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With regard to the body, children born in the state of
innocence would enjoy perfect subjection of the body to the
soul and they would be equipped for the acts suitable to
childhood, because their parents would transmit human
nature as they had received it.
With regard to the soul, if men persevered in the state
of innocence, would they be born with original justice and
sanctifying grace even though neither the soul nor grace
are carried over by generation?
St. Thomas replies by quoting these words of St.
Anselm: "If man did not sin, those whom he generated
would be just at the same time that they received a
rational soul."[1473]
St. Thomas explains: "I reply by saying that man
naturally generates a being similar to himself in species.
Hence in the case of whatever accidental things follow
upon the nature of the species it is necessary that the
children resemble their parents, unless some error take
place in the operations of nature, which would not have
happened in the state of innocence. In particular
accidents however, it is not necessary that the children
be like the parents. But original justice, in which the
first man was established, was an accident belonging to
the nature of the species, not indeed caused by the
principles of the species but as a certain gift divinely
conferred on the entire nature. This is clear when we
recall that opposites belong to the same genus. But
original sin, which is the opposite of that original
justice, is said to be the sin of the nature, and hence
is carried on by the parents to the offspring. Because of
this the children were like the parents with regard to
original justice."
"In replying to the second objection, in which some say
that the children were not born with gratuitous justice
(grace), which is the principle of meriting, but only
with original justice: since the root of original
justice, in whose righteousness man was created, consists
in the supernatural subjection of reason to God, which
makes man pleasing by grace, it is necessary to say that
if the children are born in original justice, they are
also born in grace, as we said above about the first man,
who was established in grace. But this did not make it a
natural grace, because it was not transmitted by virtue of
the seed but was conferred on man as soon as he received a
rational soul, just as, when the body is disposed, God
infuses the rational soul, which similarly is not passed
on by the parents."
In the state of innocence men were not confirmed in grace
when they were born, because the children at the time of
their birth had no more in the way of perfection than their
parents.[1474] Children born in the state of
innocence were not perfect in knowledge, but in time they
easily acquired perfect knowledge.[1475]
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