Part II, Chapter II, Section 3, Article 3: The Nature of Original Sin

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §3, Article 3 (pp. 259–279)

The Council of Trent teaches negatively (1) that original sin does not consist in the loss of any essential prerogative of human nature, but only in the loss of the sanctifying grace which our first parents enjoyed prior to their fall, together with those preternatural gifts that were bound up with that grace; (2) that Baptism removes whatever is of the nature of sin;¹ and (3) that the concupiscence which remains after Baptism does not partake of the nature of guilt.²

It is within these clearly defined limits, therefore, that we must seek for the constitutive elements of original sin. The Church tells us in what the essence of original sin does not consist; it remains for scientific theology to ascertain its true nature. In the following series of systematic theses we shall endeavor as far as possible to go to the root of the problem.

Thesis I: Original sin does not descend as a substantial form from Adam to his progeny, constituting man an incarnate image of the Devil.

This is de fide.

Proof. The heretical view opposed to this thesis was held by the Lutheran theologian Mathias Flacius Illyricus (†1575), head of the so-called “Substantiarians,” who contended that original sin intrinsically transformed the soul into a sinful substance and an image of Satan, comparing it to “wine which turns into vinegar.” Illyricus was opposed in his own camp by a school called “Accidentarians.” Being little more than a revamped Manichaeism, his theory stands and falls with the ancient heresy asserting the absolute nature of evil. “Malum illud,” says St. Augustine, “quod quaerebam, unde esset, non est substantia; quia si substantia esset, bonum esset. Aut enim esset incorruptibilis substantia, magnum utique bonum; aut substantia corruptibilis, quae nisi bona esset, corrumpi non posset” — That evil, the origin of which I have been so long seeking for, is no substance; for if it were a substance, it would be good. For it would either be an incorruptible substance, a great good indeed; or it would be a corruptible substance, which if it were not good could not be corrupted.³ The theory of the Substantiarians has not even the recommendation of novelty, for it substantially agrees with the teaching of the Euchites or Messalians, which was condemned by the Third General Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431.⁴ It is unnecessary to point out the absurd consequences to which this error leads, not only with regard to the doctrine of the Creation, but likewise in Anthropology and Christology.⁵

Thesis II: Concupiscence as such does not constitute the essence of original sin.

Proof. This thesis is also de fide.⁶ It is aimed at the so-called Reformers of the sixteenth century (Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon), and against the Jansenists (particularly Baius, Jansenius, and Quesnel), who depicted concupiscence in lurid colors and asserted that it is a formal sin and original sin.⁷ This theory was condemned as heretical by the Council of Trent.⁸

The orthodox doctrine on the subject of concupiscence is based upon the Epistles of St. Paul and the teaching of the Fathers, notably St. Augustine.

a) St. Paul expressly declares that Baptism obliterates whatever is sinful and deserving of reprobation in man. Rom. VI, 4: “Consepulti sumus cum illo [scil. Christo] per baptismum in mortem” — We are buried together with him [i.e., Christ] by baptism into death. Rom. VIII, 1: “Nihil ergo nunc damnationis est⁹ iis, qui sunt in Christo Iesu” — There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. We know from experience that concupiscence remains in man even after baptism; hence concupiscence cannot be a sin, and least of all original sin.

Jansenism can be triumphantly refuted from the writings of St. Augustine, whom it professes to follow. It is quite true St. Augustine, like St. Paul,¹⁰ calls concupiscence sin; but he manifestly does not mean that it is a sin in the strict sense of the term, except by the free consent of the will. “Peccati nomen accepit concupiscentia,” he says quite unmistakably, “quod ei consentire peccatum est” — Concupiscence has received the name of sin, because it is a sin to consent to it.¹¹ In fact, St. Augustine anticipated the authentic declaration given by the Tridentine Council, that the reason why St. Paul calls concupiscence sin is because it “is of sin and inclines to sin.”¹² “Sic autem,” he writes, “vocatur peccatum, quia peccato facta est, quum iam in regeneratis non sit ipsa peccatum; sic vocatur lingua locutio, quam facit lingua, et manus vocatur scriptura, quam facit manus” — As arising from sin, it is called sin, although in the regenerate it is not actually sin; and it has this designation applied to it, just as speech which the tongue produces is itself called tongue, and just as the word hand is used in the sense of writing, which the hand produces.¹³ And again: “Restat ergo [in baptizatis] cum carne conflictus, quia deleta est iniquitas, sed manet infirmitas” — There remains, therefore, a conflict with the flesh [in those who are baptized], because, while unrighteousness is wiped out, infirmity remains.¹⁴

