SECOND ARTICLE: THE EXISTENCE OF ORIGINAL SIN AND ITS EFFECTS ON ADAM'S POSTERITY

State of the question. Those who attempt to explain all the evils of this life as the effects of an evil principle, like the Gnostics and Manichaeans, indirectly deny the existence of original sin. In early times Theodore of Mopsuestia, Rufinus, and the Pelagians directly denied original sin; in the Middle Ages, Abelard and the Albigenses took the same position; in modern times the Socinians, the Unitarians, and the liberal Protestants also denied original sin, teaching that Adam injured only himself and not the entire human race, except inasmuch as he gave a bad example. The rationalists and pantheists deny original sin a fortiori as something absurd. The Modernists say that the doctrine about original sin is merely a theory invented by St. Augustine.

Luther and the early Protestants, on the other hand, exaggerated the consequences of original sin when they said that "free will is merely a name, and when man does what he wishes he sins mortally."[1531]

The Catholic doctrine is stated by the Council of Trent: "If anyone shall say that by his transgression Adam injured only himself and not his progeny, and that the holiness and justice which he received from God and which he lost, was lost only for himself and not also for us; or that the guilt of that sin of disobedience transmitted merely death and the punishments of the body to the human race but not the sin, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle, who said, 'By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.'"[1532]

Moreover it has been defined that original sin is transmitted not by imitation but by propagation or generation from the seed of Adam;[1533] that it is a true sin, bringing with it the privation of sanctifying grace and the gift of integrity,[1534] that it is proper to each individual,[1535] although it is not personal,[1536] that it is found in infants,[1537] in Christians as well as infidels,[1538] that it is voluntary, not by the habitual will of the infant,[1539] but by reason of its origin from the will of the first man, the head of the human race,[1540] that it differs from actual sin by reason of the consent,[1541] and by reason of the penalty, which in the case of original sin is only the lack of the vision of God,[1542] but in a manner different from that in the other damned souls,[1543] since non-baptized infants are indeed condemned (to the penalty of loss) but do not actually hate God,[1544] nor do they suffer the punishment of fire.[1545] Original sin is remitted in the baptism of regeneration,[1546] which must be received at least in desire.[1547]

This doctrine may be summed up as follows: All men naturally born of Adam, with the exception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by their conception contract some sin, which is correctly called original sin or "the sin of nature," and which brings with it the privation of sanctifying grace and the gift of integrity. Prior to the Council of Trent, this doctrine was formulated in the Council of Milevum (416)[1548] and the Second Council of Orange.[1549]

Sacred Scripture. The testimony is found as early as the beginning of the Old Testament and more explicitly in the New Testament. From the Book of Genesis it is clear that the fall of our first parents injured all their posterity; all men lost the friendship of God, the gifts of immortality and immunity from pain and concupiscence. Besides, the promise of the Redemption included all of Adam's posterity and therefore presupposed that all men had fallen in their first parents.[1550] The words, "Who can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed?"[1551] have been understood in Jewish and Christian tradition as referring to the sin contracted in conception. The words, "For behold I was conceived in iniquities: and in sins did my mother conceive me,"[1552] without the aid of tradition do not prove the existence of original sin, because it may be said that they refer to concupiscence, which, according to the Council of Trent, may be called sin in an improper sense.[1553]

The entire Old Testament announces the promised Redeemer and thus supposes the fall of the human race. We read, "From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die,"[1554] since in some way the sin of our first parents came down to us. Finally, according to the Fathers, circumcision remitted original sin.[1555]

This doctrine is more explicitly revealed in the New Testament. Of Christ it is said, "For He shall save His people from their sins,"[1556] and "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world."[1557] Christ said: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."[1558] No one is able to be spiritually reborn unless he has been spiritually dead by a common habitual sin, because infants are not capable of actual sin. "We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest,"[1559] that is, from birth, and therefore not by actual sin but by a sin contracted in conception. This is the sense in which many understand this text.[1560]

The doctrine of original sin is more explicitly expressed by St. Paul: "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom (or because) all have sinned";[1561] "For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just."[1562] As St. Augustine explained against the Pelagians, St. Paul is here affirming that all men have died because all have sinned through Adam or in him, just as all are vivified in Christ. This sin is truly a sin and not merely that concupiscence which remains in the baptized, because it is opposed to justice and grace and leads "unto condemnation."[1563] St. Paul is not speaking of actual sin, because this sin is also "in them who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam."[1564] Hence it is a sin committed by Adam alone, the head of the human race, a sin which passed on to all his posterity not by imitation but by propagation as the Council of Trent declared.[1565] Here we see the parallel between Christ and Adam, who as the head of the human race was the "form of the future."[1566]

Objection. We read, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father."[1567]

Reply. This refers to the punishment due a father, which should not be inflicted on an innocent son, while original sin is transmitted. to us and is in each of us together with the privation of the preternatural gifts of nature.

