Question Four. Whether Original Sin is Remitted in Baptism

24. Concerning the thirty second distinction I aska whether original sin is remitted in baptism.

a. a[Interpolation] Concerning this thirty second distinction, where the Master deals with the remission of original sin, the question is asked:

25. That it is not:

The guilt is not remitted unless the opposed justice is restored; original justice is not restored in baptism (as is plain from the effects).

26. To the contrary is the Master in the text [Sentences 2 d.32 ch.1 n.3: “For two reasons, then, is original sin said to be remitted in baptism, that by the grace of baptism the vice of concupiscence is weakened and lessened...and that the one guilty of original sin is set free”], and the Church holds this opposing view [cf. Augustine Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.10 n.26, “But this I say: it is very manifest according to the holy Scriptures, confirmed by very great antiquity and authority of the Catholic faith, well known by very clear renown of the Church, that original sin is removed by the laver of regeneration in children, so that whatever is against this.. .cannot be true”].

I. To All the Questions at Once

A. The Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

27. On this topic of original sin, holding that it is present in the way meant by the authorities to the contrary in the first question [nn.7-8], there are two ways of speaking about it - one is that of the Master and of others who follow and expound him [the second at n.48].a

a. a[Interpolation] The other way seems to be Anselm’s, in his book On the Virginal Conception.

28. Now to understand this way, four things must be looked at: first how the infection in the flesh is contracted by the soul; second, how infected flesh is sown; third, how the soul is infected by it; fourth, how the soul is freed from this infection by baptism.

29. As to the first article it is said that the will [sc. of the first man] caused in the flesh by sinning a certain diseased quality consequent to the crookedness of the will [cf. d.29 n.6]. This diseased quality is called ‘kindling’ [fomes] and it is a law in the bodily members, a tyrant;Lombard, Sentences 2 d.30 ch.8 n.2, “Original sin is called the kindling of sin, namely concupiscence... which is called the law of the bodily members, or the languor of nature, or a tyrant..., or the law of the flesh. Hence Augustine [Sermon 30 ch.5 n.6] ‘Now this languor is a tyrant’ that gives motion to evil desires;” Sentences d.31 ch.3 n.2, “Concupiscence itself is the law of the bodily members or of the flesh, which is a certain diseased affection or languor that stimulates illicit desire, that is, carnal concupiscence, which is called the ‘law of sin’ [Romans 7.23].” ⁴⁰ it is also like a certain weight, exciting sensual movements in the flesh and inclining the soul toward taking delight in the flesh and holding the soul back from superior delights, according to Wisdom 9.15, “The corrupting body weighs down the soul.”

30. Because of this diseased quality in the flesh thus weighing down the soul, that is, tending down toward lower things, the soul is drawn and enticed toward likewise tending down into lower things; and according to a certain person [Henry, Quodlibet 5.23, reply to the argument for the opposite], this quality is never reduced in its essence (although it is in its effect) - that is, that although grace could be so great that it inclines to higher things more than the kindling inclines to lower ones, yet grace does not reduce the kindling in its essence because it is not a contrary to the kindling, for the kindling is in the flesh and grace is in the soul. And he posits an example about a stone attached or tied to the wings of a bird: however much the motive power might grow in the wings, the weight would never decrease in the stone, although as to the effect it would drag down less because the contrary force [in the wings] would in its effect prevail.

31. About the second article [n.28] it is said [Lombard, Henry, et al.] that either the whole of the flesh of the first parents was infected with this diseased quality, and thus is the sown flesh infected; or, if not the whole flesh was infected, or if the flesh sown was not the flesh of the father, then the sown flesh is at least infected by the fervor and lust of the inseminating; and this second alternative seems assented to by Augustine [rather Fulgentius On the Faith to Peter, “Not propagation but lust transmits sin to children; nor does the fecundity of human nature make men to be born with sin, but the foulness of lust does, which men have from that most just condemnation of the first sin”], who attributes this infection, not to the propagation, but to the lust (as is plain in d.20 above [not in the Ordinatio, see Lectura 2 d.20 n.30]).