We may add the following theological argument. It is possible to conceive a state of pure nature in which concupiscence would be neither a sin nor original sin; consequently, original sin is not identical with concupiscence.¹⁵

b) If original sin is not concupiscence, neither is it identical with the hereditary evils brought upon the human race by the misconduct of Adam.¹⁶ There can be no original sin without moral guilt. Mere penalties are not sins, they presuppose sin.

Some of the earlier Schoolmen¹⁷ believed that original sin is a positive quality (morbida qualitas) which is transmitted from the infected body to the soul and asserts itself in the form of concupiscence. A few Scholastic theologians derived this contagious disease from the poisonous juices of the forbidden apple which Adam ate in Paradise, or from the pestilential breath of the serpent which seduced Eve. This untenable theory bears a striking resemblance to that of the Lutheran theologians of the sixteenth century. There is, however, an essential difference between the two. Henry of Ghent, Gregory of Rimini, and the other representatives of this school expressly teach that concupiscence (which they identify with original sin) loses its sinful character in those who are regenerated by Baptism. But this very consideration should have convinced them that concupiscence cannot be identical with original sin even before justification, because the morbida qualitas remains after Baptism without losing its intrinsic nature.¹⁸

Hermes¹⁹ gathered up as into a sheaf the various heresies of Luther, Zwingli, and Baius. He held that “original sin is a disposition common to all natural descendants of Adam and Eve in consequence of their descent from these sinful progenitors, and which, in course of time, produces an inevitable dissonance between reason and the senses.”²⁰

Thesis III: It is highly improbable that, as certain eminent theologians hold, original sin consists exclusively in the extrinsic imputability of the actual sin of Adam conceived as morally enduring.

Proof. The theory²¹ rejected in this thesis is based upon a peculiar conception of habitual sin.

a) Theologians and moral philosophers rightly distinguish between actual sin (peccatum actuale) and habitual sin (peccatum habituale). Actual sin (sin as an act) is the cause of habitual sin (sin as a state), because a sinful action produces a state of enmity with God. Now, while the majority of Catholic divines define habitual sin as a privation of sanctifying grace,²² the writers whose particular theory we are here considering regard the loss of sanctifying grace merely as a punishment for sin, not as a sinful state.²³ In this hypothesis the nature of habitual sin cannot consist in the loss of grace. In what, then, does it consist? De Lugo answers: “Peccatum habituale est ipsum peccatum actuale moraliter perseverans, physice autem praeteritum, in ordine ad reddendum hominem rationabiliter exosum Deo.”²⁴ Since original sin is plainly not an actual sin committed by him in whom it indwells, but merely a sinful state traceable to Adam, the same theologian consistently defines it as “ipsum peccatum actuale Adae moraliter perseverans, quamdiu parvulis non condonatur, in ordine ad reddendos eos rationabiliter exosos Deo.”²⁵ This morally enduring fault and its imputability is the reason why God withholds the jewel of sanctifying grace from every child at the moment of its conception. In other words, privation of grace is not the constitutive element of habitual sin, but merely a penalty due to it.

