1. THE CHURCH'S TEACHING ON THE GIFT OF ORIGINAL JUSTICE AND ON ORIGINAL SIN

1. The Council of Trent declared: "If anyone shall assert that Adam's sin injured himself alone and not his posterity, and that Adam forfeited for himself alone and not for us also the holiness and justice which he had lost; or that the sin of disobedience transmitted to the whole human race only death and the punishment of the body but not the sin which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, because he contradicts the Apostle, who said, 'Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.'"[1477]

The words "holiness and justice which he had lost" clearly indicate not only integrity of nature but also sanctifying grace, and therefore we may construct the following argument against the aforesaid thesis.

Adam lost for himself and for us "holiness and justice," that is, sanctifying grace and not merely the integrity of nature. But what he lost for himself and for us he had not received purely as a personal gift. Therefore Adam received sanctifying grace not only as a personal gift but also as a hereditary gift of nature.

If it should be objected that Adam lost the integrity of nature directly for us and indirectly lost sanctifying grace, this would no longer be the obvious meaning of the Council, for the obvious meaning is that which is understood apart from any implied distinction. Indeed what the Council primarily proposes as received for us and lost for us is holiness itself, which in the accepted language of the Church most certainly means more than the integrity of nature, and specifically, means sanctifying grace. Hence the doctrine that holds that grace in Adam was a gift of nature is at least more conformable to the declarations of the Council of Trent than the other.

2. A similar argument may be drawn from the definition of original sin given by the Council. The Council of Trent declared that original sin is the "death of the soul."[1478] But in the language of the Church the "death of the soul" is essentially the privation of the spiritual life of grace. Therefore original sin is the privation of original justice, since sanctifying grace is intrinsically related to this justice.

In the thesis which we are opposing, original sin cannot be called the death of the soul except dispositively, for in that thesis original sin is only the privation of the integrity of nature and the disposition for the privation of sanctifying grace. But this is not the obvious sense of the Council. According to the fathers of the Council, the holiness which Adam lost for himself and for us was grace, and original sin is transmitted in generation with human nature and without God's grace.[1479]

3. This doctrine is confirmed by the Church's teaching about the principal effect of baptism. By baptism original sin is remitted. But baptism directly and immediately confers grace but it does not restore the integrity of nature. Therefore if original sin consisted formally in the privation of the gift of integrity, it would not be forgiven in baptism, because concupiscence remains in those who are reborn in baptism.[1480]

If it should be said that the gift of integrity is restored with regard to the subjection of the mind to God through the healing effect of grace, we reply that even in the will of the baptized person the good is still difficult and the inclination to evil remains, and this was not true of man in the state of integral nature.[1481] Here again this thesis departs from the obvious sense of the Council of Trent.

4. In the schema of the Vatican Council we read: "Under anathema we proscribe the heretical doctrine of those who have dared to say that in Adam's posterity original sin is not truly and properly a sin unless by actual consent they approve this sin by sinning, or who deny that the privation of sanctifying grace belongs to the nature of original sin, which grace our first parent lost for himself and his posterity by voluntary sin."[1482] Later on the Council explained as follows: "It is not said that this privation of grace is the essence itself of original sin,....but that it pertains to the nature or original sin, which is still true as long as it is not denied that this privation is necessarily connected with original sin."[1483] This explanation was added in view of the opinion of certain ancient Scholastics, which was not rejected as erroneous. But according to the obvious sense of the Council of Trent the Vatican Council declared, "Adam....by his voluntary sin lost grace not only as it was personal to himself but as it was to be derived from God's institution by all of his posterity. That which is said to pertain to the nature of original sin is not only the negative lack of sanctifying grace but the privation of grace, that is, the lack of holiness, which according to God's ordination was to be in all of Adam's posterity, since in the beginning it elevated the whole human race in its root and in its head to the supernatural order of grace; now however Adam's descendants are deprived of this grace."[1484]

This is saying equivalently that in the innocent Adam sanctifying grace was not only a personal gift but a gift to human nature to be transmitted with that nature, and this grace Adam lost for himself and for his posterity, as the Council of Trent has declared.

Otherwise Catholic theologians of almost every school who at least since the time of Baius taught this doctrine would have been in error about the very definition of original sin and original justice. This would be hard to admit, but this is precisely what is affirmed in the defense of the aforesaid thesis.[1485]