What I say below in reply to the Protestant objections presupposes that the reader has already read the previous two posts related to original justice and original sin, and listened to the lectures embedded in each: “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark” and “Lawrence Feingold on Original Justice and Original Sin.”

Outline:
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Francis Turretin
Charles Hodge
Gordon Clark
Peter Leithart

On October 5, Professor Lawrence Feingold of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology and author of The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and his Interpreters and the three volume series The Mystery of Israel and the Church gave a lecture titled “Original Sin and Its Consequences” to the Association of Hebrew Catholics. The audio recordings of the lecture and of the following Q&A, along with outlines of each, are available below. In the lecture, Professor Feingold provided a critique of both Luther and Calvin’s objections to the Catholic doctrine concerning original justice and original sin. Below I will present those objections in the context of his lecture, and then present additional Reformed objections to the Catholic doctrine from Turretin, Hodge, Clark, and Leihart.

Lawrence Feingold

Lecture:

1. Summary of original justice and original sin (1′)

What Adam and Eve lost (7′)
The Biblical witness to original sin (10′)
The Council of Trent on original sin (19′)

2. Errors Concerning Grace and Original Sin (21′ 30″)

Fundamentally, there are two opposite errors regarding original sin. One is an error of deficiency, in which original sin is treated as less damaging to human nature than it actually is. That is the error of Pelagius. The other is the error of exaggeration, in which original sin is treated as more damaging to human nature than it actually is. That is the error of Luther, Calvin and the Protestants who followed them. Nevertheless, both errors are based on a failure to distinguish grace from nature. When grace and nature are conflated, then attempting to explain man’s capacity to do what man can do only by grace results in an exaggeration of the power of human nature, and thus Pelagianism. Likewise, when grace and nature are conflated, then attempting to explain the effect of the loss of grace results in an undervaluation and pessimism concerning nature, namely, the notion that nature itself has been corrupted.

The Error of Pelagius: Minimization of Original Sin (22′ 40″)
The charges against Pelagius in AD 411 were that he taught the following:

1. Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.
2. Adam’s sin harmed only himself, not the human race.
3. Children just born are in the same state as Adam before the fall.
4. The whole human race neither dies through Adam’s sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ.
5. The [Mosaic] Law is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.
6. Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.

Pelagius’s errors were condemned in the Council of Carthage (AD 418) which was approved by Pope Zosimus:

Can. 1. All the bishops established in the sacred synod of the Carthaginian Church have decided that whoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or whether he did not sin, he would die in body, that is he would go out of the body not because of the merit of sin but by reason of the necessity of nature, let him be anathema.

Can. 2. Likewise it has been decided that whoever says that infants fresh from their mothers’ wombs ought not to be baptized, or says that they are indeed baptized unto the remission of sins, but that they draw nothing of the original sin from Adam, which is expiated in the bath of regeneration, whence it follows that in regard to them the form of baptism “unto the remission of sins” is understood as not true, but as false, let him be anathema. Since what the Apostle says: “Through one man sin entered into the world (and through sin death), and so passed into all men, in whom all have sinned” [cf. Rom. 5:12], must not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith even infants, who in themselves thus far have not been able to commit any sin, are therefore truly baptized unto the remission of sins, so that that which they have contracted from generation may be cleansed in them by regeneration. (Denzinger 101-102)

The Council of Trent also condemned the Pelagian heresy; see paragraphs 3 and 4 in Session Five of the Council of Trent. I have discussed Session Five in greater detail in “Aquinas and Trent: Part 7.”

3. Protestant Errors on Original Sin (34′)

Here we find the opposite error with respect to original sin, namely, an exaggeration of original sin.

Martin Luther

Luther’s two principal errors with respect to original sin are as follows:

(1) Treating original sin as the complete corruption of human nature, rather than as the loss of the preternatural and supernatural gifts.

(2) Treating concupiscence (i.e. the involuntary disorder in the lower appetites) as original sin.

In the lecture Prof. Feingold evaluates two quotations from Martin Luther regarding the Catholic doctrine of original justice and original sin. In the 39th minute of his lecture, he cites the following quotation from Luther:

The scholastic statement that “the natural powers are unimpaired” is a horrible blasphemy, though it is even more horrible when they say the same about demons. If the natural powers are unimpaired, what need is there of Christ? If by nature man has good will; if he has true understanding to which, as they say, the will can naturally conform itself; what is it, then, that was lost in Paradise through sin and that had to be restored through the Son of God alone? Yet in our day, men who seem to be masters of theology defend the statement that the natural powers are unimpaired, that is, that the will is good. Even though through malice it occasionally wills and thinks something besides what is right and good, they attribute this to the malice of men, not to the will as it is in itself. (Luther’s commentary on Psalm 51, in Luther’s Works, vol. 12, 308.)

Luther’s argument here is this:

(1) If the natural powers of man are unimpaired, then there would be no need of Christ to restore what was lost in Paradise.
(2) But of course there is need for Christ to restore what was lost in Paradise.

Therefore

(3) The natural powers of man must be impaired.

This argument is not sound, because the first premise is false. The greatest gift Adam and Eve lost through their sin was the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace, which is restored to us through Christ. The need for Christ is due to the need for the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace in order to attain the supernatural end to which God has called us; not for any healing of human nature per se.¹

A few minutes later in the lecture (43′), Prof. Feingold examines another quotation from Luther, who wrote:

The scholastics argue that original righteousness was not a part of man’s nature but, like some adornment, was added to man as a gift, as when someone places a wreath on a pretty girl. The wreath is certainly not a part of the virgin’s nature; it is something apart from her nature. It came from outside and can be removed again without any injury to her nature. Therefore they maintain about man and about demons that although they have lost their original righteousness, their natural endowments have nevertheless remained pure, just as they were created in the beginning. But this idea must be shunned like poison, for it minimizes original sin.

Let us rather maintain that righteousness was not a gift which came from without, separate from man’s nature, but that it was truly part of his nature, so that it was Adam’s nature to love God, to believe God, to know God, etc. These things were just as natural for Adam as it is natural for the eyes to receive light. But because you may correctly say that nature has been damaged if you render an eye defective by inflicting a wound, so, after man has fallen from righteousness into sin, it is correct and truthful to say that our natural endowments are not perfect but are corrupted by sin. For just as it is the nature of the eye to see, so it was the nature of reason and will in Adam to know God, to trust God, and to fear God. Since it is a fact that this has now been lost, who is so foolish as to say that our natural endowments are still perfect? And yet nothing was more common and received more general acceptance in the schools than this thesis. But how much more foolish it is to make this assertion about the demons, about whom Christ says that they did not stand in the truth (John 8:44) and whom we know to be the bitterest enemies of Christ and of the church!

Therefore the perfect natural endowments in man were the knowledge of God, faith, fear, etc. These Satan has corrupted through sin; just as leprosy poisons the flesh, so the will and reason have become depraved through sin, and man not only does not love God any longer but flees from Him, hates Him, and desires to be and live without Him. (LW 1:164-165)

The only reason Luther gives here for rejecting the Church’s teaching concerning original righteousness is that “it minimizes original sin.” But to a person who is exaggerating original sin, the truth concerning original sin appears as a minimization. Sacred theology is based on divinely revealed truths; sacred theology is not a philosophical construct to be determined by how evil we think original sin is, or how good we think the gospel must be. Sacred theology is not rightly constructed according to our own opinions about how evil or good something is, but only according to what Christ has revealed through His Apostles. What is necessary in order to determine what is an exaggeration, what is orthodox, and what is a minimization, is an objective standard. And that standard is not Luther’s interpretation of Scripture; it is the Apostolic teaching as mediated to us through the authoritative determinations of the Church’s Magisterium.

Martin Luther

Second, the loss of sanctifying grace is an infinite loss, because it is the loss of participation in the divine nature, which is infinite in intellect and will and every perfection.² By contrast, a corruption of human nature is a finite loss, because what is lost is only finite. So, even according to the philosophical criterion Luther provides, original sin according to the Catholic doctrine is far more evil than original sin according to Luther’s theology. Luther’s theory therefore minimizes original sin far more than does the Catholic doctrine concerning original sin.

Luther urges his reader to believe that it was Adam’s nature to love God, believe God, to know God, just as natural for Adam as it is natural for the eyes to receive light. Luther reasons from the fact that Adam knew and loved God prior to the fall, to the conclusion that doing so was “truly part of his nature.” The problem with this claim, as was pointed out in “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark,” is that it makes man by his very nature into God, and thus denies the Creator-creature distinction. God cannot create another God, because God by His very nature is uncreated. So any created being cannot in its primary nature be God; it can at most participate in the divine nature through a condecension by God to grant the creature the gift of participating in the divine nature. But if man by his very nature saw God, knew God, and loved God, this would entail that the Beatific Vision is intrinsic to man by his very nature. But the Beatific Vision can be intrinsic only to God, because the Beatific Vision is God’s vision of Himself. Hence Luther’s theology is fatally flawed here, by positing that God can make a creature that has as its primary nature something that can be had intrinsically only by God.

Luther argues that since the demons are the bitterest enemies of Christ and His Church, that therefore their natural endowments must no longer be perfect. And therefore the nature of fallen man must likewise have been corrupted through sin. But again, Luther’s conclusion does not follow. The confirmation of the demons in opposition to God as a result of their free choice, as well as the confirmation of the righteous angels in obedience to God as a result of their free choice, is due to the irreversibility of angelic choice, because they do not reason discursively as do we. Hence the inflexibility of the demons’ will against God does not entail any loss of their natural endowments or corruption of their very nature.³ Luther mistakenly treats the loss of the supernatural and preternatural gifts, as a corruption of man’s nature.

Professor Feingold then briefly discusses Luther’s second error: identifying original sin with concupiscence. (49′ 50″) I have discussed this error in more detail in “Aquinas and Trent: Part 7.”

John Calvin (51′ 20″)

John Calvin wrote the following:

Original sin, then, may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh. . . . Hence, those who have defined original sin as the want of the original righteousness which we ought to have had, though they substantially comprehend the whole case, do not sufficiently enough express its power and energy. For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil, that it can never be idle. Those who term it concupiscence use a word not very inappropriate, provided it were added . . . that everything which is in man, from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence; or, to express it more briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence. (Institutes, II. 1.8.)

John Calvin

Calvin claims that the Catholic teaching does “not sufficiently express” the power and energy of our fallen condition. For Calvin, “the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.” Calvin reaches this conclusion in part by his experience of concupiscence within himself. Calvin’s mistake is the opposite conclusion drawn from the same false premise we saw in Pelagianism, namely, the implicit assumption that there is no distinction between what is natural and supernatural. Without sanctifying grace, everything man does is not ordered to his supernatural end. Without sanctifying grace, man does nothing for the sake of loving God as Father. In that respect, Calvin is right about fallen man (apart from sanctifying grace) continually falling short of agape, because fallen men apart from sanctifying grace have no agape. But Calvin concludes from that that human nature is entirely corrupted. That conclusion would only follow if loving God as Father were natural to man, and were not a supernatural gift given in addition to man’s nature as rational animal. In actuality fallen man can do many good thing with the natural virtues, ordered to man’s natural end. Ignoring the natural/supernatural distinction sets up the false dilemma that if man is not loving God as Father, then human nature is entirely corrupted. But recognizing the natural/supernatural distinction shows that dilemma to be a false dilemma, because in that case while man no longer loves God as Father, he nevertheless retains his natural goodness as man made in the image of God, and capable of the natural virtues described by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. The capacity for natural virtues is not merely the result of “common grace” added to a completely corrupted human nature; the capacity for natural virtues is intrinsic to human nature, which in itself remains uncorrupted after the fall.

4. Concupiscence and the Four Wounds of Sin (53′ 30″)⁴

The Patristic interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan (62′ 50″)
The Teaching of the Council of Trent (67′ 12″)

5. Modern Pelagianism: De-mythologizing Genesis (68′ 25″)

6. Modern Jewish thought on Original Sin (80′)

7. Why did God permit Original Sin? (83′)

Q&A:

1. Why did God give Adam and Eve such power to cause all the rest of us to lose their gifts, that we had nothing to say about it? Why didn’t everybody get a chance? (1′)

2. Luther thinks that the condition of fallen men is to hate God and to desire to be without Him. If the Catholic alternative is only the condition of concupiscence, then why don’t most people want to know God and worship God? How do we explain the universal running away from God unless God gives grace? (4′ 50″)

3. What is wrong precisely with Calvin’s claim that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence? (9′ 29″)

4. Please explain natural vs. supernatural goodness. (11′ 45″)

5. Please explain the difference between paradise and heaven. (14′ 57″)

6. In the state prior to original sin (i.e. in original justice) was there no arena for spiritual combat? (17′ 44″)

7. The Catholic Church does seem to show more glory and good coming from God’s “Plan B.” (20′ 14″)

8. The instinctive Protestant reaction to what you taught tonight is that the Catholic Church has downplayed the effects of the fall. Apart from the errors, is it likely that the Church has understated the wounds of sin in practice? (20′ 56″)

9. In psychology there is a term ‘projection’ which means you see in others what you do yourself. Could Luther’s seeing of total depravity and concupiscence in man have possibly been projection? (22′ 55″)

The mp3s can be downloaded here.

Additional Reformed Objections to the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin

Francis Turretin (1623–1687)

In the first volume of his Institutes of Elenctic Theology, the seventeenth century Reformed theologian Francis Turretin has a rather in-depth discussion on these questions. His Ninth Question reads: “Was man created in puris naturalibus, or could he have been so created? We deny against the Pelagians and the Scholastics.” In his answer he writes,

Where two things immediately opposed belong to any subject, one or other of the two must necessarily be in it. Now righteousness and sin are predicated of man as their fit subject and are directly opposed to each other. Therefore one or the other must necessarily be in him; nor can there be a man who is not either righteous or a sinner. (Fifth Topic, Q.9, para. 6.)

