Chapter V: What Original Sin Is.
CHAPTER V: THE ESSENCE OF ORIGINAL SIN
Why original sin is so called.
§ 67. We go on to demonstrate the essence of original sin. The definition of the word and of the thing itself will make this clear to us. It is called “original sin” not from the origin of the world nor from the origin of human nature, but (1) “from the origin of each human being who is conceived from unclean seed,” according to Anselm (De concept. virg., ch. 1). (2) In fact, it is so called with respect to Adam, from whom, as from a common origin, it is distributed among people by hereditary right and from whom it creeps into all like an infection. (3) Some add that it is called “original” with respect to actual sins, which draw their origin from it.
The names of original sin from Scripture.
In Ps. 19:12 it is called “secret sin,” 
, in the feminine gender: “Cleanse me from secret [sins].” Ps. 25:7 clearly lists transgressions, that is, actual sins and the “sins of 
, youth,” or infancy and birth, for this is how this word is used in Exod. 2:6; Judg. 13:8; and Isa. 7:16. In Ps. 90:8 this corruption is called “our hidden [sin].” Dr. Chemnitz explains this as follows:
Just as a young man is called in the sacred language alam, “hidden,” because he does not yet exercise control of either a household or some public and political administration but remains concealed as a private citizen, so also that corruption inheres in us, even though it may not betray itself with obvious actions. It is concealed so deeply that it can be revealed only by the illumination of the face of God.
Dr. Brenz clarifies this with an illustration drawn from the pups of wolves who do not yet attack the sheep, and yet that inclination is inbred nevertheless.
Quite often the apostle calls this “sin” without any addition, for it is the source and origin of all others. He calls it “indwelling sin” in Rom. 5:17, for after the fall it has become something personal and domestic, nor does it pass through in actuality but remains in the flesh until death. In Rom. 7:21 it is called κακὸν παρακείμενoν [“the evil close at hand”], because it lies very close to us. In Heb. 12:1 it is called ἁμαρτία εὐπερίστατoς [“the sin which clings very closely”], because it infects all his might and the whole man altogether and clings very tenaciously to him. (Varinus notes that περίστασις means an oppression from all sides which leads to distress and that the prefix εὐ is used “for an intensifier.”) In v. 15 it is called “the root of bitterness,” because it always germinates again and again and produces corrupt shoots. In Rom. 6:6 it is called “the body of sin,” to which are attributed its own members (Col. 3:5). It is even called “the old man” in Rom. 6:6, “the outer man” in 2 Cor. 4:16, for with regard to our old generation this sin has occupied all our powers, all our members, and thus our entire selves. In Rom. 7:23 it is called “the law of sin in our members,” for it takes us prisoner, and with great force it drives us into actual sins of every kind. In 1 Cor. 5:8 it is called “the old leaven of malice and evil,” for as yeast swells up and leavens the entire mass, so also this sin corrupts us entirely.
Names of original sin from the fathers.
§ 68. The names by which the ancients describe original sin are also worthy of attention.
Ignatius (Letter ad Tral.) calls it “ancient wickedness.”
Justin (Dial. cum Tryph.): “By sinning, Adam subjected his descendants to death and made them all subject to this sin.”
Irenaeus (Contra haeres., bk. 5) calls it “the injury of the ancient serpent” and again: “By Adam’s chains we all fell victim to his bite.”
Tertullian calls it “the grafting of evil.”
Cyprian (Letter 8, bk. 3) calls it “alien sin” (because it was propagated in us by someone else and not because it is alien to us in every way). In the same letter he calls it “personal evil, the infection of the ancient death which we contracted from our first birth.”
Arnobius (Cont. gent., bk. 1, p. 20) calls it “the defect of an inborn weakness.”
Hilary (on Psalm 118) says, “We are born under original sin and under the law of sin.” On Matthew 7: “The evil which is common to us all through the creation of our origin was not lacking even in the apostles themselves.”
Ambrose (Apolog. David, ch. 11): “Before we are born, we are tainted by an infection; before we receive the use of original light itself, we receive an injury; we are conceived in iniquity.” He says about David: “Justly did he deplore with his tears the fouling of his nature.” Ibid.: “Birth itself has its own infections.” Contra Novat.: “He himself was brought forth in sin.” De sacram. regen.: “Infused and coagulated by the reproductive organs, he undergoes the contagion of sin.”
Nazianzen calls it “the stain of bodily uncleanness and the bonds of earthly birth.”
