Chapter II: The Image of God in Man was not a Supernatural Gift
CHAPTER II: THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN WAS NOT A SUPERNATURAL GIFT
§ 57. Accordingly, it should be firmly established that original righteousness was the internal, concreated perfection of the entire man, who was created pure, blameless, and holy, without any corrupt stain of concupiscence, without any inclination to sin, without any weakness. This is something one can also conclude from the remnants of the image and from its propagation.
The remnants of the divine image bear witness of its nature.
§ 58. The apostle writes, Rom. 2:15: “The work of the Law is written in the hearts of the Gentiles.” Now if those remnants of the image of God—namely, some sort of knowledge of the Law of God—are written by nature in their hearts, then surely a complete and perfect knowledge of God’s Law was natural in humans before the fall. When the whole and its parts are homogeneous, then the nature of the whole is the same as the nature of a part. It is absurd to attribute any supernatural gift even to unregenerate people.
§ 59. In the same passage the apostle asserts: “The Gentiles’ conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” [Rom. 2:15]. From this we draw the following conclusion: The testimony of the conscience in the heathen which accuses or excuses their deeds is not a supernatural gift in them but is a natural power of the soul and a piece of divine judgment in the minds of men. Therefore even the uprightness of the first man was natural to him. The logic of [this] conclusion likewise depends on the nature of homogeneous parts.
There is no natural propagation except of natural things.
§ 60. That which is propagated naturally is natural. But now, if the image of God in man before the fall had remained in its wholeness, it would have been propagated to his descendants. As Adam is carefully said after his fall to have begotten “a son after his image and likeness” (Gen. 5:3), from which “we are all by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), so also Adam in the state of integrity undoubtedly would have begotten his son according to the image of God.
§ 61. The exclamation of the Holy Spirit that is added to the description of creation—“God saw all that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31)—is to be referred not only to all the rest of creation but also especially to the microcosm and completion of all creatures, that is, to man. After creating him, God rested from His work [cf. Gen. 2:2] and thus clearly indicated that He was pleased with this work of His. Yet how does this statement of the Holy Spirit fit with those declarations about the illness and weakness of nature, about the conflict of flesh and spirit, about evil concupiscence which is worthy not of love but of hatred, about the rebellion which followed from the condition of matter apart from the intent of God? All these things Bellarmine attributes to human nature as God created it.
All things were very good; therefore nothing evil was in man before the fall.
§ 62. [Eccl.] 7:[29]: “God made man εὐθῆ, upright.” Therefore no crookedness, no obliquity was in him. God made man perfectly holy and just; therefore no corrupt concupiscence was in him. God was pleased with this workmanship; therefore nothing in man’s nature displeased Him. Adam was the beloved child of God; therefore no concupiscence worthy of hatred was in him. Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 14, ch. 11): “God made man upright and, through this, with a good will, for he is not upright without having a good will,” etc. “Man used to live according to God in a paradise both physical and spiritual, for it was not only a physical paradise for the good of the body but also spiritual for the good of the mind. Or was it only spiritual, for man to enjoy through his internal senses, and not also physical, for him to enjoy with his external senses? Clearly it was both for the sake of both [the mind and the body].” Also (in the preceding ch. 10): “Did they” (the first parents) “perhaps desire to touch and eat of the forbidden tree, and yet were afraid to die? And, because of this, did desire and fear already vex those people even in that place? Heaven forbid that we suppose that this was the condition where there was no sin at all! After all, it is indeed sin to desire that which the Law of God forbids and to abstain from them for fear of punishment and not out of a love for righteousness. Heaven forbid, I say, that there would already have been such a sin before all sin existed,” etc.
Claiming that corruption of the nature stemmed from the condition of matter diminishes original sin.
§ 63. But if, after the fall of our first parents, their natural characteristics remained intact, and if they were not more sound and pure of themselves before than they now are after the fall, and, in fact, if the corruption of nature stemmed from the condition of matter, then original sin and its consequent guilt will be greatly diminished, as experience itself shows and as Bellarmine is unable to deny. That is why, on the basis of Thomas ([ST,] 1.2., q. 82, art. 1, ad 3), he himself writes (ch. 5, col. 17): “The inclination to an inordinate act comes from original sin not directly but indirectly, that is, through the removal of that which restrains [per remotionem prohibentis]—namely, original righteousness—which used to restrain inordinate impulses.” He argues (col. 18) that “there would have been in man, created in his purely natural state, a concupiscence transcending the limits of reason.” But now, Scripture treats original sin gravely in tragic language and defines it as the profoundest corruption of the entire human nature, as we shall see in in its own place [On Original Sin (Commonplace XII)].
Here it is also advantageous to note the subterfuge that Bellarmine pronounces (ch. 6, col. 22): “Through the fall of Adam human nature was corrupted and wounded, that is, with respect to the status to which it was elevated by the generosity of God through a supernatural gift. However, the same nature is whole, with respect to the status in which it could have been had it been created by God in its purely natural state.” Yet a nature cannot be called corrupt on the basis of the loss of a gift added outwardly and supernaturally, as the nature of Samson (an example Bellarmine uses) was not corrupted by the loss of his supernatural strength. Properly speaking, therefore, we must take the nature of man to mean those things which are either its essential parts or its natural properties, and its natural operations and effects. Bellarmine teaches that all of these are sound and uncorrupted. But we shall teach in its own place [On Original Sin(Commonplace XII), §§ 69–89] that when Scripture speaks about the corruption of the human nature introduced through original sin, it is not speaking merely about the loss of supernatural gifts but of the destruction of natural powers.
The testimonies of the ancients.
§ 64. Pertinent here are all the statements of the ancients which bear witness that the first man lacked every corruption, every weakness of nature, and every opposition of inclinations. Tertullian (De patient.): “Innocent man was a close friend of God and an inhabitant of Paradise.” Augustine (De contin., ch. 7): “He merited that weakness because of his fault; he did not have it by nature.” Macarius (Homily 12):
Adam transgressed the command and was ruined in two ways: First, he lost possession of his pure nature, beautifully created after the image and likeness of God. Second, he lost the very image in which the entire inheritance of heaven had been placed for him according to the promise. It is like the case of money stamped with the likeness of the king. If that coin is adulterated, not only the gold is ruined but also the image has no worth. That sort of thing happened to Adam, since immense wealth and a great inheritance had been prepared for him. It is like a great estate, and it has many sources of revenue, etc. In the same way the vessel of Adam before his disobedience was like a fruitful estate.
