Part II, Chapter II, Section 3, Article 5: The Penalties of Original Sin

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §3, Article 5 (pp. 286–307)

Although the penalties of original sin are practically the same for Adam’s descendants as they were for Adam himself, there is a difference in degree. Our first parents deserved a severer punishment for their actual transgression than their unfortunate descendants, who have committed no personal fault but are merely tainted by inherited guilt. The sin of our first parents was a mortal sin, while that with which their descendants are born is merely a sin of nature, and consequently, in point of co-operation, there is less guilt in original sin than even in the smallest venial sin. This is the express teaching of St. Thomas.¹

But why does God, who punishes venial sin only with purgatory, visit original sin with eternal damnation? For the reason that, in the words of Francis Sylvius, original sin by its very nature imports privation of justice, and he who is infected with it lacks that grace by which alone the punishment can be lifted.²

1. The Penalties of Original Sin in the Wayfaring State

In order to gain a clear notion of the effects of original sin, let us consider an unbaptized infant. He is free from personal guilt, mortal or venial, and tainted solely by the stain of original sin. A consideration of his condition here below and his fate in the next world, should he die before receiving Baptism, will give us a good idea of the nature of original sin and the penalties which it entails.

Divine Revelation enables us to reduce the effects of original sin in the status viae to four distinct groups, all of which are penalties until Baptism removes their guilt and together with it their characteristic as a punishment; some of them, however, continue as mere consequences of original sin even after Baptism.

a) By far the worst effect of original sin in the theological order is the privation of sanctifying grace,³ which involves the loss of all its supernatural concomitants, such as adoptive sonship, the theological virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, etc.⁴ The privation of these strictly supernatural gifts, entailing as it does the loss of all claim to Heaven and of the right to actual graces (these can, however, be regained by Baptism), plainly bears the stamp of a just punishment. But even in the privatio gratiae there is besides the element of guilt also an element of punishment.

Privation of grace implies (1) the turning away of man from God (aversio hominis a Deo), which constitutes the nature of original sin as such; (2) a turning away of God from man (aversio Dei ab homine), i.e., the anger and indignation of God against the sinner, which constitutes the punishment for sin, a punishment that manifests itself in the privation of sanctifying grace. It is in this latter sense that St. Thomas teaches: “Conveniens poena peccati originalis est subtractio gratiae et per consequens visionis divinae.”⁵ And again: “Subtractio originalis iustitiae habet rationem poenae.”⁶

b) The most disastrous effect of original sin in the moral order is concupiscence, so touchingly described by St. Paul⁷ as “the law of sin that is in my members.”⁸ Second among the evil effects of original sin, because most intimately related to concupiscence, is the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit. Not only does man’s tendency to evil furnish evident proof of the existence of original sin,⁹ but concupiscence — even in its unpremeditated stirrings — including the irascible passions, not only furnishes the occasion for a large number of actual sins, but leads directly to material sins.¹⁰ It is for this reason that St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans calls concupiscence sin, and St. Thomas Aquinas treats it as an integral constituent — more specifically as the material component — of original sin.

c) In the physical order, death, passibility, the suffering caused by disease, unhappiness, etc., are not mere consequences but also penalties of original sin; and this is as true of every man born in the state of original sin as it was of Adam himself. Chief among these evils is the death of the body, which in most of the Scriptural texts dealing with the subject is emphasized as the typical penalty of sin in the physical order.¹¹ The Council of Trent describes this whole category of evils by the phrase, “mors et poenae corporis.”¹²

Special mention must be made of the disturbed relation of fallen man to nature, especially to the animal kingdom. In enumerating the prerogatives enjoyed by Adam in Paradise, the Roman Catechism expressly says that he ruled over the brute creation. This teaching is well supported by Gen. I, 26 sqq. Adam forfeited this prerogative both for himself and his descendants, but through the merits of Jesus Christ it was restored in a limited degree and by way of exception to certain of the Saints (St. Francis of Assisi, among others).