This theory has been defended by a number of subtle arguments, which may be summed up as follows: (1) In the state of pure nature there would be habitual sins which would not entail the loss of sanctifying grace; consequently the privatio gratiae cannot constitute the essence of sin. (2) Habitual sins may be venial sins, and in that case they do not entail the loss of supernatural grace; consequently, and a pari, habitual mortal sin (and therefore also original sin) does not essentially consist in the loss of supernatural grace. (3) It is far more consistent and more satisfactory to consider the loss of grace as a cessation of divine friendship, and therefore as a punishment for sin, rather than as a sin in itself. (4) If the privation of grace constituted the essence of habitual sin, repeated mortal sins would produce but one habitual sin, because sanctifying grace can be lost only once. In other words, all habitual mortal sins would be specifically equal to, or would constitute, but one sin, which is absurd. For the solution of these subtle difficulties we refer the student to Palmieri.²⁶

b) The theory which we have just expounded, especially the exaggerated form in which it was championed by Ambrosius Catharinus and Albertus Pighius, is inadmissible: (1) On account of the dogmatic consequences which it involves, and (2) because it does not fully square with the Tridentine teaching.

In its more moderate form, as propounded by Salmeron, Toletus, and especially De Lugo,²⁷ this theory is less objectionable, because these writers make two admissions which insure the orthodoxy of their system even if the Church should one day define it as an article of faith that the privation of grace enters into the formal essence of original sin.²⁸ These admissions are: (1) That the sin of Adam is morally at least a real sin also in his descendants, and (2) that original sin cannot be conceived without a privatio gratiae. Ambrosius Catharinus maintains that original sin consists exclusively in the extrinsic imputability of the sin of Adam, and that his descendants, therefore, are not really sinners (ab intrinseco) but are merely so called by a sort of divine imputation, somewhat after the manner in which, in the Lutheran view of justification, man does not become internally justified by Baptism, but merely seizes the extrinsic justice of Christ and with it, as with a cloak of grace, covers the sinful nakedness of his soul. It is true that Catharinus refers to the privation of grace as a penalty of original sin; but he fails to establish any organic and necessary connexion between the two. Unlike De Lugo, he omits to accentuate the fact that the loss of sanctifying grace is ex vi notionis an essential consequence of original sin.

However, De Lugo’s theory, too, is open to objection. It fails to account for the individual guilt of original sin as an intrinsic (privative) quality, and does not get beyond the extrinsic imputation of the sin of Adam. If original sin in its formal essence were but the actual sin of Adam in so far as it morally continues in his descendants until forgiven by Baptism, it could not strike root in the souls of infants and exist in them as individual, physically inhering sin. The only quality of original sin that inheres in the individual, according to this theory, is the privation of grace, and this De Lugo and his school do not conceive as the substance, but merely as a penalty of original sin. This view can hardly be harmonized with the fundamental conception underlying the Tridentine definition, to wit, that original sin is “transfusum omnibus et inest unicuique proprium,”²⁹ and that those affected with it “propriam iniustitiam contrahunt.”³⁰ The Council goes even further than that; it adds that unrighteousness follows natural birth in precisely the same manner in which righteousness follows regeneration. This gives rise to the antithesis between nasci and contrahere propriam iniustitiam on the one hand, and renasci and iustum fieri gratia Christi on the other. Now the essence of justification consists in the infusion of sanctifying grace; and if this be true, then original sin (like habitual sin in general) essentially consists in the privation of sanctifying grace. Thus the theory of De Lugo, and a fortiori that of Catharinus, falls to pieces.

Thesis IV: Original sin essentially consists in privation of grace, so far as this is voluntary in all men through the will of their progenitor.

This proposition embodies a common teaching of Catholic theologians.

Proof. We have to show: (1) that privation of grace (privatio gratiae) constitutes the essence of original sin, and (2) that, through its causal relation to the sin of Adam, it involves guilt on the part of all who are affected by it. These two elements, viz., privation of grace and the origin of this privation in voluntary guilt, together constitute original sin.

1. As regards the first of these elements, it follows from the preceding thesis that the privatio gratiae is not merely a punishment, but original sin itself. Because of the importance of this proposition we shall restate the argument in a somewhat different form.

a) It is an article of faith that infant Baptism so completely obliterates original sin, qua guilt, that nothing odious or damnable remains in the regenerate infant.³¹ This effect is produced solely by sanctifying grace, which Baptism infuses into the soul of the child. “Nam sicut revera homines, nisi ex semine Adae propagati nascerentur, non nascerentur iniusti, quum ea propagatione … propriam iniustitiam contrahunt: ita nisi in Christo renascerentur, nunquam iustificarentur, quum ea renascentia per meritum passionis eius gratia, qua iusti fiunt, illis tribuatur.”³² Consequently original sin, considered as habitual sin, consists essentially in privation of grace, whereby the child becomes an enemy of God, just as he is constituted a friend of God by the sanctifying grace conferred in Baptism.