Damascenus (Orth. fid., bk. 2, ch. 12): “God made man pure, without corruption, upright, brave, pleasing, secure, equipped with every virtue, embellished with all good things, like a second world, a small world in a great world, another angel, a mixed worshiper,” etc. And later: “God made him by nature sinless and endowed with a free will. ‘Sinless’ [ἀναμάρτητον] means not that sin could not find a place in him—for God alone is said to be incapable of sin—but that it was not in his nature to sin.” The [Latin] translation has rendered this as: “Sinning had no place in him according to his nature.”1 Hugh (De sacram., part 6, ch. 2) and Lombard (Sent. 2, dist. 16, letter D): “Man was created after the likeness of God, according to the innocence and righteousness which are naturally in the rational mind.”
Bellarmine’s objections to our arguments.
§ 65. Bellarmine does not engage our arguments, which we have drawn from Scripture, but forms for himself (in ch. 7) some objections from the statements and rational arguments of the fathers and tries to refute them. Let us briefly see what he presents. He says:
(I) “The first objection is this: If original righteousness had been supernatural, it would follow that the concupiscence of the flesh had been natural and, in this way, good and from God. Yet John says clearly that it ‘is not of the Father but of the world’ (1 John 2[:16]), and Paul says in Romans 7 that he hated it. In many places Augustine, too, proves that it is evil and contrary to nature.” Bellarmine objects: “Indeed, the concupiscence of the flesh is now the punishment for sin, and yet without doubt it would have been natural in man created in his purely natural state, but not as some good thing of nature but as a defect and something like an illness of the nature which is a consequence of the condition of matter. Wherefore the saying is very true that it does not come from God, is worthy of hatred and not of love, is evil and contrary to nature for two reasons: First, because if man had been created in his purely natural state, it would not have existed in man by the intent of the Creator of nature but outside His intent. Second, because God had removed that [concupiscence], it has a place in us by the fault of man himself.”
We respond. One could pass a perfectly correct judgment about this entire disputation just from this one passage. (1) Note well what Bellarmine is conceding, that the very concupiscence which holds sway today in our members—about which the apostle complains so anxiously—and which encourages us to actual sins of every kind was undoubtedly natural in man as he was created in his purely natural state and was a defect and disease of his nature stemming from the condition of matter. And yet from where does that condition of matter come? Surely it comes from God, who had granted man the very substance of his body and all his abilities. What else will follow from this but that God is the Creator of concupiscence?
(2) Whatever is worthy of hatred is sin. Yet according to Bellarmine concupiscence is worthy of hatred. Therefore it is surely sin. I understand the major premise to refer to the hatred of God and of holy people. Whatever God and the saints hate is sin, because God hates none of that which He has created, and because the saints should hate nothing but sin alone. We should not hate the punishments of God, because they come from and aim at good.
(3) Concupiscence is evil, Bellarmine says. I ask: Is it an evil of fault or of punishment?2 Scripture says the former, but Bellarmine denies it even though he cannot deny it if he wants to be consistent; for he adds that concupiscence is not only evil but even worthy of hatred. And yet an evil of punishment is not worthy of hatred, only an evil of fault is.
(4) He says that that concupiscence was natural to man as he was created in his purely natural state and that it arises from the condition of matter; and yet he adds that the same concupiscence is contrary to nature. How can these ideas be reconciled? “Whatever arises from the condition of anything cannot be contrary to that thing. Concupiscence arises from the condition of the human nature itself. Therefore it is not contrary to human nature.” I prove the minor premise because it arises from the condition of matter, which is a part of human nature.
(5) The condition of matter comes from God, and concupiscence is a result of the condition of matter. How, then, can Bellarmine deny that concupiscence comes from God, whose handiwork is matter?
(6) This is filled with another absurdity, when he says that if man had been created in a purely natural state, such concupiscence existed in man outside of the intent of God. Yet this is an insult to the power and wisdom of God. Could God not have chosen the sort of matter for the making of man which is free from this evil? Or regarding His works, shall we really speak as the poet says, “He began to make an amphora but, as soon as the wheel turned, a pitcher came forth”?3
(7) “God had,” you say, “removed that concupiscence.” Explain that more clearly. How did He remove it? He had restrained and repressed its secondary actuality4 but had not plucked it out by its roots. What! Shall we really say that he who controls a kicking, disobedient horse with a bit removes the very untamed ferocity of the horse? God had created the human nature with this condition of matter; how, then, properly speaking, had He removed or healed it? He had allayed and covered it (according to Bellarmine) but had not removed it.
Arguments on the basis of statements of Augustine.
§ 66. The second, third, fourth, and fifth objections are taken from some statements of Augustine.
(II) Augustine writes (Enchirid., ch. 11): “Whatever things are vices of souls are deprivations of natural goods.” Thus Bellarmine objects:
(1) Augustine seems to take “natural goods” to mean not forms but subjects. (2) Augustine speaks about vices, which are habits acquired through repeated actions, not about concupiscence, ignorance, and infirmity. (3) Furthermore, vices are deprivations of natural goods, that is, of natural uprightness, not such as was in the first man but such as that could have been in him if he had been created in a purely natural state. (4) Finally, if we were compelled to take “natural goods” in Augustine to mean original righteousness, the easy response is that that gift is called a “natural good” because it does not desert nature but completes it.
We respond. This is imagining and pretending, not theological debate. Augustine clearly sets good and evil things against each other, and he says that whatever vices of souls exist, they are deprivations of the natural goods which ought to be present in the nature of man and truly were present in his original nature. Look at the whole context and note the analogy between the health of the body and the soul, which certainly is a natural good in the body.
§ 67. (III) Augustine speaks as follows about angels (De civ. Dei, bk. 12, ch. 1): “When we say that it is a fault of an angelic creature for it not to cling to God, we thereby declare openly that it befits its nature to cling to God.” Bellarmine objects: “This befits the nature of angels not naturally but by grace.”
We respond. We are not excluding the grace of God, but we are saying that the nature of angels was created by the grace of God such that its natural property was to cling to God. Augustine teaches this clearly in this passage, as is shown by the comparison he used: When we call blindness a fault of the eyes, we thereby show that sight belongs to the nature of the eyes. In the same way, when we say that it is a fault of the angelic nature not to cling to God, we are stating very clearly that clinging to God befits its nature. Add the minor premise: The power to see is the natural disposition of the eye; in the same way the power to cling to God was a natural property of an angel’s nature. Bellarmine saw this, and that is why he omitted the first part of the comparison.
§ 68. (IV) Augustine asserts (De corr. et grat., ch. 11, and Enchirid., ch. 106): “Eternal life in the state of innocence was going to be a reward for merit but is now a gift. Therefore original righteousness and love, through which one would have merited it, would not have been a gift of grace but a natural condition in Adam.”
We respond. We do not use this argument, because the first man would not have persevered in the state of innocence unto glory solely by the powers of his free will but also by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Also, even if God would have repaid his obedience with the reward of eternal life, nevertheless he would have obtained it not on the basis of merit, literally and strictly speaking, because he had already owed such obedience to God by the law of creation, and also because there is obviously no analogy [proportio] between man’s temporal obedience and the eternal blessedness of eternal life.
