II. Response to the Arguments while Holding that the Blessed Virgin was not Conceived in Original Sin

A. To the Principal Arguments

41. Now if the negative side of the question be maintained, the response to all the authorities for the contrary side [nn.2-11] is that any natural son of Adam is a debtor for original justice and, because of Adam’s demerit, he lacks it; and therefore any such son has a source whence to contract original sin. But if someone is given grace in the first instant of creation of his soul, he would never lack original justice; and this, however, not of himself but from the merit of another if grace is conferred on him because of the merit of another; therefore anyone would have original sin, as far as concerns himself, unless another prevented it by mediation. And thus are the authorities to be expounded, because everyone naturally propagated from Adam is a sinner, that is, all have - from the way they possess nature from Adam - the source whence they would lack owed justice unless it was conferred on them from elsewhere. But just as grace could be conferred after the last instant, so it could be conferred in the first instant.

B. To the Arguments Given for the Common Opinion

42. The same point makes plain the response to the reasons given for the first opinion [nn.14-16], because Mary would most of all have needed Christ as redeemer; for she would have contracted original sin by reason of common propagation unless she had been prevented by the mediator’s grace; and just as others needed Christ so that the sin already contracted might, through his merit, be remitted to them, so she had more need of a mediator preventing the sin ever needing to be contracted by her and preventing her contracting it.

43. And if it be argued against this that ‘she was naturally a daughter of Adam before she had grace, because she was a person before she had grace,a so in that prior stage she was, because she was a natural daughter of Adam, under obligation for original justice and lacked it, therefore in that prior stage she contracted original sin’ - I reply by saying that, when opposites are compared to the same thing according to the order of nature, both of them are not present together but only one is, and the other - which is said to be prior in nature - is not present (because an opposite is not present at the same instant); but it is said to be ‘prior in nature’ because it would then be present as far as concerns the side of the subject unless something else (from the outside) were to prevent it.Scotus, Lectura 3 d.2 n.52, “not both but one fails to be present, and that one is present which - as far as depends on the idea of the subject - the subject determines for itself, unless it is impeded.” ⁴⁴

a.a [Interpolated note] How does this stand with the proposition, often alleged in d.2 [nn.68-69, 74, 88, 93, 106 supra], that ‘the nature is perfect in the same instant in which it would be a person in itself’? They stand because here the opposites are only understood through two instants.

44. Therefore if I compare the matter to the form and the privation, the matter without the form is naturally prior to the matter with the form: not that in the instant in which it has the form it does not really have it, because then contradictories would be true together, but that then the matter - as far as depends on itself - does not, when left to itself, have the form if another who has it were not to give it.a Similarly, the subject is naturally prior to either opposite, because each thing is naturally ‘what it is in itself’ before it is, or is not, ‘what it is in another’ - and so the matter not only has the privation naturally before it has the form but it also is in itself naturally before it has the privation or the form; nor yet does it follow that it is at any time so in itself that it is neither under the privation nor under the form, because, considered in this way, there is only the fact that its proper and quidditative idea - which is said to be ‘prior’ - essentially includes neither of the other two.

a.a [Interpolation] Yet the nature in itself is prior to each - both to the privation and to the form - and is neither, because its nature is neither privation nor form. And the Commentator proves this in Physics 1 com.79 (see Ord. 2 d.1 n.61 supra).

45. Thus, in the issue at hand, I say that the nature of the soul naturally precedes both original justice (or the equivalent grace) and the lack of owed justice, and further the lack - in that nature - of original justice naturally precedes the justice because, as far as depends on the subject (which is naturally prior to either opposite), the privation would be naturally present before the form; yet it is not necessary that the soul is at any time under neither of the opposed extremes, nor that it is under the privation before it is under the opposite.