32. As to the third article [n.28] it is said [Henry, Lombard, Bonaventure] that the soul, at the instant of its creation and infusion, is stained by the infected flesh, so that although the infection or stain of the flesh was not guilt formally but the result of guilt, yet it is an occasion for guilt in a soul united to the flesh - because when the soul is united, the infection is of the sort that is of a nature to exist in the soul, and of such sort is guilt. An example is used about the gift of an apple, which is stained and dirtied by the hand of the receiver.

33. About the fourth article [n.28] it is posited [Henry, Lombard] either that the crookedness, which the will incurs by sinning, remains in it, or that, if it does not remain, then at least the kindling in the flesh remains; but whether both or one of them remains, they are not imputed to the soul after baptism the way they were before, because the guiltiness is taken away; however they remain precisely as punishment for the preceding sin and as matter for exercising virtue.

34. In accord with this way [nn.27-28] it is plain what must be said to the questions moved:

For original guilt exists in anyone thus propagated, and this as to the first question [n.1]; as to the third question [n.17], it is said that infected flesh is sown and that by the infected flesh the soul is culpably infected; this guilt, as to the second question [n.9], is either a natural crookedness opposed to rectitude of will, or concupiscence (that is, a proneness to unbridled coveting of delights); and it is remitted, as to the fourth question [n.24], not in itself but as to the guiltiness of the person.

2. Doubts against the Opinion

35. About this way there are certain doubts as concerns the individual articles.

[Doubts against the first article] - As to the first article [nn.29-30] one doubt is how the will has so much dominion over the body that it can immediately alter the whole body to this diseased quality, especially since it does not have the body for object; for the will could with a first sin have sinned by desiring the excellence of God, or by some spiritual sin, and in this act the object of the will was not the body, which however is posited as being altered by the will [n.29]. Or if the way this altering could have happened may be saved, then it seems difficult how the same cause - with also a greater extrinsic help - could not have destroyed the diseased quality; for the will, however much aided by grace, cannot destroy the kindling (according to them [n.30, Henry and his followers]), and any total cause whatever of any effect seems able to destroy that effect, especially if its active power is increased.

36. A second doubt: for what purpose is this kindling posited in the flesh? - None, if it is posited as the principle of rebellion; for the flesh does not per se rebel against the will but the sensitive appetites do, for according to Aristotle Politics 1.5.1254b2-6 “the will dominates the body with despotic rule but the sensitive appetite with political rule.” Therefore the kindling should be principally placed in the sensitive appetite; or, if it is placed in the body, only in what is the organ of the sensitive appetite; and if in this organ, then, since no such flesh is passed on [to children], no flesh infected with kindling is passed on to them.

37. A third doubt is that in pure nature there would be rebellion, as was said in d.29 n.12; therefore one should not posit because of it any diseased quality in the flesh.

38. If it be said that the proper delight of the sensitive appetite in its proper delightful object would exist in pure nature too, but it would not exist along with lust, that is, not with unbridled and immoderate coveting as it does now, and the principle of this sort of lustful delight is the kindling - against this: just as delighting is not in the power of the sensitive appetite (‘because it does not lead but is led’ [according to Damascene d.29 n.12]), so neither is the mode of delighting; therefore it delights supremely in the presence of a supremely delightful sensible object. What lust adds over and above this ‘supremely delighting in the presence of a delightful sensible object’ is not easy to see.

39. [Doubts as to the second article] - As to the second article [n.31] the first doubt seems to be that semen was never animated with the soul of the father; for it is something left over, something which is not necessary for nourishing any member of the body. But what is taken up by a bodily member, with which the semen had the same nature, was not something animated; therefore the semen never contracted infection from a soul by which it was never perfected.

40. There is a confirmation from Anselm On the Virginal Conception ch.7, where he maintains that “the semen is not infected more than spit is or blood;” but if an organic body were formed from these things, there would seem to be no way that the soul would be infected by that body’s infection.