§ 69. (V) Augustine (De lib. arbit., bk. 3): “This is not the nature of man as he was created but his penalty as he was condemned: to approve falsehood for truth so that he errs unwittingly, and to be unable to restrain himself from lustful activities as the pain of his carnal bond resists and torments him.” Bellarmine objects: “Augustine is speaking about nature as it was in the first man, not as it could have been.”
We respond. On the contrary, the question is what the nature of the first man was in his purely natural state, that is, whether God created him in his purely natural state such that those frenzies of evil passions and lusts would have burst forth spontaneously from his nature unless they were restrained by the supernatural gift of original righteousness. Bellarmine affirms this, but Augustine clearly denies it. If God created the nature of man such that man unwittingly approved falsehood for truth and was incapable of restraining himself from lustful activities, how could God not be the author of sin?
§ 70. (VI) Leo (De pass. Dom., sermon 13) calls it “the natural innocence of the first man.” Bellarmine objects: “It is called ‘natural’ because from the beginning of man’s creation it was given along with his nature and would be propagated to his descendants in the natural way; in this sense original sin is also said to be natural.”
We respond. By this reckoning no supernatural gifts would be left in Adam, which Bellarmine himself disapproves. From the very beginning of his creation Adam had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and his descendants, too, would have been temples of the Holy Spirit; but this is not a natural gift, is it? It is not enough to make up various objections to weaken the force of words somehow or other, but one must also prove those objections. Original sin is said to be natural not only because it befell man as soon as it arose and is spread through begetting, but also with regard to inheritance, because it so infected and weakened the entire human nature in Adam that men’s inborn character passed away after the fall of their first parents.
§ 71. (VII) The Council of Trent teaches (session 6): “Because of original sin we have come under the power of the devil, and the entire man has been changed for the worse according to body and soul. However, this is not merely to be deprived of a supernatural gift.” Bellarmine objects: “It asserts both, namely, that man has come under the power of the devil because of original sin and that he has been changed for the worse. Nevertheless, in his purely natural state, man was not created in the power of the devil but would become as we are with respect to the mortality of our body, the rebellion of its members, ignorance, difficulty, and the like.”
We respond. The Council of Trent is not very important to us, but we still rightly ask how Bellarmine intends to reconcile his position with these words of the council. After all, if original sin is nothing but the loss of a spiritual gift, while man’s actual nature remains sound and unharmed, how can one say that man has come under the power of the devil through sin, though he would not have come under him if he had been created in a purely natural state? Furthermore, if the mortality of the body, the rebellion of its members, ignorance, etc., flowed forth from the very beginnings of his nature at the removal just of the gift of original righteousness, how can one say that through original sin the entire person has been changed for the worse according to body and soul?
§ 72. (VIII) Augustine (De corrept. et grat., ch. 11) teaches that “the impetus of the flesh is more rebellious than it was going to be before sin without grace.” Bellarmine objects: “Nowhere does Augustine say that the impetus of the flesh was more rebellious than it was going to be before sin without grace, nor did Augustine anywhere assert that the purely natural state was sounder and purer before sin than it is after sin.”
We respond. We have grave doubts as to whether those evasions which Bellarmine used in twisting the words of Augustine cited above are tenable. In this very passage Augustine is comparing the first and second Adam, that is, Christ, and is saying that Christ was elevated to this level of blessedness by a greater grace of God from the beginning when man began to exist, so that He was unable to sin. From this we conclude: Just as this innocence was natural to the assumed human nature of Christ, so also that innocence of Adam, which is of a lower grade, was natural to him. Shall we really imagine that such a supernatural gift was in Christ that by it the rebellion which was concealed in His members was checked and repressed? Heaven forbid!
§ 73. (IX) As soon as little children begin to grow up, a large abundance of vain desire appears in them, and, of their own and by strong impulse, they are carried headlong into many and sundry vices (Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 22, ch. 22; and the witness of experience itself). Man would not have been born this way in his purely natural state, however, for there would have been present in him the mere ability to sin, not some rash inclination to sin. Bellarmine objects: “There is no reason to assume that this headlong inclination to vice was not in Adam, but only the possibility of sinning. To the contrary, reason clearly teaches the opposite because the objects of the senses are near and present but the objects of the spirit are remote, because at the time of infancy we do not have the use of reason, because baser senses and desires are flourishing against it, and because no other reason can be given for that inclination than the condition of matter.”
We respond. We declare that this is an insult against the very Creator of human nature. What else could it be? If that rash inclination to sin was in Adam before the fall, why does the apostle deplore it so wretchedly? That same inclination was not in the assumed human nature of Christ, though repressed by a supernatural gift, was it? The same thing is not in the elect (on the basis of Bellarmine’s hypotheses), is it? If the condition of matter is the cause of that inclination, it will follow that wherever that condition of matter exists there also exists that rash inclination. One must instead strongly detest the fact that Bellarmine inflicts the holy nature of the first man with this insult, that to it he attributes a rash inclination to sin in order to maintain the integrity of the corrupted nature and the merits of human works. This is clearly honoring the work of the Creator with insult.
§ 74. (X) If man was created by God upright and without any crookedness, then one cannot say that the impulses of evil concupiscence existed in man if it is true that God cannot be the author of sin. Bellarmine objects: “Such rebellion was covered by the cloak of original righteousness.” We respond. Nonetheless [this rebellion] was still present in him in primary actuality,5 because once the superadded gift of original righteousness was removed, it flowed forth from the very foundations of his nature. He who clothes his leprous body with purple does not remove his leprosy, but hides it. Earlier we discussed his other subterfuge, that this rebellion followed from the condition of matter apart from God’s intent [§§ 54–56]. This third hiding place, that rebellion and depraved concupiscence are not sin nor necessarily lead to sin, we shall examine in its own place [On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), §§ 84–89].
§ 75. (XI) Contrary to those who blame [human] nature, the fathers generally adduce the corruption of original sin introduced by our fault; they do not make [human] nature itself its stepmother as the heathen do. Bellarmine objects: “This is a correct teaching, that nature itself is not to be blamed, but the cause of every trouble must be transferred over to original sin.”
We respond. A little later he adds that those defects exist in man from the condition of matter, contrary to the intent of the agent. But if they arise from the very condition of matter, how is nature itself not blamed? What Bellarmine says is empty—that “those failures were removed in the first condition”—for based on his own hypothesis those failures were not removed but were checked and repressed. Furthermore, those corrupt desires are punishments and troubles, as Bellarmine himself concedes. How, then, can the cause of all troubles be referred to original sin, if those desires are said to develop from the condition of matter and are asserted to have been in man in primary actuality even before sin existed?
