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.