PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
XI.
THE ORIGINAL STATE OF THE FIRST PARENTS OF MANKIND—THE RELATION OF ADAM TO HIS POSTERITY—THE FALL OF MAN—ORIGINAL SIN.
The grand theatre of probation is this earth, and its chief subject the human race. The probation of the angels was completed almost instantaneously, and their transit to an immutable state followed almost immediately on their creation. The probation of the human race is long and complicated, diversified and extensive; and by it the most magnificent exhibition is made of the principle of merit. It has also this peculiarity that mankind were created, not merely as individuals, each with his distinct probation, but also as a race; and that the whole race had a probation at its origin, in the person of its progenitor. It is our present task to unfold the Catholic doctrine concerning the nature and results of this original probation of the collective human race in the first epoch of its creation.
The Catholic doctrine teaches, in the first place, that the entire human race, at present inhabiting the globe, is one; not merely in being conformed to one archetype, but also in being descended by generation from one common progenitor, that is, from Adam.
That this is distinctly affirmed in the book of Genesis, which the Catholic Church receives as a portion of the inspired Scripture, according to the obvious and literal sense of the words, is not questioned by any one. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that this obvious and literal sense is proposed by the authority of the Catholic Church as the true sense. That is, that it is an essential portion of Catholic doctrine, that God created at first one pair of human beings, Adam and Eve, from whom all mankind are descended.
It seems evident enough that the archaic records, in which the history of the creation of man is contained, were understood in this sense by those who transmitted them from the beginning of human history, and who first committed them to writing; and by Moses, who incorporated them into the book of Genesis. This was the traditional sense universally received among the Jews, as is manifest from all the monuments of tradition. It is also the sense which is reaffirmed in the other sacred and canonical books which follow those of Moses, wherever they allude to the subject. For instance: "Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward." [Footnote 154] "Seth and Sem obtained glory among men: and above every soul, Adam in the beginning," [Footnote 155]
[Footnote 154: Eccles. iii. 21.]
[Footnote 155: Eccles. xlix. 19.]
The similar traditions of heathen nations are well known. The Sacred writers of the New Testament use the same explicit language. The genealogy of Jesus in St. Luke's gospel closes thus: "Who was of Henos, who was of Seth, who was of Adam, who was of God." St. Paul affirms repeatedly and emphatically: "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death:" "by the offence of one many have died:" "the judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation:" "by one man's offence death reigned through one:" "by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation:" "for as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; [{520}] so also, by the obedience of one, many shall be made just." [Footnote 156] These passages are plainly dogmatic, and teach the relation of all men to Adam, as an essential portion of the dogma of original sin. The whole force of the parallel between Adam and Christ depends, also, on the individual personality of the former, and his relation to all mankind without exception, as their head and representative. The same parallel reappears in another epistle: "For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit. But not first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal; afterward that which is spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly; and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly." [Footnote 157]
[Footnote 156: St. Luke iii, 38. Rom. v. 12-19.]
[Footnote 157: I Cor. xv. 21, 22, 35-49.]
These passages all present the fact of the original creation of mankind in one pair from whom all men are descended in an intimate and essential relation with Christian doctrine, especially with the dogma of original sin. It is, therefore, necessary to regard it as a dogmatic fact, or a fact pertaining to the essence of the revealed truth, which the sacred writers taught with infallibility under the influence of divine inspiration. So it has been always regarded in the church, and is now held by the unanimous consent of theologians. It is also incorporated into the solemn definitions of faith.
The canons of the second council of Milevis, and of the plenary council of Carthage, A.D. 418, against the Pelagians, contain the following definitions:
Can. 1. Placuit, ut quicunqae dicit, Adam primum hominem mortalem factum, ita, ut sive peccaret, sive non peccaret, moreretur in corpore, hoc est de corpore exiret, non peccati merito, sed necessitate naturae, anathema sit.
Can. 2. Item placuit, ut quicumque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat, aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod regenerationis lavacro expietur, unde sit consequens, ut in eis forma baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera, sed falsa intelligatur, anathema sit: quoniam non aliter intelligendum est quod ait Apostolus: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt: nisi quemadmodum ecclesia catholica ubique diffusa semper intellexit.
"Can. 1. It was decreed, that whoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he should die in the body, that is, depart from the body, not by the merit of sin, but by the necessity of nature, should be under the ban.
"Can. 2. It was also decreed, that whosoever denies that new-born infants are to be baptized, or says that they are to be indeed baptized for the remission of since, but derive no original sin from Adam, which can be expiated in the laver of regeneration whence it follows that in them the form of baptism is understood to be not true, but false, should be under the ban; since that is not otherwise to be understood which the apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned;' except as the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it."
These canons, although not in active by ecumenical councils, were nevertheless approved by Popes Innocent I. and Zosimus, by them promulgated to the universal church and ratified by [{521}] the consent of the whole body of bishops; so that they are justly included among the final and irreversible decisions of the Catholic Church. The second of these canons was also reenacted by the Council of Trent, which defined in the clearest terms the dogma of original sin as derived from the sin of Adam, the head of the human race.
1. Si quis non confitetur, primum hominem Adam, mandatum Dei in paradiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctitatem, etc., amisisse: A. S.