Turretin’s argument is that man cannot be neutral; he must be either righteous or sinful. Therefore, God could not possibly create man in a state of puris naturalibus, neither sinful nor righteousness. Turretin’s conclusion would follow only if there were no difference between the natural and the supernatural, and hence between natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness. But there is a difference between natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness. (See question #4 in the Q&A here.) Therefore it was possible for God to make Adam in a state of natural righteousness but without supernatural righteousness (i.e. without sanctifying grace and agape).

A few paragraphs later Turretin writes:

Since the very want of original righteousness is sin, man cannot be conceived as destitute of it without being conceived to be a sinner (especially since that defect would not be a mere negation, but a privation of the rectitude that ought to be i him. (Fifth Topic, Q.9, para. 10.)

His argument is very simple. The premise is: The very lack of original righteousness is sin. The conclusion is: Man cannot be conceived as destitute of original righteousness without being conceived as a sinner. This is not a sound argument, because the premise is false. Turretin makes this claim (i.e. the first premise) because he fails to distinguish between natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness. He therefore assumes that to be without original righteousness is necessarily to be a sinner. But in actuality, a person could be without supernatural righteousness, while having natural righteousness and therefore not a sinner. So Turretin’s argument presupposes that there is no distinction between natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness. And that presupposition not only conflates nature and grace, it also begs the question (i.e. assumes precisely what he is trying to show).

In Question 10, he writes:

First, this image (negatively, kat’ arsin) does not consist in a participation of the divine essence (as if the nature of man was a shadow [aposkiasmation] of the divine and a certain particle of the divine breath, as the Gentiles hold). For in this way the Son of God only is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) — the essential and natural, and no mortal can attain to it because the finite cannot be a partaker of the infinite. And if we are said by grace to be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), this is not to be understood of an essential, formal and intrinsic participation, but an analogical, accidental and extrinsic participation (by reason of the effects analogous to the divine perfections which are produced in us by the Spirit after the image of God). (Fifth Topic, Q.10. para. 4.)

Francis Turretin

Here Turretin denies that man can participate intrinsically in the divine nature. For Turretin, man participates in the divine nature only in the sense that the effects of sanctification in us are analogous to the divine perfections. For example, patience within the sanctified man is like the patience in God; mercy in the sanctified man is like the mercy in God. Love in the sanctified man is like the love in God. And so on. The problem with this notion is that it reduces heaven to Abraham’s bosom (Lk. 16:22-23). The happiness, patience, mercy, and love within men in Abraham’s bosom is like that of the happiness, patience, mercy, and love in God. And yet Abraham’s bosom is not heaven; Christ descended to the dead, and when He ascended He led a host of captives.⁵ For that matter, any happiness, patience, mercy, and love had presently among pagans is by analogy like that of God. So they too participate in the divine nature, in Turretin’s sense. In this way, Turretin’s interpretation of 2 Peter 1:4 evacuates the gospel of the supernatural happiness which is the Beatific Vision, and of the sanctification unique to those having sanctifying grace, agape, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Turretin’s eleventh question is “Was original righteousness natural or supernatural?” His answer: “The former we affirm, the latter we deny against the Romanists.” He gives six reasons in his defense of his answer. I will examine them each in turn.

The reasons are: (1) Because goodness and rectitude are natural to man in a state of innocence, then original righteousness was also (which is made up of these). As was the relation of goodness to the remaining creatures, so also was the relation to man. Now goodness was natural to the remaining creatures (Gen. 1:31); therefore, also to man. The same is true with regard to rectitude, since it is ascribed to man from his creation as opposed to what is adventitious (Ecc. 7:29). Therefore it must have been natural. (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 7.)

His argument here that original righteousness was natural, and not supernatural, is as follows:

(1) Goodness was natural to the remaining creatures.
(2) Whatever was natural to the remaining creatures is natural to man.

Therefore

(3) Goodness was natural to man. [from (1) and (2)]
(4) Rectitude is described in Scripture (Eccl. 7:29) as something ascribed to man from his creation, not as something added from the outside.

Therefore,

(5) Rectitude must have been natural to man. [from (4)]
(6) Goodness and rectitude are natural to man in a state of innocence. [from (3) and (5)]
(7) Original righteousness is made up of goodness and rectitude.

Therefore,

(8) Original righteousness is natural to man in a state of innocence. [from (6) and (7)]

Regarding the first premise, the goodness natural to the other creatures is natural goodness. But the presence of natural goodness in man does not preclude the simultaneous presence of supernatural goodness. Likewise, if the rectitude referred to in Eccl. 7:29 is natural rectitude, this does not preclude the simultaneous presence of supernatural righteousness. Moreover, the verse does not require that the rectitude it refers to is not supernatural. The verse is equally compatible with the righteousness referred to being supernatural righteousness. But even if we grant that the rectitude referred to in Eccl. 7:29 is natural rectitude, the argument at most only shows the presence of natural goodness and natural rectitude in the pre-Fall condition. It does not show the absence of supernatural righteousness. Second, the argument begs the question (i.e. presupposes what it is attempting to demonstrate) in premise (7), when it defines original righteousness as the [natural] goodness and [natural] rectitude that are natural to man in the state of innocence. And every other premise of the argument is fully compatible with the truth that original righteousness is supernatural. So the argument does not show that original righteousness was natural, and not supernatural.

Turretin’s second reason for believing that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural, is:

(2) Whatever is transmitted to posterity must be natural; righteousness was to have been propagated to posterity if man had remained innocent (since indeed he would beget a like to himself. (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 8.)

The problem with that argument is that the first premise begs the question (i.e., presupposes precisely what it is trying to show). If original righteousness is supernatural, and would have been transmitted to posterity through procreation, then it is false that “whatever is transmitted to posterity must be natural.” In his first premise Turretin simply asserts a claim that would be true only if the Catholic doctrine were false. And that provides no reason to believe that the Catholic doctrine is false; it merely presupposes it. So this reason too does not show that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural.

His third reason is:

(3) Original sin, which is derived from parents to their children, is natural. Hence they are called “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Therefore the original righteousness opposed to it must also be natural. (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 8.)

Here Turretin claims that since Scripture says that we were “by nature children of wrath” therefore original sin is natural. And therefore original righteousness, which is opposed to original sin, must also be natural. But he has merely assumed that “by nature children of wrath” is referring to human nature as such, rather than to human nature in the state of having rejected God and His grace. He has merely assumed that original sin is natural in the sense of what the human person (after Adam’s sin) is, rather than is natural in the sense of what the human person (after Adam’s sin) ordinarily does not receive through procreation, namely, sanctifying grace. If “by nature children of wrath” refers to human nature in the state of having rejected God and His grace, then it does not follow that original sin is natural in the sense of being now intrinsic to human nature. And therefore it does not follow that original righteousness must have been natural.

Moreover, even if natural righteousness did belong to Adam and Eve in the pre-fall state, it does not follow that Adam and Eve had no supernatural righteousness. So even if the argument showed that Adam and Eve had natural righteousness, then the conclusion that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural is a non sequitur.

Turretin’s fourth reason is:

(4) The remains of the divine image are called natural because they are the work of the law (which the Gentiles do by nature, Rom. 2:14); therefore the whole image itself. (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 8.)

This argument goes as follows:

(1) The remains of the divine image are called natural because they are the work of the law (which the Gentiles do by nature).
(2) If the remains of something are natural to it, then the whole was natural.

Therefore

(3) The whole image itself was natural. [from (1) and (2)
(4) Original righteousness was part of the image.

Therefore,

(5) Original righteousness was natural. [from (3) and (4)]

The problem with this argument is that premise (3) begs the question (i.e., presupposes precisely what is in question). In Catholic theology, man has not lost the image of God; man lost the supernatural and preternatural gifts, but these were not natural to man. Man bears the image of God by nature. So every fallen man still bears the image of God as a rational creature by nature. So this argument too does not show that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural.

His fifth reason is a bit longer:

(5) If original righteousness were supernatural, then there would have been natural to Adam the privation of righteousness and all that must necessarily be present in a capacious subject, from which righteousness is absent (viz., ignorance, propensity to vice, concupiscence of the flesh, rebellion of the inferior against the superior part and other things of like kind — called by Bellarmine “diseases and languors of nature”). And yet this cannot be said without ascribing the same to the author of nature who consequently must be considered the author of sin. For as to Bellarmine’s reply that the concupiscence (which is now the punishment of sin) was then only a weakness and disease of nature (which was not from God, but from the condition of the material, as an ironmonger is not the author of the rust which the sword made by him contracts), it does not solve the difficulty. For (a) it is taken for granted that there was a weakness and disease in the sound nature; (b) it was assumed that this disease was not sin (which it is certain that concupiscence and headlong propensity to vice contended against the law of God, was the cause of many sins and so must be itself sin). (c) The comparison of the iron worker does not apply here because rust follows the material of iron (which the workman does not make, but finds). However God made the very matter of man and indeed (according to Bellarmine) such as this disorder and rebellion would necessarily follow. Hence, as he was the author of the material, he must be called the author of that defect which necessarily follows it. Thus there will be cast upon the most wise Creator either unskillfullness or impotency because he either did not foresee the taint of concupiscence necessarily arising from the condition of the material, and the whole disorder of the flesh against the spirit or could not remove it without injuring a most noble work. Both of these are equally impious and blasphemous. (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 9.)

His argument here goes like this:

(1) If original righteousness were supernatural, then ignorance, propensity to vice, concupiscence, and absence of [supernatural] righteousness, would have been natural to Adam.
(2) But ignorance, propensity to vice, concupiscence, and absence of [supernatural] righteousness could be due only either to the condition of the material, or to God Himself.
(3) Any negative or limitation due to the material would imply that God is either unskilled or impotent.
(4) But God is neither unskilled nor impotent.

Therefore,

(5) To say that ignorance, propensity to vice, concupiscence, and absence of [supernatural] righteousness were natural to Adam makes God the author of sin.

This argument is unsound because premise (3) is false. The limitations intrinsic to finite natures as such do not imply that God is unskilled or impotent; they are intrinsic to the finite natures as such, just as two cannot be greater than three. This is a limitation that follows upon the nature of two, and three, respectively. Likewise, matter is not spirit, and cannot be spirit. Matter cannot in itself be ordered to the good, as is spirit. This is a limitation that follows upon the nature of matter as such, and spirit as such, respectively. So this fifth reason does not show that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural.

Turretin’s sixth reason is this:

(6) The natural end of man ought to suppose natural means for obtaining it. Happiness was the natural end of man, therefore it ought to have natural means (which could be no other than original righteousness). (Fifth Topic, Q.11. para. 10.)

The argument runs like this:

(1) The natural end of man ought to suppose natural means for obtaining it.
(2) Happiness was the natural end of man.

Therefore,

(3) Happiness ought to have a natural means. [from (1) and (2)]
(4) But the means of happiness could be nothing other than original righteousness.

Therefore,

(5) Original righteousness must have been a natural means. [from (3) and (4)]

The problem with this argument is that it begs the question (i.e. assumes precisely what is in question, and what it is trying to show) in premise (2), by presupposing that the happiness to which man was called was only a natural happiness, rather than the supernatural happiness which is the Beatific Vision. (I have explained above why the Beatific Vision cannot be natural to man.) If the happiness to which man was called was the supernatural happiness of the Beatific Vision, then (2) would be false, and (3) would not follow from (1) and (2), and then (5) would likewise not follow. So this argument too is no reason to believe that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural. In short, each of the six of Turretin’s reasons is not only not a good reason, but is no reason to believe that original righteousness was natural and not supernatural.

Charles Hodge (1797-1878)

Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge wrote the following concerning the Catholic doctrine of original righteousness:

The obvious objections to the Romish doctrine that original righteousness was a supernatural gift, are, (1.) That it supposes a degrading view of the original constitution of our nature. According to this doctrine the seeds of evil were implanted in the nature of man as it came from the hands of God. It was disordered or diseased, there was about it what Bellarmin calls a morbus or languor, which needed a remedy. But this is derogatory to the justice and goodness of God, and to the express declarations of Scripture, that man, humanity, human nature, was good. (2.) This doctrine is evidently founded on the Manichean principle of the inherent evil of matter. It is because man has a material body, that this conflict between the flesh and spirit, between good and evil, is said to be unavoidable. But this is opposed to the word of God and the faith of the Church. Matter is not evil. And there is no necessary tendency to evil from the union of the soul and body which requires to be supernaturally corrected. (3.) This doctrine as to original righteousness arose out of the Semi-Pelagianism of the Church of Rome, and was designed to sustain it. The two doctrines are so related that they stand or fall together. According to the theory in question, original sin is the simple loss of original righteousness. Humanity since the fall is precisely what it was before the fall, and before the addition of the supernatural gift of righteousness. Bellarmin says: “Non magis differt status homins post lapsum Adae a statu ejusdem in puris naturalibus, quam differat spoliatus a nudo, neque deterior est humana natura, si culpam originalem detrahas, neque magis ignorantia et infirmitate laborat, quam esset et laboraret in puris naturalibus condita. Proinde corruptio naturae non ex alicujus doni naturalis carentia, neque ex alicujus malae qualitatis accessu, sed cx sola doni supernaturalis ob Adae peccatum amissione profluxit.” [The state of man after the fall of Adam differs no more from the state of the same in pure nature, than the difference of having been stripped naked, nor is human nature corrupted, if the original guilt is taken away, nor does it suffer more ignorance and weakness than he [would] in the condition of pure nature. Accordingly, the corruption of nature is not from any natural gift lacking, nor from being infected by any evil quality, but only from the supernatural gift which on account of Adam’s sin was lost.] The conflict between the flesh and spirit is normal and original, and therefore not sinful. Concupiscence, the theological term for this rebellion of the lower against the higher elements of our nature, is not of the nature of sin. Andradius (the Romish theologian against whom Chemnitz directed his Examen of the Council of Trent) lays down the principle, “quod nihil habeat rationem peccati, nisi fiat a volente et sciente,” [that nothing has the nature of sin except what is done with willing and knowing] which of course excludes concupiscence, whether in the renewed or unrenewed, from the category of sin. Hence, Bellarmin says; “Reatus est omnino inseparabilis ab eo, quod natura sua est dignum aeterna damnatione, qualem esse volunt concupiscentiam adversarii.” This concupiscence remains after baptism, or regeneration, which Romanists say, removes all sin; and therefore, not being evil in its own nature, does not detract from the merit of good works, nor render perfect obedience, and even works of supererogation on the part of the faithful, impossible. This doctrine of the supernatural character of original righteousness as held by Romanists, is therefore intimately connected with their whole theological system; and is incompatible with the Scriptural doctrines not only of the original state of man, but also of sin and redemption. It will, however, appear in the sequel, that neither the standards of the Church of Rome nor the Romish theologians are consistent in their views of original sin and its relation to the loss of original righteousness. (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, chapter 5)

