b. A Doubt

362. But there remains still a doubt whether God could, of his absolute power, dismiss original sin without conferring anything repugnant to that sin, namely original justice or something of the sort.

363. And it seems that he could not, for the three reasons given before about privation and change and disorder [nn.347-349], and especially by the one about man not having original justice necessarily having a lack of that justice and having too a debt to have it, if he is propagated from Adam.

364. My proof of the last point:

For a man is for this reason a debtor for that justice, because he who is naturally propagated from Adam receives the debt in Adam. But lack of this justice together with the debt to have it completes the idea of original sin [Ord. II dd.30-32 n.53]; therefore, it is simply necessary that he who is propagated from Adam has original sin, if original justice is not given to him in itself or in something equivalent.

365. Again, it was proved in Ord. 1 d.17 (nn.114-118, 129, 133-135) that charity is in the soul through the change that is brought about in justification of the sinner; but if a sinner could be justified or reconciled to God without that change, the middle terms in those arguments [ibid. nn.129, 131] would not prove the conclusion. Therefore, if one speaks consistently with what was said there, one must posit that a sinner could not be reconciled to God without change to an absolute form, and that form will be repugnant to the term ‘from which’, and consequently it will be grace, as was argued before [Ord. ibid.].

366. The first argument [n.364] raises a difficulty that must be touched on below in d.14 [q.2 nn.14-16], namely whether sin could be destroyed without inducing a new form in the soul, because if this possibility is posited about original sin, as perhaps will be said there [ibid.] about actual sin, one could say to the argument that not everyone propagated from Adam is, because so propagated, a debtor for original justice, but that he is a debtor because, together with being propagated from Adam, God wishes him to be held to that justice. But God could wish him to be held to that justice without any positive and absolute form in him, as will be touched on there [d.14 q.1 n.4].

367. As to the second [n.365], one can consistently say next that in the justification of a sinner there is a privative change whereby from an enemy he becomes a non-enemy. There is also another change, a positive one, whereby from unworthy of eternal life he becomes worthy of eternal life, and from not being able to act meritoriously he becomes able to act meritoriously. Although one cannot conclude from the first change that there is some new form involved in justification, yet one can from the second (and thus was it argued in Ord. I d.17 nn.121-124, 146-153, 163-164). For a sinner is not now worthy of eternal life again, nor now able to act meritoriously again, unless he has some new form whereby he is worthy and can act.