§ 76. (XII) Those inordinate impulses of carnal concupiscence appear especially in the genitals, but, as Augustine teaches, none of these would have been an inordinate impulse before sin but would have served procreation without any act of lust. Bellarmine objects: “Before the fall there was indeed in man no heat of lust, but it still could have been in him as he was created in his purely natural state.”
We respond. The corruption of [human] nature, which is the subject under question, must be sought not only in the members of the body but also in the very mind of man and in the highest powers of the soul. This we shall teach clearly from Scripture in the next commonplace [On Original Sin]. Accordingly, no one who considers that God is the holy and wise Creator of man and that man is the most beautiful, spotless handiwork of God will allow himself to be convinced that such darkness of the mind, such terrible doubts, such wrong judgment about God and about the way to worship Him, such aversion in the will, such disorder of affections, such inclination to terrible sins of every kind, such rash impulse to greed, lusts, pride, etc., existed in the first man as he was created in his purely natural state.
§ 77. (XIII) Eternal blessedness is the natural end goal of man. Therefore man should have had the natural means to obtain that end; otherwise he would be lower than the beasts. Bellarmine objects: “Blessedness is the natural end goal of man as regards his desire, but not as regards its attainment. It is no novelty [to say] that man cannot obtain what he desires by nature without supernatural help. Although man may not have obtained the means to blessedness, nevertheless he would have attained his natural end goal, which is to seek the truth by exercising his reason.”
We respond. On the contrary, it is absurd to say that blessedness is the natural end goal of man (which cannot be denied in any sense, since man was created especially not for this life but for eternal life), and then to add that the means to blessedness either were denied to man or were not natural. Bellarmine cites the example of souls which, when loosed from bodies, have a natural inclination toward bodies, and yet cannot be connected to bodies without supernatural help. This is off topic and irrelevant, because death was brought into the world by the sin of the first man. Through this death it happens that the soul is separated from the body and cannot be rejoined without supernatural aid. However, the first man, created as he was for eternal life, was also created in true righteousness and holiness, through which he could have attained his goal with the grace of the Holy Spirit being added. It is feeble for Bellarmine to turn this around to say that “the natural end goal of man is to seek the truth by exercising his reason.” This goal is neither final nor principal. According to Lactantius (De ira Dei, ch. 13), man has been created “that he may know God and through such knowledge may attain immortality, which is the highest good.” Lactantius again (Instit., bk. 7, ch. 6): “The world was created that we might be born. We are born that we may know God as the Creator of the world and of us. We know Him to worship Him, and therefore we worship Him to receive immortality as the reward for our works, because the worship of God consists of great works. Therefore we are given the reward of immortality, to become like the angels, to serve our God and Lord Most High forever, and to be an eternal kingdom for God.” To say that this end is not proportionate to man who was created after the image of God is to insult the very nature of man. Finally, is it not absurd to claim that man after the fall can accept grace, which has been offered, by the remaining powers of his free choice and can earn eternal life with his works (which Bellarmine tries to prove with great effort) and to assert at the same time that blessedness is an end goal disproportionate to and too sublime for man, even in his created state of integrity?
The agreement of Pererius.
§ 78. All that has been examined up to now proves that the image of God in the first man was an internal, concreated dignity [decus] within him, not an external, supernatural embellishment. Therefore Pererius is correct in writing (In Gen., bk. 4, p. 502): “To show that man is a unique and special thing of God, God sealed him with the seal of His own image. He impressed it so firmly and deeply that, as long as the nature of man was preserved, His signature could not be removed by any means, just as tradition has it that the celebrated Phidias, having made the shield of Minerva, inserted his own likeness on it with such skill that it could not be removed so long as the shield was whole.”
Were there supernatural gifts in the first man?
§ 79. Bellarmine (De grat. primi hominis, ch. 1) says that we “acknowledge no supernatural gifts in the first man.” However, this is false, for though we deny that original righteousness was a supernatural gift, Bellarmine foolishly infers that we acknowledge no supernatural gifts at all in the first man. Before the fall, Adam was certainly a beautiful temple of the Holy Spirit and a dwelling place of the entire Holy Trinity. We do not follow the author of the Quaest. V. et N. T. (which is incorrectly ascribed to Augustine) and claim that Adam did not have the Holy Spirit (q. 123). In fact, if the Holy Spirit and the entire Holy Trinity dwell in the regenerate man when the image of God is restored in him (as is clearly confirmed in 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; John 14:23), then how much more did the Holy Spirit dwell in the first man? This indwelling of the Holy Spirit and of the entire Holy Trinity was not a part or property of man’s nature but a supernatural gift.
§ 80. Bellarmine admits (De grat. primi hominis, chs. 5 and 17) that men who otherwise are quite learned among the Papists claim that the Jesuits received the opinion that original righteousness was a supernatural gift from one Dominicus de Soto. He also admits that this is not the common opinion of old and modern Scholastics. This was not said without reason, as is obvious from the following. Lombard writes (Sent. 2, dist. 25, letter H):
Through original sin the natural gifts in man have been corrupted and the gifts of grace removed; for he is that man who was wounded and robbed by highwaymen [cf. Luke 10:30]. Indeed, he was wounded in his natural gifts of which he was not deprived; otherwise reparation could not be made. However, he was robbed of the gifts of grace which had been added to his natural gifts by grace. These are the finest and most perfect gifts given, some of which have been corrupted by sin, that is, the natural ones, such as talent, memory, understanding; others were taken away, that is, those of grace, though the natural ones are also from grace inasmuch as they belong to the general grace of God.
Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 93, art. 7): “The image of God consists primarily in acts of the soul and consequently in its powers.” Article 8: “The divine image is in man according to the word conceived from the knowledge of God and according to the love derived from it. In this way the image of God is found in the soul, according as it turns to God or is constituted by nature to turn to God.” Biel (Sent. 1, dist. 9, q. 10, art. 3): “The mind is the image of God insofar as it can grasp Him.” Article 4: “The image consists initially and originally in the substance of the soul, perfectly and consummately in the substance and actions produced by it.”
§ 81. Therefore Bellarmine has claimed that it is false and heretical when we say that the uprightness in which Adam was created was natural to him in the sense that it was a purity proper to his nature and bound to proceed from his well-made nature, that is, from his uncorrupted nature; and that now men, having lost that uprightness, lack a natural gift, as an animal would be defective if it were born crippled or blind or feverish or if one were born blind today. On the contrary, Bellarmine has claimed that this uprightness, even of the inferior part, was a supernatural gift. He claimed that this was “of itself,” rather than according to accident, so that it neither flowed nor could have flowed from the foundations of his nature; but rather this human nature, left to itself, began to experience the struggle between his inferior and superior parts. He claimed that this struggle would have been natural, that is, would have followed from the condition of matter, if God had not added the gift of righteousness to man (De grat. primi hominis., ch. 5, cols. 16–17).