d) Another, extrinsic, penalty of original sin is the dominion of Satan, under which humanity has groaned ever since the Fall. In casting off the divine law man voluntarily shouldered the galling yoke of the Devil and became his slave. 2 Pet. II, 19: “A quo enim quis superatus est, huius et servus est” — For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave. The Fall of our first parents inaugurated the diabolical regimen which caused Christ to describe Satan as “the prince of this world,”¹³ while St. Paul went so far as to refer to him as “the god of this world.”¹⁴ With the Fall also began the temptation of man by the Devil, the worship of demons, idolatry, the deception practiced by pagan oracles, diabolical possession, etc.¹⁵

It is interesting to note that the Tridentine Council refers to the captivitas diaboli as the cause of death, and speaks of the Devil as exercising a “reign of death.”¹⁶ What are we to understand by this “reign of death”? Surely something more than bodily decay. It means the power of evil, which is quite as truly a reign of death as the dominion of Jesus Christ is a power unto life. “The opposition of life and death,” remarks Glossner, “is personified in Christ on the one hand, and in the Devil on the other. Christ is the author and ruler of life, because He is life itself. The Devil is irretrievably doomed to eternal death by his personal conduct, and is consequently ‘the prince of death,’ the ruler of the ‘empire of death.‘“¹⁷

2. The Dogma of Free-Will

It is an article of faith that even in the state of original sin man retains full liberty of choice between good and evil.

Liberty in general is immunity either (1) from external compulsion (libertas a coactione), or (2) from inward necessitation (libertas a necessitate). Free-will embraces both and may therefore be explained as active indifference of doing or not doing a thing (libertas contradictionis sive exercitii), of doing it thus or otherwise (libertas specificationis), of doing what is good or what is evil (libertas contrarietatis). The last-mentioned kind of liberty is not a prerogative, but a defect of free-will. The libertas contradictionis constitutes the complete essence of free-will; for he who is able freely to will or not to will, is eo ipso also able to will this particular thing or that. Hence the term free-will (liberum arbitrium, libertas indifferentiae). The necessity consequent upon a free act does not destroy, but rather includes free-will, and is therefore called necessitas consequens s. consequentiae, in contradistinction to necessitas antecedens s. consequentis, which determines the will.¹⁸ As soon as the will, by determining itself, has performed a free act, this act becomes a historical fact and cannot be undone. This is what is called historical necessity. There is another kind of necessity, termed hypothetical, which does not destroy the liberty of the will; for to will an end one must needs will those means without which the end cannot be attained. A traveller who insists on visiting a city which can be reached in no other way than by water, must necessarily choose the water route, though he may enjoy untrammeled liberty of choice with regard to his starting point and different lines of steamers. The distinction between physical and ethical freedom of choice does not affect substance but merely extension. Physical liberty extends to morally indifferent actions, such as walking, reading, writing, and so forth, whereas ethical liberty refers solely to such actions as are morally good or bad. The theologian is concerned with ethical liberty only, and our thesis is that man enjoys freedom of choice between good and bad even in the state of original sin.

a) Luther asserted that ethical liberty was so completely destroyed by original sin that fallen man is compelled to do good or evil according as “God or the Devil rides him.” This teaching has been expressly condemned as heretical. “Si quis liberum hominis arbitrium post Adae peccatum amissum et extinctum esse dixerit, … anathema sit” — If any one assert that the free will of man was lost and became extinct after the sin of Adam, let him be anathema.¹⁹ It was on the denial of free-will that Calvin based his terrible doctrine of Predestination.