Tradition. During the first four centuries, before the rise of Pelagianism, the belief in original sin was expressed by the Church's universal practice of baptizing infants for the remission of sin and to drive out the devil; hence the exorcisms in baptism. De Journel quotes Hermas: "Before a man bore the name of the son of God, he was dead; but when he received the seal, he cast off mortality and resumed life. The seal therefore is water; the dead descend into the water and ascend from it alive."[1568] St. Irenaeus, also in the second century, said, "We have indeed offended God in the first Adam by not obeying His precept, but in the second Adam we were reconciled, being made obedient unto death."[1569] Similar testimony comes from St. Justin,[1570] Theophilus of Antioch;[1571] in the third century from St. Cyprian, Origen, and Tertullian;[1572] and in the fourth century from St. Basil, Didymus, St. Ambrose,[1573] and St. John Chrysostom.[1574] Mary is called the new Eve, who cooperated in the mystery of the Redemption as the first Eve cooperated in the fall of the human race.[1575]

Lastly, St. Augustine defended the existence of original sin against Pelagianism, basing his arguments on Sacred Scripture and reason.[1576] The Pelagian denial of original sin was condemned by the Councils of Carthage[1577] and Ephesus[1578] and by St. Celestine.[1579]

Theological proof. Reason alone, from the miseries of this life, which affect even infants, cannot prove the existence of original sin, which remains a mystery in the proper sense, just as the elevation of the human race to the life of grace is a mystery, for God could have created man in the state of pure nature, in which he would not be immune from pain, death, ignorance, and concupiscence. These miseries, therefore, are only a probable sign of the existence of original sin, as St. Thomas said.[1580]

After revelation, however, especially as it is expressed in the Epistle to the Romans,[1581] St. Thomas was able to explain by an analogy how the first sin of our first parents is transmitted by origin to their posterity: "All men who are born of Adam can be regarded as one man inasmuch as they are one in nature, which they have received from their first parent, just as in society all the men of one community are considered one body, and the whole community is considered one man..... Thus many men are derived from Adam as the several members of one body. The action of one bodily member, such as the hand, is not voluntary by the will of the hand but by the will of the soul which moves the member..... Thus also the inordination which is in this man generated from Adam is not voluntary by his will but by the will of the first parent who moves by the movement of generation all the men who are derived from him by origin..... Therefore original sin is not the sin of this particular person except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from the first parent. Hence it is called the sin of nature."[1582]

In his reply to the first difficulty, St. Thomas says, "The sin is derived by origin from the father to the son."

In the reply to the second difficulty, he says: "Human nature is transmitted by virtue of the seed and together with it the infection of nature." Thus Adam's first sin (not his other sins) is passed on to this posterity, that is, to all men, who all therefore need redemption.[1583] The force of this argument, as Cajetan explains, is in the analogical proportion between our will and our members on the one hand, and the will of Adam and other men, who are as it were his members, since they proceed by generation from him as from the head of human nature, which was once elevated and then despoiled of its supernatural gifts.

This is not a proof of the mystery by reason; that is impossible. But from this reasoning we have some insight into the mystery, according to the words of St. Paul to the Romans,[1584] "both from an analogy of those things that we know naturally, and from the connection between the mysteries and their relation to man's final end," as the Vatican Council said.[1585] Thus light is thrown on the mystery of original sin from its relationship to the mystery of the Redemption, for God did not permit such a great offense except for the greater good of the redemptive Incarnation, that is, in order that grace might superabound.[1586]

Some theologians, among them Salmeron, Toletus, Lugo, the school of Wurzburg, teach that Adam's sin was morally committed by his posterity through the moral inclusion of our wills in the will of our first parent. This has not been proved nor does it appear admissible. Original sin is not an act but a sinful state that directly affects the nature and only indirectly the person. Adam accepted for himself and his posterity holiness and justice as a gift to human nature, or as an accident to nature,[1587] and he lost it for himself and for us, as the Council of Trent declared.[1588]

Nor can it be admitted that a compact existed between God and Adam whereby his sin should be transmitted to his posterity. We have no indication that such a pact was made, nor was Adam's consent necessary that his sin be transmitted to his posterity.

Adam, therefore, was not only the physical head of the human race by whom the life of the body was transmitted, but he was also the head of elevated nature.[1589] Under this aspect Adam was the moral head of the human race for, if he had not sinned, he would have communicated human nature together with the gifts of nature when he communicated natural life, as St. Thomas explains: "Children would have been born with grace..... But the grace would not have been transfused by virtue of the seed but it would have been conferred on a man as soon as he had a rational soul, just as the rational soul is infused by God as soon as the body is disposed to receive it."[1590] Now, however, after Adam's sin, original sin, which is opposed to that original justice, is called the sin of nature, and hence is transmitted by the parents to their children.[1591]