2. Si quis Adae prevaricationem sibi soli, non ejus propagini, asserit nocuisse . . . . aut inquinatum illum per inobedientiae peccatum, mortem et poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse, non autem et peccatum, quod est mors animae: A. S. cum contradicit Apostolo dicenti: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, etc.
3. Si quis hoc Adae peccatum, quod origine unum est, et propagatione, non imitatione, transfusum omnibus, inest cuique proprium . . . . per aliud remedium asserit tolli, etc.: A. S.
"1. If any one does not confess that the first man Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost sanctity, etc., let him be under the ban.
"2. If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity . . . . or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, transmitted death and the pains of the body only to the whole human race, but not also sin, which is the death of the soul, let him be under the ban: since he contradicts the apostle, who says: By one man sin entered into the world, etc.
"3. If any one asserts that this sin of Adam, which in origin is one, and being transferred into all by propagation, not by imitation, exists in each one as his own . . . . is taken away by any other remedy, etc, let him be under the ban."
All these decrees affirm positively that the whole human race without exception are involved in one common original sin, springing from one transgression committed by the first man Adam, and transmitted from him by generation. The dogma of original sin rests, therefore, on the fact that all mankind are descended from one first man Adam, and is subverted, if this fact is denied. An allegorical interpretation of the sacred history of Genesis, according to which Adam and Eve are taken to symbolize the progenitors of several distinct human species, cannot be admitted as tenable, in accordance with the Catholic faith. For, in this hypothesis, the different human races had each a distinct probation, a separate destiny, a separate fall, and are therefore not involved in one common original sin, but each one in the sin of its own progenitor. This doctrine of original sin, namely, that a number of Adams sinned, and that each one transmitted his sin to his own progeny, so that every man is born in an original sin derived from some one of the various primeval men, is essentially different from the Catholic doctrine as clearly taught by Scripture and tradition, and defined by the authority of the church. Moreover, the unity and individuality of Adam, as the sole progenitor of the human race, is distinctly affirmed in the decrees just cited, and in all the subsequent decrees concerning the primitive state of man which have emanated from the Holy See, and are received by the universal church. We must consider, therefore, the doctrine of the unity of the human race as pertaining to the faith. Perrone affirms this, in these words: "Prop. II. Universum humanum genus ab Adam omnium protoparente propagatium est. Haec propositio spectat ad fidem; huic enim innititur dogma de propagatione peccati originalis." "The entire human race has been propagated from Adam the first parent of all. This proposition pertains to faith; for upon it rests the dogma of the propagation of original sin." [Footnote 158]
[Footnote 158: Perrone, Prael. Theil. De Him. Creat.]
Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, who is not only one of the most learned of our theologians, but a man profoundly versed in the physical sciences, in a very able and interesting lecture recently delivered in New York, thus speaks on this matter:
"Some nowadays, disregarding all that Holy Scripture teaches us concerning the origin of man, or treating it as a myth and fable, referring at most only to the Caucasian race, pretend that America had her own special Adam and Eve, or, as they think more probable, quite a number of them contemporaneously or successively in different localities.
"I shall not here undertake to discuss this last opinion, ventured certainly against the teachings of divine revelation, and, as I conceive, no less against the soundest principles of philosophy, of comparative anatomy, of philology, and of natural history. I will assume it as an established and accepted truth, that God made all nations of one blood." [Footnote 159]
[Footnote 159: Lecture by the Rt. Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., on America before Columbus. Reported in the New York Tablet.]
The only point we have been endeavoring to make, that the doctrine of the unity of the race pertains to essential Catholic doctrine, is, we think, fairly made. The scientific refutation of the contrary hypothesis is a work most desirable, in our opinion, but one requiring a degree of scientific knowledge which the author does not possess. It is a work, also, which could be accomplished only by an extensive treatise. The judgment of the distinguished author just cited may be taken, however, as a summing up of the verdict of a great body of scientific men, given on scientific grounds, in favor of the doctrine of the unity of the race. The contrary doctrine is mere hypothesis, which no man can possibly pretend to demonstrate. It cannot, therefore, be brought out to oppose the revealed Catholic doctrine. Hypothesis even when supported by a certain amount of scientific probability, is not science. Real science is indubitably certain. There cannot, therefore, ever arise a real contradiction between science and revelation. Science will never contradict revelation, and revelation does not contradict any part of science which is already known or ever will become known. We are not, however, to hold our belief in revealed truths in abeyance, until their perfect agreement with scientific truths is demonstrated. Nor are we to tolerate mere hypotheses and probable opinions in science when they are contrary to truths known by revelation, because they cannot be demonstrated to be false on purely scientific grounds.