Charles Hodge

Hodge offers three objections to the Catholic doctrine of original sin. His first objection is that “it supposes a degrading view of the original constitution of our nature.” He claims that the Catholic doctrine is “derogatory to the justice and goodness of God,” because it implies that human nature is not good. But Hodge is mistaken here. The Catholic doctrine does not entail that human nature is not good. In fact it affirms that human nature is good. Hodge’s mistake is his implicit assumption that if man does not have by his nature the perfections had by the angels according to their natures, then human nature is not good. But that’s a false assumption. Not having a perfection had by a greater nature does not entail that one’s own nature is defective or not good. A eagle does not have a rational nature as does a human, but that does not make eagles not good, nor is denying that they have the perfection of rationality a degrading view of their nature. Otherwise, no creatures lower than humans could exist, since their not having the human perfection of rationality would make them defective and not good. Likewise, just because humans do not by nature have the gifts that belong to angels by nature, it does not follow that human nature is not good, or that denying that those gifts are intrinsic to human nature is supposing a degrading view of human nature.

A degrading view of a nature is a view that conceives that nature as something less than it is. So the Catholic doctrine of original righteousness and original sin would be degrading to human nature only if it conceived human nature as something less than human nature actually is. But Hodge has not shown that Catholic doctrine conceives human nature as something less than it actually is. His claim that the Catholic doctrine degrades human nature presupposes that the preternatural gifts are part of human nature, and that is precisely the point in question. Therefore Hodge’s first objection is question-begging, i.e. it presupposes precisely what is in question between the Protestant and Catholic conceptions of human nature. And therefore this first objection is no objection at all.

Hodge’s second objection is that the Catholic doctrine is founded on the Manichean principle of the inherent evil of matter. For Hodge, the Catholic teaching that there is naturally a conflict between flesh and spirit is based on the Manichean notion that matter is evil. But Hodge’s claim is false. The basis for the Catholic teaching is not a Manichean notion of matter, but rather the very distinction between matter and spirit. Matter is limited in a way that spirit is not. The limitation of matter in relation to spirit is the basis for the natural conflict between matter and spirit. This very limitation on the part of matter is the reason why the human soul cannot evolve from matter, but must be created ex nihilo at the moment of conception. If matter could do everything spirit could do, the human soul could evolve out of matter.⁶

Matter in itself cannot be ordered to the universal good, but only to particular goods. All non-rational animals are not directed to the overall good by their nature, but by the governance of divine providence. They are ordered to the good, but not as such. They are ordered to the good by way of imitation, and by divine providence. Plants and [non-human] animals, for example, are not capable of directing their own actions toward the good, because they lack reason. But by their nature they are directed to particular goods (i.e. surviving, growing, flourishing, reproducing) and in this way they imitate God in certain respects, because those are imitations of His perfect being and goodness. Being ordered to the good by way of imitation is not sufficient to prevent concupiscence, because every disordered appetite is still aimed at a good, and in that respect still imitates God who is Goodness.

In His providential government of the world, God gives these creatures a place in the order of things such that their actions lead toward the good (cf. Summa Theologica I Q. 103 a.2) through increasing the good of other things (e.g. a man eating an orange) and the common good. But in this respect these creatures are not intrinsically ordered to the good as such; rather, they are ordered to the good by the order of things into which they are placed and providentially governed. The preternatural gift of integrity was part of that divinely established order by which the lower appetites were ordered to the good. Without that gift, those lower appetites are not naturally ordered to the good, but must be mastered and trained so that virtues develop in them.

Of all the material creatures, only the rational animal (i.e. the human) is directed to the overall good by his nature, because his soul has a spiritual operation independent of matter. And this is why humans, but not any other animals, are subject to the moral law — not because humans are more intelligent, because we have a spiritual faculty. This teleological difference between spirit and matter entails that without an additional gift by which the material element is directed to be subordinate to spirit, there will be disagreement between the bodily passions and reason.⁷

If matter were no less limited than spirit, nothing would differentiate matter from spirit. For that reason, the claim that matter is no less limited than is spirit is a denial of matter. It reduces to the position that matter is an illusion, and that all is spirit. And that is one form of the gnostic error. The Catholic doctrine preserves not only the goodness of matter, but also its reality.

Hodge’s third objection is that the Catholic doctrine concerning original righteousness “arose out of the Semi-Pelagianism of the Church of Rome, and was designed to sustain it.” According to Hodge, the Catholic doctrine stands or falls with Semi-Pelagianism; he writes, “The two doctrines are so related that they stand or fall together.” Responding to this objection requires briefly reviewing Semi-Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism is the notion that we do not need prevenient grace; we make the first move toward God, and then God responds and helps us. Semi-Pelagianism was rejected both at the second Council of Orange (cf. canon 4) and at Session Six of the Council of Trent (cf. canons 1-3).

There is no contradiction or conflict between the Catholic teaching that original righteousness was a supernatural gift, and the Catholic condemnation of the notion that without grace fallen man cannot move himself toward God as his supernatural end. In fact, Hodge has it exactly backward. The Catholic doctrine that original righteousness was a supernatural gift entails that Semi-Pelagianism is false. If original righteousness was supernatural, and was therefore directing Adam and Eve to their supernatural end, then after the fall and the loss of that supernatural gift, man cannot move himself toward that supernatural end, precisely because what is ordered only toward a natural end cannot move itself toward a supernatural end. The very reason why Adam and Eve needed the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace prior to the fall (namely, so that they could attain to the supernatural end to which God had graciously called them – see “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark.” ) is the very reason why after the fall and the loss of that supernatural gift, no man can move toward that supernatural end unless God first moves them by actual grace.⁸

Gordon Clark (1902–1985)

Gordon Clark was a twentieth century Calvinist philosopher and theologian. Concerning the Catholic doctrine of original righteousness he wrote the following:

In support of the distinction [between image and likeness], Thomas [Aquinas] had already (Q. 93, Art. 1) argued that where an image exists, there must be likeness; but a likeness does not necessarily mean an image. Now, the Roman church developed this, which so far is innocuous, into something that contradicts important parts of the Biblical message. Their present view is that the image itself is rationality, created because, when, and as man was created. But after man was created, God gave him an extra gift, a donum superadditum, the likeness, defined as original righteousness. Man therefore was not strictly created righteous. Adam was at first morally neutral. Perhaps he was not even neutral. Bellarmin speaks of the original Adam, composed of body and soul, as disordered and diseased, afflicted with a morbus or languor that needed a remedy. Yet Bellarmin does not quite say that this morbus is sin; it is rather something unfortunate and less than ideal. To remedy this defect God gave the additional gift of righteousness. Adam’s fall then resulted in the loss of original righteousness, but he fell only to the neutral moral level on which he was created. In this state, because of his free will, he is able-at least in some low degree-to please God.

Obviously this view has soteriological implications. Even though the neutral state was soon defaced by voluntary sins, man without saving grace could still obey God’s commands upon occasion. After regeneration, a man could do even more than God requires. This then becomes the foundation of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the treasury of the saints. If a particular man does not himself earn a sufficient number of merits, the Pope can transfer from the saints’ accounts as many more merits as are necessary for his entrance into Heaven. One horrendous implication of all this is that although Christ’s death remains necessary to salvation, it is not sufficient. Human merit is indispensable.

However logically implicated this soteriology is, the present study should not stray too far from the image itself. Above, it was said that an assertion of a distinction between image and likeness, by itself, is not fatal. But it is not Biblical either. Scripture makes no distinction between image and likeness. Not only does the New Testament make nothing of such a distinction, even in Genesis the two words are used interchangeably. Genesis 1:27 uses the word image alone, and Genesis 5:1 uses likeness alone, though in each case the whole is intended. The likeness therefore is not an extra gadget attached to man after his creation, not a donum superadditum, like a suit of clothes that he could take off. It is rather the unitary person. (“The Biblical Doctrine of Man,” (pp. 12-14) )

Gordon Clark

Clark claims that if original righteousness was a donum superadditum, then it follows that man was not strictly created righteousness, but created morally neutral. Thus after the fall man was able “at least in some low degree” to please God, and “still obey God’s commands upon occasion.” But then after regeneration, man could do even more than God requires. And this, claims Clark, sets up the Catholic notion of the treasury of the saints, and makes Christ’s death insufficient.

Clark’s reasoning is unsound, because he does not take into consideration the difference between natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness. That original righteousness was supernatural does not entail that human nature in itself was created morally neutral. Adam and Eve had both natural righteousness and supernatural righteousness.⁹ Since Clark apparently did not understand the Catholic distinction between man’s natural and man’s supernatural end, he attempts to explain the Catholic account of fallen man’s condition in terms of degree; that is why he says that according to the Catholic teaching fallen man obeys “at least in some low degree” and “upon occasion.” This is the only way Clark knows how to express something less than original righteousness but greater than corruption of human nature. He is trying to make sense of a Catholic doctrine through a Protestant paradigm that lacks the natural-supernatural distinction. And that is why Clark’s translation of the Catholic doctrine fails, because the Catholic doctrine simply cannot be translated into a paradigm that lacks the natural-supernatural distinction.

The problem with fallen man is not a matter of frequency of obedience. The problem with fallen man is that he is not a partaker of the divine nature, and so all his righteousness, no matter how frequent, falls short of the supernatural end to which God has graciously called us. Fallen man can do good works that are ordered to man’s natural good. This is why pagans can do virtuous deeds. If however, those persons are not in a state of grace, those deeds are not ordered to man’s supernatural end. Those works are still rewarded at the Judgment, but the reward is not man’s supernatural end; the hierarchy of hell is determined not only by punishments deserved but also by rewards on the order of nature, rewards infinitely inferior to the Beatific Vision.

Man by grace can do more than God requires, because agape includes but goes beyond the moral law. God does not require anyone to forego marriage for the sake of the Kingdom. But God offers us the opportunity to do so out of supernatural love for Him. God does not require anyone to sell all his possessions, and live a life of poverty for the sake of the Kingdom. But He offers us the opportunity to do so out of supernatural love for Him. The evangelical counsels are not the only way to go beyond the moral law. Every day the saints on earth, by their prayers, sacrifices and good deeds done in a state of supernatural grace, merit not merely a reward on the order of nature, but also a supernatural reward. And because of the communion of the saints in the Mystical Body of Christ, these merits contribute to the treasury of the saints, as I have explained in “Indulgences, the Treasury of Merit and the Communion of Saints.”

I should add that none of this entails that Christ’s death is insufficient to merit the grace by which we are saved. Whenever there is a question of sufficiency or insufficiency, we must ask “sufficiency with respect to what?” By His Passion, Christ merited a superabundant treasury of grace. The fact that the saints are able to contribute to this treasury in no way entails that Christ’s sacrifice was insufficient to merit the grace by which we are saved. Christ’s work was sufficient for all the grace that is given to every person. But because God graciously chose to make use of His saints as means by which this grace He merited would be given to others in His Body, Christ’s sacrifice is ‘insufficient’ in the sense that the actions of the saints are not superfluous. St. Paul teaches this when he writes that for the sake of the Church, he fills up in his own body what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions, (Col. 1:24), just as Christ’s death was ‘insufficient’ to make our cooperation in santification unnecessary. Clark does not distinguish between the two senses in which Christ’s work is ‘sufficient,’ and so he does not have theoretical room for the truth of St. Paul’s statement in Colossians 1:24. When Christ out of love granted His saints a participatory role in His redemptive work, as real means by which the grace He superabundantly merited is brought to the whole world, He purposely made His sacrifice insufficient in this secondary sense.

Peter Leithart (1959 – ) :

Contemporary Presbyterian theologian Peter Leithart, recently exonerated from charges of heresy by the PCA, has also written about the Catholic doctrine of original righteousness and original sin. Leithart writes:

[Catholic theologian] Matthias Scheeben makes explicit the troubling underpinnings of the nature/supernatural distinction. When we are refashioned by grace “on the model of the higher, divine nature,” we enter into a “new, special relationship with God, who now draws near to man in His own essence, and not only as Creator of a nature foreign to Him.”

Two things: First, isn’t man created on the “model” of a divine nature? What else does the image of God mean? Second, whyever should we think of created humanity as “foreign” to God?

You only need the apparatus of two orders of knowledge and being if you begin with Scheeben’s assumption that man as created is “foreign” to God. If he’s not, you can accomplish all that the natural/supernatural wants to accomplish without the difficulties, both of terminology and substance.

Though Scheeben roots his whole scheme in an account of Trinitarian self-communication, his assumption seems sub-Trinitarian. It might be rooted in the residual Hellenism that assumes that the Absolute is inherently unrelated. But the Triune God is Absolute and Related, and so He’s not doing anything “foreign” when He enters relation with an Other. (“Foreign nature.”)