Augustine (Cont. Coelest. et Pelag., bk. 2, ch. 29) mentions “the mass of destruction.” In ch. 33 he calls it “the defect of nature.” In Cont. Julian. (bk. 2): “Nature is faulted from its origin.” Ibid.: “Sin which is inborn is an infection of sin from one’s origin.” In De pecc. merit. (bk. 3, ch. 3) he calls it “the propagation and grafting of sin.” He seems to have been the first to call it “original” sin. In his later writings (Hypognost., bk. 4; Enchirid., ch. 13) he calls it “natural” (from which name he at first had abstained because of the Manichaeans), not because it is the actual nature of man, but because it has corrupted the entire nature of man and is assumed with the nature itself, just as, on the other hand, Bernard (Homily de pass.) calls actual sin “personal.”
Chrysostom (commentary on Ephesians 6) calls it “the first sin.” Again: “Christ came once. He found our paternal imprint which Adam stamped. He initiated our debt, but we ourselves increased the amount with our later sins,” etc. “With his great sin, Adam condemned the whole human race in common.” In 1 Corinthians (homily 40) he calls it “the root sin.”
Anselm (De conc. virg., ch. 2) writes: “The entire human nature has been weakened and corrupted.” Here and there Anselm calls it “natural sin” and explains the term correctly.
The Scholastics list eight names. It is called: (1) “the law of the flesh,” (2) “original sin,” (3) “concupiscence,” (4) “kindling,” (5) “the tyrant,” (6) “the law of our members,” (7) “the law of nature,” (8) “concupiscibility.”
Luther calls it “hereditary sin,” “capital sin,” “principal sin,” etc.
The description of original sin from Scripture.
§ 69. Moreover, because this sin is “hidden” (Ps. 90:8) and is unknown unless it be revealed by the Law of God (Rom. 7:7), we should thus observe how Scripture describes the essence of it and amplifies its magnitude, for it is certain that we do not know the magnitude of the grace shown to us through Christ unless we know the magnitude of sin. The value of a medicine is reckoned on the basis of the peril of the ailment.
First, it is a lack or failure of original righteousness.
§ 70. Therefore original sin is described in this way: (I) It is a loss or failure or lack of original righteousness. As he was created after the image of God, Adam had been equipped with true righteousness and holiness, but he lost those gifts through his sin, and, on account of this, his descendants, too, have been deprived of the image of God and do not have the power or gifts for effecting spiritual righteousness according to the Law of God in their mind or in their will or in their heart. That is, by their natural powers they cannot render the true knowledge, fear, and love of God, trust in God, and perpetual obedience of all their powers agreeing with the divine Law.
§ 71. Scripture teaches this whenever it removes from natural man [homini animali ] the power to know God and to do good. Rom. 3:10, 11, 18, and 23: “No one is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks after God, there is no fear of God before their eyes, they fall short of the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 2:14: “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.” 2 Cor. 3:5: “We are not sufficient to think that anything [good comes] by us, as if it came from us.” In John 1:5 and Eph. 5:8 unregenerate people are called “darkness.” In Rev. 3:17 we are said to be “wretched, weak, poor, naked, and needy.” This, too, pertains to the loss of original righteousness, that the amiable relationship and intimate bond of love between God and the human race has been torn apart, for those who before the fall had been the beloved children of God are today, after the fall, by nature children of wrath [Eph. 2:3].
Second, it is a corrupt quality.
§ 72. (II) Yet not only has human nature been robbed by the fall, but it also has been corrupted miserably, and this corruption has taken the place of the divine image. Scripture expresses this faulty quality and extreme corruption with the word “concupiscence,” which does not mean a concreated accident of nature, not merely a corruption of the qualities of the body, but rather a depraved and inordinate turning away to carnal things and a turning away from God, as much in man’s superior powers as in his inferior ones, such as are carnal security, contempt for God, hatred of the judgment of God, anger against God, having confidence in things present, etc.
§ 73. Therefore as human nature is not in conformity with the Law of God because of this defect and is inept in doing the things which are commanded by the Law of God, so also, because of the corruption that followed, it is inclined toward and carried with great force to do the things which the Law of God forbids. Such an inclination in the mind is a propensity for vain and false thoughts about God, for mixing in errors, for doubts about the Word of God. In the will it is a propensity for carnal security, for mistrust toward God, etc. In the heart it is an impetus to wrath, spite, hatred; and in the other members, to lusts, uncleanness, etc.