There are only two real difficulties to be encountered in the solution of the scientific problem. One is, the difficulty of accounting for the variations In type, language, etc., between different families of the human race within the commonly received historic period. The other is the difficulty of explaining certain discoveries in the historical monuments of Egypt, and certain geological discoveries of the remains of man or human works, in accordance with the same period. Yet has been justly and acutely remarked by a recent British writer on this subject, that the objections made under this second head, if they are sufficient to establish the necessity of admitting a longer chronology, destroy the objections under the first head. Given a longer time for these changes, and the difficulty of supposing them to be real variations from a unique type vanishes. The chronological difficulties under the second head are of two classes. One class relates to the history of well-known post-diluvian nations, whose historical records have been discovered, indicating a longer period than the one commonly reckoned between the age of Noah and that of Moses. The other relates to tribes or individuals about whom nothing is known historically, but to whom geological evidence assigns a higher antiquity than that commonly allowed [{523}] to the epoch of the creation of man. Now, these difficulties in no way tend to impugn the doctrine of the unity of the race, but merely the chronology of the history of the race from the ethics of the creation of the first man, which has been commonly supposed to be established by the authority of Scripture. If this last supposition may be classed among theological opinions not pertaining to essential Catholic doctrine, and we may be permitted, salvâ fide et auctoritate Ecclesiae, to admit a chronology long enough to satisfy these claims of a higher antiquity for man, all difficulty vanishes. One thing is certain, that if the inspired books of Moses did originally contain an exact chronology of human history from Adam to the Exodus of Israel, we cannot now ascertain within fifteen hundred years what it was, since there is that amount of variation between the Hebrew and Greek copies. The weight of probability is decidedly in favor of the Septuagint, which gives the longer chronology. Yet, it is impossible to explain how the variation between the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and the variation of the Samaritan version from both, arose. The great essential facts pertaining to religious doctrine have been handed down by Scripture and tradition in their unimpaired integrity. We are bound to believe that the providence of God watched over their transmission, and protected them from any designed or accidental alteration. Some general principles and data of chronology are included in this essential history, which is guaranteed by inspiration and the authority of the church. Nevertheless, these chronological data are manifestly so incomplete and imperfect, that a precise and accurate chronological system cannot be deduced from them. So far as it is possible to form a chronological system at all, it must be done by the help of all the collateral evidence we can find, This evidence, so far as we are aware, does not tend to establish, with a high degree of probability, an epoch of creation more than a few thousand years earlier than the common one of 4,000 years before Christ. This is certainly true of the historical records of Egypt, the principal source of new light on the ancient historical epochs. We are warranted by the Septuagint in adding fifteen hundred years to the common period. It is only, however, on critical and historical grounds that the Septuagint has greater authority on this point than the Hebrew, and not as having a higher sanction. For the Hebrew is the original and authentic Scripture, and the authorized Latin Version follows it, and not the Greek. If we can admit, then, a chronology longer by fifteen hundred years than the one contained in the received text, on historical grounds, why not one still longer, if sound historical evidence demands it? Supposing that the Scripture originally did contain a complete and infallible system of chronology, it is evident that the key to it was lost many ages ago; and we can just as easily suppose that the discrepancy between the Mosaic chronology as it now stands and the chronology of the Egyptian records has arisen by the same causes which produced the discrepancy of the Hebrew and Greek texts, as we can assign causes why so great a discrepancy should arise at all, and reconcile this with the reverence due to the sacred books. [Footnote 160] This is a matter which needs to be more thoroughly discussed than it has been, by theologians who are fully acquainted with the subject, before we can lay down positively a principle upon which to solve the difficulty. We reject, however, as unprovable and untenable, all theories which throw the antiquity of man back to an epoch of vast remoteness, and assign hundreds or [{524}] thousands of centuries to a prehistoric period, of which no records remain. It is on geological discoveries solely that this hypothesis is based. At present it is only a conjecture, founded on the fact that human remains have been found of a greater antiquity than those formerly known, whence it is concluded that they may hereafter be discovered of a greater antiquity still. We may safely wait for geology itself to clear up the obscurity at present existing in regard to this matter, and to set right, as science invariably does, the early and hasty conjectures of its own votaries. Whichever way the matter may be settled, the fossil remains of human skeletons or human works will be assignable either to a period not too remote to be included in the historic period, or to one so remote that it must be excluded from it. In the first case, there is no difficulty. In the second, nothing is established from which the falsity of our thesis can be demonstrated. Our thesis is, that the present human race now inhabiting the earth is descended from one man, Adam. When there is any very probable evidence presented that another and distinct species, having a physical organization like that of the human race, once existed on the earth, from which it has become extinct, it will be time to examine that theory. For the present we are concerned with Adam only and his race; to which both our readers and ourselves have but too conclusive evidence that we all belong. [Footnote 161]
[Footnote 160: Archbishop Manning says: "No system of chronology is laid down in the sacred books. There are at least three chronologies, probable and admissible, apparently given by Holy Scripture. It cannot be said, therefore, that there are chronological faults in Holy Scripture, forasmuch as no ascertained chronology is there declared."—Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, p. 171, American edition.]
[Footnote 161: The Gentle Skeptic, by Rev. C.A. Walworth, now pastor of St. Mary's Church Albany, treats of several topics, here noticed in a cursory manner. This work is the result of several years close and accurate study in theology and science. It has, therefore, the solidity and elaborate finish of a work executed with care and diligence by one who is both a strong thinker and a sound scholar. In style it is a model of classic elegance and purity, and in every respect it deserves a place among the best works of English Catholic literature. The author has broke ground in a field of investigation which it is imperative on Catholic scientific men to work up thoroughly. The entire change which has taken place in the attitude of science toward revealed religion within a few years, and the doctrines of science themselves, makes the old works written on the connection between religion and science to a great degree useless. The subject needs to be taken up afresh, and handled in a manner adequate to the present intellectual wants of the age.]
