Question One. Whether Anyone Propagated according to the Common Law from Adam contracts Original Sin

1. Concerning the thirtieth distinction I ask whether anyone propagated according to the common law from Adam contracts original sin.a

a. a[Interpolation] Concerning the thirtieth distinction, where the Master deals with the transmission of original sin to posterity, two questions are asked: first I ask whether anyone propagated according to the common law from Adam contracts original sin; second whether this sin is lack of original justice. Argument about the firsts

2. That he does not:

Augustine On True Religion ch.14 n.27, “Sin is to such extent voluntary that if it is not voluntary it is not sin;” but nothing is voluntary in small children, who do not have the use of reason; so there is no sin in them.

3. Again, Augustine On Free Choice 3.8 n.171, “No one sins as to what he cannot avoid;” a child cannot avoid what comes to him from his conception; therefore the natural defect that enters in from the beginning is not culpable but penal.

4. Further, there is the argument set down in the text, “He who creates does not sin, nor does he who generates sin. Through what sources then does sin, amid so many protections of innocence, enter in?” [from Julian of Eclanum, in Lombard Sentences 2 d.30 ch.13 n.2].

5. Further, Aristotle Ethics 3.7.1114a25-27, “No one will blame a man born blind, but will rather pity him;” so the natural defect is not culpable but penal.

6. Again, Adam was not nobler than the whole of human nature, so by infecting himself he could not have infected the whole of human nature. The antecedent is plain because any individual had something as noble as Adam, or could have had. The proof of the consequence is that the corruption of a lesser good does not include the corruption of a greater good.

7. On the contrary:

Romans 5.12, “Through one man sin entered into the world, in whom all have sinned;” and ibid. 5.19, “As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man will many be made just.”

8. Again Augustine [rather Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter, and it is contained in the Master’s text, “Hold most firmly and in no way doubt that all men conceived through sexual intercourse of man and woman are born with original sin.”