Peter Leithart

Leithart’s first objection is that the natural/supernatural distinction leaves no place for man’s being made in the image of God. The idea is that if man is made in the image (or ‘model’) of God, then this seems to break down the natural/supernatural distinction, since the natural is a model of the supernatural. That objection is understandable, but the conclusion does not follow. To be made in the image of God is to be rational, capable of knowing and loving. But that does not entail that man by nature is ordered to the Beatific Vision, which is God’s own vision of Himself. Otherwise, God could never create any rational creature. To be rational would simply mean to be God. But God has created rational creatures, and these creatures are not Himself. They are ordered by nature to a natural end, but ordered by God’s gracious condescension and infinitely generous invitation to the supernatural end of the Beatific Vision, i.e. sharing in God’s own internal Eternal Life.¹⁰

Leithart’s second objection is that we have no reason to think that human nature is “foreign” to God. So if the natural/supernatural distinction entails that human nature is “foreign” to God, then we have no reason to accept the natural/supernatural distinction. By ‘foreign’ Scheeben only means that human nature is not the divine nature. ‘Foreign’ is not some additional step of removal from God, besides being a creature rather than the Creator. Scheeben is simply affirming the Creator-creature distinction. And we have good reason to affirm the Creator-creature distinction. So Leithart’s notion that we do not need the natural/supernatural distinction, so long as we can keep “man as created” and deny that man is “foreign” does not follow. If man is a created being, then there is a natural/supernatural distinction.¹¹

Leithart speculates that Scheeben’s “whole scheme” might be rooted in the “residual Hellenism that assumes that the Absolute is inherently unrelated.” But the Catholic doctrine Scheeben is describing is not based on Hellenism, or on some notion that God is inherently unrelated. The Son is eternally begotten, and the Spirit eternally proceeds; God is eternally internally relational. But God is not essentially externally related to anything, since He could have not created anything at all. God’s internal relations between the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are necessary, essential, and eternal. But God’s redemptive relation to humans is a contingent, gratuitous, infinite condescension, in which God freely invites rational creatures to enter into His Trinitarian Life. Hence there is tremendous difference between God’s own internal relations, and His gracious supernatural union with His rational creatures. When God enters into this gracious union with a rational creature He is doing something that involves an infinite condescension, and that is the sense in which it is ‘foreign’ to God, in comparison to His own intrinsic internal relations.

Leithart continues:

Scheeben says that what is natural to one being may be supernatural for another. Immortality is natural to angels, “a pure spirit, whose entire essence is on a higher plane, because no opposition between matter and the principle of life has place in him.” For men, immortality is supernatural, since “one component part of his essence, the material body, is continually on the march toward dissolution.”

Which raises several questions: Is “matter” inherently “opposed” to the “principle of life”? Why? Would sinless Adam’s material body been opposed to the principle of life? What about the resurrection body? Is it material? If not, what is it? If so, is it on the march toward dissolution? And, don’t angels have to be sustained in their existence by the continual power of God just as human beings do? How is their “immortality” more inherent or natural than man’s?

Scheeben’s argument seems to justify the common Reformed complaint (Berkhof, e.g.) against the theory of the donum superadditum, namely, that it assumes an inherent conflictedness between matter and spirit. (“Matter and Spirit.” )

Leithart here does not raise an objection to the Catholic doctrine, but instead asks a number of questions. First he asks whether matter is inherently opposed to the “principle of life.” Corporeal living beings are naturally mortal because they are composite beings, and the unity that is given to them by the soul is not intrinsic to their matter. They naturally tend toward dissolution, unless they are continually directed toward unity by the soul. So in that sense matter is inherently ‘opposed’ to the principle of life. That is, matter is not by nature alive, and does not by its very nature perpetuate the unity of living corporeal creatures. That is why sinless Adam’s body was mortal.

Next Leithart asks whether, according to Catholic doctrine, the resurrection body is material. Yes it is a material body, but the resurrected bodies of the saints will be transformed in various ways, such that not only will the preternatural gifts be restored permanently and inseparably, but the resurrected bodies will also be further spiritualized, as we see in 1 Cor. 15:42-44, and John 20:19, 26. The resurrected bodies of the saints will be glorified, through their greater participation in the divine nature, which is purely spiritual. The radiance of the resurrected bodies of the saints will be like that of Christ’s body at the Transfiguration. (St. Matthew 17:2.) Jesus Himself tells us, “The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Matthew 13:43.) And the prophet Daniel wrote, “Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3.) The addition of these gifts as permanent in the resurrected saints excludes the possibility of physical death in heaven.

As for the angels, yes, their being has to be sustained by God. But they are not embodied beings. They are pure spirits, not souls informing matter. So there is no intrinsic tendency in them toward dissolution. The essence-existence composition is not the same as the body-soul composition. Angels (and all creatures) have the former, but do not have the latter. Humans, however, have both compositions.

The Reformed ‘complaint’ that the Catholic doctrine depends on an inherent conflictedness of matter and spirit is just that, a mere complaint. A complaint is not a reason to believe or disbelieve anything. But as I have explained above, there is a real difference between matter and spirit, and this difference has implications for the natural condition of any creature composed of matter and spirit. And that is precisely what man is, the amphibian Lewis speaks of, a creature composed both of spirit and matter.

Conclusion

My hope in examining each of these Reformed objections to the Catholic doctrines of original justice and original righteousness is that in doing so, I might clarify for my Reformed brothers and sisters both the basis for the Catholic doctrine as well as the reasons why the Reformed objections to the Catholic doctrine do not in any way refute it. In this way, I hope with the help of God to remove some remaining obstacles to the full visible reunion of Protestants and the Catholic Church.¹²

1. See “Nature, Grace and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark.”
2. “The Infinity of God” in The Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Infinity.”
3. See Summa Theologica I Q.64 a.2. “Whether the will of the demons is obstinate in evil.”
4. I have discussed the four wounds of sin in “Aquinas and Trent: Part 3.”
5. Eph. 4:8. See “The Harrowing of Hell.”
6. See Humani Generis, 36.
7. See minute 51′ in the lecture at “Lawrence Feingold on Original Justice and Original Sin,” as well as questions 2 – 9 in the Q&A there.
8. Another Reformed theologian who wrote in the generation following Charles Hodge was Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). He was a Dutch Reformed theologian whose work significantly influenced American Presbyterianism, especially Westminster Theological Seminary and Cornelius Van Til. Kuyper wrote the following regarding the Catholic doctrine of original righteousness and original sin:

   However tracing the next step in the course of sin we meet a serious difference between the Church of Rome and our own. The former teaches that Adam came forth perfect from the hand of his Maker even before he was endowed with original righteousness. This implies that the human nature is finished without original righteousness, which is put on him like a robe or ornament. As our present nature is complete without dress or ornament, which are needed only to appear respectable in the world, so was the human nature, according to Rome, complete and perfect in itself without righteousness, which serves only as dress and jewel. But the Reformed churches have always opposed this view, maintaining that original righteousness is an essential part of the human nature; hence that the human nature in Adam was not complete without it; that it was not merely added to Adam’s nature but that Adam was created in the possession of it as the direct manifestation of his life

   If Adam’s nature was perfect before he possessed original righteousness, it follows that it remains perfect after the loss of it in which case we describe sin simply as carentia justitiae originalis, i.e. the want of original righteousness. This used to be expressed thus: Is original righteousness a natural or supernatural good? If natural then its loss caused the human nature to be wholly corrupt; if supernatural then its loss might take away the glory and honor of that nature, but as a human nature it retained nearly all of its original power. (The Work of the Holy Spirit, by Abraham Kuyper, pp. 88-89.)

   Kuyper contrasts the Catholic doctrine concerning original righteousness with the Reformed doctrine concerning original righteousness, and points to their different implications. But he gives no reason to believe the Reformed position over the Catholic doctrine, or to believe that the Catholic doctrine is false.

9. See Question 4 in the Q&A at “Lawrence Feingold on Original Justice and Original Sin.”
10. To understand why no creature can be ordered by its very nature to the supernatural end which is the Beatific Vision see “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark.”
11. The question should not be expressed in terms of need, but in terms of truth — not, do we need the natural/supernatural distinction, but rather, is there a natural/supernatural distinction.
12. I am grateful to Tom Brown and Andrew Preslar for helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this post.

Lawrence Feingold

Lecture:

The importance of the truths about original justice and original sin. (1′)

Our experience of original sin (2′), and the opposition between our rational appetite (i.e. our will) and our sensible appetites (3′)

Original Justice (18′ 34″)

Genesis 2-3
Why the grace Adam and Eve had received prior to the fall was above human nature, and was a participation in the divine nature.
The other supernatural gifts they had: faith, hope, and charity, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, infused cardinal virtues (28′)

Preternatural gifts (32′ 30″)

Immortality – [mortality is natural to us] (33′ 45″)
Impassibility – [passibility is natural to us] (36′ 20″)
Infused knowledge – [ignorance is natural to us] (37′ 30″)
Integrity – [concupiscence is natural to us] (37′ 54″)

Original Harmonies (42′ 00″)

Error of Martin Luther regarding original justice (47′ 50″)

Why the supernatural and preternatural gifts being above human nature does not entail that human nature is bad or defective. (51′ 11″)

The Original Sin: In What Does It Consist (52′ 42″)

Dominum et vivificantem
The true and false ways of deification: obedience in grace, and disobedience in autonomy
Human sin is a turning away from God and involves suspicion of God

The Consequences of Original Sin: Loss of Original Justice (64′ 35″)

The loss of the gifts above nature, both for them and for all their descendants.
Why should the sin of Adam affect us today? (67′ 40″)
Responsibility and dignity (69′)
Our nature was not essentially corrupted, but stripped of supernatural and preternatural gifts.

Questions and Answers:

(1) Did the angels receive sanctifying grace in order to achieve friendship with God? (1′)

(2) If God gives man sanctifying grace to enable man to bridge the infinite distance and share in the divine life, then why couldn’t God endow man with the gift of sanctifying grace as natural, that is, as part of the nature of man? (4′ 50″)

(3) If integrity is an additional preternatural gift so that God could have given friendship but not integrity, would this mean that man by nature is incomplete, since his full completion would be found in [the] harmony [due to the gift of integrity]? (8′ 55″)

(4) Did Adam and Eve also have natural justice and natural love for God? (10′ 22″)

(5) If God had not given Adam and Eve sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts, they would have had to wrestle with concupiscence. Wouldn’t that make them naturally sinful, and therefore naturally disordered and defective? (12′ 43″)

(6) If the parts of the body are not naturally at odds with the body, then why exactly must the sense appetites by nature be at odds with reason rather than naturally docile to reason? (20′ 34″)

(7) If concupiscence, mortality and passibility are lost in glorification in heaven, why isn’t this a case of grace destroying nature, since they belong to us by nature? (22′ 22″)

(8) Which of the preternatural gifts was it by which the rest of material creation was subject to man? (23′ 43″)

(9) Before original sin what was the deficiency in man that enabled him to be tempted and to desire autonomy to be disobedient? (24′ 15″)

(10) If Adam and Eve were obedient, and the good children came along would they be going through their own temptations by the evil one, and falling or not falling, on their own? (27′ 11″)

(11) If we are raised to believe that angels are above human beings, then why would an angel not be able to naturally have a friendship with God? (27′ 54″)

(12) Because of sin, therefore Adam lost what didn’t belong to human nature, namely, integrity, holiness, innocence and justice. Would you say that free will was weakened? (28′ 40″)

(13) Is faith for Adam and Eve given differently than for us? (29′ 06″)

(14) Do angels have souls, and how do they get sanctifying grace? (29′ 49″)

(15) Is libertarianism just pride taken to an extreme of no boundaries? (33′ 31″)

(16) What was the happiness of the happy fault (felix culpa)? (36′ 03″)

The mp3s for both the lecture and the Question and Answer session can be downloaded here.

Little Flower of Lisieux, keep us in your heart, and so always in the center of our Lord’s Sacred Heart.

Three years ago, a few friends of mine (including Sean Patrick of Called to Communion) were lamenting that there wasn’t a book that reexamined the Protestant claims about Saint Paul from a Catholic point of view. What we wanted was a book that demonstrated the “Catholic Perspective on Paul.” So I set to work on it. After three years, it’s finally finished and published…The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

If you’re looking for a complete and simple resource to equip you with the Catholic presentation of Paul’s view of salvation, faith and works, baptism, the Eucharist, the sacraments, the priesthood, celibacy, and redemptive suffering, then this new book is for you.

The Catholic Perspective on Paul intends to show once and for all that Saint Paul was thoroughly Catholic, and that Protestant and liberal prejudices against the Catholic perspective on Paul are unwarranted. If we read Paul in his words, we find none other than the great Catholic Apostle of Rome.

You can preview the book for free at amazon.com.

Please watch the book’s trailer on YouTube to get a feel for the book:

Both the new book on Saint Paul and my previous book The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity are available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats. Please click here to view them.

A simple answer of why God allowed the Fall of man runs like this. God did not desire man’s sin but He respected man’s free will by allowing him to eat the apple. If that works for you, then I say let it continue to work for you (and don’t continue reading).

But in fact that argument doesn’t work. Imagine the parent that placed a knife in his child’s crib, hoping that the child wouldn’t play with it. The parent does not will for the child to play with it, but he will respect the child’s free will. It would be better, apparently, for the parent to avoid placing dangerous objects in the child’s crib. The parent can preveniently protect the child from evil by not allowing him access to it. This prevenient protection does not violate the child’s free will. On the contrary, it allows the free will to be even freer since it cannot make a dangerous mistake. Likewise, God could have simply not placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.

