If original sin is removed, then original justice is restored. Which would mean that the mediated incorruptibility should be restored?

Original sin is the privation of original justice. But that original justice included multiple harmonies, ordered to each other. The body was ordered to the soul, and in harmony with it. The lower appetites were ordered to reason, and in harmony with reason. And reason was ordered to God in agape, and thus in harmony with God. But when man sinned, and by his will turned away from God, all the other harmonies were lost. The essence of original justice, however, is the relation between man and God. The others are were accidental to it. At baptism, we recover agape, but in this life we retain both concupiscence (i.e. lack of original integrity, — harmony of lower appetites with reason) and corruption of the body (i.e. lack of original immortality). So we recover the essence of original justice, but (in this life) not those two gifts that originally accompanied original justice.

Unless this agape, the participation in the divine, which is the ends of baptism, is gifted in the place of original justice? And that agape allows for our participation in the divine and the community of saints.

I don’t follow this last question. Adam and Eve originally had agape, and then lost it by sin. We recover it again, at baptism. But we do not recover (in this life) the other preternatural gifts that were included with original justice: i.e. integrity (perfect ordering of lower appetites to reason) and immortality (perfect ordering of body to soul).

God allowed concupiscence to remain in us so that we might do battle with it, and so gain greater merit. He allowed is to remain mortal, so that we might put off this body of sin, and be resurrected with a divine body, as St. Paul describes in 1 Cor 15. This is why God mercifully blocked the way back into Eden, after Adam and Eve sinned. (Gen 3:22-24)

I hope that helps answer your question.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

“So when Adam and Eve forfeited their original justice through sin, they thereby forfeited the mediated incorruptibility their bodies had enjoyed.”

If original sin is removed, then original justice is restored. Which would mean that the mediated incorruptibility should be restored? Unless this agape, the participation in the divine, which is the ends of baptism, is gifted in the place of original justice? And that agape allows for our participation in the divine and the community of saints. Or am I just In-Left-Field???

Thanks for the clarifications! Very much appreciated.

That should read: I readily acknowledge that I may bereading Calvin wrongly.

I hope that someday we can edit our posts!

The fruit that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat when they dwelt in Original Justice/Original Righteousness was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:17). It is interesting to me that the tree bearing the forbidden fruit is named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and not simply the tree of the knowledge of evil. I believe that in the naming of this tree that the genius and the divine inspiration of the author of Genesis is revealed. To me, there is contained in name the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a message about the parasitical nature of evil, i.e. the knowledge of what is evil cannot exist apart from the knowledge of what is good. The reverse is not true; the knowledge of the good can exist apart from the knowledge of evil. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew what was good without knowing what was evil, hence their Holy Innocence when they dwelt in Original Justice.

I have had self-professed Calvinists tell me this concerning the forbidden fruit: that although God expressly revealed his will to Adam that he was not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that God actually secretly willed for Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. These Calvinists claim that eating of the forbidden fruit would eventually bring about a spiritual maturity to mankind, and that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil gave to mankind a knowledge of morality that Adam and Eve were lacking when they dwelt in Holy Innocence. Without the knowledge of moral evil, mankind could never have known the knowledge of moral good.

Is this a common belief among Calvinists? Or is this something that is found only in the fringes of Calvinism? It seem to me that Calvin believed that even before the Fall that Adam already knew how to discern good from evil. (I readily acknowledge that I am reading Calvin wrongly).

Institutes of the Christian Religion CHAPTER 15 – STATE IN WHICH MAN WAS CREATED. THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL—THE IMAGE OF GOD—FREE WILL—ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xvi.html)

“Therefore, God has provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he might discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might know what to follow or to shun, reason going before with her lamp… To this he has joined will, to which choice belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition, when reason, intelligence, prudence, and Judgment, not only sufficed for the government of his earthly life, but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites, and temper all the organic motions; the will being thus perfectly submissive to the authority of reason. In this upright state, man possessed freedom of will, by which, if he chose, he was able to obtain eternal life. It were here unseasonable to introduce the question concerning the secret predestination of God, because we are not considering what might or might not happen, but what the nature of man truly was.

How would Adam have been able to discern good from evil before he ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of the fruit of good and evil? Isn’t it the eating of the forbidden fruit the act that gave Adam the knowledge of evil?

Also, what does Calvin mean when he talks about the “secret predestination of God”?
Did Calvin believe that God secretly predestined the Fall?

Thank you Fr. Kimel, I will look at Newman’s lectures. I have not read much of him (only justification and the debate regarding diakoo). I will check it out. Peace in Him – Jeremy

What I think this suggests is something which seems plausible enough anyway — namely, that “the cause” of the Reformation (whether ‘material’ or ‘formal’) really can’t be neatly boiled down to any one particular theological issue, such that when agreement is achieved on that issue all other resistence to reunification will cease. When Horton and Gerstner (e.g.) say that, if today they discover they’re wrong about justification, they’d be at the Vatican doing penance tomorrow, I think this is mostly rhetorical flourish. Some may indeed view justification as supremely important, but I think, for most, even were that issue resolved there would remain something to latch hold of and make a point of protest.

FV is often portrayed as the “yellow brick road to Rome,” because of what FV proponents say about justification, baptism, and the like. But, from watching this controversy unfold for a while, my sense is that accepting the FV picture about justification (etc.) is not enough to set you on the road to Rome. (Else Leithart probably would’ve become Catholic by now!) If anything, I think it is the FV rejection of gnosticism, its attempt at recovering liturgy, its historical consciousness and the like, that makes people who’ve followed the FV movement more likely to be exposed to the Catholic tradition. And from that point, once you’re exposed to “the real thing,” so that you’re ready to give it a hearing on its own terms, it’s easier to get sucked into Rome’s gravitational orbit. Would you consider that to be a fair description of how some erstwhile FV proponents end up becoming Catholic (or Orthodox)?