On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin: Chapter 11
ON THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION, AND ON ORIGINAL SIN
in the same way that God, apart from the workings of natural propagation or any created will, had created Adam both rational and just all at once.
In fact, the same argument that shows that rational nature was created just (an argument I laid out in the aforementioned work29) also proves that if there had been no preceding sin, those who were propagated from human nature necessarily would have been just as soon as they were rational. For the one who created the first human being without generation from parents also creates those who come into being from him through the created reproductive nature. Therefore, if there had been no preceding sin, every human being, just like Adam, would be both just and rational. But since Adam refused to be subject to God's will, that reproductive nature—though it remained intact—was not subject to his will, as it would have been if he had not sinned. He also lost the grace that he had the power to retain for all those who would be propagated from him, and all who are propagated by the workings of the nature that he had received are bound by his debt. Therefore, because human nature, which existed wholly in Adam in such a way that there was nothing of it outside him, dishonored God by sinning without any necessity, and could not by itself make recompense for its sin, it lost the grace that it had received and could have retained always for those who would be propagated from it; and every time it is propagated by the reproductive nature that it was given, it contracts sin and, with it, the punishment for sin.
Chapter 11 That propagation from the Virgin is not subject to the law and merits of natural propagation; and that there are three courses of events
We must now carefully investigate whether this inheritance (so to speak) of sin and of the penalty of sin is justly transmitted to the human being who was propagated from Adam through the Virgin. It is of course clear that Adam received a nature for propagating only through both a man and a woman together. Human nature does not have the power—and we recognize that it is impossible—for a man alone or a woman alone to generate a human being solely by the workings of his or her own nature and will. For just as the dust of the earth had not received a nature or will that could act so as to bring about the first man from it, even though God could make a man from it, so too, it was not the nature or will of a human being that acted so as to make a woman from a man's rib or a man from a woman alone. Rather, God by his own power and will made one man from the dust and another man from a woman alone, and a woman from a man alone. For although nothing comes
29 See Cur Deus Homo, Book 2, Chapter 1.
BASIC WRITINGS
about unless God's will either brings it about or permits it, some things are brought about by God's will and power alone, others by a created nature, and others by a creature's will. But just as a created nature can bring about nothing by itself except what it has received from God's will,so too a creature's will can do nothing at all by itself except what the creature's nature supports or allows. It was God's will alone that made the natures of things in the beginning, giving to some natures a will suited to them, so that natures and wills would fulfill their functions in the course of events in accordance with the order that God laid down for them.And God's will continues to do many things by using those natures and wills to accomplish what they would never do according to their characteristic role and purpose.
It is the work of God's will alone when the sea offers a dry path through itself to God's people, when the dead arise, when water is suddenly turned to wine, when human hearts are taught by the Holy Spirit things that they do not know either through themselves or through another creature, when unwholesome wills are turned by the governance of grace alone from their own impulses to what is beneficial, and when many other things come about that neither a creature nor its will would do in its ordinary course of activity.
Nature moves light things upward and heavy things downward. Nature makes the earth produce countless plants and trees and makes them bear fruit, sometimes when a will has previously cultivated and sown seed, but sometimes without any prior activity on the part of a will.And nature does many other things that we know more easily from what we see than from what we are taught.
Things like the following are attributed to will: taking a trip, building, writing, speaking, and similar things that only a will does.
Therefore, since, if we examine them carefully, all things that come about come about either by God's will alone or by nature in accordance with the power granted it by God or by a creature's will, and since those things that neither a created nature nor a creature's will but God alone brings about are always miraculous, it is evident that there are three courses of events: miraculous, natural, and voluntary. The miraculous is in no way subservient to the others or to their law; rather, it freely controls them. Nor does it do them any injury when it appears to supersede them, since they have nothing but what they have received from it, and whatever it has given them is subordinate to it. Therefore, since the propagation of a man from the Virgin alone is not natural or voluntary but miraculous (just like the propagation that produced a woman from a man alone and the creation of a man from the dust), it is clear that it is in no way subject to the laws and merits of the propagation that both nature and will accomplish, though separately (for in such a case what will does is distinct from what nature does). Nevertheless, Adam, who is from something that was not a human being,and Jesus,who is from a woman alone,