Aquinas 50-52 And 71

In Questions 50-52 and 71 by Aquinas, he discusses habits and how a habit is a “disposition of a subject which is in a state of potentiality either to a form or operation” (ST I-II, q.50, a. 1). Based on this definition, it shows how people are morally responsible for their habits because even though it is a disposition, it has the potential to form the habit, but it has not actually happened yet without the person’s choice. That’s an important thing to remember because sometimes habits become so customary to do that people do not think they are voluntary sins, but in all actuality they are because the person chose to act on that disposition. When reading the Inferno, it seemed that most of these were in Hell because of their habitual choices, although most of them believed it was because of one choice. Examples of this would be the lustful who only made one bad choice to
439, line 133). In Q. 71, Article 3, Aquinas discusses how an act can surpass a habit in goodness or badness: “Now it has been shown from the very nature of act and habit, that act surpasses habit both in goodness and in badness” even though a habit lasts longer than an act. Can one act send someone to Hell or did these people have habits that led to the serious act? A habit cannot be formed by the single power of an act, so for some of the people it seems that possibly lesser acts were committed, which led to the habit, which then led to the serious act being committed. This can be the case when it comes to simony, flatters and hypocrites; not a single act landed them into Hell, but multiple acts, which caused a habit landed them in Hell. There is still another circumstance in which it seems possible that a single act landed him into Hell, which is the case with the Franciscan who stopped living in vice and became a Franciscan, but then by giving fraudulent counsel he ended up in Hell, even though he believed that he would be