41. The second doubt is that if the semen was infected, then since it is transmuted through many substantial forms before an organic body comes to be from it, and the prior substantial form - the one that constituted the subject of the diseased quality - does not remain, so neither does the diseased quality remain.

42. It will be said [by Henry] that from an infected thing an infected thing is generated; example: from the seed of a leprous father the leprous body of a son is generated. - On the contrary: a lion eating the corpse of a dead man will contract the kindling. Proof of the consequence: for the corpse was infected with the kindling and, according to you, ‘an infected thing is generated from an infected thing’;     therefore etc     . Proof of the assumption: let a dead man be resurrected (as happened with Lazarus, John 11.43-44); the soul united to the flesh will find the flesh rebellious against the spirit; therefore the kindling was then in the body. So by what was it there? Not by the soul because it has been purged of original sin (through baptism, let us suppose, or circumcision); nor must one imagine that it was by God; therefore the kindling remained in the dead corpse.

43. A response could be made to these two doubts [nn.39, 41] by the fact that it is the infected active power of the semen which generates an infected thing from an infected thing, and even an infected thing from a non-infected thing. And so, in answer to the first doubt: from non-infected nutriment the infected active power of the father generates infected semen and passes on original guilt to the offspring. Answer to the second doubt: the infected power generates infected flesh from infected semen; and then the second objection about the lion [n.42] is not valid, because the active power of the lion - which is what converts the corpse into some member of the lion - is not infected.

44. A third doubt about this article [n.31] seems to be that ‘something miraculously formed from the flesh of my finger would contract original sin’ [Henry, but not Aquinas], which seems contrary to Anselm [On the Virginal Conception chs.11, 18, 19] where he maintains that there are two reasons that Christ did not contract original sin [sc. that he was not a natural son of Adam and that he was conceived by a most pure mother], either of which would suffice without the other:a “because he was not a natural son of Adam” and thus was not made guilty in Adam.

a. a[Interpolation ] one, that his flesh was cleansed in the blessed Virgin;Vatican editors: this is false and contrary to Anselm. ⁴¹ seconds

45. [Doubts as to the third article] - About the third article [n.32] there is a doubt as to how flesh causes the infection of the soul. For if the soul has caused this infection in the flesh [nn.28-29] and from the flesh it may be caused in the soul [n.32], then both causes are equivocal to their effect and both are total causes [cf. dd.34-37 n.106] (and it is difficult to avoid a circle in total equivocal causes). It will also be difficult to save the way in which the will, which is a purely immaterial power, is transmuted immediately by something bodily; and since the intellect is not posited as being able immediately to be transmuted by a phantasm except in virtue of the agent intellect [1 d.3 nn.340-345], the result is that the intellect is more immaterial than the will. It would seem to follow too that this sin would be in the essence first, because the essence perfects the flesh first; but the consequent seems false, because in the essence, qua essence, guilt seems neither to exist formally nor to be of a nature to exist formally [guilt exists in a power, d.26 nn.24-26].

46. [Doubt as to all three articles together] - Against all three articles [nn.29-32] there is one common doubt, namely why the first man was able by an act of his will to infect his flesh [n.29] without the second and third man after him being able to do likewise; and thus, since many intermediate fathers sinned mortally, the sown flesh would be more and more infected. But this seems absurd because not everyone generated now is more prone to inordinate delight than any of the ancients born before were; also because it would seem to follow from this that original sin is made more intense; for although original sin, if it is posited as being a total privation [cf. below nn.50-51, 53], does not admit of a more and less, yet if it is posited to be crookedness or concupiscence (according to this opinion [nn.27-33]), it can be greater or lesser [cf. n.21].

47. [Doubts as to the fourth article] - About the fourth article [n.33] the doubt is that sin is not formally removed unless what is formal in sin, and not what is material in it, is destroyed; but the debt of original justice is not the formal debt in original sin, because original justice was only due in the state of innocence because he who had it owed it; therefore it does not seem to be formally remitted unless that deformity or lack is taken away, either in itself or through some having equivalent to the having of the privation.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion, which is taken from Anselm

48. About this topic there is another way, which seems to be that of AnselmThe way also adopted by Scotus here, and which (say the Vatican editors) is close enough, in its main points, to that of Aquinas and several other doctors. ⁴² in the whole of his book On the Virginal Conception where he deals with original sin.

