q.51 a.2–3; I-II q.71 a.1 · Ripperger, How to grow in the virtue of chastity
The cogitative power misjudges
Vice corrupts the particular reason, so the concrete judgment of good and evil goes wrong.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1865, 1792, 37 · ST I q.78 a.4
Anger held in the memory
A remembered injury feeds anger until it settles into a desire for revenge.
Sources for this panel
CCC 2302, 2303 · ST II-II q.158 a.2
The capital vices and their offspring
A capital vice engenders other sins and other vices.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1866 · ST I-II q.84 a.3–4 · St Gregory, Moralia XXXI.45.87–88
Blindness of mind
Through habitual sin conscience is almost blinded, and a creature takes the place of God.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1791, 1865, 2113, 1733 · ST II-II q.15 a.1
Hardness of heart
Refusing to repent hardens the heart. Yet no sin is beyond forgiveness.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1864, 982 · ST I-II q.79 a.3
Contrition and the sacrament of Penance
Grace moves the heart first. Absolution restores the grace that sin destroyed.
Sources for this panel
CCC 2010, 1428, 1432, 1446, 1999 · ST III q.86 a.1, a.4 · Ripperger, Holiness conference 3
Prayer, the life of the new heart
The daily habit of prayer answers the habit of sin.
Sources for this panel
CCC 2697, 2744, 2559 · ST II-II q.83 a.2
The Eucharist
Charity is renewed, venial sin is wiped away, and the will is strengthened against mortal sin.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1385, 1394, 1395 · ST III q.79 a.1, a.4 · Ripperger, The Passion of Christ and the Holy Mass
The virtues order the passions
Acquired virtue, purified by grace, orders the passions, and the infused virtues act through it.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1810, 1811, 1813, 1768, 1809 · ST I-II q.63 a.2–3 · Ripperger, Holiness conference 2
Concupiscence remains
Reason rules again under the Light, but the wound of original sin remains and the struggle goes on.
Sources for this panel
CCC 1426, 2520, 405, 1811, 1704 · Job 7:1 · ST II-II q.8 a.1 · Ripperger, How to grow in the virtue of chastity