§ 74. Thus in Romans 7 the apostle expresses the essence of this disease not only as a privation (Verse 18: “I cannot bring about the good”; that is, I sense in myself a natural inability to do good. Verse 19: “I do not do the good I want.”), but he expresses it also as an addition, v. 23: “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.” Gen. 6:5: “Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil every day” and, indeed, “from youth” (Gen. 8:21).
Thus surely the heart of man has been so infected and corrupted with the poison of sin that on this account its every imagination is only evil every day from its youth. Here the weight of the words must be recognized. Lest anyone think that only man’s inferior powers were corrupted, mention is made of thoughts of the heart (for with the word “heart” Scripture also includes the mind). Lest anyone think that at times man may act thoughtlessly and wander but that his reason very often “intercedes for the best things” [deprecari ad optima] (as they say), universal words are added, as follows: “Every imagination of the thoughts is evil” [Gen. 6:5]. And, in fact, an exclusive word is even added: “is only evil” and, indeed, “every day” [Gen. 6:5], and, as a result, “from early childhood” [Gen. 8:21]. The universal term shows that there can be no day when the human heart lacks this evil. God also repeats this complaint about the corruption of the human heart when, after the flood, righteous Noah was the only man along with a few others who still survived.
§ 75. In Ps. 51:5, David testifies that he, the prophet of God, was also conceived in sins and that sin adhered at that time to his entire substance [massa ] when he first began to be shaped and when his mother, a sinner, nourished him in the womb with her own blood. For in the sacred language such a word denotes the fact that when the substance of the embryo in the first heat of conception first begins to be fostered by the warmth of the womb, already then it has been contaminated by sin. “In sins did my mother ἐκίσσησε, keep me warm” [Ps. 50:7 LXX]. In Hebrew we have the singular: “In sin did my mother conceive me” [Ps. 51:5]. The royal prophet is not transferring the blame onto his parents but is acknowledging and bemoaning his own uncleanness and is complaining not that he sinned lately by adultery but that he was a sinner from the womb.
Job 14:4: “Who can bring a clean thing out of one conceived from an unclean seed?” Therefore the seed from which we are formed is unclean and stained with sin. The Hebrew truth reads literally: “Who will give a clean thing from an unclean? There is not one” (that is, no one clean). The Septuagint reads: “For who will be clean from filth? Surely no one, if he spends one day of his life on earth.” The Latin translator added the word “seed” by way of paraphrase. Moreover, it is very common in Scripture that the word “uncleanness” is not taken to mean a physical uncleanness but a spiritual one, namely, sin. For this reason Bernard writes (Sermon 4 in vig. nat., col. 43): “In my very origin and root I am contaminated and befouled; my conception is unclean.” In his Medit. (ch. 2, col. 1190): “According to the exterior man, I come from the parents who caused me to be condemned before I was born.”
Jer. 17:9: “The heart is corrupt and inscrutable.” In the sacred language a word is used which is taken from the word “heel,” and it describes the corruption of the heart. The metaphor is taken from a path which is often tread upon and is made calloused, hard, and rough. Not only is the human heart corrupt, but it is also incurable and without hope of a cure. The prophet adds: “Who will understand it?” meaning that this evil has been removed from all human understanding. Ps. 90:8: “God sets our hidden [sin] before the light of His face; He searches out our heart and innards.”
§ 76. In John 3:6 the Savior says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” where flesh means the whole corrupt nature which lacks the spiritual and internal obedience to the Law. The Law is spiritual and requires the full spiritual obedience of all one’s powers, but that which is born of the flesh is flesh and carnal, carried with all force to carnal things. It lacks spiritual light and uprightness; therefore it is also excluded from the kingdom of God because, 1 Cor. 15:50: “Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.” And Rom. 8:7: “The thinking of the flesh is hostile to God.” Like an energetic soldier it fights and wrestles zealously against the law of the mind.
Eph. 2:3: “We are by nature the children of wrath.” That is, through natural propagation, sin is spread into us when we receive our nature. Simultaneous with [the reception of our] nature, there is propagated within us the sort of thing on account of which we are the children of wrath—that is, subject to the wrath of God, to His judgment, and to eternal death—because those upon whom the wrath of God remains will not see life, as the juxtaposition in John 3:36 shows.
§ 77. And as the judgment about a seed is elsewhere made on the basis of its fruit [cf. Matt. 7:20], so all actual sins, of which there is a countless variety, bear witness to the utterly corrupt seed of original sin. Although it does not exert itself in all people because the truly devout throw back its assault by the Spirit, nevertheless, by its own nature, it is and continues to be the sort of thing which can and does supply very corrupt fruits of every kind, unless it is prohibited. Matt. 15:19–20: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are what defile a man.”