b) Following in the footsteps of the Second Council of Orange (A.D. 528) the Tridentine Fathers teach³³ that original sin is “the death of the soul” (mors animae). Now, in the present economy of grace, the only way in which the soul can die is by being deprived of its supernatural life-principle, which is sanctifying grace. Let us put the argument into the form of an equation: privatio gratiae = mors animae = peccatum originale; consequently, peccatum originale est privatio gratiae.

c) According to the teaching of St. Paul³⁴ original sin and justification are opposed to each other as contraries; to deny the one is to affirm the other, and vice versa. Now, if sanctifying grace constitutes divine sonship or justice, then the absence of this grace (due to the guilt of Adam) must constitute the state of enmity with God, usually called original sin.

d) We arrive at the same result by the method of elimination. The state of original justice in Paradise comprised the following factors: (1) Sanctifying grace as the primary element of original justice, (2) integrity of nature (immunitas a concupiscentia) as its secondary element, and (3) bodily immortality and impassibility as its tertiary element.³⁵ By original sin Adam forfeited all these prerogatives for himself and the whole human race, and they were superseded by their contraries, viz.: privation of grace, concupiscence, mortality, and passibility. Among these evils death and suffering are assuredly not sins, but merely inherited evils, or, to speak more accurately, penalties of sin. Concupiscence cannot constitute the substance of original sin, because the Church teaches that it remains in the soul after Baptism.³⁶ Consequently privation of grace must be the formal essence of original sin.

These convincing arguments have led the majority of theologians to adopt the view formulated in our thesis.³⁷

2. To render privation of grace a sin, another factor must co-operate, namely the ratio voluntarii, i.e., freely incurred guilt. Although sanctifying grace, even in baptized infants, is doubtless more than a mere physical ornament of the soul (viz.: moral righteousness and sanctity, gratia sanctificans, iustificans), its loss involves real guilt only when it is due to a sinful act of voluntary renunciation. For every habitual sin postulates an actual sin, every guilt a moral crime, the death of the soul a sinful act of murder. To deny this fundamental principle of moral philosophy would be equivalent to Manichaeism.³⁸ Consequently, original sin, too, being real guilt, must have for its efficient cause a sinful act. Where are we to look for this sinful act? In the case of infants it surely cannot be a personal sin, since an infant is guilty of original sin before he is able to commit a sinful personal act. The sin which causes privation of grace in an infant, therefore, can be none other than the sin of Adam in Paradise, constituting in some way or other a real guilt in the infant as well. This is precisely the teaching of St. Paul. Rom. V, 12: “Per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit” — By one man sin entered into this world. Rom. V, 19: “Per inobedientiam unius hominis peccatores constituti sunt multi” — By the disobedience of one man many were made sinners. This is also the unanimous and firm belief of the Fathers of the Church. In the words of St. Augustine: “Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando fuimus ille unus, qui per feminam lapsus est in peccatum” — For we were all in that one man, when we were all [identical with] that one man who through a woman fell into sin.³⁹

3. To the question, why the sin of Adam inheres as a true sin, i.e. as real guilt (reatus culpae) in all his descendants, we can only reply that this is a mystery which theological speculation is unable to explain. The following considerations are commonly adduced to refute certain philosophical objections.