α) The dogmatic teaching of the Church is supported by all those numerous texts of Scripture which describe the human will, even in the condition in which it finds itself after the Fall, as exercising a free choice between good and evil, life and death, the worship of the true God and idolatry, and which expressly ascribe to man the power of governing his passions. To quote only a few passages: Deut. XXX, 19: “Testes invoco hodie coelum et terram, quod proposuerim vobis vitam et mortem, benedictionem et maledictionem; elige ergo vitam” — I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life. Josue XXIV, 15: “Optio vobis datur; eligite hodie, quod placet, cui servire potissimum debeatis, utrum diis, quibus servierunt patres vestri in Mesopotamia, an diis Amorrhaeorum, in quorum terra habitatis: ego autem et domus mea serviemus Domino” — You have your choice: choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Amorrhites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Gen. IV, 7: “Sub te erit appetitus eius, et tu dominaberis illius” — The lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it. There are many other passages in which Holy Scripture postulates liberty of choice by commanding or suggesting something conditioned upon man’s free will. Cfr., e.g., Matth. XIX, 17: “Si vis ad vitam ingredi, serva mandata” — If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. St. Paul freely admits the existence of a moral and religious aptitude even in pagan nations, thereby indirectly teaching the doctrine of free-will.²⁰

β) As regards the Fathers, Calvin himself admits that they unanimously defend free-will. The Greek Fathers²¹ speak of the αὐτεξούσιον τῆς τῶν ἀνθρώπων φύσεως quite as often as their Latin colleagues of the liberum arbitrium.²² St. Augustine, on whom the Jansenists pretend to base their heterodox teaching, occasionally alludes to “a decline of free-will in consequence of original sin”;²³ but the liberty he has in view is not the natural ethical liberty of the will; it is the freedom from concupiscence which our first parents enjoyed in Paradise and which they forfeited by original sin. Thus he says in his treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians: “For which of us can say that by the sin of the first man free-will perished from the human race? Through sin liberty indeed perished, but it was that liberty which was in Paradise. … For free-will is so far from having perished in the sinner, that by it all [who sin] sin.”²⁴

b) In addition to its denial of free-will, Jansenism upheld another grievous heresy, viz.: that in the state of fallen nature mere freedom from external compulsion (libertas a coactione) is sufficient to produce merit or demerit. The third of the series of condemned propositions extracted from the writings of Jansenius reads: “Ad merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sed sufficit libertas a coactione.”²⁵ This proposition was condemned as heretical; hence it is an article of faith that the will, to be entirely free in its actions, must not only be exempt from external compulsion, but must intrinsically determine itself; in other words, it must be absolutely free also from intrinsic necessity.²⁶

α) Sacred Scripture accentuates the sovereignty of the will over its interior actions quite as strongly as the essential dependence of the ethical merit or demerit of our free-will actions on the absence of all manner of intrinsic necessitation. St. Paul says of him who has the choice between the married state and virginity: “Having no necessity, but having power of his own will (μὴ ἔχων ἀνάγκην, ἐξουσίαν δὲ ἔχει περὶ τοῦ ἰδίου θελήματος).”²⁷ And in Ecclus. XXXI, 8 sqq., the moral value of human actions is described as necessarily conditioned by free determination: “Beatus dives, qui inventus est sine macula, et qui post aurum non abiit nec speravit in pecunia et thesauris. Quis est hic? et laudabimus eum; fecit enim mirabilia in vita sua. Qui probatus est in illo et perfectus est, erit illi gloria aeterna; qui potuit transgredi et non est transgressus, facere mala et non fecit” — Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures. Who is he, and we will praise him, for he hath done wonderful things in his life. Who hath been tried thereby, and made perfect, he shall have glory everlasting. He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed, and could do evil things, and hath not done them.