The proofs Bellarmine uses to try to prove that original righteousness was a supernatural gift. First, Genesis 3[:19]: “You are dust.”
§ 82. He provides the following arguments (ch. 6, col. 21) for his position, drawn from Scripture, the fathers, and reasoning. (I) In Gen. 3[:19], God indicates what man is on the basis of the condition of his nature: “You are dust, and to dust you will return.” Bellarmine interprets these words in this way: “Although I have made you very glorious out of My goodness so that you need not dread death or any evil, yet on the basis of your nature you were dust, mortal, frail, subject to pains and struggles. Because by your own fault you were robbed of My superadded gift and have relapsed into your natural state, now you are still dust and shall return to dust.”
We respond. (1) There is a fallacy of speech,6 because the words “you are dust” are not speaking about a condition of the body as God created it but about its first origin from the ground. You see, though the body of man was formed from the dust of the earth and thus was without power and mortal, it was mortal neither in actuality nor in proximate potentiality,7 as we shall teach in greater detail below [§§ 99–103]. The former is not true, because the grace of immortality was granted to man, as Bellarmine himself proves; nor is the latter true, because the body was united in essence with the soul, which was created after the image and likeness of God.
(2) For this reason we read in Wisdom 2:23: “God created man in incorruption (ἐν ἀϕθαρσίᾳ),” “but through sin, death and mortality entered into the world” (Rom. 5:12). Now, if the foundation of death had been intrinsic in Adam before the fall, surely he would have been mortal of himself but immortal only according to accident. But now, he was created after the image of God, part of which is immortality.
(3) In these words, God is describing the punishment for sin. Therefore one cannot relate them to a natural property of man which was in him even before sin existed. The meaning is this: With regard to origin you are dust, but you were created for immortality; but because you turned to earthly things by misusing your free choice, your punishment will be that through death you will return to earth. Death and mortality are the punishment of sin but are not something bound to nature as it was before the fall. All these things will become more clear from the following discussion of original immortality [§§ 99–103].
Psalm 8[:4]: “What is man?”
§ 83. (II) In the second place, Bellarmine cites proof from Ps. 8:4–5: “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the angels, and crown him with glory and honor.” From this he draws the following conclusion: “Here he indicates in two ways that man was endowed with supernatural gifts: (1) In that the prophet is amazed that man is nearly equal to the angels. He says, ‘What is man that You are mindful of him?’ as if he intended to say: ‘It is strange that, by his own nature, man is corporeal, mortal, subject to the inclinations of other animals, and yet has been elevated to such glory that he is not at all far
from the angels.’ (2) Then he calls those gifts conferred upon the first man ‘glory,’ which undoubtedly signifies something extrinsic and superadded.”
We respond. Psalm 8, properly and in its literal sense, is speaking about Christ according to the infallible interpretation of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 15:27; Eph. 1:12; Heb. 2:9). How can what was said about Christ, the second Adam, be applied to the first Adam? The Epistle to the Hebrews applies the words “You have made Him a little lower than the angels” to the highest level of Christ’s emptying, who, though He was Lord of the angels, was made lower than they in the days of His flesh. When Bellarmine applies these words to His highest level of dignity and glory, is he not contradicting the Holy Spirit? The following words of the psalm—“You have crowned Him with glory and honor. You have put all things under His feet”—are explained by the blessed apostle such that they befit no one but Christ alone, because he considers no one worthy of this dominion except God alone, who subjects all things to Him. Augustine (vol. 8, Enarr. of this psalm) writes: “It rightly says of Christ: ‘You have lowered Him a little lower than the angels,’ because of the very weakness of the flesh and the humiliation of His Passion. However, he adds His glorification by which He rises again and ascends into heaven: ‘You have crowned Him with glory and honor. You have put all things under His feet.’ He makes no exception when he says ‘all things.’ ” The Glossa interlinearis, the Glossa ordinaria, Cassiodorus, Lyra, etc., interpret it the same way.
Psalm 49[:12]: “Man, though in honor…”
§ 84. (III) The third passage which Bellarmine cites is Ps. 49:12: “Man, though in honor, did not understand. He is compared to foolish beasts.” He says: “Here again the gifts given to the first man are called ‘honor.’ Therefore they were something extrinsic.”
We respond. (1) The psalm here is not speaking about the condition of the first man before the fall but about the state and condition of men after the fall, most of whom are attached to worldly things, squander their salvation, and hunger after the amassing of wealth, as the entire context shows. The original Hebrew of the verse has this: “But man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish.” That is, in their unbelief people think that their possessions will endure forever and that they will always occupy an exalted position, but a little later they will die a wretched death and will perish like beasts. We are aware that Augustine and Jerome apply this verse to the fall of the first man. But the context and the original Hebrew show that the subject here is the blindness of the wicked who do not consider their death and end.
(2) However, even if one were to concede that the Holy Spirit is discussing the state of the first man both in this and in the previous prophecy, one still could not draw any conclusion from them that the image of God in man was something extrinsic and supernatural. It is a sickly conclusion when Bellarmine says: “The first man was endowed with spiritual gifts. Therefore the image of God, after which man was created, was a supernatural gift.” He moves from the nondistributed to the distributed, from particular to particular.8
(3) “Honor” and “glory” should not be taken here as a bestowal [relatio] but as a foundation, that is, as the natural gifts granted to the first man, worthy of glory and honor. The excellence of the nature in Adam, considered according to itself, is his natural property, and compared to the other living beings is not unjustly called “glory and honor.” As often as Scripture assigns honor and glory to God, does that indicate anything extrinsic in God? Certainly not. Rather, the glory of God is His eternal majesty and internal perfection.
Ecclesiasticus 17[:1, 3]: “God clothed man…”
§ 85. (IV) The fourth passage is Ecclus. 17:1 and 3: “God created man out of earth […] and clothed him with strength like His own.” Bellarmine says: “Creation is referred to nature, and the clothing of strength is referred to superadded gifts. But clothing is something extrinsic and superadded.”
We respond. (1) Ecclesiasticus is not in the canon and thus is not sufficient to confirm dogma.
(2) The Greek text reads thus: καθ’ ἑαυτούς ἐνέδυσεν αὐτοὺς ἰσχὺι καὶ κατ’ εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς (“He endowed them with strength according to themselves and made them according to His image”). From this we conclude that people, by the very fact that they are said to be “clothed with strength,” were created after the image of God. In this way the image of God will not be in the essence of the human soul but in the establishing of strength, which is contrary to Bellarmine.
(3) Furthermore, just as the image of God, after which man was created, was not something external and superadded but the intrinsic beauty of man’s nature, so must one understand this clothing in the same way. This is confirmed by the emphatic phrase: “He endowed them according to themselves.”