Now could God have created a world without evil? Absolutely speaking, that is possible. God could have created a world where evil didn’t exist. But for at least two reasons, God desired that evil should exist. First, so that all possible good might exist, and second, that we might know Him.

The good of perseverance and fortitude cannot exist without the evil of pain and suffering. Without evil, we would lack the good of martyrs. It was God’s desire that the good of perseverance, etc. would exist.

Another reason why God created a world with evil is so that we might know Him. Following Aquinas, as quoted in my article on the Divine Metaphor, “We can speak of simple things only as though they were like the composite things from which we derive our knowledge.” Now in God there is no evil, nor is there a hierarchy of diversity, one thing more perfect than another.  God is simple, but we can only know the simple through complex things.  Therefore, in order for us to know God, it was necessary to create a complex universe organized into a hierarchy of diversity.

This hierarchy of diversity, which God created, is intended to show us what He is like by analogy. The Scriptures teach us that God is like a king, for example. This is meaningful to us because a king is the highest office; in that particular respect, God is like a king. Of course, we cannot compare God to a human king in any direct sense because whatever can be said of God, in truth cannot be said of anyone or anything else. Our kingship is only like God’s “kingship.” Even the goodness and beauty of the world is only like God who is truly good and truly beautiful. God the Son, is also compared to a lion. This is meaningful for us because lions hold a place of honor among the beasts. They are mightier and fiercer than the other beasts. In this regard, God the Son is like a lion. Rather, a lion is like God the Son.

To simplify this thought, imagine that all beasts were exactly the same. God could not be referred to as a beast because He would not be like a beast. He is only referred to as a lion because lions are greater than other beasts. Imagine if there were no government. God could not be likened unto any human office because no man would be above any other man. But God is above us, and in that way is likened unto a king. This is only a simple way to conceptualize the point I’m trying to make. Imagine (the absurd proposition) that God created a world without this hierarchy of diversity or distinction. If all things were equal, we could in no way relate to God because in our finite capacity, we cannot comprehend God. We only know Him by knowing things which He has revealed to us via the material world. We understand His greatness only by understanding the greatness of kings and lions, etc. and by amplifying that greatness to the best of our ability.

Evil is not a thing that God created. As St. Augustine taught, evil is simply a privation of good as a shadow is a privation of light. But the good of a king cannot be grasped without the privation of that kingly goodness which exists in his subjects. The goodness of the lion cannot be known to us without the privation of that same goodness in his prey or in the lesser beasts. That is: If privation of good didn’t exist in this world, we would have no way to  understand God’s goodness.

God could have instantly given us the capacity to see Him directly (which is the Beatific Vision or Heaven), but He chose not to for reasons given above (that the good of fortitude, perseverance, etc. should exist). Thus, in order for us to know Him at all, without the Beatific Vision, it was necessary to create a world wherein privation of good existed so that there would be a hierarchy of diversity whereby we might know what God is like. Our participation in evil, which is by no means necessary, consists in turning away from the Creator and choosing a created good. Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, overcame the world by never choosing a created good over God the Creator. May we imitate Him this Easter season and until we finish the race. Amen.

Temptation, Fall, and Expulsion
Brothers Limbourg (1411-1416)

When a Catholic monk named Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in October of 1517, he initiated a controversy that eventually led not only to his excommunication on January 3, 1521, but to the subsequent separation of Protestants from the Catholic Church. During the following two decades the Church attempted to effect a reconciliation with Protestants. These efforts culminated in Pope Paul III convoking an ecumenical council in 1542, the nineteenth ecumenical council in the history of the Church.² This council met in the city of Trent, and had its first session in 1545. The purpose of the Council was two-fold: to extirpate various heresies that had arisen, and to reform the morals among the clergy and the lay faithful.³

The First Session formally opened the Council. The Second Session set forward the manner in which the bishops should conduct themselves during the Council. The Third Session expressed the Creed of the Church. The Fourth Session addressed the canon of Scripture. The Fifth Session addressed the doctrine of original sin. And the Sixth Session addressed the doctrine of justification.

It was not by accident that the Council addressed the doctrine of original sin before taking up the doctrine of justification. The doctrine of justification depends in part on the doctrine of original sin, as I shall show below. So in order rightly to understand the Council’s teaching on justification, one must first understand its teaching on original sin. In previous posts in this series, I presented and explained St. Thomas’s theology of original sin. (See “Aquinas and Trent: Part 2,” in which I explain the essence of original sin, according to St. Thomas, and “Aquinas and Trent: Part 3,” in which I explain the effect of original sin, according to St. Thomas.) I will not repeat here what I have said there; and what I say here presupposes that the reader has read at least those two posts in this series.

Why is the Council of Trent relevant to the reconciliation of Protestants and Catholics? Shouldn’t we just put the past behind us, and move forward? The reason why the Council of Trent remains relevant is that the canons of the Council of Trent are infallible, so the Church has no authority to overturn them. Whatever was declared heretical at Trent will remain heretical until Christ returns in the clouds in glory. The authority of the canons does not depend on whether those claims were in fact affirmed by any person. Nor does it depend on the bishops’ degree of understanding of the Protestants’ theological positions. But the canons condemn only the claims stated in the canons; they do not condemn unstated positions that may have been held by Protestants. Doesn’t the infallibility of the canons of Trent make ecumenical dialogue pointless? Not at all. To understand why, see my post titled “Two Ecumenicisms.” Protestants and Catholics can be reconciled only by coming to the truth concerning their separation in the sixteenth century. And that requires coming to terms with the Council of Trent. Protestants can no more reject the Council of Trent on the basis of their own interpretation of Scripture than any other heresy in the history of the Church could justifiably reject the teaching of an ecumenical council on the basis of its own interpretation of Scripture.

The Fifth Session: The Decree Concerning Original Sin

The Decree of the Fifth Session begins with an introductory paragraph:

That our Catholic faith, without which it is impossible to please God,⁴ may, after the destruction of errors, remain integral and spotless in its purity, and that the Christian people may not be carried about with every wind of doctrine,⁵ since that old serpent,⁶ the everlasting enemy of the human race, has, among the many evils with which the Church of God is in our times disturbed, stirred up also not only new but also old dissensions concerning original sin and its remedy, the holy, ecumenical and general Council of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the same three legates of the Apostolic See presiding, wishing now to reclaim the erring and to strengthen the wavering, and following the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, of the holy Fathers, of the most approved councils, as well as the judgment and unanimity of the Church herself, ordains, confesses and declares these things concerning original sin:

Here the Tridentine Fathers affirm that the Church’s faith, without which it is impossible to please God, includes things concerning original sin and its remedy.  In other words, the gospel includes a teaching on original sin. The bishops explain that they are addressing this subject in response to what they believe to be the work of the devil in stirring up dissensions new and old concerning the doctrine of original sin and its remedy. They state again that they are assembled as a “general and ecumenical” council, in accordance with the laws of the Church, and presided over by legates of the Apostolic See (i.e. Rome). For this reason they are assured of the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church into all truth (John 16:13), most assuredly when her bishops are assembled in ecumenical council.⁷ The Council states its intention to bring back those sheep that are erring, and to strengthen those sheep that are wavering. Lastly, the bishops affirm that what they are teaching regarding original sin follows both the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, and that of the unanimity of the Church, not only at that time but throughout the 1500 year history of the Church preceding the Council.

Next the Council in five paragraphs addresses five errors pertaining to original sin. I will examine each of these five paragraphs in turn.

I. The Error of Denying Original Sin

In the first paragraph the Council declares:

1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of God, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him,⁸ and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil,⁹ and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse,¹⁰ let him be anathema.

In this first paragraph, the Council is condemning the error of denying that Adam, by his sin, lost the original holiness and righteous that God had given him. According to the Council, when Adam transgressed God’s commandment, the following five things happened: (1) he lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, (2) he incurred the wrath and indignation of God, (3) he incurred the death with which God had previously threatened him, (4) he incurred captivity under the power of the devil who from that time on had the empire of death, and (5) he was changed for the worse both in body and soul. The statement about the change in “body and soul” is a reaffirmation of the first canon of the Second Council of Orange (529 AD), which canon was intended to refute the error of those who taught that not the soul but only the body was damaged by Adam’s sin.

The loss of the original holiness and justice in which man had been constituted refers to the loss of what St. Thomas treats as the third good of human nature, explained here and here in previous posts in this series. There too I laid out his explanation for death as the result of sin, and what it means to be “changed for the worse” both in body and in soul. The wrath and indignation of God I discussed in my post on St. Thomas’s doctrine on the Passion of Christ. St. Thomas discusses man’s captivity under the power of the devil in Summa Theologica III Q.49 a.2.

The most important thing to understand in this first paragraph, with respect to reconciling Protestants and the Catholic Church, is what the Council is saying when it teaches that by his sin Adam lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted. The holiness and justice to which the Council refers are due to the presence of sanctifying grace and agape in Adam’s soul. Adam was holy because he had sanctifying grace in his soul, that is, he was a participant in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and enjoyed the indwelling of the Trinity.¹¹ And he was just (or righteous) because he had agape, i.e. love for God as Father. This original holiness and justice was not something Adam produced by his own nature. Nor were they part of the essence of his human nature; otherwise, in losing them he would have ceased to be human.

Why is this important for Protestant-Catholic reconciliation? Many Protestants believe that grace is only for the forgiveness of sins, and hence only something Adam and Eve received after they sinned. For this reason they tend to treat salvation prior to the Fall as by human-works-apart-from-grace, and salvation after the Fall as by grace-apart-from-human-works. But the notion that Adam and Eve, apart from grace, could have merited the Beatific Vision, is a form of Pelagianism.¹² Only God has His [divine] inner life and the perfect happiness of seeing God, by His very nature. Man could have the Beatific Vision by his nature without grace only if he were God. But man is not God; man is a creature. Therefore, in order to attain the Beatific Vision, which is supernatural end [i.e. an end above the reach of man's nature as such], man needs grace. In order for man to enter into heaven, i.e. into the perfect beatitude of the inner Life of the Trinity, God must give to man a participation in this inner Life; man must receive the gift of grace from God.

The Second Council of Orange (AD 529), which was primarily responding to Pelagianism, declared:

“Even if human nature remained in that integrity in which it was formed, it would in no way save itself without the help of its Creator.” (Can. 19)

Notice that “save” is not only from punishment, because human nature would remain in that integrity in which it was formed, only if Adam had not sinned. And where there is no sin, there is no punishment. But yet, according to Orange contra the Pelagians, even a sinless Adam and Eve would have needed divine help in order to be “saved.” In other words, they would have needed grace, to attain heaven, even if they had not sinned. St. Thomas concurs, writing:

But man’s perfect Happiness, as stated above (Question 3, Article 8), consists in the vision of the Divine Essence. Now the vision of God’s Essence surpasses the nature not only of man, but also of every creature, as was shown in the I, 12, 4. For the natural knowledge of every creature is in keeping with the mode of his substance: thus it is said of the intelligence (De Causis; Prop. viii) that “it knows things that are above it, and things that are below it, according to the mode of its substance.” But every knowledge that is according to the mode of created substance, falls short of the vision of the Divine Essence, which infinitely surpasses all created substance. Consequently neither man, nor any creature, can attain final Happiness by his natural powers.¹³

And that is why, in Catholic theology, Adam and Eve were given grace by God, prior to their Fall. It was by grace that they were able to walk with God in the cool of the day. No one can have friendship with God apart from grace, because no one can have friendship with God without agape, and no one can have agape without grace. Agape is supernatural;¹⁴ it is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.¹⁵ Man does not cease to be man if he loses agape. Hence, agape is not an essential component of our human essence or human nature. If agape were had by nature, then man without agape would be a contradiction in terms. God did not have to walk with Adam in the cool of the day. He did not have to form a friendship with man. He did this gratuitously, as a gift. This divine friendship with man as Father to son was a superadded gift of grace, not something man has by his nature as man.¹⁶

Yet, when we recognize that grace was necessary prior to the Fall, in order for Adam and Eve to have merited the Beatific Vision, then we no longer have a principled basis for excluding works done in grace from being meritorious toward the Beatific Vision under the New Covenant. And the role of works under grace is explicitly one of the points of disagreement between Protestants and the Catholic Church. It is also addressed in the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent. So here we see that rightly understanding the reasons for a doctrine taught in the Sixth Session requires understanding what was taught in the Fifth Session.

II. The Error of Denying that Adam’s Sin Deprived His Posterity of Original Holiness and Justice

In this second paragraph, the Council declares:

2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his posterity,¹⁷ and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.¹⁸

In this second paragraph, the Council is condemning the error of denying that Adam’s sin deprived his posterity of original holiness and justice. The Council here affirms three things: (1) Adam’s transgression did not only injure himself, but also his posterity, (2) Adam’s transgression lost not only for himself but also for us his posterity the original holiness and justice that he had been given by God, (3) Adam’s transgression transfused to us not only bodily pains and bodily death, but also transfused sin, which is the death of the soul, into the whole human race. Adam was supposed to be propagate sanctifying grace to his offspring. In this way, the sexual act would have been a means of grace for the child conceived. But, by his sin, Adam passed on to his offspring the privation of sanctifying grace and agape, and hence the privation of holiness, righteousness. And that is precisely what original sin is, the privation of original righteousness. That is what it means for the soul to be dead, not for it to lack natural life, but for it to lack divine life, i.e. sanctifying grace and agape.

