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.