It was the will of God that Adam should be physically and juridically the head of the human race, and, as such, should act as its representative. God had given him original justice and its concomitant preternatural prerogatives not only as a personal privilege, but as a heritage which he was to transmit to all his descendants. In other words, original justice was essentially hereditary justice, original sanctity was essentially hereditary grace, and a privilege given to human nature as such.⁴⁰ Consequently, hereditary grace and human nature were from the first causally related. The nexus existing between them was based neither on metaphysical necessity nor on any legal claim, but was instituted by the free will of God. When Adam voluntarily renounced original justice, he acted not for himself alone, but as the representative of his race, as the moral and juridical head of the whole human family. Thus the loss of original justice was essentially a privation of hereditary justice, and as such tantamount to a voluntary renunciation on the part of human nature of its supernatural heritage. This voluntary renunciation involves an hereditary guilt, which is voluntary on the part of each and every individual human being, because Adam, acting as head and progenitor of the race, rejected sanctifying grace in the name of his entire progeny. Consequently original sin is not a personal sin, but a sin of nature, conditioned upon our generic relation to Adam, who, contrary to the will of God, despoiled human nature of grace and thereby rendered it hostile to its Creator.

It will be worth while to support this explanation by theological authorities. St. Anselm of Canterbury, who is called the Father of Scholasticism, writes luminously as follows: “In Adamo omnes peccavimus, quando ille peccavit, non quia tunc peccavimus ipsi qui nondum eramus, sed quia de illo futuri eramus, et tunc facta est necessitas, ut cum essemus peccaremus: quoniam per unius inobedientiam peccatores constituti sunt multi.”⁴¹ St. Thomas Aquinas says with his usual clearness: “Sicut autem est quoddam bonum, quod respicit naturam, et quoddam quod respicit personam, ita etiam est quaedam culpa naturae et quaedam personae. Unde ad culpam personae requiritur voluntas personae, sicut patet in culpa actuali, quae per actum personae committitur. Ad culpam vero naturae non requiritur nisi voluntas in natura illa. Sic ergo dicendum est, quod defectus illius originalis iustitiae, quae homini in sua creatione collata est, ex voluntate hominis accidit. Et sicut illud naturae donum fuit et fuisset in totam naturam propagatum homine in iustitia permanente, ita etiam privatio illius boni in totam naturam perducitur quasi privatio et vitium naturae; ad idem genus privatio et habitus referuntur. Et in quolibet homine rationem culpae habet ex hoc, quod per voluntatem principii naturae, i.e. primi hominis, inductus est talis defectus.”⁴² Blessed Odo of Cambrai (†1113) graphically describes the difference between personal sin and sin of nature as follows: “Peccatum, quo peccavimus in Adam, mihi quidem naturale est, in Adam vero personale. In Adam gravius, levius in me; nam peccavi in eo non qui sum, sed quod sum. Peccavi in eo non ego, sed hoc quod sum ego; peccavi homo, non Odo; peccavi substantia, non persona. Et quia substantia non est nisi in persona, peccatum substantiae est etiam personae, sed non personale. Peccatum vero personale est, quod facio ego, qui sum, non hoc quod sum; quo pecco Odo, non homo; quo pecco persona, non natura. Sed quia persona non est sine natura, peccatum personae est etiam naturae, sed non naturale.”⁴³

The logical and theological possibility of original sin therefore depends upon three separate and distinct conditions: (1) The existence of a supernatural grace which was not due to human nature, and the absence of which entails enmity with God, i.e., a state of sin; (2) The existence of an ontological nexus by which Adam and his descendants constitute a moral unity or monad; (3) The existence of a positive divine law conditioning the preservation or loss of hereditary grace upon the personal free-will of our progenitor as the head and representative of the whole human family.

God cannot be charged with cruelty or injustice on account of original sin, for He denies fallen man nothing to which his nature has a just claim. Adam’s headship was divinely intended for the purpose of transmitting original justice (not original sin) to all his descendants. God did not cause but merely permitted the Fall of man, perhaps with a view of making it the source of still greater blessings, such as the Incarnation, Redemption, grace, etc. O felix culpa, o certe necessarium Adae peccatum!

4. The Contractual and the Alligation Theories. To facilitate a deeper understanding of the community of nature and will that unites Adam with the members of his family, there have been excogitated two separate and distinct theories, one of which is called the theory of Contract, the other, the theory of Alligation. The contractual theory (sometimes also called “Federalism”), holds that God made a formal contract with Adam to this effect: If you preserve hereditary justice, it will be transmitted to all your descendants; but if you forfeit it, you will involve yourself and your posterity in misery and sin.⁴⁴ According to the other theory, God by a decretum alligativum so bound up the will of all of Adam’s descendants with that of their progenitor that the will of Adam became the will of his family, just as under the civil law a free-will act of a guardian is considered equivalent to that of his ward.

