Saint Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest apologists in history. His arguments for the existence of God are still being used to this day. Specifically, Aquinas’ “Fourth Argument”, which is the argument from Gradation is the subject of today’s article.

The ‘Argument from Gradation’ says that since we can say that things are good, there must be an absolute Good by which we judge everything else.

Therefore, God has to be the Greatest of all good things, and the very least of all bad things.

The loving sin is bad, then God must love sin to the very least degree possible.

This is where we get into Catholic dogma.

The Catholic Church holds the dogma (meaning that the belief is on the same plane as the Trinity and other Truths) that there are two different levels of sin, mortal (worse) and venial (less bad), and that mortal sin harms our relationship with God more than venial sin.

Now, if God is the greatest of all things. Then God would would have to see all sins the same. If God hates a sin in even the slightest way. He would have to hate it completely and to the greatest possible degree.

And since God hates all sin, He must hate all sin equally.

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