We have now to consider what Catholic doctrine teaches of that state in which the first parents of the human race were constituted at their creation. Briefly, it is this: that this was a supernatural state of sanctity and justice, in which were contained, or with which were connected, the gift of integrity, or immunity from concupiscence, the gift of science, and the gift of corporeal immortality.
That man was created in sanctity and justice is affirmed as de fide by the decree of the Council of Trent, a part of which is cited above, in which Adam is declared "to have lost immediately the sanctity and justice in which he had been constituted:" "statim sanctitatem et justitiam in quo constitutus fuerat amisisse." That he possessed integrity is proved by the same decree, which declares that by the fall he was "changed as to his body and soul into something worse:" "secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse." That he possessed science is proved by the declaration of the book of Ecclesiasticus: "Disciplinâ intellectus replevit illos. Creavit illis scientiam spiritus:" "He filled them with the knowledge of understanding. He created in them the science of the spirit." [Footnote 162] This is explained and corroborated by the traditional teachings of all the fathers and great theologians of the church. His immunity from death is proved by the decrees above cited and others familiar to all.
[Footnote 162: Ecclus. xvii. 5, 6.]
It is shown to be the Catholic doctrine that these gifts were supernatural, by the condemnation of the contrary doctrine by the Holy See. The following theses of Baius, one of the precursors of Jansenism, were condemned by Pius V. and Gregory XIII.:
"21. Humanae naturae sublimatio et exaltatio in consortium divinae naturae, debita fuit integritati primae conditionis, et non supernaturalis; 26. Integritas primae creationis non fuit indebita humanae naturae exaltatio, sed [{525}] naturalis ejus conditio; 55. Deus non potuisset ab initio talem creare hominem qualis nunc nascitur; 78. Immortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiae beneficium, sed naturalis conditio; 79. Falsa est doctorum sententia primum hominem potuisse a Deo creari et institui sine justitiâ natarali." Clement XI., in the Bull Unigenitus, also condemned the following proposition, the 33rd of Quesnel: "Gratia Adami est sequela creationis et erat debita naturae sanae et integrae."
"21. The elevation and exaltation of human an nature into the fellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of its first condition, and is therefore to be called natural and not supernatural; 26. The integrity of the primal creation was not an exaltation of human nature which was not due to it, but its natural condition; 55. God could not have created man from the beginning such as he is now born; 78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but his natural condition; 79. The opinion of doctors is false, that the first man could have been created and instituted by God without natural justice (righteousness.") 33d of Quesnel: "The grace of Adam is a sequel of creation, and was due to sound and integral nature."
It is plain from the decisions which have been quoted, and from the consentient doctrine of all Catholic doctors, that the Catholic doctrine is: that the state of original sanctity and integrity did not flow from the intrinsic, essential principles of human nature, and was not due to it, but was a free gift of grace superadded to nature, that is, supernatural. We do not, however, censure the opinion held by some sound Catholic writers, that congruity, order, or the fitness of things, exacts that supernatural grace be always given to rational nature. It is our own opinion, already clearly enough insinuated, that, although the completion and perfection of the universe does exact that a supernatural order should be constituted, it does not exact the elevation of all rational species or individuals to this order. This opinion appears to be more in accordance with the obvious sense of the decrees just cited. It is also the opinion of St. Thomas, and, after him, of the more prevalent school of theology. St. Thomas thus expresses himself upon this point: "Poterat Deus, a principio quando hominem condidit, etiam alium hominem ex limo terrae formare, quem in conditione suae naturae relinqueret, ut scilicet mortalis et passibilis esset et pugnam concupiscentiae ad rationem sentiens, in quo nihil humanae naturae derogaretur, quia hoc ex principiis naturae consequitur; non tamen iste defectus in eo rationem culpae et poenae habuisset, quia non per voluntatem iste defectus causatus esset." "God could have formed, from the beginning when he created man, also another man from the dust of the earth, whom he might have left in the condition of his own nature, that is, so that he would have been mortal and passible, and would have felt the conflict of concupiscence against reason, in which there would have been nothing derogatory to human nature, because this follows from the principles of nature; nevertheless this defect in him would not have had the quality of sin and punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the will." [Footnote 163]
[Footnote 163: 2 Sentent., Dist. 31, qu. 1, ant. 2 ad 8. ]
The sanctifying grace conferred upon Adam is very clearly shown, according to this view, to have been a pure and perfectly gratuitous boon from God, to which human nature, as such, could have no claim whatever, even of congruity.
The nature of the probation of the father of mankind is now easily explained. He received a gratuitous gift on conditions, and these conditions were the matter of his probation. Our scope and limits do not admit of a minute discussion of the particular circumstances of the trial and fall of Adam in Paradise. The point to be considered is the relation in which [{526}] Adam stood to all mankind his posterity in his trial, transgession, and condemnation. The Catholic dogma of faith on this head is clearly defined and unmistakable. The whole human race was tried, fell, and was condemned, in the trial, fall, and condemnation of Adam. It is needless to cite again the passages of Holy Scripture and the decisions of the church which establish this fundamental doctrine of Christianity. The only question to be discussed is, What is the real sense and meaning of the doctrine? How did all mankind sin in Adam, and by his transgression incur the condemnation of death? What is the nature of that original sin in which we are born?