β) This conception, which is based upon the most elementary moral sentiment, dominates the writings of the Fathers to such an extent that it was only by the most violent sophistry that Jansenius was able to base his heretical teaching on the utterly misunderstood dictum of St. Augustine: “Quod amplius nos delectat, secundum id operemur necesse est” — We must of necessity act according to that which pleases us most.²⁸ By delectatio St. Augustine does not mean the unfree impulse which in the impulses called motus primo-primi overpowers the will; but that deliberate delectation which motivates the determination of the will. That a man may repel the attraction of grace as freely as he may resist the incitements of the senses, Augustine knew from his own experience, for he says in his Confessions: “Non faciebam, quod et incomparabili affectu amplius mihi placebat” — I did not do that which pleased me incomparably more.²⁹ At no time in his life did this great and holy Doctor ever deny free-will or teach that freedom from external compulsion is sufficient to render a moral action meritorious. “God gave free-will to the rational soul which is in man,” he says in his treatise against Fortunatus. “Thus man was enabled to have merits: if we are good by our own will, not of necessity. Since, therefore, it behooved man to be good not of necessity, but by his own will, God had to give to the soul free-will.”³⁰

3. How Nature Is “Wounded” by Original Sin

The Scholastic theory of the vulneratio naturae is based on the ancient teaching of the Church that original sin entailed a serious deterioration of both body and soul,³¹ and on the doctrine of various councils that it weakened and warped free-will.³²

a) In attempting to estimate the extent of the injury which human nature suffered through original sin, and to determine the measure of its influence upon the attenuatio et inclinatio liberi arbitrii, St. Thomas Aquinas proceeds from the principle that fallen man — aside from original sin proper, as guilt — could experience a deterioration of his nature only with regard to those psychic faculties which are apt to be the seat of virtues, to wit: reason, will, pars irascibilis, and pars concupiscibilis. By opposing to the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) the four contrary vices of ignorance, malice, weakness, and cupidity, the Scholastics arrived at what they called the four “wounds of nature” inflicted by original sin. It is quite obvious that free-will, too, was affected by these four vices, especially by evil concupiscence.³³ Man suffers grievously from these wounds³⁴ even after justification.

b) Theologians are not agreed as to whether these “wounds of nature” consist in an actual deterioration of the natural faculties of the soul, or merely in the privation of supernatural justice. Of course, neither of the two contending schools dreams of asserting that original sin formally annihilated any natural faculty of the soul. The more moderate school contents itself with saying that fallen nature is merely the state of pure nature into which man was thrown back, while the extreme school insists that original sin seriously impaired the natural faculties of the soul. This difference of opinion accounts for the various interpretations put upon the well-known axiom: “Natura est spoliata gratuitis et vulnerata in naturalibus.”³⁵ The rigorists describe the relation of fallen man to man in a state of pure nature as that of a patient to one in the enjoyment of good health (aegroti ad sanum), while their opponents compare it to the relation of a man who has been stripped of his garments to one who has never had any (nudati ad nudum). A reconciliation of the two opinions is impossible except on the basis of a previous understanding with regard to the true conception of the so-called state of pure nature.³⁶

4. The Effects of Original Sin in the Status Termini, or the Lot of Unbaptized Children

Since original sin is not actual sin, but merely a sin of nature, the punishment inflicted on those who die while involved in it cannot consist in physical suffering (poena sensus), but simply and solely in their exclusion from the beatific vision of God (poena damni). The hypothesis that they will be punished by fire (poena ignis) must be rejected as cruel and untenable.

a) The rigoristic view alluded to in the last sentence had its defenders among the Fathers and early ecclesiastical writers. We mention only Fulgentius,³⁷ Avitus of Vienne,³⁸ and Pope Gregory the Great.³⁹ It was advocated also by a few of the Schoolmen, e.g., St. Anselm,⁴⁰ Gregory of Rimini⁴¹ (who was called by the opprobrious name of “torturer of little children,”⁴²), and by Driedo,⁴³ Petavius,⁴⁴ Fr. Sylvius, and the so-called Augustinians, to whom may be added Bossuet and Natalis Alexander. St. Augustine,⁴⁵ while admitting that the punishment of unbaptized children is “the mildest punishment of all,”⁴⁶ yet speaks of it as ignis aeternus, so that Faure⁴⁷ and others have charged him with advocating the more rigorous view.⁴⁸ In matter of fact his attitude was one of uncertain hesitation. Towards the end of his life he seems to have held that the penalty pronounced in Matth. XXV, 41: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire,” would not fall upon unbaptized children, but that, “as between reward and punishment there may be a neutral sentence of the judge.”⁴⁹

