everyone would have original sin unless someone by his merits prevents it.” 39
Pursuing the argument further, the Subtle Doctor continues: "One may argue that she [Mary] was by priority of nature a daughter of Adam before she had grace, since she was a person before she could receive grace. In that prior state she was a debtor to original justice as a natural daughter of Adam, and did not have this justice, and therefore in this prior state she contracted original sin.” 40
Inasmuch as generation precedes sanctification, concedes Scotus, Mary was a daughter of Adam before she became an adopted daughter of God; therefore she must have been in need of redemption, because subject to original sin. But though under the aspect of time our thoughts may dwell thus on Mary — conceived first as a daughter of Adam and then sanctified as a daughter of God — this does not imply a priority of time which would demand in the soul of Mary two successive states, one of sin and the other of grace. There is only in her at the first moment of her existence a twofold relation: that of a daughter of Adam, for which she is indebted to her human generation, subject to the common law and establishing the debt of sin; and that of a daughter of God, which she owes to the privileged sanctification which has protected her from the consequences of the common law and extinguished in her the debt of sin by a special application of the foreseen merits of the Saviour.
"It may be said,” writes Scotus, "that all children of Adam are subject to original sin if nature be left to itself. But this will not hinder divine power from effecting the opposite in the soul of Mary. The Son of God is not in
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