One theory is that the sin of Adam is arbitrarily imputed to his posterity. As a punishment for this imputed sin, they are born depraved, with an irresistible propensity to sin, and under the doom of eternal misery. The statement of this theory is its best refutation. Very few hold it now, and we may safely leave to Protestant writers the task of demonstrating its absurdity.
Another theory is, that all human wills were included in the will of Adam, so that they all concurred with his will in the original transgression. [Footnote 164]
[Footnote 164: We refer the reader to the argument of Candace in Mrs. Stowe's Minister's Wooing, for a humorous but unanswerable reputation of the ancient Calvinistic doctrine of original sin.]
We find some difficulty in comprehending this statement. Did we all have a distinct existence, and enjoy a deliberative and decisive vote when the important question of human destiny was decided? If so, the unanimity of the judgment, and the total oblivion which has fallen upon us all, respecting our share in it and our whole subsequent existence, until a very recent period, are very remarkable phenomena which we have never seen adequately accounted for. The only other alternative is that of indistinct existence or virtual existence. That is, that the power of generating souls was in Adam, and that all human souls are actually derived from his soul by generation. Suppose they are. A father who has lost an organ or a limb does not necessarily transmit this defect to his posterity. Even if he does transmit some defect which he has contracted by his own fault to his son, that son is not to blame for it. If the principle of all souls was in Adam, virtually, their personality, which is the principle of imputability, commences only with there are distinct existence. Personality is incommunicable. An individual soul cannot communicate with another in the principle of identity, from which all imputability of acts, all accountability, all possibility of moral relations, proceeds. This notion of the derivation of souls, one from another, or from a common soul-reservoir, is, however, one perfectly inconceivable, and contrary to the plainest principles of philosophy. Substance is simple and indivisible. Spirit, which is the most perfect substance, contains, therefore, in its essence the most manifest contradiction to all notion of composition, resolution, division, or separation of parts. The substance of Adam's soul was completely in his own individual intelligence and will. The notion of any other souls deriving their substance from his soul is therefore wholly without out meeting. There is no conceivable way in which spirit can produce spirit, except by creation, and act to which created spirit is incompetent.
There remains, therefore only the doctrine, which is that of Catholic theology, that the human species is corporeally propagated by means of generation, and was therefore, in this respect only, virtually in Adam; but that each individual soul is immediately created by God, and comes into the generic and specific relations of humanity through its union in one integral personality with the body. How, then, can each individual soul become involved in a original sin? Does God create it sinful? This cannot be; and if it could it would not be the sin of Adam, or the sin of the race, but its own personal sin. The soul as it comes from the hand of God cannot be sinful in act. [{527}] The only possible supposition remaining is, that the soul contracts sin from contact or union with the body. Here the Calvinist, the Jensenist, or any other who maintains that original sin consists in positive deprivation of the soul's essence, or in habitual moral perversity, or determination of the will to sin, is in a position where he cannot move a step forward. How can soul be corrupted by body? How has the innocent soul deserved to be thrust into a body by which it must be polluted? These questions will never receive an answer. Nor will any credible or rational method of vindicating the doctrine that all men are born totally and positively depraved, or with a nature in any respect essentially evil, on account of Adam's sin, ever be discovered. The doctrine is utterly incredible and unthinkable, and will no doubt ere long have a place only in the history of past errors.
The way is now clear for the exposition of the Catholic doctrine respecting the mutual relations of Adam and his posterity in the original probation, trial, and fall of the human race immediately after its creation. That probation of Adam, in which the human race was included, must not be understood as including the entire personal probation either of himself or of his descendants. His own probation lasted during his lifetime, and so does that of each individual man. Had he been faithful in that particular trial which is related in the first chapter of Genesis, it is probable that, although the special privileges whose perpetuation depended on it would certainly have then secured to the race, he himself would have had a longer personal trial. So also, if the progeny of Adam had been confirmed in the perpetual possession of the privileges of the primeval state, each individual of the human race would have had a probation of his own, affecting his own personal destiny alone. Although each one of us would have been conceived and born in the state of original grace and integrity, as the Blessed Virgin was by a special privilege, as soon as the actual exercise of reason became completely developed, a period of probation would have commenced, in which we should have been liable to fail, as we are now after receiving grace through baptism.