In addition,  because Adam lost the original righteous he had been given, he also lost the preternatural gifts (integrity of powers of the soul, infused knowledge, impassibility, and immortality)  he had enjoyed, and therefore he passed on concupiscence, ignorance, suffering, and death to his offspring. Those who claim that grace is only needed for forgiveness of sin, falsely conclude from the fact that the infant has committed no actual sin that the infant does not yet need grace for salvation, and therefore does not yet need baptism. This again, is Pelagianism, because it denies that sanctifying grace is absolutely needed to attain to heaven.  Similarly, those who mistake concupiscence (i.e. disordered appetites) for original sin find that such disordered appetites remain after baptism, and falsely conclude that baptism is not the remedy for original sin. But the fundamental problem of man, is not that he has disordered lower appetites, but that he lacks sanctifying grace, and hence lacks agape.  That’s what original sin is; the privation of sanctifying grace and agape. And for that, the remedy is baptism, as we will see in the next paragraph.

III. Errors Regarding the Remedy for Original Sin

3. If anyone asserts that this sin of Adam, which in its origin is one, and by propagation, not by imitation, transfused into all, which is in each one as something that is his own, is taken away either by the forces of human nature or by a remedy other than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ,¹⁹ who has reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, sanctification and redemption;²⁰ or if he denies that that merit of Jesus Christ is applied both to adults and to infants by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the Church, let him be anathema; for there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.²¹ Whence that declaration: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sins of the world;²² and that other: As many of you as have been baptized, have put on Christ.²³

In this third paragraph, the Council condemns two errors. The first error is to claim that the remedy for original sin is something other than the merit of Jesus Christ, the Second Adam. The second error is to deny that adults and children receive Christ’s merit through the sacrament of baptism. Positively, in this paragraph the Council is teaching three things: (1) the sin of Adam that is transfused into all his posterity by propagation, not by imitation, is in each of us as something that is our own, (2) this sin [of Adam] in each of us is not taken away either by the forces of human nature or by any remedy other than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us to God in His own blood, and (3) the grace that Christ merited in His Passion, by which the sin [of Adam] in us is removed, is applied both to adults and to infants by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the Church.²⁴

This paragraph is relevant to the reconciliation of Protestants with the Catholic Church because many Protestants deny that baptism is anything more than a sign or symbol, not recognizing baptism as the sacrament Christ established as the means through which we receive the sanctifying grace He merited for us in His Passion. For these Protestants, to be forgiven only requires believing the message about Christ and trusting in Him; baptism is something one does subsequently in obedience to Christ’s command. But the Church has always believed and taught that it is in baptism that we are joined to Christ, and receive the grace He merited for us in His Passion. This is what we say in the Creed: “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” And the efficacy of baptism as the sacrament of salvation is taught unanimously by the Church Fathers.²⁵ Of course faith does come by hearing. But in Catholic doctrine the sanctifying grace through which we have the virtues of faith, hope and agape, comes to us through the sacrament of baptism. We first come to believe the good news, and have love for Christ, by hearing the gospel.²⁶ But in the sacrament of baptism, faith, hope and agape are deepened; they are made to be firmly planted dispositions in our soul. In baptism they become theological virtues.²⁷ In baptism we are ingrafted into Christ (cf. Rom 6), and by becoming firmly rooted dispositions faith, hope, and agape become part of who we are, not just acts we do.²⁸

IV. The Error of Denying that Infants Need Baptism as a Remedy for Original Sin

4. If anyone denies that infants, newly born from their mothers’ wombs, are to be baptized, even though they be born of baptized parents, or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins,²⁹ but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam which must be expiated by the laver of regeneration for the attainment of eternal life, whence it follows that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins is to be understood not as true but as false, let him be anathema, for what the Apostle has said, by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned,³⁰ is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church has everywhere and always understood it.

For in virtue of this rule of faith handed down from the apostles, even infants who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this reason truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that in them what they contracted by generation may be washed away by regeneration.³¹ For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.³²

In this fourth paragraph the Council condemns two errors. The first is the error of denying that infants are to be baptized. The second is the error of denying that infants should be baptized for the remission of original sin. Positively, the Council here teaches four things: (1) Newly born infants are to be baptized, even if born of baptized parents, (2) Newly born infants are to be baptized for the expiation of original sin from Adam for the attainment of eternal life, (3) The words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12 should not be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church has everywhere and always understood them, and (4) According to this rule of faith [i.e. how Romans 5:12 has everywhere and always been understood by the Church] handed down from the apostles, even infants who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are (like adults) truly baptized for the remission of sins in order that what they contracted by generation [i.e. original sin] may be washed away by regeneration.

The primary problem for the newborn infant, prior to baptism, is not that he is not yet a member of the covenant family by a public sign or seal. The primary problem for the newborn infant is that he does not have sanctifying grace and agape, and thus does not have original righteousness or holiness, and thus is not in friendship with God. And that problem infinitely outweighs all other problems because what is at stake is eternal life and eternal separation from God. Doing a baby-dedication is a pious act, but Christ never instituted ‘dedication’ as a means by which anyone would receive grace; He instituted baptism. We know, of course, that God is capable of acting in extraordinary ways to give grace to whomever He wills at whatever times He wills. It is surely not beyond His power to do so. But we must not treat the possibility of the extraordinary as an excuse not to pursue with all our effort the ordinary means God has established through Christ by which adults, children, and infants are given the grace that translates them from death to life, from enemies of God to His friends.

V. Errors Regarding the Removal of Sin Through Baptism

5. If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or says that the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only canceled or not imputed, let him be anathema. For in those who are born again God hates nothing, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism unto death,³³ who walk not according to the flesh,³⁴ but, putting off the old man and putting on the new one who is created according to God,³⁵ are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ;³⁶ so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven. But this holy council perceives and confesses that in the one baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to sin, which, since it is left for us to wrestle with, cannot injure those who do not acquiesce but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; indeed, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned.³⁷ This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin,³⁸ the holy council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin. But if anyone is of the contrary opinion, let him be anathema. This holy council declares, however, that it is not its intention to include in this decree, which deals with original sin, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of God, but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV, of happy memory, are to be observed under the penalties contained in those constitutions, which it renews.³⁹

In this fifth paragraph the Council first condemns two errors. The first is the error of denying that by the grace of Christ which is conferred at baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted. The second is the error of claiming that the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away, but that the [debt] of sin is merely canceled or not imputed. The Council then proceeds to teach six things: (1) God hates nothing in those who are born again [i.e. those who are regenerated through the grace conferred in baptism], because by their baptism they have been buried together with Christ, put off the old man, put on the new man, made innocent, free from condemnation, immaculate, pure, guiltless, beloved of God, heirs of God, and heirs with Christ, so that nothing hinders their entrance into heaven, (2) In baptized persons there remains concupiscence, which is an inclination to sin, and which is left with us to wrestle with, (3) Concupiscence cannot injure those who do not give into it, but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ, (4) Those who have lawfully resisted concupiscence shall be crowned⁴⁰ (5) The Catholic Church has always understood concupiscence not to be sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those who are born again, but to be sin in the sense that it is of sin (as an effect) and inclines to sin (as a cause), and (6) What this Council says about the universality of original sin in mankind should not be taken to apply to the blessed Virgin Mary.

Of all five paragraphs in the Fifth Session of the Council of Trent, this last one was the one most incompatible with the theology of Luther and Calvin. Luther and Calvin agreed that the grace of Christ that is conferred at baptism remits original sin. But, they denied that this grace removes the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin. Instead, they claimed that sin remained in the baptized person, but the debt of sin was canceled, and the remaining sin was not imputed or counted. This is typically referred to as simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinner), illustrated in the cartoon at right.⁴¹ Whereas in Catholic doctrine, the grace of Christ given to us through the sacrament of baptism truly removes all our sin, in Luther and Calvin’s opinion, the grace of Christ does not remove all our sin; it leaves sin in our soul, but by God’s favor on account of Christ, sin in our soul is no longer counted  against us.

Two things need to be said here. First, in Catholic doctrine, there is a sense in which that cartoon is correct, but there is also a sense in which that cartoon is heretical. In order to understand these two senses, we must distinguish between mortal and venial sin. Mortal sin removes agape from the soul; venial sin does not. That’s because in mortal sin the sinner directly chooses something else over God as his last end.  By contrast, the person committing venial sin still loves God more than himself, and still seeks God as his final end, but chooses something other than the best path by which to attain to God. Even the saints sinned venially every day (the Blessed Mother excepted). So, if the sign held by the person in the cartoon above is referring to venial sin, then it is true that the baptized person remains a sinner. But even so, it is not that Christ’s righteousness hides or covers his venial sin. God sees every venial sin. But He sees it as venial, as still coming from a heart that loves Him above all else. And so He sees it with mercy, not wrath. Yet if the sign in the cartoon is referring to mortal sin, then the cartoon is heretical, because then it is affirming the second error condemned in this fifth paragraph of the Fifth Session of Trent.

The reason why it is impossible to be simultaneously in a state of mortal sin, and justified, is because God cannot lie. God can only count as righteous that which is actually inherently righteous. That’s because the relational problem between man and God necessarily depends upon the internal condition of man. As St. Thomas said, “But the effect remains so long as the cause remains. Wherefore so long as the disturbance of the order remains the debt of punishment must needs remain also.”⁴² In other words, so long as man is turned away from God, and without agape, the debt of sin remains, because the cause of that debt remains. God does not only look at the outside of man; He looks at the heart, and is related to man according to the condition of the man’s heart.⁴³ If a man has sanctifying grace and agape in his soul, then his relation with God is one of friendship and he is justified, and the God who cannot lie cannot claim that he is unjust. But if a man does not have sanctifying grace and agape, then he is not a friend of God, and the God who cannot lie cannot say that he is just, without first making him just in his soul.

The Protestant response is to claim that God is speaking truly when He declares us just, because He performs an extrinsic relational transaction in which the merits of Christ are credited to our account, and the demerits of our sins are credited to Christ’s account. However, the problem with that position is that for a God from whom nothing is hidden, there can be no difference between what one is internally, and what is in one’s account. Necessarily, before the God of Truth, what is in one’s ‘account’ is always and only what one actually is. God cannot pretend that I am Christ or that Christ is me. God cannot pretend that my account is His, or that His account is mine. He always sees everything for exactly what it is, nothing more and nothing less. And therefore for a God of Truth, there can be no swapping of accounts. Because our ‘accounts’ are based on what we really are, the notion of account swapping presupposes that God is capable of deceiving Himself into thinking that Christ’s account is mine, and that my account is Christ’s. But a God of Truth cannot be deceived, and therefore there can be no swapping of accounts.

When Protestants think about being inherently righteous, they tend not to think about agape, but about having perfectly kept every law, and not having any wayward thoughts. And they tend to think that that is impossible, and so find forensic imputation much more plausible and attractive than this [seemingly] impossible standard of perfect legal righteousness that God expects of us. So, for example, they find vices in themselves after baptism, and take that as evidence that they are in fact unrighteous, and that provides the attraction of simul iustus et peccator. Yet in Catholic doctrine the law is fulfilled by those having agape,⁴⁴ and venial sins (by definition) do not remove agape from the soul. Our righteousness before God (as friends of God) is not determined by or effected by our venial sins. So, while at the Judgment we are judged for all that we have done in the body, yet, our justification only requires that we have agape. Not having the mortal-venial distinction makes many Protestants conceive of the Catholic life as one of losing justification many times a day. And that seems (rightly) ridiculous to them. But in Catholic doctrine it is agape by which we fulfill the law, and mortal sin (in which agape is lost) is not something we should (ordinarily) be committing on a daily basis.

The second thing that needs to be said about this fifth paragraph, concerns concupiscence (i.e. disordered appetites). The Catholic Church teaches that concupiscence is not itself a sin. Concupiscence comes from sin, and it inclines to sin. But it itself is not sin, because sin requires the use of the will.⁴⁵ , and the motions of concupiscence are not willed. We discussed this in Aquinas and Trent: Part 2. Nor is concupiscence original sin. Baptism removes original sin, by giving the person sanctifying grace. But baptism does not remove concupiscence. Christ leaves us with concupiscence so that we, by manfully resisting it, may merit a greater reward. The early Protestants, however, believed that concupiscence was itself sin. And therefore, finding concupiscence in themselves daily, even after baptism, and not recognizing  the mortal-venial distinction, they concluded that justification does not depend upon the internal condition of the sinner, but upon a forensic declaration. Because they [wrongly] believed that concupiscence was sin, and because they [rightly] believed that concupiscence remained after baptism, they concluded that after baptism there remains in us something that God hates, and for that reason were drawn toward to the notion of simul iustus et peccator.

From the Catholic point of view, the notion that we are simul iustus et peccator, where the sin in question is mortal sin, is extremely dangerous, because it leads people to think that their sin doesn’t really matter, so long as they continue to trust in God. This notion removes all motivation for pursuing the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.⁴⁶ It produces no saints. Its danger cannot be underestimated, because what is at stake is eternal life. The notion of simul iustus et peccator could lead persons who are in a state of mortal sin, and thereby at risk of dying in a state of mortal sin and remaining eternally separated from God, to think that they are right with God. Of course some Protestants think that the Catholic Church teaches a false gospel. I will address that when we discuss the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, on the doctrine of justification.

May Christ our Lord lead all Protestants and Catholics to unity in the truth, and full reconciliation. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. A fascinating summary of his life and death can be found here.
2. The Pope had originally attempted to convoke this council in the city of Mantua in 1537, but for political reasons the council was unable to meet there.
3. cf. Session Three
4. Heb 11:6
5. Eph 4:14
6. Gen 3:1ff; Apoc. 12:9; 20:2
7. Cf. Acts 15:28. In that passage we see another example of a non-monergistic way of conceiving the cooperation of men with God. The Apostles recognize that what seems good to them, in council, is what also seems good to the Holy Spirit, precisely because the Holy Spirit is directing them in council.
8. Gen 2:17
9. Heb 2:14
10. Cf. II Synod of Orange (529)
11. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23)
12. Pelagianism ultimately reduces to one of two claims: it either denies that man has a supernatural end, and thus denies that man needs grace [i.e. participation in the divine nature] to attain man’s natural end, or it denies that grace is a participation in the divine nature, and thus implies that man, by his own natural power, can attain to the supernatural end that is heaven. The former denies that God has called man to enjoy eternal participation in His inner Life. The latter essentially denies the Creator-creature distinction. It claims that man, who is infinitely below God, can by his own natural power of intellect and will ‘climb up’ into the inner Life of the eternal Trinity.
13. Summa Theologica I-II Q.5 a.5 co.

