On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin: Chapter 4
BASIC WRITINGS
with the qualification 'original' (in the same way that a stuffed animal is not truly an animal, but a stuffed animal5), it would of course follow that an infant that has no sin but original sin is free of sin, and that the Virgin's Son was not the only one among human beings to be sinless in his mother's womb and at his birth, and that either an unbaptized infant that dies without any sin other than original sin is not damned or else it is damned without sin. But we do not accept any of these claims. Therefore, every sin is a case of injustice, and original sin is sin without qualification. Hence, it follows that original sin is a case of injustice. Furthermore, if God damns a human being only on account of injustice, and he damns someone on account of original sin, it follows that original sin is nothing other than injustice. And if this is so, and injustice is nothing other than the absence of the justice that is owed—for it is evident that there is injustice only in a nature that ought to have justice but lacks it— original sin is clearly included in that definition of injustice.
Now given that justice is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake,and that such rectitude cannot exist except in a rational nature, it follows that only a rational nature owes justice, just as only a rational nature is capable of having justice. So since injustice can exist only where justice ought to be, original sin, which is a case of injustice, exists only in a rational nature. Now the only rational natures are God, angels, and the human soul, in virtue of which a human being is called rational and without which one is not a human being.
Therefore, since original sin does not exist in God or angels, it exists only in the rational soul of the human being.
One must also realize that justice can exist only in the will, given that justice is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake. Therefore, injustice too can exist only in the will. After all, the absence of justice is called 'injustice' only where justice ought to be.And so, apart from justice and injustice themselves, nothing is called 'just' or 'unjust' except a will and whatever else is so called on account of a just or unjust will.We call a human being, an angel, a soul, or an action just or unjust on the basis of the will.
Chapter 4 That nothing is just or unjust in itself except for justice and injustice; and that nothing is punished other than the will
For nothing—no substance, no action, nor anything else—considered in itself is just except for justice, or unjust or a sin except for injustice: not even
5 Anselm actually uses the example of a person in a painting (pictus homo), but that example does not work unambiguously in English if one preserves the Latin construction,so I have substituted an example that does the same work but allows for more grammatical flexibility.
ON THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION, AND ON ORIGINAL SIN
the will itself in which justice or injustice exists. For the power of the soul by which the soul wills something,which can be called the "instrument"for willing (as sight is the instrument for seeing), which we name "the will," is one thing; the justice by which the will is called "just" when it has it, and "unjust" when it lacks it, is another thing. The affections and exercises of this instrument are also called "wills," but that is too involved a matter to pursue here.6
Not even the appetites that the Apostle calls "the flesh," which "lusts against the spirit,"7 and "the law of sin,"8 which is "in the members, opposing the law of the mind,"9 are just or unjust considered in themselves. For they do not make a person who experiences them just or unjust; they make someone unjust only when he consents to them by his will when he should not. For that same Apostle says that there is "no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh,"10 that is, who do not consent to the flesh with their wills.After all, if they made someone unjust who merely experienced them without consenting to them, condemnation would follow.
Hence, merely experiencing them is not a sin; consenting to them is a sin.And in fact, if they were unjust in themselves, then whenever consent is given to them,they would make someone or something unjust.Yet when brute animals consent to them, the animals are not called unjust. Furthermore, if these appetites were sins, they would be taken away in baptism, when every sin is washed away; but it is quite clear that this does not happen. So it is not in their being that there is any injustice, but only in a rational will that follows them in an inordinate way.When a will resists them by delighting in the law of God according to the inner person,11 that will is just. For he calls the justice that the law enjoins both "the law of God," because it is from God, and "the law of the mind," because it is understood through the mind, just as the Old Law is called "the law of God," because it is from God, and "the law of Moses," because it was handed down through Moses.
My claim that no action is called unjust in itself, but only on account of an unjust will, is clear in the case of actions that can sometimes be performed without injustice: for example, killing a human being, as Phineas did,12 and sexual intercourse, as in marital relations or among brute animals. This is not as easy to understand when it comes to actions that can never be performed
6 See De concordia 1.11.
7 Galatians 5:17.
8 Romans 7:25.
9 Romans 7:23.
10 Romans 8:1.
11 Cf. Romans 7:22, 25.
12 Numbers 25:7 ff.
BASIC WRITINGS
without injustice, such as perjury and certain other actions that ought not even to be mentioned.Yet consider both an action by which something comes into being—an action that exists only so long as something is coming into being and passes out of existence once that thing has been brought about— and the product that comes into being and remains in existence. For example, when someone writes what ought not to be written, the action of writing passes out of existence, but it brings into being certain marks that remain in existence.If the action were a sin,then once the action passed out of existence, the sin likewise would pass out of existence and would no longer exist.And if the product were a sin, then as long as the product remained in existence, the sin would never be wiped away.Yet in fact we observe that very often sins are not destroyed when the action is destroyed, and that they are destroyed even though the product is not destroyed. Hence, neither the action that passes out of existence nor the product that remains in existence is ever a sin.
Finally, if the bodily members and senses by means of which voluntary actions are done unjustly are blamed for those actions, they can respond,"God subjected us, and the power that is in us, to the will, so that when the will commands us, we cannot fail to move ourselves and to do what it wills. Indeed, the will moves us as its instruments; it is the will that performs the deeds we appear to do.And we cannot resist the will on our own; the deeds it performs cannot fail to be done.We ought not, and we cannot, fail to obey the master whom God has set over us.When we obey the will, we are obeying
God, who gave us this law."What sin, therefore, is committed by the bodily members or the senses or their deeds, which God has made subject to the will in this way, when they preserve the order that God has made for them? So the entirety of whatever they do is to be attributed to the will.
Since this is the case, someone might wonder why the bodily members and the senses are punished for the will's fault. But that is not in fact what happens. Only the will is punished. For only what is contrary to someone's will is a punishment for that person, and only what has a will experiences punishment. Now the bodily members and the senses do not will anything through themselves. So just as the will is operative in the members and the senses, it is tormented or pleased through them.Anyone who resists this claim should realize that what experiences and acts in the senses and the bodily members is nothing other than the soul, in which the will exists; and so it is nothing other than the soul that is tormented or pleased through them. Nevertheless, in our ordinary way of speaking we call the actions done by an unjust will "sins," on the grounds that there is sin in the will by which they are done; and some are given names that signify that they are done unjustly, such as "fornication" and "lie." But what we understand when we consider the action or utterance as such is different from what we understand when we consider whether it was done justly or unjustly.