The probation of the human race in Adam was, therefore, a special probation, on which the possession in perpetuity of certain supernatural privileges, freely and gratuitously conceded to the race, was alone dependent. The merely personal consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve affected themselves alone individually. That is, the guilt of an actual transgression with the necessary personal consequences following from it attached to them alone, and we have nothing to do with it, any more than with any other sins committed by our intermediate progenitors. The father of the human race did not act, however, in a merely individual capacity in this transaction. He was the federal head and representative of the race. A trust was committed to him in behalf of all mankind, and this trust was the great gift of original sanctity and justice, the high dignity of supernatural affiliation to God, the glorious title to the kingdom of heaven. By his sin he forfeited this gift in trust, both for himself as an individual, and also for his descendants who were to have inherited it from him. There is no ground for asking the question, why it followed that Adam, having fallen, should transmit a fallen nature by generation to his posterity. This question is only asked on the supposition that fallen nature is a nature essentially changed and depraved, whereas it is really a nature which has fallen from a supernatural height back to its own proper condition. With all due respect to the eminent writers who have attempted to answer this question, we must be allowed to say that we cannot attach any definite meaning to their answer. [{528}] Adam, they say, having a fallen nature, could only transmit the nature which he had. All humanity was in him when he sinned, and therefore humanity as generic having fallen into sin, each individual who participates by conception in generic humanity participates in its sin, or is conceived in original sin. This language may be used and understood in a true sense; but in its literal sense, and as it is very generally understood, it has no meaning. It is derived from the extravagant and unintelligible realism of William of Champeaux, and some other schoolmen, according to which humanity as a genus has a real and positive entity, like the great animal in se of Plato, from whom all particular animals receive their entity. These notions have long since become obsolete, and it is useless to refute them. The The human genus or species was completely in Adam, but it was not distinct from his individuality; rather it was completely in his individuality constituting it in its own generic or specific grade of existence, as the individuality of a man. Humanity is also completely in every other human individual. This humanity, constituting the specific essence of Adam, as a man, was identical with his existence, for existence is only metaphysical essence reduced to act. It could not be essentially changed without destroying his human existence. Whatever is contained in humanitas must have remained in him after the fall, otherwise he would no longer have remained a man, or indeed have continued to exist at all. It is only this humanitas or specific essence of human nature, that Adam had any natural power to reproduce by generation. He could not have lost the power of transmitting it by the fall, except by losing altogether the power of reproducing his species. The immediate, physical effect of generation is merely the production of the life-germ, from which the body is developed under the formative action of a soul, created immediately by God. The only depravation or corruption of nature, therefore, which is physically possible, or which can be supposed to follow by a necessary law from the corruption of nature in Adam, is a corruption or degeneracy in in this life-germ, through which a defective or degenerate body is produced. This opinion has then long ago condemned by the church. It is, moreover, contrary to science. The human animal is perfect as an animal, and although there is accidental degeneracy in individuals, there is no generic or specific degeneracy of the race from it's essential type. But supposing that a defective body were the necessary consequence of Adam's sin, a defective soul could not be. The parent does not concur to the creation of the soul of his offspring, except as an cause. God creates the soul, and he cannot create a human soul without creating it in conformity to the metaphysical archetype of soul in his own idea, and therefore having the essence on soul completely in itself. How, then, can the infusion of this soul into a body which is physically degenerate make it unworthy of that degree of the love of God and of that felicity, which it is worthy of intrinsically, and apart from its union with the body?
There is no law in nature by virtue of which Adam must or could transmit anything essentially more than human nature before the fall, or essentially less after the fall. The law by which he was entitled to transmit privileges or gifts additional to nature on condition of is fulfilling the terms of God's covenant with him was therefore a positive law; why those human laws which enable man to transmit with their blood property, titles of nobility, or the hereditary right to a crown. These privileges may be forfeited, by the crime of an individual in whom they are vested, for himself and for his posterity. They may be forfeited for posterity, because they are not natural rights. In the same manner, the supernatural gifts conferred on Adam were forfeited for the human race by his sin, because they were [{529}] not natural rights, or debita naturae, but gratuitous gifts to which Adam's posterity had do hereditary right, except that derived from the sovereign concession of God, and conceded only in a conditional manner. This conditional right could only be perfected by the obedience of Adam to the precept of the Almighty forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As he failed to obey this precept, his posterity never acquired a perfect right to the gifts of supernatural grace through him. By virtue, therefore, of our descent from him, we possess nothing but human nature and those things which naturally belong to it; we are born in the state in which Adam would have been placed at the beginning if God had created him in the state of pure nature.