b) The teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent from her dogmatic definitions than from either Scripture or Tradition. It is an article of faith that children who die unbaptized must suffer the poena damni, i.e., are deprived of the beatific vision of God. “Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”⁵⁰ The arbitrary assumption, said to have been made by the Pelagians, that unbaptized infants, though deprived of the kingdom of heaven (i.e., communion with Jesus Christ and the Saints), nevertheless enjoy “eternal life” (i.e., the visio beatifica), was never admitted by the Fathers nor by the magisterium of the Church.⁵¹ “Si quis parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat,” says the Tridentine Council, ”… aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod regenerationis lavacro necesse sit expiari ad vitam aeternam consequendam, anathema sit.”⁵²

But do unbaptized infants also suffer the poena sensus? More specifically, are they condemned to the punishment of fire? The milder and more probable opinion is that they are not. This milder teaching is traceable to the writings of some of the earlier Fathers;⁵³ but the Church did not emphasize it until a much later period. An important, though not ex-cathedra, decision is the dictum of Innocent III, embodied in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, that “Poena originalis peccati est carentia visionis Dei, actualis vero poena peccati est gehennae perpetuae cruciatus.”⁵⁴ The opposition in this passage between original and actual sin on the one hand, and carentia visionis and cruciatus (i.e., poena ignis) on the other, justifies the conclusion that privation of the beatific vision (= poena damni) is the only punishment inflicted on him who has no other guilt than that involved in original sin, while he who is guilty of actual sin has to suffer the eternal torments of hell (= poena sensus).

When the Jansenist pseudo-council of Pistoia ventured to ridicule the so-called limbus puerorum as a “Pelagian fiction,” Pope Pius VI solemnly declared in his dogmatic Bull “Auctorem fidei” (A.D. 1794): “Perinde ac si hoc ipso, quod qui poenam ignis removent, inducerent locum illum et statum medium expertem culpae et poenae inter regnum Dei et damnationem aeternam, qualem fabulabantur Pelagiani: falsa, temeraria, in scholas catholicas iniuriosa.”

But how is this teaching to be reconciled with the definition of the Council of Florence that “the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin, or merely in original sin, at once go down to hell, to be punished unequally?”⁵⁵ What is the meaning of the phrase in infernum? Does it imply that the unbaptized children are condemned to the tortures of hellfire? Impossible. To understand the definition aright we must attend to the expressly defined disparity of punishment quite as carefully as to the descensus in infernum. As there is an essential difference between original and actual sin, the disparitas poenarum held by the Church must be more than a mere difference of degree; it must be specific, which can only mean that unbaptized infants suffer the poena damni, but not the poena sensus.

As a matter of fact the pain of hellfire can be inflicted only in punishment of personal sin, because it directly affects human nature in its innate faculties and powers, and subjects not merely the supernatural and preternatural gifts a man may have, but his very nature to the punitive justice of God. “Peccato originali non debetur poena sensus,” says St. Thomas, “sed solum poena damni, scil. carentia visionis divinae. Et hoc videtur rationabile propter tria. Primo quidem quia … peccatum originale est vitium naturae, peccatum autem actuale est vitium personae. Gratia autem et visio divina sunt supra naturam humanam, et ideo privatio gratiae et carentia visionis divinae debentur alicui personae non solum propter actuale peccatum, sed etiam propter originale. Poena autem sensus opponitur integritati naturae et bonae eius habitudini, et ideo poena sensus non debetur alicui nisi propter peccatum actuale.”⁵⁶

