 Can synderesis ever be extinguished? No: it is an innate orientation towards goodness that cannot be completely eradicated, ontologically speaking, even in the most vicious of people. In its exercise, however, it can become impeded “either by the darkness of blindness, or by the wantonness of pleasure, or by the hardness of obstinacy” (commentary on the Sentences 2.39: a. 2, q. 2; Potts trans. 1980: 117). In such cases, synderesis ceases to “murmur” against evil or “goad” towards the good, either because the agent is blinded by ignorance, distracted by physical pleasure or is so stubbornly persistent in their depravity that they cannot reorient themselves towards the good. Still, when synderesis follows the innate judgement of conscience with respect to basic deontic principles, which can never err, then it too functions correctly because that is its natural state. It has the potential to go wrong and fall into sin only during the exercise of deliberation with respect to particular truths since it is here that reason can become faulty and the will, which is free, disordered. When reason and will malfunction synderesis is “overthrown, in that its effect and its government over the other deliberative powers is repulsed and broken” (commentary on the Sentences 2.39: a. 2, q. 3; Potts trans. 1980: 119). When this happens, the agent sins.