We do not stand, therefore, before God, by virtue of our conception and birth from the first parents of mankind, in the attitude of personal offenders or voluntary transgressors of his law. Our essential relation to God as rational creatures is not broken. Our nature is essentially good, and capable of attaining all the good which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles; that is, all natural knowledge, virtue, and felicity. That which is immediately created by God must be essentially good. A spirit is essentially intelligence and will, and therefore good in respect to both, or capable of thinking the truth and willing the good. Moreover, it is a certain philosophical truth that when God creates a spirit he must create it in act, or that the activity of the spirit is coeval with its existence. The first act or state of a spirit, as it precedes all reflection, deliberation, or choice, and flows necessarily from the creative act of God himself, is determined by him, and must therefore be good. The acts which follow, either follow necessarily from the first, or are the product of free deliberation. In the first case, they are necessarily good; and in the second they may be good, otherwise they would be necessarily evil, which is contrary to the supposition that they are free. The human soul being in its essence spirit, and incapable of being corrupted by the body, must therefore be essentially good at the moment when it attains the full exercise of reason and of the faculty of free choice. If so, it is capable of apprehending by its intelligence and choosing by its will that which is good, and cannot, therefore, come into the state of actual sin or become a personal transgressor except by a free and deliberate purpose to violate the eternal law, with full power to the contrary. It may exercise this power to the contrary by a correct judgment, a right volition, and thus attains the felicity which is the necessary consequence of acting rationally and conscientiously. So far as this is possible to mere unassisted nature, it may continue to put forth a series of acts of this kind during the whole period of its earthly existence. That is to say, it is capable of attaining all the good which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles, or all natural knowledge, virtue, and felicity. This is equivalent to saying, that it can have a natural knowledge and love of God, as is affirmed by the best theologians with the sanction of the church. For Pius V. has condemned the following proposition, the 34th of Baius: "Distinctio illa duplicis amoris, naturalis videlicet quo Deus amatur ut auctor naturae, et gratuiti quo Deus amatur ut beatificator, vana est et commentitia et ad illudendum sacris litteris et plurimis veterum testimoniis excogitata." "The distinction of a twofold love, namely, natural, by which God is loved as the author of nature, and gratuitous, by which God is loved as the beatifier, is vain and futile, and invented for the purpose of evading that which is taught by the Holy Scriptures and by many testimonies of the ancient writers." [Footnote 165] It would be easy to multiply proofs that the doctrine of man's capability of moral virtue, from the intrinsic [{530}] principles of here's nature, is the genuine Catholic doctrine. [Footnote 166] This is not necessary, however, at present.
[Footnote 165: Denziger's Enchirid., p. 305.]
[Footnote 166: See Aspirations of Nature by Rev. I. T. Hecker, passim.]
We proceed to another point, namely, How it is that mankind can be said to be born in original sin, when they are innocent of all personal and actual sin at the time of birth? The state in which Adam's posterity are born, and which is denominated the state of original sin, considered subjectively, is a state of privation of supernatural grace and integrity. If man had been created for a natural destiny, this state of inhability to the supernatural would not have been a state of sin. If he had been created in the state in which he is now born, as a preparatory state to the state of grace, to be endowed at a subsequent period with supernatural gifts, it would not have been a state of sin. Entitively it would have been the same state as that in which he is now born. It would not have been a state of sin, because the state of sin receives its denomination from a voluntary transgression which produces it. The particular notion of sin is an aversion from God as the supreme good produced by the voluntary election of an inferior good in his place. The posterity of Adam are born in a state of habitual aversion from God as the supreme good in the supernatural order, which is the consequence of the original sin of Adam. Since they virtually possessed a right to be born in the state of grace and integrity, which was forfeited by his sin, the state of privation in which they are born, relatively to their original ideal condition and to the transgression by which they were degraded from it, is properly denominated a state of sin. This is incurred by each individual soul through its connection with the body which descends from our first parents by generation, because it is this infusion into a human body which constitutes it a member of the human race. As a member of the human race, and by virtue of his descent from Adam, each individual man participates in all the generic relations of the race. If Adam had not sinned, he would have received by inheritance from from him a high dignity and great possessions, transmitted to him through the blood; as the case is, he is born disinherited. There is no injustice or unkindness in this; because the rights which have been forfeited were not rights involved in the concession of rational existence itself, but rights gratuitously conceded on certain conditions, and because no personal blame is imputed where none exists. The illustration so often employed by theologians of a nobleman who has suffered attainder is perfectly apt to the case. His posterity are born under an attainder, which in human law corresponds to original sin under the divine law, and are thus placed in a state of privation; relatively to that condition of nobility which was formerly hereditary in the family; but which in itself is an honest condition. In the eye of the law, their father's crime makes them incapable of the privileges of nobility, but it does not deprive them of the common rights of private subjects.
So the children of Adam, on account of his sin, inherit a disability to possess the nobility of the state of grace and to inherit the kingdom of heaven. This disability is inherent in the person son of each one, and therefore "inest euique proprium." It is a separation from God incurred by the transgression of Adam, who represented the human race in his trial, and therefore is truly and properly sin. It is a privation of grace which is the supernatural life of the soul, and is therefore properly called death, or "mors animae." The "reatus culpae" is the obligation of being born in a state of relative degradation, and the "reatus poenae" the obligation of undergoing the conflicts, sufferings, and death which belong to the state of despoiled nature, as well as submitting to the sentence of exclusion from the kingdom of God. By it, human nature has been changed into something worse as to soul and body, [{531}] "in deterius mulatur quoad corpus et animam," because it is now deprived of integrity, immortality, and sanctifying grace. Nevertheless this state is essentially the same with that which would have been the state of man if he had been created in the state of pure nature. Man in the state of lapsed nature differs from man in the state of pure nature, as Perrone says, only as nudatus from nudo, one denuded from one always nude. This is original sin, which consists formally, as St. Thomas teaches, in the privation of sanctifying grace and the other gratuitous gifts perfecting nature which depended on it. Mankind, therefore, by the sin of Adam, have simply fallen back on the state of pure nature, and are born with those attributes and qualities only which are contained in human nature by virtue of its intrinsic principles. To understand, therefore, the condition, capabilities, and ultimate destiny of man, apart from the grace which comes through the Redeemer, we have simply to inquire into the essence of these intrinsic principles, and ascertain what man is, simply as man, where he can do, and what is the end he can attain by his earthly life.