c) In connection with the subject just discussed theologians are wont to treat the question (of considerable importance in pastoral theology) whether, in view of the dogma that unbaptized children suffer the poena damni, it is possible to entertain the hypothesis that these infants may enjoy a species of natural beatitude in the world beyond. Cardinal Bellarmine somewhat harshly calls the affirmative view heretical and lays it down as an article of faith that those children who die without the grace of Baptism are absolutely damned and will be forever deprived of supernatural as well as natural beatitude.⁵⁷ The eminent Cardinal’s thesis is true in so far as man in the present economy cannot miss his supernatural without at the same time missing his natural destiny. Now, according to the dogmatic teaching of the Church he who dies in the state of original sin cannot attain to the beatific vision of God, which is his supernatural end, and consequently incurs eternal damnation (poena damni); hence it would be heretical to assume that he could escape damnation and attain to his natural end in the form of a purely natural beatitude corresponding to the status naturae purae. But Cardinal Bellarmine overlooked the fact that between these two extremes (damnation in the strict sense and natural beatitude) there is conceivable a third state, viz.: a condition of relative beatitude materially though not formally identical with natural beatitude properly so called. He who dies in the state of original sin can never formally attain to natural beatitude, because original sin remains in him and will perpetually exclude him from the kingdom of heaven; in other words, as there is no status purae naturae, so there can be for him no beatitudo purae naturae. But materially he may enjoy all those prerogatives which in some other economy would have constituted man’s natural end and happiness, viz.: a clear abstractive knowledge of God combined with a natural love of Him above all things — such a love is in itself a source of natural beatitude. It may almost be laid down as a theological axiom that original sin, as such, cannot deprive man of those natural prerogatives which in the state of pure nature would constitute his natural end and object; but that it affects only supernatural prerogatives. For this reason St. Thomas does not hesitate to assert that the consciousness of being eternally deprived of the beatific vision of God is not even a source of tormenting pain or exceptional sadness to unbaptized children. “Omnis homo usum liberi arbitrii habens proportionatus est ad vitam aeternam consequendam, quia potest se ad gratiam praeparare, per quam vitam aeternam merebitur; et ideo si ab hoc deficiant, maximus erit dolor eis, quia amittunt illud, quod suum esse possibile fuit. Pueri autem nunquam fuerunt proportionati ad hoc, quod vitam aeternam haberent: quia nec eis debebatur ex principiis naturae, cum omnem facultatem naturae excedat, nec actus proprios habere potuerunt, quibus tantum bonum consequerentur. Et ideo nihil omnino dolebunt de carentia visionis divinae, imo magis gaudebunt de hoc, quod participabunt multum de divina bonitate in perfectionibus naturalibus.”⁵⁸ This opinion of the Angelic Doctor is now shared by so many eminent theologians that it may justly be called sententia communior,⁵⁹ and so far from being un-Catholic or heretical, may be entertained as highly probable.⁶⁰

Notes

Readings

St. Thomas, De Malo, qu. 5. Fr. Schmid, Quaestiones Selectae ex Theologia Dogmatica, pp. 289 sqq., Paderborn 1891. J. R. Espenberger, Die Elemente der Erbsünde nach Augustin und der Frühscholastik, Mainz 1905. Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Free Will and Four English Philosophers (Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Mill), London 1906.

Note on this transcription: while working through this article, the two footnotes flagged as unrecoverable at the end of Article 4 (notes 18–19, on Augustine/Leo the Great and Anselm’s treatise on original sin) turned out to have spilled onto this article’s opening page — the by-now-familiar page-break pattern — and have been restored in that earlier file. This article’s own 60 footnotes were otherwise fully recoverable. The limbo/poena damni discussion in particular draws on a long chain of conciliar and papal texts (Trent, Innocent III, Florence, Pius VI’s “Auctorem fidei” against the Synod of Pistoia) which required care to keep straight, since each addresses a slightly different angle of the same question.

This completes Section 3 (Original Sin, Articles 1–5) and with it all of Chapter II, “Dogmatic Anthropology.” Chapter III, “Angelology,” follows next in Part II.