49. To see this way four things again must be touched on: first, what original sin is, and hereby is solved the second question [n.9], second whether such a sin is present [sc. in those propagated from Adam], as regard the first question [n.1]; third, how it is contracted, as to the third questions [n.17]; and fourth, how it is remitted by baptism, and this as to the fourth question [n.24].

1. What Original Sin is

50. As to the first article Anselm says in the cited book [n.48] ch.27, “This sin, which I call ‘original’, I cannot understand to be anything other in infants than the very being stripped naked of an owed justice, a nakedness brought about by Adam’s disobedience, through which all are ‘sons of wrath’ [Ephesians 2.3].”

51. This account of original sin is proved by the fact that [Anselm ibid. ch.3] sin is formally injustice, and that such a sin is such an injustice [cf. below dd.34-37 n.51]; now injustice is nothing but lack of owed justice, according to Anselm ibid. ch.5 (and On the Fall of the Devil ch.16], when he says that original sin - which is lack of original justice - is nothing but lack of owed justice [also Giles of Rome, Roger Marston, Aquinas].

52. And if it is objected that other saints seem to say that concupiscence is original sin, I reply:

Concupiscence can be taken for an act or a habit or a proneness in the sensitive appetite, and none of these is formally sin, because there is no sin in the sensitive part according to Anselm ibid. chs.3-4. Or it can be taken for a proneness in the rational part or appetite (or the rational appetite) for coveting delights inordinately and immoderately, which rational appetite is of a nature to delight with the sensitive appetite to which it is joined; and in this way concupiscence is the material of original sin because, by the lack of original justice (which was as a bridle restraining it from immoderate delight), the rational appetite becomes, not positively but through privation, prone to coveting immoderately delightful things (as Anselm exemplifies, ch.5, about a ship with a broken rudder and about a horse with a broken bridle that falls off it); and from this follows, in the issue at hand, the inordinate motion that the bridle was restraining.

53. Hereby is the second question solved [nn.9, 49], where the question is asked what original sin is. For it is formally a lack of owed original justice - not owed, however, in just any way, but owed because received in the first parent and in him lost; and therefore Adam did not have original sin, because this debt was not passed on to him by any parent, but he received the justice in himself and by his act he lost it.

2. Whether Original Sin is in Everyone Propagated in the Common Way

54. As to the second article, wherein the first question is solved [nn.1, 49].

By holding, according to the authority of the saints [Augustine, Ambrosiaster, Fulgentius, Anselm], that the sin exists in all those propagated in the common way, the point can be made clear from the above account of original sin; for anyone thus propagated has the lack of original justice (as is plain from the effects of original justice stated above, d.29 nn.13-19); and he is a debtor for that justice, because he received it in the parent, by the act of which parent he lost it [n.53]; therefore, according to the above description, he has original sin.

56. The antecedent is plain from Anselm ibid. ch.27, “Because the forsaking of justice accuses, of its own accord, the nature [God] made, nor are persons excused by the inability to recover it,” as he himself explains ch.2, “for nature made itself impotent by the forsaking of justice in the first parents, in whom nature was whole, and nature is always in debt to have the power that it received for always preserving justice.”

57. From these statements a debt seems to be proved in children, on the grounds that Adam received justice for himself and for the whole nature that was then in him; and therefore God justly requires from the whole nature, in whomever it is, the justice which he gave nature - so that, according to Anselm ibid. ch.23, Adam by his personal sin stripped nature of its due justice, and nature stripped naked of such justice makes nature in anyone at all to be naked and debtor.

58. Against this [n.57] it is objected that the numerically individual nature that is in Peter was not in Adam, although it was of the same species in Peter; therefore this nature of Peter did not receive any justice; therefore it is not a debtor.