46. So when it is argued that ‘she was naturally a daughter of Adam before she was justified’ [n.43], I concede that a consequence of her nature - as so conceived in the first instant of nature - was that she was a daughter of Adam and did not have grace in that instant of nature; but it does not follow that ‘therefore in that instant of nature she was deprived [of grace]’, speaking of the altogether first instant, because her nature, according to that firstness, preceded as naturally the privation of justice as the justice itself; but only this can be inferred, that to the idea of her nature belongs that it is naturally the foundation of filiation from Adam, and that in that nature - as such - there is included neither justice nor its lack, which I concede.

47. But if you object about the other mode of priority in nature, that she naturally lacks justice first before she has it, because the lack is in her by an intrinsic cause [sc. because she is a daughter of Adam], I say that this ‘first in nature’ is never naturally in her, but would only be present in her if an extrinsic cause did not impede it and posit the presence of its opposite, just as, if in the first instant of nature the matter had the form, the privation (which would otherwise naturally be in the matter) would never be in it.a

a.a [Interpolation] If you ask ‘how is that thing prior in nature which is not prior in being?’, I say that when the order of nature is between positives, as between subject and accident, matter and form, what is prior in nature can be prior in being; but when it is only between opposites, priority ‘by comparison to a third’ means only that this one would be present if the other did not impede it; or it is priority in understanding, namely because this one, as ‘being deprived’, is understood first.

48. And if the argument is made, ‘she is not just in the first instant of nature, therefore in that instant she is non-just’ (from De Interpretatione 10.19b19-30), I say that the consequence is not valid in the case of composite predicates, as ‘it is not white wood, therefore it is non-white wood’; so here with ‘she is not just in the first instant, therefore she is non-just in the first instant’, because the sense of ‘she is not just in the first instant’ is that she is not just in the first instant of nature as far as concerns her idea; so to say, ‘she is non-just in the first instant from her idea’, does not follow, because neither of these inferences is essentially included.

49. And if you argue, ‘in the first instant of nature she is understood to be nonjust’, I say no but ‘she is not understood to be just’, and “in things abstracted there is no falsehood” (Physics 2.2.193b35), because not everyone, when not understanding ‘this’, understands ‘not this’ [cf. d.14 n.31 infra].a

a.a [Interpolation] like someone who, not understanding ‘man being an animal’, understands it as ‘not being an animal’, because then abstraction, by the taking away from something what is essentially present in it, could not be without falsehood.

50. To the other point [n.14], about the opening of the door, it is plain that the door was opened to her through the merit of Christ’s passion foreseen and accepted specifically in its order to this person [sc. Mary], so that, because of that passion, sin would never be present in this person and so neither anything on account of which the door would be closed, although however there did belong to her, from her origin, the source whence the door would be closed to her, just as it was to others.

51. And if you say, ‘therefore if she had died before her Son’s passion she would have been blessed’, the response can be made that the holy fathers in limbo were purged from original sin and the door was closed to them up to the payment of the owed penalty. For God had so determined that, although he would accept the foreseen passion of Christ for the remitting of original guilt to every believer and believer-to-be in the passion, yet he was remitting the penalty due the sin - namely the lack of vision - not because of the passion as foreseen, but because of the passion as displayed in its presence; and therefore, just as the door was not opened to the fathers until the passion of Christ was displayed, so it is probable that it would not have been opened to the blessed Virgin either.

C. Specifically to the Arguments of Bernard

52. To Bernard’s argument [nn.9, 11] the reply can be made that in the instant of conception of the natures [sc. body and soul] there would have been sanctification, not from the guilt that was then present, but from the guilt that would have been present if grace had not then been infused in the soul.

53. And if it is argued that ‘there was lust there’, this is false of the conception of natures, although it could be conceded that there was lust in the conception and mixing of the seeds. And given that in the conception of the seeds there would have been conception of the soul, there would not have been anything making it unacceptable that grace was then infused in the soul because of which grace the soul would not have contracted any infection from the flesh, or from the body, along with the lust sown; for just as infection of the body - contracted through propagation - has been able to remain along with grace in the cleansed soul after the first instant of baptism, so can this be the case in the first instant if God then created grace in Mary’s soul.