14. All virtues have as their final scope to dispose man to acts conducive to his true happiness. The happiness, however, of which man is capable is twofold, namely, natural, which is attainable by man’s natural powers, and supernatural, which exceeds the capacity of unaided human nature. Since, therefore, merely natural principles of human action are inadequate to a supernatural end, it is necessary that man be endowed with supernatural powers to enable him to attain his final destiny. Now these supernatural principles are nothing else than the theological virtues. They are called theological: (1) because they have God for their immediate and proper object; (2) because they are Divinely infused; (3) because they are known only through Divine Revelation. The theological virtues are three, viz. faith, hope, and charity [agape]. (Catholic Encyclopedia article ‘Virtue‘.)

15. Romans 5:5
16. For more on this see The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, by Lawrence Feingold, (Sapientia Press, 2010).
17. 1 Cor. 15:21f.; II Synod of Orange, c.2
18. Rom 5:12
19. 1 Tim. 2:5
20. 1 Cor 1:30
21. Acts 4:12
22. John 1:29
23. Gal 3:27
24. By “rightly administered in the form of the Church” they mean according to the form taught by the Church, namely, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
25. We plan to post something showing this in the near future at CTC.
26. The Council acknowledges this in Session 6 Chapter 6.
27. See Session 6 Chapter 7.
28. This becomes relevant to Session 6 Canon 9, because that canon is condemning the notion that merely believing the message about Christ is entirely sufficient for justification, and that repentance (as a preparation for baptism) and baptism itself are not also necessary for the justification we receive through the sacrament of baptism, wherein belief in Christ is made to be the virtue of faith.
29. Acts 2:38
30. Rom. 5:12
31. C.153, D.IV de cons.
32. John 3:5
33. Rom. 6:4; C.13, D.IV de cons.
34. Rom. 8:1
35. Eph. 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9f.
36. Rom. 8:17
37. II Tim. 2:5.
38. Rom. 6-8; Col. 3
39. Cc. 1, 2, Extrav. comm., De reliq. et venerat. sanct., III, 12.
40. Those who castrate themselves, for example, are resisting concupiscence unlawfully.
41. This cartoon is from Michael Horton’s Putting Amazing Back Into Grace.
42. Aquinas and Trent: Part 5
43. “ God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)
44. cf. Rom 13:8, Gal 5:14, James 2:8
45. See Aquinas and Trent: Part 5
46. Hebrews 12:14

It is false to say that God absolutely wills all men to be saved; rather, He contingently wills all men to be saved. His will in this case is contingent upon men freely responding to His grace, which is, per His absolute will, a necessary condition for eternal life.

Now there is no force which is outside of God so we know that all things Fall under God’s providence. If God puts a thing into motion, it would seem that it cannot be stopped whatsoever because since no force outside of God exists, no other force is present to stop what God has put into motion. But things which were set in motion do stop; they are stopped by God Himself. This happens because one thing He wills contingently is stopped by another thing which He wills absolutely.

When God wills that an apple should Fall to the ground per His natural law, He wills it contingently. He wills it contingent upon whether or not He wills another thing to intervene. A branch below the apple may catch it and prevent it from Falling, but that branch prevents the apple from hitting the ground because God wills that a branch should have the power of stopping an apple – not that the branch has its own power outside of God. God’s contingent will is only hindered by other things which He wills. God’s motion is only stopped by His own power.

But there are agents with their own will. Do they upset the order of God’s providence? Certainly not. God may will that man shall not eat the apple that fell, but He wills it contingent upon whether or not man should will to eat it. But whatever caused man to will to eat it, and remember that man is not his own final cause, is also under God’s providence.

Did God will evil then? Far be it from us to suggest such a thing; it is impossible. At this point we need to look at the broader picture and see that God did not absolutely will that man should not Fall. Whatever God absolutely wills is true by necessity. God wills absolutely that squares should not be circles and that such a thing should not be possible. Whatever God wills contingently also happens unless something else which He wills absolutely causes it to not happen.

In this way, all things are under God’s providence. So we can know for certain that it was not in God’s absolute will that man should avoid the Fall. God willed contingently that man should not Fall, but in His wisdom, He willed absolutely that creation should be precisely as good as it is, and to achieve that, it was necessary per His absolute will, that the Fall should take place to bring about the greater good which resulted. We would not know the good of perseverance, for example, without the Fall. But God absolutely willed that the good of perseverance, again for example, should exist and be manifest, and so His contingent will of avoiding the Fall was stopped by His absolute will for a greater good. We must conclude that even the Fall of man was under God’s providence.

1. 2 Peter 3:9
2. e.g. Matthew 25:41

Such is the case with the “semi-Pelagianism” accusation against the Catholic Church.  Under the dim light of even a poor education, this attack is exposed as shallow and undeserving of a real rebuttal.  Yet because of widespread misunderstanding, this baseless claim is repeated often enough to justify a short refutation for the sake of onlookers who might not be sure of the truth.

One recent commenter at CTC remarked that the Catholic Church was “syngergistic” and “semi-Pelagian” as if the two were causally connected.  We will, as promised, deal with synergism at length, but we are not yet ready for that discussion.  Suffice it to say here that one may believe in true cooperation of man with God’s providence without being too near the heresy of Pelagianism.  We will proceed to ask two questions: 1. Is the Catholic Church guilty of Pelagianism? 2. Is the Catholic Church guilty of semi-Pelagianism?

Let us briefly review the heresy of Pelagianism to determine if the Catholic Church is guilty of that same heresy she condemned.  Pelagianism, inadequately summarized, teaches, contra the doctrine of original sin, that man does not stand in need of God’s grace to achieve salvation.  Aside from explicitly condemning this false belief at the council of Carthage in 418 AD and again at the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 AD, the Catholic Church perpetuates the condemnation repeatedly in the Catechism.  The interested reader should see especially: CCC 1996 – 2005.  The first question is settled then.  The Catholic Church is not guilty of Pelagianism.

The second question is a little trickier because the term “semi-Pelagianism” is vague.  Generally on the lips of the accuser, what this term means is reducible to “anything which imparts to man a role in salvation greater than what John Calvin does.”  If this is the definition, then we end the discussion here, “guilty” as charged.  But what else might it mean?  If Pelagianism means that salvation does not require grace, then semi-Pelagianism must mean we stand in semi-need of God’s grace, or rather, that grace accomplishes x% of salvation and man accomplishes the rest.  But this is a false division of cooperative powers.

If this is true, that whatever is done must be divided absolutely among its causal powers such that all involved agents must, through their own power, effect only a finite percentage of the whole, then all effects without exception would fall under this rule such that every action would be caused either wholly by God, wholly by man, or a cooperation of the two.  The monergist insists that with respect to any salvific action, the causal power must be God alone. Thus he feels justified in accusing the Catholic of synergism and subsequently, semi-Pelagianism.

This error rests on the denial of the distinction between primary and secondary causes.  If we say that a thing is only truly caused by its primary agent, then all actions are reducible to acts of God since God is the Prime Mover and everything that moves at all is moved as a result of His being.  Therefore if we deny secondary causes, we cannot, with any intellectual respectability, deny absolute determinism.  But if the universe is not absolutely determined, then secondary causes must be in play since, as we have said, all things, without exception, are results of God’s initial act as the Prime Mover.

Since we have admitted the existence of at least some secondary causes, e.g. human free will, in at least some actions, do we have any reason whatsoever to suppose that the secondary causal powers of man are strictly limited to actions which do not move us closer to God?  We do not find support for this belief either in Scripture or in Church Tradition so it must be dismissed.  If someone disagrees, they need only produce evidence of its existence in either of the two and my point will be refuted.

But what if the accuser agrees with secondary causal powers of man even in case of actions, such as faith,¹ which lead us to salvation, but insists that grace is necessary for all of these actions and not just some of them?  Then he agrees with the Catholic Church² and should end his schism.

We have seen that it is erroneous A) to accuse the Catholic Church of Pelagianism by virtue of her clear and authoritative condemnations thereof, B) to deny the distinction of primary and secondary causes even in the case of salvific action, and C) to insist, contra the clear and authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church, that she denies the necessity of grace for salvific actions.  Thus, the charge of semi-Pelagianism is utterly baseless.

1. James 2:24
2. See  the catechism as quoted above and the subsequent section on Merit.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons (Genesis 3:1-7)

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emma’us, about seven miles from Jerusalem,and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him… So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight… Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:13-16;28-31;35).

This past Wednesday the Gospel reading for the Liturgy was the Road to Emmaus. This wonderfully ironic story reveals that our Lord overturns the Fall of Adam and Eve.  In Genesis we learn that after both Eve and then Adam ate of the fruit their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked, that is, their inadequacy, their failure, their fall!  They pitifully tried to overcome by sewing fig leaves to hide themselves from their shame.  In the Gospel story we learn that the travelers to Emmaus were prevented from recognizing the Lord.  In this somewhat comical episode we read of their pitiful attempt to explain to Jesus, unbeknownst to them who is right beside them, the things concerning Jesus!

Now what was it that prevented them from recognizing the Lord?  Maybe it was their sadness over what had happened.  That would be legitimate, it would seem, considering they had pinned all their hopes on Jesus redeeming Jerusalem.  They possibly were so caught up in their circumstances of despair that they could not see him though he was right there with him.  But maybe it was the Lord himself who kept them from recognizing him.  In any event, they did not recognize our Lord.  Christ then gave them a study of the Scriptures about the things concerning himself and despite this wonderful “Bible study” they still did not recognize him.  It was not until they got to table and Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them that their eyes were opened and they recognized him.  And what happened to our Lord? He vanished from their sight.  They recognize him, they see him, not when he walked by their side, not when he explained the Scriptures, but when he vanishes and all that is present in bread! They recognize him as the Eucharistic Lord, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

What do we see in the breaking of the bread?  Do we see a symbol of him, do we role play the event, or do we, like the disciples before us recognize him in the breaking of the bread?  Can you say, when what appears to be ordinary bread, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.”  If not, then maybe you really do not believe He is really present.

The Altarpiece of the Redeemer (1357)
Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo (Orcagna)¹

St. Thomas Aquinas on the Essence of Original Sin

In Summa Theologica I-II Q.82, St. Thomas teaches four things regarding the essence of original sin. In article 1 he argues that original sin is a kind of habit. In article 2 he argues that there is only one original sin in each person. In article 3 he argues that concupiscence is original sin materially, but not formally. And in article 4 he argues that original sin is equally in all men.

Original sin as a kind of habit

In the first article, Aquinas teaches that original sin is a kind of habit. By ‘habit’ he means “a disposition whereby that which is disposed is disposed well or ill, either in regard to itself or in regard to another.²  To show that original sin is a kind of habit, he first quotes from St. Augustine who says:

[O]n account of original sin little children have the aptitude of concupiscence though they have not the act.³

Aquinas notes that since an aptitude is a kind of habit, therefore original sin is a kind of habit.

But what kind of habit is original sin? Aquinas distinguishes between two ways in which something may have a habit. In the first way, a power of the soul is disposed to an act. In other words, a power of the soul has a disposition to act in a certain way. This is the way in which virtues are habits. But according to Aquinas, this is not the way that original sin is a habit; original sin is not a disposition of a power to an act.

The second way in which a habit can be in something is as a disposition of a complex nature [naturae ex multis compositae] whereby that nature is well or ill disposed to something, particularly when that disposition has become like a second nature. Aquinas gives two examples of this way of having a habit: sickness and health. A healthy disposition is not in itself a disposition of any particular power in the body, but rather of the body as a whole. Likewise, a sickly disposition is not a disposition in a particular power of the body; a sickly disposition is rather a disposition of the whole body. Similarly, for Aquinas, original sin is an inordinate (i.e. disordered) disposition of the soul, “even as bodily sickness is an inordinate disposition of the body, by reason of the destruction of that equilibrium which is essential to health.”⁴

This second way of possessing a habit is the way in which original sin is a habit. It is an inordinate disposition that results from the destruction of that harmony in which consisted the essence of original righteousness [Est enim quaedam inordinata dispositio proveniens ex dissolutione illius harmoniae in qua consistebat ratio originalis iustitiae]. He repeats this when he says, “In like manner, when the harmony of original justice is destroyed, the various powers of the soul have various opposite tendencies.”⁵

What does he mean by “harmony of original justice”? Aquinas answers this question in Summa Theologica I Q.95 a.1 co. where he explains that man was made by God in such a way that man’s reason was subject to God, man’s lower powers were perfectly subject to his reason, and man’s body also was perfectly subject to his soul. The first subjection (i.e. the subjection of man’s reason to God) was the cause of the latter two subjections. This harmonized hierarchy of ordered subjections is for Aquinas the essence or form (ratio) of original justice. This harmony is called original justice because justice is giving to each its due, and when each of the powers in an ordered hierarchy gives to its superior what is due, this is therefore a just state or condition.