It seems to us, however, that neither of these theories contributes anything to a profounder appreciation of the nature of original sin. If the causal nexus existing between Adam and his descendants was a positive ordinance of God, there was no need of a contract or decretum alligativum. If, on the other hand, we deny the existence of such a causal nexus, the transmission of Adam’s sin by inheritance becomes absolutely unintelligible. A breach of contract might result in an evil of nature, but it could never produce a sin of nature, while the inclusion of the will of Adam’s descendants in that of their progenitor per se can constitute only a nexus conditionis, but never a nexus unitatis. Revelation furnishes no basis whatever for such hypotheses, and Dominicus Soto is right in treating them as “fictions.”⁴⁵

One more important observation and we shall close. We have explained that original sin formally consists in privation of grace and that concupiscence is merely a resulting penalty. St. Thomas and several other eminent theologians regard concupiscence as an integral though secondary constituent of original sin, in fact as its materia (its forma being absence of grace).⁴⁶ The Angelic Doctor explains this as follows: Every habitual sin embraces two essential elements: (1) A turning away from God (aversio a Deo) and (2) a turning to the creature (conversio ad creaturam). The first is the formal, the second the material element. In the case of original sin, this turning to the creature manifests itself most drastically in concupiscence, and therefore concupiscence enters as an integral constituent into the essence of original sin and is thereby sharply differentiated from other evils such as mortality, suffering, diabolical or external temptation, etc. In matter of fact concupiscence, though not in itself sinful, lies very near the line that divides the physical from the moral order; so much so that even its unconscious movements (motus primo-primi) are, materialiter, opposed to the moral law, and escape being sins only by the circumstance that the will withholds its formal consent. It is in this sense we must understand St. Augustine, when he speaks of a reatus concupiscentiae, as for instance in the following passage: “Cuius concupiscentiae reatus in baptismate solvitur, sed infirmitas manet, cui donec sanetur, omnis fidelis, qui bene proficit, studiosissime reluctatur.”⁴⁷ This view, which was adopted by some of the Schoolmen, must not be confounded with the heretical teaching of the Protestant Reformers, or with that of the Jansenists.⁴⁸ The Tridentine Council originally intended to defend this Scholastic view against its opponents by adding to its first draft of the Decretum de Peccato Originali the words: “Non improbare Synodum eorum theologorum assertionem, qui aiunt, manere post baptismum partem materialem peccati originalis [scil. concupiscentiam], non formalem.” This clause was, however, omitted from the final draft of the decree.⁴⁹

Notes

Readings

Schlünkes, Wesen der Erbsünde, Ratisbon 1863. Hurter, Compend. Theol. Dogmat., t. II, n. 407 sqq., Oeniponte 1896 (S. Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 398 sqq.). G. Pell, Das Dogma von der Sünde und Erlösung im Lichte der Vernunft, Ratisbon 1886. Scheeben, Mysterien des Christentums, §§ 40 sqq., 3rd ed., Freiburg 1912. J. H. Busch, Das Wesen der Erbsünde nach Bellarmin und Suarez, Paderborn 1909. S. Harent, art. “Original Sin” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XI. C. Gutberlet, Gott und die Schöpfung, pp. 360 sqq., Ratisbon 1910. P. J. Toner, “Matter and Form of Original Sin,” in the Irish Theol. Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. 2 (1911), pp. 186–195.

Note on this transcription: this article works through four competing theories of what original sin formally is — a substantial corruption (rejected), concupiscence itself (rejected), mere extrinsic imputability à la De Lugo (rejected as improbable), and privation of sanctifying grace rooted in Adam’s headship (the position defended) — closing with the “matter and form” account (concupiscence as materia, privation of grace as forma) and the Contract/Alligation theories of how Adam’s guilt transmits, both of which the author dismisses as unnecessary fictions. Textually this article was clean apart from routine page-break footnote splits.