ORIGINAL
314
ORIGINAL
moral truths, free will destroyed, the very substance
of man ehan(je<l into evil. Hut acconliiiK t" Catholic
theology man ha.-; not lost his natural faculties: by the
sin of .\datn he ha.s been deprived only of the Divine
gifts to which his nature had no strict right, thi' com-
plete mastery of his pa.ssions, exemption from death,
sanctifying grace, the \ision of God in the next life.
The Creator, whose gifts were not due to the human
race, had the right to Ix'stow them on such conditions
as He wished and to make their conservation depend
on the fidelity of the head of the family. \ prince can
confer a hereditary dignity on condition that the re-
cipient remains loyal, and that, in case of his rebel-
ling, this dignity shall be taken from him and, in con-
sequence, from his descendants. It is not, however,
intelligible that the prince, on account of a fault com-
mitted by a father, should order the hands and feet of
all the descendants of the guilty man to be cut off im-
mediately after their birth. This comparison repre-
sents the doctrine of Luther which we in no way
defend. The doctrineof the Church supposes no sensi-
ble or afflictive punishment in the next world for chil-
dren who die with nothing but original sin on their
souls, but only the privation of the sight of God
[Denz., n. 1.526 (1389)].
VI. N.iTUHE OF Original Sin. — This is a difficult point and many systems have been invented to explain it: it will suffice to give the theological explanation now commonly received. Original sin is the privation of sanctifying grace in consequence of the sin of Adam. This solution, which is that of St. Thomas, goes back to St. Anselm and even to the traditions of the early Church, as we see by the declaration of the Second Council of Orange {a. d. 529): one man has transmit- ted to the whole human race not only the death of the body, which is the punishment of sin, but even sin itself, which is the death of the soul [Denz., n. 175 (145)]. As death is the privation of the principle of life, the death of the soul is the privation of sanctifying grace which according to all theologians is the principle of supernatural life. Therefore, if original sin is "the deal h of the soul" , it is the privation of sanctifying grace.
The Council of Trent, although it did not make this solution obligatory by a definition, regarded it with favour and authorized its use (cf. Pallavicini, "Istoria del Concilio di Trento", vii-ix). Original sin is described not only as the death of the soul (Sess. V, can. ii), but as a "privation of justice that each child contracts at its conception" (Sess. VI, cap. iii). But the council calls "justice" what we call sanctifying grace (Sess. VI) , and as each child should have had per- sonally his own justice so now after the fall he suffers his own privation of justice. We may add an argu- ment based on the principle of St. Augustine already cited, " the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin". This principle is developed by St. Anselm : "the sin of Adam was one thing but the sin of children at their birth is quite another, the former was the cause, the latter is the effect " (De conceptu virgi- nali, xxvi). In a child original sin is distinct from the fault of Adam, it is one of its effects. But which of these effects is it? We shall examine the several effects of Adam's fault and reject those which cannot be ori- ginal sin: —
(1) Death and Suffering. — These are purely physi- cal evils and cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and after him the councils, regarded death and origi- nal sin as two distinct things transmitted by Adam.
(2) Concupiscence. — This rebellion of the lower ap- petite transmitted to us by Adam is an occasion of sin and in that sense comes nearer to moral evil. How- ever, the occasion of a fault is not necessarily a fault, and whilst original sin is effaced by baptism concupis- cence still remains in the person baptized; therefore original .sin and concupiscence cannot be one and the same thing, as was held by the early Protestants (see Council of Trent, Sess. V, can. v).
(.3) The absence of sanctifying grace in the new-born
child is also an effect of the first .sin, for Adam, having
received holinc'^s and justice from (Jod, lost it not only
for himself but also for us (loc. cit., can. ii). If he has
lost it for us we were to have received it from him at
our birth with the other prerogatives of our race.
Therefore the absence of sanctifying grace in a child is
a real privation, it is the want of soniclliiiig that should
have been in him according to tlic 1 )ivinc )}l:in. If this
favour is not merely something phy.-ical but is some-
thing in the moral order, if it is holiness, its jiiixation
may be called a sin. But sanctilyiiig grace i.s holiness
and is so called by the Council of Tniit, because holi-
ness consists in union with God, .-iiid grace unites us
intimately with God. Moral goodness consists in this
that our action is according to the moral law, but grace
is a deification, as the Fathers say. a perfect conform-
ity with God who is the first rule of all morahty. (See
Gkace.) Sanctifying grace therefore enters into the
moral order, not as an act that passes but as a perma-
nent tendency which exists even when the subject who
possesses it does not act; it is a turning towards (iod,
conversio ad Deum. Consequently the privation of
this grace, even without any other act, would be a
stain, a moral deformity, a turning away from God,
auersio a Deo, and this character is not found in any
other effect of the fault of Adam. This privation,
therefore, is the hereditary stain.
VII. How Voluntary. — "There can be no sin that is not voluntary, the learned and the ignorant admit this evident truth ", writes St. Augustine (De vera relig., xiv, 27). The Church has condemned the opposite solution given by Baius [prop, xlvi, xlvii, in Denz., n. 1046 (926)]. Original sin is not an act but, as already explained, a state, a permanent privation, and this can be voluntary indirectly — just as a drunken man is de- prived of his reason and incapable of using his liberty, yet it is by his free fault that he is in this state and hence his drunkenness, his privation of reason is voluntary and can be imputed to him. But how can original sin be even indirectly voluntary for a child that has never used its personal free will? Certain Protestants hold that the child on coming to the use of reason will con- sent to its original sin; but in reality no one ever thought of giving this consent. Besides, even before the use of reason, sin is already in the soul, according to the data of Tradition regarding the baptism of chil- dren and the sin contracted by generation. Some the- osophists and spiritists admit the prc-existence of souls that have sinned in a former life which they now for- get; but apart from the absurdity of this metempsy- chosis, it contradicts the doctrine of original sin, it substitutes a number of particular sins for the one sin of a common father transmitting sin and death to all (cf. Rom., V, 12 sqq.). The whole Christian religion, says St. Augustine, may be summed up in the inter- vention of two men, the one to ruin us, the other to save us (De pecc. orig., xxiv). The right solution is to be sought in the free will of Adam in his sVi, and this free will was ours: "we were all in Adam", says St. Ambrose, cited by St. Augustine (Opus imperf., IV, civ). St. Basil attributes to us the act of the first man : " Because we did not fast (when Adam ate the forbid- den fruit) we have been turned out of the g;n<len of Paradise" (Hom. i de jejun., iv). Earlier still is the testimony of St. Irena'us; "In the person of the first Adam we offend God, disobeying His precept" (Hajres., V, xvi, 3).
St. Thomas thus explains this moral unity of our will with the will of Adam. "An individual can be considered either as an individual or as part of a whole, a member of a society. . . . Considered in the .second way an act can be his although he lias not done it him- self, nor has it been done by his free will but by the rest of the society or by its head, the nation being con- sidered as doing what the prince does. For a society is considered as a single man of whom the individuals are
