| III. | MAN'S NATURAL DEPRAVITY AND HIS NATURAL POWERS. | ||
| 1. | Natural depravity crops out in infancy [56]. | ||
| 2. | It is seen as the years advance [57-58]. | ||
| 3. | Whether those who would drown it have reason for doing so [59-60]. | ||
| 4. | There is none untainted by it [61-62]. | ||
| 5. | The godless yield to it, believers resist it [62]. | ||
| * | Can God be charged with being changeable [63-64]. | ||
| 6. | The knowledge of natural depravity is very necessary [65]. | ||
| 7. | What moves sophists to ignore natural depravity [65-66]. | ||
| 8. | How to view those who lightly regard natural depravity, and how to refute them [68-69]. | ||
| * | Meaning of "the imagination of the heart" [70]. | ||
| * | True theological definition of man [71]. | ||
| 9. | The proof of natural depravity and that the natural is not perfect [72-73]. | ||
| 10. | Consequence of false teaching on natural depravity and the natural [74-75]. | ||
| * | What sophists understand by Merito congrui and condigni [74]. | ||
| 11. | How Scotus tried to prove that man's natural powers were all he had, and how to refute his opinion [75-76]. | ||
| * | Value of the Scholastics and their theology [77]. | ||
| 12. | How teachers in these things lead astray [78]. | ||
| * | The virtues of the heathen. | ||
| a. | Estimate of them [79-80]. | ||
| b. | How they differ from the good works of the saints [81]. | ||
| c. | What they lack [82-83]. | ||
| 13. | Natural depravity may sleep in youth, but it will awake as the years advance [84-86]. | ||
| 14. | Those who ignore natural depravity may be refuted by experience [87]. | ||
| 15. | Philosophy manifests its vanity and blindness in its attitude to this doctrine [88-89]. | ||
| 16. | Experience confirms natural depravity [89-90]. | ||
| 17. | Whether natural depravity can be completely eradicated: how to check it [91]. | ||
| * | How to understand "God will not smite the earth again" [92]. | ||
| * | Nature thrown into great disorder by the deluge [93]. | ||
| * | Seasons of the year again put in their order [94]. | ||
| * | The people's talk about the signs of the last times [95]. | ||
| * | The days of earth to be followed by the days of heaven, and we should prepare for them [96]. | ||
III. MAN'S NATURAL DEPRAVITY AND HIS NATURAL POWERS.
V. 21d. For that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.
56. This is a powerful passage, relating to original sin. Whoever weakens its force, goes straying like the blind man in the sunlight, failing to see his own acts and experiences. Look at the days of our swaddling clothes; in how many ways sin manifests itself in our earlier years. What an amount of switching it requires until we are taught order, as it were, and attention to duty!
57. Then youth succeeds. There a stronger rebellion becomes noticeable, and in addition that untamable evil, the rage of lust and desire. If one take a wife, the result is weariness of his own and a passion for others. If the government of a State is entrusted to him, an exceptionally fruitful harvest of vice will follow—as jealousy, rivalry, haughtiness, hope of gain, avarice, wrath, anger, and other evils.
58. It is true, as the German proverb has it, that sins grow with the years: Je laenger, je aerger; je aelter, je kaerger (worse with time, stingier with age). All such vices are so blatant and gross as to become objects of observation and intelligence. What, then shall we say of the inward vices when unbelief, presumption, neglect of the Word, and wicked views grow up?
59. There are those who are and desire to be considered powerful theologians, though they extenuate original sin by sophistry. But vices so numerous and great cannot be extenuated. Original sin is not a slight disorder or infirmity, but complete lawlessness, the like of which is not found in other creatures, except in evil spirits.