(4) Hence away with this violent gloss, that the soul of Adam burned inwardly with corrupt desires worthy of the hatred of God but outwardly was clothed with some uprightness and virtues! Not at all; but rather Sirach is saying in general that God created man upright and clothed him with might. But now, it is clear from Job 10:11 that the word “clothe” does not always indicate something extrinsic. There, God is said to have clothed man with skin and flesh. Or are flesh and skin also something extrinsic and supernatural to man? In Ps. 104:2, God is said to be “covered with light as with a garment.” Is that light something extrinsic to God? In Matt. 6:30, God is said to clothe the grass of the field with beautiful colors and abundance. Are these something extrinsic to grass? How is it that our righteousness is called “the garment of salvation” in Isa. 61:10 and that Bellarmine tries with all his might to prove that this is inherent and intrinsic (De justif., bk. 2, ch. 11, col. 1073): “We hold that the comparison of the garment does not necessarily require the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, because it quite suitably befits inherent righteousness itself”?
Luke 10[:30]: The robbers stripped and wounded people.
§ 86. (V) In the fifth place, he cites the parable of Christ about the robbed and wounded man (Luke 10:30) whom robbers first stripped, then beat, and departed, leaving him half dead. He says: “Here we not only understand from the word ‘clothes,’ which means something extrinsic, that one can conclude that the first man was deprived of supernatural gifts, but we also notice that a beating to the human nature followed from the stripping. You see, it is not without reason that in this parable the Lord said that the man was first stripped and then wounded, since the opposite generally happens in the case of real robbers. Clearly He wanted to indicate that in this spiritual robbery the wounds to our nature came from the very loss of original righteousness.”
We respond. (1) The theology of parables is not argumentative. Bellarmine should recall his own words (De verbo Dei, bk. 3, ch. 3): “Effectual arguments can be sought only from the literal sense.”
(2) A little earlier [§ 85] we stripped down this poorly clad argument about the word “garment.”
(3) Those wounds of nature after the fall are unlawful desires and corrupt lusts that are worthy of the hatred of God (which Bellarmine does not deny). For if these sprouted by themselves from the nature of Adam such as God created it with only the robe of original righteousness removed, is this not to claim that the condition of man in his purely natural state was worse than that of the brute animals? Is this not to claim that God Himself is the cause of sin?
(4) One obviously cannot carve out from this parable the conclusion that the uprightness and integrity of the first man was a supernatural and extrinsic gift in him. For let us not forget9 the rule we set forth in our commonplace On the Interpretation of Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 2], namely, that in the parables one must especially consider its scope. In this parable it is an explanation of the doctrine of one’s neighbor: who he is and what responsibilities we owe him. And does Bellarmine not see that the distinction in the parable between the stripping and the wounding works against him? “They stripped him and added wounds.” Therefore the stripping is not the wounding itself. Man was stripped of his concreated righteousness and moreover was wounded in all the powers of his soul and body.
(5) The word “strip” does not help Bellarmine’s case either, as if only what is supernatural and extrinsic could be stripped and denuded. Given a man who becomes blind by losing an eye, do we not say correctly that he has been stripped of his sight? Is not someone who has lapsed into madness correctly said to have been stripped of the use of his reason?
The statements of the fathers.
§ 87. We have seen what little corroboration Bellarmine has found in Scripture. Let us look at the second class of proofs which he produces, from the fathers, but briefly, because this kind of argumentation is secondary and inconclusive unless the foundations for the articles of faith have first been well established from Scripture. He first produces Dionysius, who asserts (De divin. nominibus, ch. 4, part 4): “The angelic gifts given to them were not changed but remained whole and completely visible.”
We respond. Laurentius Valla, Theodorus Gaza, Erasmus, Guilielmus, Grocinus, Cajetan, and others have already shown what to think about Dionysius. And even this sentence is enough to betray the fictitious Dionysius. Indeed, is it not a notorious absurdity that the natural gifts remained whole in demons? After all, from where comes their hatred of God? Their desire to harm people? Their urge to tell lies? Or were they also created by God with a weakness in their nature? Heaven forbid! Therefore a distinction must be made between the angelic essence itself, which remained whole even after the fall, and their concreated goodness, that is, the perfection of faculties and powers which they lost in their voluntary fall. Their lost integrity and uprightness was certainly natural to the evil angels before their apostasy. Anyone can easily see that it is not only absurd but also sacrilegious to say that the devil was created by God in his purely natural state such as he is today, burning with a hatred of God and with a terrible inclination to harm people. (See Luther, commentary on Galatians 2, vol. 4, Jena [Latin] edition, f. 58.10)
§ 88. After Dionysius he adds Basil, who asserts (De sacros. Trin., ch. 16): “Sanctification does not occur without the Spirit, for the powers” (the angels) “of the heavens are not holy by nature but have their sanctification from the Spirit.”
We respond. Bellarmine has omitted the words which explain Basil’s thought fully: “The powers of heaven are not holy by nature, for if they were, they would be no different from the Holy Spirit.” Therefore it is clear that Basil is speaking about the origin of holiness but is not explaining how this is inherent in the nature of the angels. He denies that angels are holy by nature, that is, in essence, in the same way that God alone is holy; but he does not deny that the holiness of angels is a natural and concreated property of theirs. From Chrysostom (Homily 15 on Genesis) he emphasizes that “the glory with which our first parents had been clothed is said to have come from above.” There belong also the remaining testimonies which he cites from Cyril, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Anselm, and Bernard. Yet we do not deny that Adam also received supernatural gifts in addition to natural gifts. We do not deny that concreated righteousness was given him from above by the gift of God. We do not deny that original righteousness can be compared to a garment. We do not deny that this concreated uprightness is and can be called “grace.” Yet one cannot infer from all these that this was not natural to the first man but was added outwardly and was supernatural. Neither of these is asserted in the statements of the fathers.
The arguments of reason for the supernatural gift of the image. First, the conflict of desire stems from a contrariety of objects.
§ 89. Bellarmine looks to reason for his third class of arguments. He says: (I) “It is natural for an animal body endowed with sense and desire [appetitus] to desire [concupiscere] a sensory good. It is natural for the spiritual desire to desire a spiritual good. Therefore if one nature is made and brought together from a rational spirit and an animal body, it will be natural for it to have diverse and mutually conflicting inclinations. Therefore the fact that before sin our first parents did not experience the conflict of diverse desires was a supernatural gift, but not their natural condition.”
We respond. (1) A sensory good and a spiritual good are not contrary but subordinate,11 with respect to man created after the image of God. Because Adam was created such that his sensory desire was fully and perfectly subject to his rational desire, one must not imagine any dissent or conflict between either these desires or the objects
of these desires.