§ 78. Therefore Dr. Luther speaks rightly when he says, from St. Augustine: “Original sin, like leprosy and a noxious plague, has corrupted and terribly wasted our entire nature.” Thomas ([ST,] 1.2., q. 82, art. 1): “Just as bodily illness has something of privation to the extent that it removes the balance of the temperament, health, and a positive [quality] when the humors1 themselves are out of order, so also original sin is not mere privation but is a corrupt disposition.”
Gerson says: “Original defect [vitium ] is impotence for good and power for evil.”
Third, guilt.
§ 79. [III] Therefore, because all people who are born by the natural and common course of generation are subject to sin, they are also by nature the children of wrath and are guilty of death and damnation, for it is impossible for God not to be angry over sins. And this is now the third term which pertains to expressing the essence of original sin, namely, “guilt.” Rom. 5:14: “On account of this all die, even those who did not sin in likeness to the transgression of Adam.” Verse 12: “Because through one man sin entered into the world and through sin, death.” By its own nature guilt is something consequent [ἑπόμενόν τι] and in both ways [ad utrumque], namely, it has both privation, with respect to lost righteousness, and addition, with respect to the corruption introduced. Meanwhile, for the sake of teaching, we wish to assign its own proper consequence to the [individual] parts of this evil.
§ 80. And thus we have provided proof that original sin includes these three things: in it there is a lack of due original righteousness, an ensuing extreme corruption of the nature or corrupt concupiscence, and guilt, such that, because of the evil propagated in us, we are guilty of the wrath and judgment of God. Hugh expresses it in this way: “This ailment includes ignorance of good, concupiscence for evil, and punishment for both.”
Concerning original sin, Scripture speaks in two ways.
§ 81. Careful interpreters of Scripture will observe that at times Scripture speaks about this evil in general, when it lays down a definition and by the word “sin” denotes a lack of original righteousness, a corrupt quality, and guilt. But at times it deals with the individual parts of the definition in particular and distinctly. The following statements speak about the lack of original righteousness: Rom. 3:23: “All have sinned and lack the glory of God” (which they ought to have before God); Rom. 7:18: “I am unable to do good.” These testimonies speak about the corrupt quality: Gen. 6:5: “Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil”; Rom. 7:7: “I did not know concupiscence”; Rom. 7:23: “I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind,” etc. Scripture speaks about guilt in this way: Rom. 5:12: “Death spread to all men,” “in which all sinned”; Eph. 2:3: “We are by nature the children of wrath”; John 3:36: “The wrath of God remains on him who does not believe in the Son.”
As do also the devout ancients.
§ 82. In the same way, the ancient doctors of the church at times speak about this evil in general, when they call it a stain, an infection, a defilement, malice, etc. But at times they speak distinctly about the individual parts of this wickedness.
Ambrose—or, rather, Prosper—writes about the loss of concreated uprightness (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 3): “All we men were created in the first man without defect, and we all lost the integrity of our nature by the transgression of the first man, etc. Faith was lost, hope abandoned, understanding blinded, the will held captive, and no one finds the wherewithal within himself by which to be restored.”
Anselm (De conc. virg., ch. 2): “There remained in the” (corrupt) “human nature an obligation [debitum ] of the righteousness which it had received, and an obligation to make satisfaction for what it lacked.”
They speak in this way about the corruption of the nature or the corrupt quality of the nature. Augustine (De nupt. et conc., bk. 1, ch. 25): “Concupiscence is an affection of an evil quality, just as sluggishness [is].” Chapter 31: “The apostle calls it ‘flesh’ where it is a diseased condition of the flesh, a fleshly serving of the law of sin, possessing the desires for sin.”
Bernard (Sermon 4 nativ., col. 43): “I am infected and defiled in my very origin and root; my conception is unclean.”
Ambrose (loc. cit.): “Thence” (from the transgression of the first man) “came a many-faceted corruption of body and soul, thence ignorance and difficulty, useless worries, illicit lusts, sacrilegious errors, empty fear, harmful love, unjust joys, plans worthy of repentance.”
Anselm (loc. cit.): “There remained in the nature an obligation [debitum ] of the righteousness which it had received, and an obligation to make satisfaction for what it lacked, along with that corruption which it incurred because of sin.”
Regarding guilt they use the following words. Ambrose (on Luke 15): “Adam dies, and in him we all die.” Letter 10, bk. 10: “It is obvious that in Adam all people are subject to damnation by birth, unless they have been freed by being reborn in Christ.”
