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].