Does Fear of Hell Suffice for Absolution or is Some Love of God Required?
Saint-Cyran and the Jansenists were contritionists and maintained that one cannot be validly absolved unless one has the love of God as a motive for ones repentance. The Jesuits were attritionists and maintained that a fear of punishment is a sufficient motive. The dispute did not begin with them but had been going on for some decades. In 1667 Pope Alexander VII had the Holy Office issue a decree that said that the Holy See had decided nothing on the matter and he ordered that those discussing the matter not dare charge either opinion with a note of any theological censure or contumely. We shall briefly take some background to the controversy from Leszek Kolakowski (God Owes Us Nothing, 1998) and then see the decree of the Holy Office, which we have taken from Denzinger (The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 1957.) The question of contrition was a natural corollary to, indeed a part of, that of the sacrament of penance. Contrition is real (perfect) repentance; the sinner, with his heart groun
