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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]
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