485. 5. There are four degrees of adultery, which affect accordingly subsequent attributions of it, convictions, and, after death, imputations. These degrees are not kinds, but they enter into the several kinds and create distinctions in them between greater and lesser levels of evil or good, determining in the present instance whether adultery of any one kind is by reason of circumstances and contingent factors to be regarded as more mild or more grave.

That circumstances and contingent factors vary every case is something people know. However, events are still regarded in one way by a person on the basis of his rational sight, in another way by a judge on the basis of the law, and in another way by the Lord on the basis of the state of the person's mind. Therefore we distinguish between attributions, convictions, and, after death, imputations. For attributions are determined by a person in accordance with his rational sight; convictions by a judge in accordance with the law; and imputations by the Lord in accordance with the person's state of mind.

These three judgments are very different in nature, as can be seen without need for explanation. For a person may, from a rational evaluation in accordance with the circumstances and contingent factors, exonerate one whom a judge while sitting in judgment cannot on the basis of the law exonerate; and a judge, too, may exonerate one who after death is condemned. The reason for the latter is that a judge determines his verdict in accordance with a person's deeds, whereas everyone is judged after death in accordance with the intentions of his will and consequent intellect, and in accordance with the persuasions of his intellect and consequent will. Neither of these does a judge see. Yet each judgment is nevertheless just, the one looking to the good of civil society, the other to the good of heavenly society.