59. And if you say that ‘as the nature was causally in Adam, so this person was causally in Adam’, then the same thing, as far as the conclusion about being debtor is concerned, is being said of the persons propagated as of the natures of those propagated; for one must show that the person, from the fact he was in Adam causally when Adam received justice formally, is a debtor in the same way that nature is. How then is it that the mode of receiving justice is sufficient for being a debtor for the received justice? For if a natural son of Adam was not in Adam as to the will but only as to the flesh, and if he cannot be a debtor for justice save as to the will (as to which he is able to possess justice), then he is not a debtor for justice because he was causally in someone as in his propagative principle.

60. Response. Without making mention of this nature and this person, I show that someone propagated from Adam is a debtor for justice because Adam received justice formally and the one propagated received it in Adam.

61. And the proof of this is as follows: every gift is due that is given by God himself when he gives it with antecedent will (though not with consequent will), that is, as far as God’s part is concerned, the gift has without special merit or grace now been given; but when Adam receives justice, his son is given justice by God’s antecedent will (that is, as far as the part of God was concerned), because justice would, without special gift, have been conferred on Adam’s son, provided there was no impediment present; so, from this conferring made to the father, the son is debtor for the justice thus given.

62. Proof of the major: for although he who receives will and grace is given no meritorious work in itself without consequent will, yet he is given it in the grace in which it exists by antecedent will and virtually; and, for this reason, he who receives grace is debtor for the good works that are virtually contained in grace, so that he who loses grace and sins frequently is punished not only for the loss of grace but also for the sins committed, because otherwise those who sinned many times and those who sinned few times would be punished equally.

63. The minor is plain from the divine law which establishes that the parent [Adam], not putting an obstacle in the way by sin, gives as it were naturally original justice to his progeny; not indeed that the father transfuses it (for it is a supernatural gift), but that God himself would regularly cooperate with nature in giving justice to the progeny, just as now he creates the intellective soul for a completely organized body.

64. An objection is raised against the proof of the major [n.111], that if works received formally in grace are due, this debt is due from the same will that received the grace, and in this grace those works are virtually contained; but in the issue at hand the will of the son never received justice, and it does not seem that the son’s justice could be virtually received in the justice of another’s will [sc. Adam’s] the way the works are virtually received in the grace given.

65. By removing this objection the reasoning [n.61] is confirmed: the idea of a debt - both on the part of the gift that is due and on the part of the will that owes it - is the very giving of the giver, who gives the gift received and gives to the will receiving; therefore a giving of the same idea suffices for the will to be debtor as it suffices for the gift to be due. But for the gift to be due, a giving by a will giving antecedently or virtually, not in itself formally, suffices; so, for the will to be debtor, a similar giving to the will itself suffices. But when the giving was made to the will of Adam in this way, that with, as it were, the same giving - as far as concerned the giving of itself - it was given simply to the will of any son whatever (if no obstacle were placed in the way), such a giving is a giving with respect to the will of any son; therefore the son’s will by this giving is made debtor. So although things are not similar altogether in the case of meritorious works given virtually in grace and in the issue at hand [n.64], yet there is a similarity in respect of it, because on both sides there is precisely a giving with an antecedent, and not consequent will, on the part of the giver, and this giving is a reason for the will to be debtor just as it is for the gift to be due.a

