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As analyzed by the classic divines of the Latin Church, sin consists of two elements. There is a conversio, a turning towards something, but equally, by a kind of negative complement that transforms the moral charge of the action, there is also an aversio, a turning away from something. In every sin, no matter how aberrant, the conversio is always to something good. Though people can be mistaken in placing their good, their flourishing, in objects that actually are not their good, the error this involves cannot be total. Absolute or unconditional evil does not exist, and so the object of sinful choice always includes an element that in some way befits the human good. This is why novelists, playwrights and filmmakers, can render sin intelligible. The element of malice in sin is the aversio, whereby in making a particular choice I orient myself morally in a different direction from that which God has imposed upon me — not arbitrarily but by the creative act which brought me into existence, and which is found in concrete form in my nature (apart from original sin), as well as by the supernatural vocation which takes its own, more intimate, concrete form in my personal election to grace. In the aversio I refuse to recognize God as my last end, as the absolute good to which all other goods must be referred. I negate God practically even though theoretically I continue to profess his existence. This is why sin contains an infinite malice.
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