(2) Therefore a distinction must be made between that which exists of itself and that which exists according to accident. The fact that these desires conflict with each other in a corrupt nature happens according to accident because of the nature’s corruption, which comes from original sin. Therefore the disorder and conflict of desires is not connatural but accidental to the primeval nature of man.
(3) It is the natural and ordered inclination of one’s sensory desire to preserve the body with food and drink, to propagate its species by begetting, etc. This desire [ὄρεξις] is not of itself opposed to the rational desire whose natural and ordered inclination is to love the highest good and to cling to Him. The fact that the sensory appetite today is moved by the illicit flames of lusts and seeks more food and drink than befits its nature is because of the corruption conveyed into human nature by original sin.
(4) If it is natural for a nature formed together of animate body and rational spirit to have contrary inclinations that conflict with each other, what about Christ, who also is true man, endowed with a body and a rational soul? What about the elect in eternal life, who also will be truly human? Shall we claim that a supernatural gift is in them, too, one that clothes and covers the sickness and weakness of their nature which is worthy of God’s hatred? That is absurd and sacrilegious.
That the corruption of man’s nature is the result of removing the supernatural.
§ 90. Bellarmine especially presses this argument: (II) “The corruption of man’s nature and the rebellion of the flesh against the Spirit come either from God or from the forbidden fruit or from the breath of the serpent or from the purely natural state of man after his supernatural gift was removed. But the first three are absurd. Therefore what is left is that the condition of matter in the first man is the efficient cause of this corruption and that the meritorious cause is the sin of Adam. The divine justice which strips man of his supernatural gift is the cause that removes the hindrance of secondary actuality.”12
We respond. (1) We recall here the account in Augustine’s Letter 29 ad Hieronym.: Someone once fell into a well where there was so much water that it more rescued him from dying than drowned him, so that he could not speak. Someone else came by and, surprised to see him, said, “How did you fall in there?” The other said, “Please consider how to get me out of here and not how I fell in!” So why are we looking here for a crack to slide through when a very large gate is open?
(2) Through sin our first parents freely turned away from God. The entire human nature was in them, and nothing of it was external to them. For that reason all of it was weakened and corrupted. Therefore in it there remained the debt of righteousness which it received and the debt of satisfaction which abandoned it with the corruption which it encountered because of sin. Anselm (De conc. virg., ch. 2): “Through conquered man the entire nature has been corrupted and leavened, so to speak, by sin.” (See also Anselm, Cur Deus homo, bk. 1, ch. 23, etc.) In fact, as Ludovicus Granatensis writes (12. post Pent., Conc. 1): “Sin imitates the nature of those things which destroy and contaminate whatever they touch. Thus a little leaven leavens the whole lump; a drop of vinegar sours the whole bottle of expensive wine; one person suffering from plague often infects the entire city; and if a turbid and muddy stream flows into a perfectly pure brook, it makes the latter turbid and muddy too. So sin is just like this, for when it encountered man, it infected, and with its contagion corrupted the entire nature of the human race which was in that man.”
(3) Accordingly, we affirm that the corruption of the human nature and the rebellion of the flesh against the Spirit arose from the sin of our first parents. In the first-formed people, the actual transgression, which preceded, implanted original sin in their nature. On the other hand, in all other people, the original stain precedes actual sins as their source and root. The destruction of the harmony divinely created in nature is the cause of that corruption, not the condition of matter itself or the very nature of man. Satan misled, man consented, and thus both introduced sin into the world.
(4) Bellarmine’s argument also has this failing: that the corruption of the human nature and its sinful concupiscence are placed merely in the lower powers of the animate human; however, according to Scripture, one must speak of it not only as an inordinate appetite for food and sexual intercourse but also as the corruption of the entire nature. Darkness took the place of the light of divine wisdom in the mind. Instead of conformity of man’s will to God’s Law [there] came an aversion to it. The carnal mind, the highest and greatest wisdom of the flesh, is enmity against God, especially when it invents for itself another god or another way of worshiping and placating the true God, or when it mocks heavenly truth. This darkness of the mind and this aversion in the will do not spring merely from sensory desire but from the total destruction of the will and of harmony in the first man, as far as spiritual and heavenly things are concerned.
(5) Bellarmine claims that the cause of this evil is the condition of matter, and yet this matter was created by God. Therefore whatever befits the matter of itself must be ascribed to God as its Creator. How, then, will God not be the cause of sin?
(6) Let us proceed more concisely. Bellarmine argues that the natural things in man are whole after the fall and that the rebellion of the flesh and spirit arose out of the condition of matter. But what about the corruption of the angelic nature in the demons? Bellarmine cannot escape to a condition of matter here, can he? The devil burns with a terrible hatred for God and with a lust for harming people. What is the source of such great corruption in him? He was himself a rational creature, created immediately by God and consequently free of any evil inclination to sin; nor was there an external cause driving him to sin. Bellarmine cannot escape to the condition of matter, because in angels there was no composition of form and matter. Therefore from where did the tares come [cf. Matt. 13:24–30]? Christian simplicity responds: The devil turned away from God voluntarily; he did not continue in the concreated truth (John 8:44); he abandoned his proper dwelling (Jude 6). That is the source of the terrible corruption of the angelic nature in the devil.
[That] actual sins do not corrupt a natural gift.
§ 91. (III) [Bellarmine argues:]
Actual sins do not corrupt any natural element or gift, nor do they gain or increase a proclivity for all vices, nor do they diminish one’s inclination toward all virtues. Rather, they forfeit the gift of supernatural grace, gain a propensity for the same sin, and diminish one’s inclination to the virtue which is contrary to that sin. Now, the sin of Adam was an actual and specific sin and was of the same kind as other sins that people commit. Therefore it does not seem that it could have produced an effect different from other sins, except that the sin [of Adam], as the head of all nature, abounded to all his descendants. Therefore it is not probable that, as a result of Adam’s sin, the natural elements or gifts of nature could have been corrupted or concupiscence, the proclivity for all vices, could have arisen, unless, after the removal of the original13 gift, it had followed from nature itself, which is composed from contraries.
We respond. (1) Bellarmine himself acknowledges the weakness of this argument and therefore adds: “seems,” “is probable,” etc.
(2) One cannot deny with any semblance of truth that there is a difference between the sin of Adam and all other actual sins. We shall speak about this in the following commonplace under the question Are parents’ actual sins also transmitted to their children along with original sin? [On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), § 100].
(3) What! Are not natural gifts diminished or lost through drunkenness, lusts, etc.? Fornicators are punished with blindness of mind and body, as we conclude correctly from Genesis 19 and as experience itself demonstrates.