This harmony is not essential to man as man. A man is still a man without it. In other words, a fallen man is still a man. A fallen man does not ipso facto become a different species. Therefore original justice does not belong to the nature of man, but is something given to man in addition to his nature. Since original justice is not intrinsic to man’s nature, it must therefore be a supernatural gift. Hence Aquinas refers to it as a supernatural endowment of grace [supernaturale donum gratiae]. If, however, Adam had not sinned, this ordered subjection of the will to God, and of the lower powers of the soul to reason, and of the body to the soul, would have been transmitted to his offspring. Therefore not only nature but also grace would have been transmitted to Adam’s offspring through his semen. The implication of Aquinas’s theology on this point is that the sexual act was intended to be a sacramental act.⁶

When Adam sinned by his free will, which is a power of reason, he turned away from obedience to God, and therefore failed to give God His due. As a result of this act of injustice, the lower two subjections (i.e. the subjection of the lower powers of the soul to reason, and the subjection of body to soul) were destroyed. Even the harmony between man and woman was lost, as was the harmony between man and man (e.g. Cain and Abel), and that between man and nature, for nature was originally subject to man.

Aquinas argues that original sin is not a pure privation, but also a corrupt habit, because of the inordinate disposition of the lower ‘parts’ of the soul (inordinatam dispositionem partium animae).⁷  The original justice that Adam and Eve had been given by God “prevented inordinate movements” [prohibebat inordinatos motus] of these lower powers.⁸  So in the fallen state, the lower powers of the soul not only lack the disposition to give to reason what is due to it, but have inclinations toward that which is contrary to what reason would command.

That there is one original sin in each person

In the second article, Aquinas argues that there is one original sin in each person. He writes:

In one man there is one original sin. Two reasons may be assigned for this. The first is on the part of the cause of original sin. For it has been stated (81, 2), that the first sin alone of our first parent was transmitted to his posterity. Wherefore in one man original sin is one in number; and in all men, it is one in proportion, i.e. in relation to its first principle. The second reason may be taken from the very essence of original sin. Because in every inordinate disposition, unity of species depends on the cause, while the unity of number is derived from the subject. For example, take bodily sickness: various species of sickness proceed from different causes, e.g. from excessive heat or cold, or from a lesion in the lung or liver; while one specific sickness in one man will be one in number. Now the cause of this corrupt disposition that is called original sin, is one only, viz. the privation of original justice, removing the subjection of man’s mind to God. Consequently original sin is specifically one, and, in one man, can be only one in number; while, in different men, it is one in species and in proportion, but is numerically many.

Here Aquinas gives two reasons for his conclusion. He has shown already (in 81,2) that only Adam’s first sin was transmitted to his posterity, not Adam’s subsequent sins. So the first reason that there is only one original sin in each of Adam’s descendants is that Adam’s original sin was one, and each descendant of Adam has original sin from the same corrupt source (i.e. Adam) in the same manner (i.e. by generation from Adam).

The second reason follows from the fact that in every inordinate disposition, unity of species of the inordinate disposition depends on the cause of the inordinate disposition.  Many diseases may cause the various organs of the body to malfunction, but the type or species of the disorder in the organs is taken from the cause of the disease.  For example, a disorder in the liver on account of a virus (hepatitis) is a different type of disease than is a disorder in the liver on account of a cancer (hepatic carcinoma) or on account of some toxin (hepatotoxicity). Likewise, the species of the disorder which is original sin is taken from its cause. And the cause of original sin is the privation of original justice, that is, the removing the subjection of man’s reason to God. So even though there are many cases of original sin, because there are many men, yet in each man original sin has the same cause, and therefore original sin is one in species. When we consider all men, original sin is one in species but numerically many, for it is present in all Adam’s descendants. But in any particular man, original sin is one both in species and numerically.⁹

Original Sin and Concupiscence

In the third article, Aquinas considers whether original sin is concupiscence. He writes:

Everything takes its species from its form: and it has been stated (art. 2) that the species of original sin is taken from its cause. Consequently the formal element of original sin must be considered in respect of the cause of original sin. But contraries have contrary causes. Therefore the cause of original sin must be considered with respect to the cause of original justice, which is opposed to it.

First, he notes that everything takes its species (i.e. the kind of thing it is) from its form (not its matter). The same matter can become different things, as for example an apple, when eaten, becomes part of the eater. The matter is matter of an apple because it has the form of apple. But when that apple is eaten, the matter of the apple loses that form and receives the form of the eater. The matter of the apple becomes matter of a human when that matter receives the human form. In this way we can see what Aquinas means when he says that everything takes its species from its form.

Second he says that the species of original sin is taken from its cause, as he argued in article 2. So the form of original sin must be considered in respect of the cause of original sin. But since contraries have contrary causes, and since original sin is the contrary of original justice, it follows that the form of original sin must be considered in respect to the cause of original justice. So he then describes original justice in order to locate its formal cause:

Now the whole order of original justice consists in man’s will being subject to God: which subjection, first and chiefly, was in the will, whose function it is to move all the other parts to the end, as stated above (Question 9, Article 1), so that the will being turned away from God, all the other powers of the soul become inordinate.¹⁰

Original justice rested [causally] in the will, in this respect, that the subjection of the lower parts of the soul to reason, and of the body to the soul, depended on the will’s remaining subject to God.¹¹  It was the role of the will to direct these lower powers, as well as the body, to their proper end. He then says:

Accordingly the privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God, is the formal element in original sin; while every other disorder of the soul’s powers, is a kind of material element in respect of original sin. Now the inordinateness of the other powers of the soul consists chiefly in their turning inordinately to mutable good; which inordinateness may be called by the general name of concupiscence. Hence original sin is concupiscence, materially, but privation of original justice, formally.

Here Aquinas draws his conclusions. The form of original sin is the privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God. The matter of original sin is the other disorders of the souls’ powers, namely, the disordered inclinations of the soul’s lower powers. But the name given to the inordinateness of the lower powers of the soul is concupiscence. Therefore, formally original sin is the privation of original justice, but materially original sin is concupiscence. The importance of this conclusion will be seen in Calvin’s response to the fifth paragraph of the Fifth Session of the Council of Trent.

Whether Original Sin is Equally in All Persons

In the fourth article, Aquinas says the following:

There are two things in original sin: one is the privation of original justice; the other is the relation of this privation to the sin of our first parent, from whom it is transmitted to man through his corrupt origin. As to the first, original sin has no degrees, since the gift of original justice is taken away entirely; and privations that remove something entirely, such as death and darkness, cannot be more or less, as stated above (Question 73, Article 2). In like manner, neither is this possible, as to the second: since all are related equally to the first principle of our corrupt origin, from which principle original sin takes the nature of guilt; for relations cannot be more or less. Consequently it is evident that original sin cannot be more in one than in another.¹²

He notes that there are two aspects of original sin. One is the privation of original justice, and the other is the causal relation between this privation and the sin of Adam. But in both respects, there are no degrees. In the first respect, the gift of original justice is entirely removed in Adam and therefore in all his posterity. Similarly, all men are equally related to Adam as their first principle, and hence here too there is no possibility for more or less. Hence, he concludes that original sin cannot be more in one than in another.

In Part 3, I will be discussing St. Thomas’ teaching on the effects of sin.

1. In this painting we see Christ giving the keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter. Behind St. Peter is John the Baptist. On our left we see the Blessed Virgin presenting St. Thomas Aquinas to Christ. Aquinas is shown either offering his work to Christ, and/or receiving his wisdom from Christ.
2. ST I-II Q.49 a.1. Aquinas is there quoting from Aristotle’s Ethics V.25.
3. De Pecc. Merit. et Remiss. i, 39. “quod secundum peccatum originale parvuli sunt concupiscibiles, etsi non sint actu concupiscentes. Sed habilitas dicitur secundum aliquem habitum. Ergo peccatum originale est habitus.”
4. ST I-II Q.82 a.1 co.
5. ST I-II Q.82 a.2 rep obj. 2
6. Cf. ST I-II Q.81 a.5
7. ST I-II Q.82 a.1 ad.1
8. ST I-II Q.82 a.1 ad.3
9. Of course it should be understood here that Jesus Christ is excepted, and for Catholics so also was the Blessed Virgin.
10. ST I-II Q.82 a.3 co.
11. “Original justice has a prior relation to the will, because it is “rectitude of the will,” as Anselm states (De Concep. Virg. iii). Therefore original sin, which is opposed to it, also has a prior relation to the will. Two things must be considered in the infection of original sin. First, its inherence to its subject; and in this respect it regards first the essence of the soul, as stated above (Article 2). In the second place we must consider its inclination to act; and in this way it regards the powers of the soul. It must therefore regard first of all that power in which is seated the first inclination to commit a sin, and this is the will, as stated above (74, A1,2). Therefore original sin regards first of all the will.” ST I-II Q.83 a.3 co.
12. ST I-II Q.82 a.4 co.

Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas over the Heretics
Filippino Lippi (1489-91)

For that reason, dialogue aimed at reconciling Protestants with Catholics simply cannot circumvent the Council of Trent. The more I have studied the Council of Trent, the more I am convinced that it and the rationale underlying its conclusions can be rightly understood only within a broader paradigm. The canons of the sixth session are read by Protestants as if the terms mean what Protestants take the terms to mean, according to a Protestant theological method. By that light it only takes a quick glance to see that Trent anathematized the gospel. St. Paul obviously teaches that we are justified by faith and not by works (Romans 3:20, 28; 9:32, 11:6, Galatians 2:16, 3:2,5,10), and the ninth canon of the sixth session obviously anathematizes the claim that we are justified by faith alone. Therefore, for Protestants it is a very simple deduction that at Trent the Catholic Church formally apostatized. End of discussion.

Or is it?

Certainly we can all agree that the gospel of Jesus Christ is something of such tremendous importance that we should choose death rather than deny, compromise or abandon it. But for that very reason, we should also agree that it is supremely important to be as certain as possible that what we believe to be the gospel is in fact the gospel. To be warranted in separating from the visible Church over the gospel, clearly we would need to be absolutely certain both that we know what is the gospel and that the Church has in fact departed from it. So a great deal of caution is in order when concluding that Trent anathematized the gospel. Too often in my opinion, insufficient study and investigation lie behind the reasoning process by which Protestants conclude that Trent anathematized the gospel. The determination is often made in a rather facile fashion, as exemplified in the previous paragraph.

Imagine trying to map a mountain range while standing on the highest peak with a thick cloud cover at some distance below.  You see only certain peaks jutting up through the clouds. To perceive the mountain range rightly, you need to see what is underneath the clouds. In the same way, to understand rightly the meaning and basis of the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent, one must understand the theological and philosophical framework within which the Tridentine bishops were working. The enormous though invisible figure presiding virtually at the Council of Trent was the great Doctor Ecclesiae, St. Thomas Aquinas. It is virtually impossible to understand Trent rightly without understanding the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Why is that? In 1879, in his encyclical Aeterni Patris (On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy), Pope Leo XIII wrote the following:

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons [1274], Vienna [1311-1313], Florence [1439], and the Vatican [1869-1870] one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent [1545-1563] made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration. (Aeterni Patris, 22)

According to Pope Leo XIII, there were three books granted the honor of being placed on the altar at the Council of Trent. One was the Bible, one was the Decretals, and the other was Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. This does not mean that they believed the Summa to be equivalent in authority to Scripture, or that it was to be blindly received as an infallible commentary upon Scripture. Rather, it indicates how much respect the bishops at Trent had for the Summa as summarizing the Church’s organic tradition through which Scripture was to be understood. Keep in mind also that there were no less than twenty-three Dominican bishops in attendance at the Council of Trent, and they also contributed to Aquinas’s role at the Council, because Aquinas was a Dominican. When we read the sixth session of Trent with an understanding of what Aquinas has to say about justification, we see clearly that the bishops at Trent were using Aquinas’s position and arguments in order to formulate and define their own position on this subject. The great Church historian, Philip Hughes, wrote, “Where is the doctrinal definition of this council [i.e. Trent], for comment on which the theological lecturer will not turn for guidance to St. Thomas …?” (The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325-1870, p. 324)

Protestants tend to understand a term such as ‘justification’ primarily through an inference from its use in Scripture and in pagan literature contemporary to the authors of Scripture. Protestants also tend to be unfamiliar with Aquinas’s theology and philosophy. The bishops of Trent, by contrast, approached the issue of justification by looking at the Scripture through the eyes of St. Thomas. So, in effect, Protestants approach the issue of justification already in a different theological and philosophical paradigm than were the bishops at the Council of Trent. And when two groups of persons approach the same evidence, each group having its own paradigm, the typical result is disagreement due to misunderstanding.

Since we should not reject what we do not understand, Protestants should reserve judgment about the orthodoxy of Trent until they understand this Thomistic framework. That is because the burden of proof rests on those who would depart from the visible Church; otherwise there is no visible Church. In other words, we cannot just leave the Church and start our own sect whenever we, for any reason, happen to disagree with her theology. We would have to be absolutely certain that the Church has abandoned the gospel. Determining that a Protestant interpretation is more favorable or superior is insufficient; the Catholic position must be shown to be certainly contrary to Scripture. Therefore, if Catholic soteriology is compatible with Scripture, then Protestants should return to the Catholic Church. And every Protestant who knows his history should be the first to acknowledge this. But perceiving the compatibility of Catholic doctrine with Scripture requires first understanding the Thomistic theological and philosophical framework within which the Catholic soteriology promulgated at Trent is situated. So one essential goal of the Protestant-Catholic dialogue aimed at reconciliation and reunion is coming to understand the Thomistic paradigm within which the bishops at the Council of Trent were writing.

With an eye to that end, this is the first of a series of posts, Deo volente, examining the fifth and sixth sessions of the Council of Trent. What I intend to do in this series is present and explain the Thomistic paradigm that lies behind the Council’s teaching in these two sessions. Why am I including the fifth session? Because I believe that in order to understand the sixth session, on justification, we need first to consider and understand the fifth session, on original sin. And since today, March 7, is the day St. Thomas died (and hence is his feast day in the old calendar), this seems to be an appropriate day to begin such a series.

God our merciful Father, grant us the grace and wisdom to be reconciled with one another in full and visible communion. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us, that we may see the light that illuminated your mind and guided your pen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Part 2 in this series can be found here.