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].