a. a[Interpolation] The reason is confirmed, because if God had created all men at once and had given original justice to Adam, then if only Adam had sinned, there seems to be no law of justice that the others (who did not receive justice in themselves) were debtors for that justice; so they are not debtors now either, because they could not have been more obliged now through Adam than they were then if God had established a law that, with only Adam sinning, he would have given justice to everyone, because then none would have sinned. The assumption, namely that the rest would not have been debtors, is proved by this, that if God had given them justice and had immediately deprived them of it without their act, they would not have been reputed debtors for the justice they lacked. But they can more receive the idea of debt from God who gives than from the fact that their father received justice. Therefore from the fact that their father received justice formally and lost it by his own act, the sons will not be debtors such that it would be imputed to them for guilt.The Vatican editors regard this interpolation as neither a confirmation nor as consonant with the views of Scotus. They even advert to a marginal note added in one of the manuscripts to the effect that the interpolation is heretical and is believed to have been added by the enemies of Scotus. However, the interpolation can perhaps be saved if it is understood to be arguing, as it does at the end, that the mere gift of original justice to Adam does not entail debt in his progeny, but only a gift does that includes the antecedent willing by the giver to give the same gift to everyone else because of Adam, so that, if Adam sinned, it would not be given them (which is the burden of Scotus’ argument in n.65). The argument in the interpolation, therefore, proceeds by extreme assumption as it were: suppose all Adam’s descendants created at once along with him (which is physically impossible but possible by imaginary hypothesis), then they could not have lost original justice merely because Adam lost it, but only because God willed to give them original justice through giving it first to Adam (first in order, if not in time). Then Adam’s loss of original justice by his own act would entail loss and debt on the part of everyone else, since the giver’s antecedent will was to give them justice through Adam and not independently of him. ⁴³

66. For the purpose of solving the arguments [nn.2-6, the solution is in nn.70-75], one must understand that ‘owed justice’ can be twofold: in one way because it is received in oneself and is lost by the action of oneself as receiver; in another way because it is received in another and lost by the action of that other. In the first way actual sin is injustice and lack of justice; in the second way original sin is; hence original sin is compared rather to sin remaining in the soul after the passing by of the act than compared to an actual sin that is being elicited by the sinning will itself.

3. How Original Sin is Contracted

67. As to the third article and the third question [nn.49, 17].

In line with this way [n.48] it is said that the soul contracts original sin by the intermediary of the flesh - not in such a way that the flesh as it were causes the sin by some quality quasi-caused [n.29] in the soul, but by the fact that the flesh is sown with concupiscence, and from this the organic body is formed and the soul infused into it [n.63], constituting a person who is a son of Adam. This person, then, because he is a natural son of Adam, is in debt for original justice (given by God to Adam for all his sons) and lacks it; therefore he has original sin. So the sin is contracted in the flesh insofar as the flesh is a natural reason, and from this reason the person is proved to owe the justice that through Adam’s sin he lacks.

4. How Original Sin is Remitted by Baptism

68. As to the fourth article and the fourth question [nn.49, 24].

It is said that that which is formal in the remission of the sin must in itself destroy what is formal in the sin through the opposite of it - opposite formally or virtually -, and what is formal in the sin is not the debt (as is plain, because justice was due in the state of innocence), but the lack of the justice; this lack then must be destroyed either by the positive proper opposite [nn.47, 53] or by something else which virtually contains the opposite. Now grace, although it does not join to the ultimate end, as far as an accidental end is concerned, as perfectly as original justice does, yet it does join to it more perfectly (as was said in d.29 n.25), and that as to the fact that original sin disjoins from the ultimate end; for grace joins simply to the end - under the idea of end - more eminently than original justice does; and therefore, when grace is given in baptism, the sin is simply remitted more eminently than it would be by its proper positive. And even if the lack of the proper positive remains, yet it is not guilt, because the sin is not the debt; for the debt to have that gift is discharged and changed into a debt to have another gift.

II. To the Principal Arguments

A. To the Arguments of the First Question

69. To the arguments of the questions in order.

70. To the first [n.2] I say that ‘voluntary’ can be taken for what which is in the will, or more properly, as it is commonly taken, for what is in the power of the will as the will is active. In the first way original sin could be called voluntary, because, like any sin, it is in the will, where injustice is, according to the justice opposed to it, alone of a nature to be, as Anselm says On the Virginal Conception chs4-5; in the second way I say that sin need not be voluntary for the one who has the sin but for him or another from whom the sin is contracted - and both suffice for Augustine against the Manichees, who supposed sin to be from the evil soul, and thus, because of that evil soul, necessary and involuntary for everyone.

