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.