(4) Also, how can anyone say that one’s inclination toward all vices is not increased through one voluntary sin? Whoever despises God and His Law in one point will readily dare to do the same in other points as well. Sin is a turning away from the highest good. When one has turned away from it, how will he not fall in many areas? Sin is turning away from the highest light. When one has turned away from it, how will he avoid walking in darkness and bumping into things? For this reason Biel (Sent. 4, dist. 15, q. 1) teaches that this conclusion is correct: “This is a sin which displeases the penitent because it is a sin against God. Therefore every sin against God is displeasing, because everything causal implies a universal.” We shall draw an inference in the same way: Man, a sinner who turns away from God and His Law, does this. Therefore he is prepared to commit all other sins, because all sins have this in common: lawlessness [ἀνομία, 1 John 3:4].
(5) Adam sinned having a nature which was still whole, but the regenerate sin having a corrupted nature. Adam had been entrusted not only with personal gifts but also with those which were to be propagated to all his posterity. One cannot say this about the regenerate after the fall. Why, then, is it so strange that this one sin of Adam devastated the entire human nature, which was complete in him, and infected it with the spiritual poison of sin?
[That] those restored to life did not have original sin.
§ 92. (IV) [Bellarmine says:] If the human nature, such as it is now, is evil even with fault [culpa] removed, and if it necessarily falls into sins, and if it thus could not be created without original righteousness, then it follows that God cannot recall a dead person to life without endowing him with original righteousness. You see, now the same absurdity follows either way: whether a nature is created or restored by God, it is evil and sins by necessity, for such restoration is no less a work of God than is creation. However, we know that many have been raised by God’s power, and it is credible that some of these had been cleansed of original sin, such as Lazarus and the little children whom Elijah and Elisha raised. Nevertheless they undoubtedly lacked original righteousness in their new life.
We respond. (1) Creating is one thing; restoring to life is something else. If God had created man with such a weakness of nature worthy of hatred and contempt as Bellarmine claims, He surely would have been the author of sin. However, if God restores people to this life destitute of original righteousness and subject to original sin, He is not on that account the author of sin, because He does not cause the corruption of nature but finds it so. After the fall, sin clings so tightly and closely to human nature that bodies cannot be freed from this poison unless a complete destruction and devastation has happened first. Therefore, if God restores men’s souls to life and brings them back home, so to speak, into this corrupted dwelling place, He should not be called the author of that corruption on that account.
(2) What Bellarmine claims is absurd, that those who have been raised up again to this life were cleansed of original sin. How could that be? Did they spend the remaining part of their life free from every sin? Were they translated to eternal life without the intervention of death? He claims this without proof. In fact, the dominion of sin is wiped away and eradicated by rebirth; the capacity for sin, by death; and the root of sin, by the total destruction of the body (as Rungius writes so beautifully in his explanation of this argument).
(3) If someone tries to turn this around to say that they sinned because they were provoked by the examples of others, he will involve himself in greater difficulties because the apostle states clearly, Rom. 5:12: “Sin and death came upon all men through one man.” It is Pelagian to claim that one contracts the disease of sin and death, which follows it, by imitation.
(4) Therefore it is frivolous to try to establish or to overthrow an article of faith on the basis of these miracles of people raised from the dead, for their condition is not explained to us fully and clearly in the Scriptures.
[That] our first parents were not by nature children of God.
§ 93. (V) [Bellarmine argues:] “Our first parents were children of God. However, it is absurd to make a created thing, such as man, by nature a child of God. This befits Christ alone.”
We respond. (1) Bellarmine admits that this argument fights only against those who contend that all the gifts granted to our first parents were natural. However, we concede that some gifts given them were supernatural. Therefore this arrow is not aimed at us.
(2) The argument has a manifest equivocation. When the Word is said to be the Son of God by nature, we take that to mean His eternal generation from the essence of His Father. However, when the first humans and also the holy angels before the fall are said to be the children of God by nature, we understand that as a reference to their creation after the image of God, through which they were by nature conformed to God and consequently were His beloved children. This was not by the sort of adoption by which the regenerate after the fall become the children of God by faith in Christ. Rather, it was an adoption by which they were the children of God and had the right to the inheritance of heaven because of the integrity of their nature along with their likeness to God.
(3) Therefore one must think thus: the Word alone is by nature the Son of God because of His eternal generation from the Father, but not through the grace of adoption or through creation. Adam is a child of God by nature and by grace: by nature because he was created after the image of God and because God embraced this creature of His with fatherly love because of the uprightness of his nature; by grace because the human nature in Adam was elevated to this dignity by the singular benefit of the Creator and by a boundless yet unmerited grace. The regenerate are the children of God by grace in Christ but not by nature; that is, they have lost that concreated integrity of their nature and the image of God but are adopted again into being the children of God through faith in Christ, the natural and essential Son of God. Christ is the Son of God according to His human nature neither by nature nor by adoption but by union, that is, because the assumed nature was elevated into the very hypostasis of the Word. Whoever does not distinguish all these points carefully misleads and does not teach or lead aright.
1 quod in eo, quod secundum naturam, peccare situm non esset.
2 See above, p. 31 n. 6.
3 Horace, Ars Poetica 21–22 (LCL 194 [1936], p. 452).
4 See above, p. 271 n. 7.
5 See above, p. 271 n. 6.
6 fallacia phraseos. That is, a fallacy in how the words of an argument are used, of which there are various kinds (cf. Micraelius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. “Fallacia”).
7 That is, under no other condition than the removal of the supposed supernatural gift. Thomas Aquinas describes “proximate potentiality” as “being on the point of having” something (ST, part 2.2, q. 65, art. 1, response to 1).
8 An argument from nondistributed to distributed is a fallacious argument that moves from what is unspecified to what is specified. It starts from a premise of something that holds true for part of a set, and then concludes that this same thing holds true for the entire set. “Distributive particles” are words such as “none, all, some.” These words tell us specifically what part of a set is being discussed (Micraelius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. “Enunciatio”). An argument from particular to particular is similar, but moves from what is unspecified to something else that is unspecified. It starts from a premise of something that holds true for part of a set, and then concludes that this same thing holds true for a different part of the set.
9 Read Ne enim latere patiamur instead of Ut enim latere patiamur.
10 Lectures on Galatians (1531/1535), AE 26:174–75 (WA 40/1:293–94).
11 Subordinates are noncontradictory things or propositions of which one is contained under the other. For example, Gerhard says that the Holy Spirit and the water of Baptism are related to each other as subordinates in the giving of salvation, not as opposites. The water of Baptism is a means by which the Holy Spirit gives salvation, and thus the one does not rule out the other in the giving of salvation (On Holy Baptism, Commonplace XXIII, § 104). See also On the Resurrection of the Dead (Commonplace XXX), § 101.
12 See above, p. 271 n. 7.
13 Read originali with Cotta instead of originalis.