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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]
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