71. To the statement from Augustine On Free Choice [n.3] I say ‘to sin’ can be either to elicit an act of sinning or to have sin. In the first way the authority from Augustine can be conceded, because children do not elicit an act of sinning, for the sin is not actual in them but only contracted from their parents; in the second way the proposition [‘No one sins as to what he cannot avoid’] is false, unless it be understood in a general way as follows: ‘.. as to what he cannot avoid either in himself or in another through whom he contracts the sin’, and the second is false in the issue at hand; and so the proposition, being thus disjunctively true, suffices for Augustine against the Manichees, as before [n.70].

72. To the third [n.4] I say that two things come together for original sin, namely the lack of justice (as formal in it) and the debt to have it (as material in it) [nn.47, 68], just as in the case of other privations there come together the privation and the aptitude for having it. The debt is from God establishing this law: ‘by giving justice to you, Adam, I give it, as far as my part is concerned, to all your natural sons by the same giving’; and therefore all are by this giving bound to have it, and to have it from a propagated father, by whose action he is a natural son of Adam; so this sin does not enter through ‘unknown sources’ but is present through two positive causes. Now the lack has a cause only negatively, namely someone not giving original justice - and if the further cause of this be asked for, there is only a demeriting cause, namely that Adam deserved original justice not be given; the negative cause (‘not giving’) is God, the demeriting cause (‘not to have justice given’ or ‘why justice is not given’) is Adam sinning.

73. And if it is objected that ‘when the effect is actually being brought about, its causes must then be posited to be in act; but if Adam were annihilated, or if now there were in fact no sin or demerit in Adam’s will, how does this child in this instant contract sin from Adam?’ - I reply: just as merit, when it passes away in itself, yet remains in the knowledge and acceptation of God who repays it as if it were present, so demerit too passes as to the act but remains in the knowledge of God, who punishes it as if it were now present. Thus too in the case of the negation ‘not having original justice’, the ways in which it enters are: God not giving, and the demerit of Adam in God’s knowledge, because of which he does not give.

74. To the statement from Ethics 3 [n.5] I say that no defect contracted from the origin is blamable save this one of original sin; and thus, although all other defects are non-blamable penalties, not so this one.

75. To the final argument [n.6] I say that Adam did not corrupt this singular nature nor this singular person; rather he corrupted himself with personal sin and therein, by demerit, his whole posterity.

B. To the Arguments on both Sides of the Second Question

76. To the arguments of the second question.

As to the first, about Adam [n.11],Actually the second argument in the Ordinatio and the first in the Lectura and Reportatio. The first argument in the Ordinatio is responded to next, n.77. ⁴⁴ it is plain that he had a lack of original justice by his own act, and a lack of an owed justice because it was received in him; such lack is not original sin but that lack is which is had by another’s act and is a lack of justice owed because received by another [nn.53, 66].

77. As to the next about the angel [n.10], it is plain that an angel is not capable of original justice, or if he is, he has it; for if original justice per se respects only the will and not the sensitive appetite, and if it respect the end under the idea of the fitting and delightful [d.29 nn.14, 25], to posit some such gift in an angel is not unacceptable.

78. To the third [n.12] I say that in baptism is discharged the debt of having the gift in itself, and it is changed into a debt of having the equivalent gift, namely grace [n.68]. And this second debt from then on always remains, nor does the first debt return; and he who lacks the second gift owed sins more gravely than if he lacked the first; and yet he is not a sinner with original sin, because the debt of having the original justice does not return.

79. To the fourth [n.13] the response is plain [n.78]. From the solution to the second question [nn.50-53].

80. To the fifth [n.14] I concede that original sin is in the will. And when you say that ‘the will is an immaterial power and therefore cannot be immediately affected by flesh’ - I say that the injustice is not in the will as in a subject changed by flesh changing it, but it is in the will because justice is not there, and yet the justice is due because the will is the will of a son of Adam.

81. To the arguments for the opposite, against concupiscence [n.15], it is plain that they do not conclude to an opposite against the intention of the question [sc. while they prove that concupiscence is not original sin, they do not prove that lack of original justice is not original sin].