Man, as to his rational nature, is in the lowest grade of rational creatures. Except under very favorable circumstances, his intelligence is very imperfectly developed, and so far as it is developed it is chiefly employed in perfecting his merely exterior and social life. Under the most favorable circumstances his progress is slow, his capacity of contemplating purely intellectual and spiritual objects weak and limited. As to his body, he is also frail and delicate, and naturally liable to death. Moreover, there is in his constitution, as a being composed of soul and body, a certain contrariety of natural impulses, one set of impulses inclining him to rational good, the other to sensible or animal good. Like the inferior animals, he is capable of an improvement of his species up to a certain point which cannot be fixed, and also liable to a degeneracy which brings, him down to a state little above that of the brutes, and even to idiocy. There are indications enough in his soul of a latent capacity for a much higher and more exalted state, to make it certain that his present condition is one of merely inchoate existence, and that he is destined to a future life in which these latent capacities will be developed in a more perfect corporeal organization. The great difficulty of forming an ideal conception of the state in which he would have been constituted, had he been left to his merely natural development, consists in the fact that we have no human subject to study except man as he actually is, that is, under a supernatural providence from the beginning. The actual development of human nature has taken place under the influence of supernatural grace, and we cannot discriminate in human history the operation of natural causes from those which are supernatural. There are three principal hypotheses respecting the possible development of pure nature which may be sustained with more or less plausibility. The first is, that the human race, beginning in its perfection of type as a species, but without any revelation of language, or any instruction in natural theology, morals, or science, would have remained always in the same state in which it was created, without any intellectual or moral progress. According to this view, the present state of man on earth would have been a mere stage of existence, which could have no ulterior end, except the production of a species destined to begin its higher life in a future state. The second hypothesis is, that the human race, beginning from the same point of departure, might have progressed slowly, through very long periods of time, to a high limit of civilization, knowledge, virtue, and natural religion. The third is, that a kind of natural revelation, including a positive system of religion, morals, and science, would have been requisite; in a word, that human society must have been placed [{532}] at first, by the immediate intervention of the Creator, in the state of civilization, and conducted in its course by a continuance of the same intervention. We have little room, however, for anything beyond conjecture in this matter. The only point we are anxious to establish is, that the state in which we are now born is not one intrinsically evil; that it is not one derogatory to human nature as such; that it is not one in which God might not create man in consistency with his sanctity and goodness.
This point is established on sound theological and philosophical principles; and from these principles it follows that all the phenomena of man which are referrible to his original fall are the natural consequence of his human constitution, and not evidences of a positive, innate depravity. He is a weak, frail, inconstant creature, easily led away by the senses and passions, liable to fall into many errors and sins, but he is not an object of loathing and abhorrence to his Creator, or an outcast from his love. He has in him all the primary elements of natural virtue, the germ from which a noble creature can be developed. Nevertheless, although his natural condition is one which is not derogatory to himself or his Creator, it seems to cry out for the supernatural. Its actual weakness and imperfection, coupled with its latent capacities for a high development, mark it as being, what it is, the most fitting subject for the grace of God; and indicate that it was created chiefly to exemplify in the most signal manner the supernatural love and bounty of the Creator. It is only in the idea of the supernatural order that we can find the adequate explication and solution of all the problems relating to the destiny of man. For that order he was created by an absolute, not a conditional decree of God. The fulfilment of that decree was not risked on the issue of Adam's probation. According to our view, the creation of man was only the inchoation of the incarnation of the Eternal Word in human nature; and the decree of the incarnation being absolute, the elevation of human nature was necessary and must be efficaciously secured. The fall of man from original grace could not therefore hinder it. After the sin of Adam, the human race had still a supernatural destiny, and was under the supernatural order of Providence. The divine decree to confer grace on man was not abrogated, but only the form and mode under which the grace was to be conferred were changed. Moreover, by this change, the human race was, on the whole, a gainer, and came into a better and more favorable position for attaining its destiny. There was a reason both for the original constitution of man in the grace of Adam, and also for the change of that constitution which followed upon Adam's sin. By the original grant of grace, God showed to mankind his magnificent liberality and good-will. He gave them also an ideal which has remained imperishably in their memory of the state of perfection, and left a sweet odor of paradise to cheer them along their rugged road of labor and trial. By the withdrawal of that grace he brought them under a dispensation of mercy, in which their condition is more humble and painful, but safer and more advantageous for gaining the highest merit.
St. Francis de Sales says: "L'état de la redemption vaut cent fois plus que l'état de la justice originalle." "The state of redemption is a hundred times preferable to the state of original justice." [Footnote 167] The church herself, in her sublime hymn Exultet, breaks out into the exclamation: "O certé necessarium Adae peccatum; O felix culpa! quae tantum et talem habere meruit Redemptorem!" "O certainly necessary sin of Adam; O happy fault! which merited to know such and so great a redeemer!" We reason to lament our lost paradise, or to mourn over the fall of our first parents. Our new birth in Christ is far better than that ancient inheritance forfeited in Eden. The consideration of the mystery of redemption must be postponed, however for a future number.
[Footnote 167: This thought has been beautifully developed by Mr. Simpson in some Essays on Original Sin, published in The Rambler]