C. To the Arguments on both Sides of the Third Question

82. To the arguments of the third question.

To the first [n.18], I say that original sin is not from flesh acting on the soul; and the same serves as response for Augustine On Genesis [n.19]; for all that comes from the flesh is this relation, ‘that he is a natural son of Adam’, in the person produced, and on this relation follows a debt from divine law, and the lack of original justice exists there from negation of the cause [nn.67-72].

83. And when, by taking the argument further back, it is responded [n.20] that punishment is not a cause of guilt, this is true of the principal cause. But if some infection is posited in the flesh (which is not necessary according to the present way [n.48]), it can be an instrumental cause of guilt; or if there is no infection there, the flesh can still be an instrumental cause insofar as an active power exists in the semen for producing a son of Adam, who will thereby be a debtor.

84. To the argument about the nearest parent [n.21] I reply that whoever had received original justice formally in itself or by consequent will would have been debtor for himself and for all his posterity, for whom he had received it virtually; and so, if not Adam but Cain had sinned, the sons of Cain would have contracted original sin not from Adam but from Cain. As it is however, no one received original justice formally save Adam, and therefore everyone else had the same reason for possession with respect to original justice and the same reason for lacking it, that is, by the act of another [nn.53, 60-67, 76]; and so now the lack is not contracted from any nearest parent in such a way that it could be increased by him, just as not in such a way that it could be per se caused by him.

85. As to the arguments for the opposite [nn22-23], it is plain that the authorities which say the soul is infected by the flesh are to be understood in the aforesaid way [nn.82-84], in that the soul is the form of a sinful will and is thereby debtora for having the justice which it lacks.

a. a[Interpolation ] [_ the soul is the form] of the flesh, and from the union of these two comes a son of Adam and so a debtor.

86. But here there is a doubt about the authority of Augustine [Fulgentius, n.31] adduced by the Master in this thirty first distinction, which says that ‘not propagation but lust transmits’ this stain; so it seems that it is not merely from the fact someone is a natural son of Adam because propagated from Adam that he is thus bound to such sin, but it is from the fact he is a son of Adam propagated in lust that he contracts original sin.

87. I reply:

If propagation had taken place in the state of innocence, original sin would not have been contracted, and then propagation would have been wholly without lust, because those propagated would then have had original justice; but now any propagation at all in the common way is lustful by that fact; therefore because propagation is stained, it stains the offspring; but it does not stain because it is propagation, because propagation is not the medium between parent and offspring by which, according to the absolute idea of propagation that would have existed in the state of innocence, the son is stained, but this comes from the lack of original justice in the propagators, and the lust is consequent to this lack; so the authority ‘not propagation but lust infects the offspring’ must be expounded so that ‘lust’ is taken for the lack of original justice in the propagators, which lack is the cause of lust in the act of propagating.

D. To the Argument of the Fourth Question

88. As to the argument of the fourth question [n.25], it is plain that original justice is restored in an equivalent gift, rather in a preeminent gift [n.68].

89. But here there is a doubt; for since original justice is not formally grace, therefore neither is the privation of it formally privation of grace; therefore the privation of original justice can stand along with grace, and so, although grace is given in baptism, original sin remains (unless it be said that the debt of having original justice is discharged, and this falls in with others [nn.47, 68, 78]).

90. I reply:

In the state of innocence there were gifts ordained, so that original justice could have been without grace (but not conversely), and then the privation of original justice included virtually the privation of grace; therefore whoever would have had grace restored to him without original justice - had this happened - would not have had the perfect state of innocence. In the present state original justice and grace do not have this order [sc. original justice first followed by grace], but grace can exist without such justice, and grace is simply a more excellent gift than such justice; so when it exists in man it restores him simply in the present state to the supernatural perfection possible for him, and this without original justice. Although lack of original justice and grace are not, in the present state, absolutely contradictory or repugnant, yet they are repugnant in that the lack is an averting from the ultimate end, because conversion, which is opposed to aversion, is of a nature, in this present state, to be present by grace in a son of Adam without the gift of original justice [d.29 nn.13-14].