Bernard (Medit., ch. 2, col. 1190): “According to the exterior man, I come from those parents who caused me to be condemned before I was born.”
The antithesis of those who err here in failure or in excess.
§ 83. In regard to explaining the essence of original sin, some depart from the path of truth in both defect and excess. To the former class belong the Scholastics and Papists who perceive the hideousness of original sin much too little. To the latter class belong the Manichaeans and, of our time, the Flacians, who claim that it is something self-existing and confuse it with the very substance of [human] nature.
The Scholastics.
§ 84. The Scholastics argue about original sin in various ways, and very many abandon it to claim: “Original sin is the lack of a supernatural gift, but still the actual nature of man remains unharmed.”
Regarding concupiscence they say: “It is only a sort of kindling or weakness of the nature which does not merit the name of sin, except in the sense of accident only. And this kindling merely clings to the sensitive appetite,” they say, “but the superior faculties of the soul are immune to it.” Some of them claim: “Concupiscence is only the penalty or guilt of the death which must be endured, but by no means is it the penalty of eternal damnation.” On that basis, the Council of Trent (decret. 1, ses. 5) defined original sin to be “true sin, proper to each man.” Nevertheless it encloses its proper nature in silence. Andrada, aware of the secrets of this council, interprets [the silence] in this way (Defens. fid. Trid., bk. 3): “This was done purposely, and freedom of opinion was left to each man.”
Bellarmine.
§ 85. For us, the discussion will be with Bellarmine. In contradiction to Hoffmeister, Alfonso, and other Papist writers who had given testimony to the truth of our churches in this article, he claims (in De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 4) that two things are found in our teaching which are very far removed from the sound and true doctrine of the nature of original sin: first, that we do not distinguish original from actual sin; and, second, that we claim that the wounds and ailments left upon [human] nature from original sin—such as ignorance, trouble, [and] concupiscence—are truly and properly original sin itself.
The latter we shall discuss below [§§ 86–89]. Here we shall consider how Bellarmine proves the first charge directed against us. He produces from Luther, Philipp [Melanchthon], Chemnitz, and from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession some statements which he distorts in such a way that it appears as if original sin is being confused with actual sin, though all the textbooks [libelli methodici ] and all the writings of our people about this article carefully and faithfully set forth, explain, and urge the distinction of original sin [from actual sins].
Let us listen to Bellarmine: [I] “Luther (Assert. art. 3) says: It is impossible for the kindling [fomes ] to exist without actual sin. In his Assert. art. 2 he says: Original sin is the kindling or concupiscence. In the same Assert. art. 3: Original sin, as all sins, is unbelief; the kindling is a living thing, and it is animated; the kindling is true and actual sin. In his commentary on Genesis 2: Original sin is unbelief, despair, and other similar things.”
We respond. Dr. Luther is contending against those who minimize original sin and argue that it is the mere kindling of sin. Against these he truly and firmly sets forth this point: that the kindling or corrupt concupiscence is something very active, very vital, exerting itself in this life constantly through actual sins. Meanwhile, he does not remove the difference between original and actual sin, for things that are constantly conjoined are not altogether the same things. Luther understands “unbelief” to mean the defect whereby we cannot with our own strength believe the Word of God. Finally, who will deny that this defect must be taken as original sin? In a certain manner of speaking, original sin is all sins, for it is the seed of all sins.
[II] “In his Loci, Philipp [Melanchthon] calls original sin an actual privation. In the Augsburg Confession, Article II, he posits that ‘original sin is that men are without fear and trust in God.’ In the Apology [II 14, 26] he says: ‘To the disorder in which original sin properly consists belong the ignorance of God; doubts; being without fear, without love; loving self more than God,’ etc. Yet contempt for God, hatred of divine judgment, anger against God, flight from a judging God, despair of grace, etc., truly are actual sins.”
We respond. Philipp sets the term “actual cupidity” against the disputations of the Scholastics, [who thought] that original sin is merely the lack of original righteousness and that the kindling of sin is something inactive and idle. On the contrary, Philipp declares that original sin is actual cupidity, that is, corrupt, and that this is a very active quality. This he himself declares in his preceding words where he says: “Original sin is a native propensity and an inborn force and energy by which we are drawn to sin.” To the other objection he responds in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession [II 3]: “These words denote not only action but also the power and gifts” (or might) “to accomplish fear and trust toward God”; but this was his intent, as he proves from the German confession, which reads: “All people from the womb of their mother are filled with wicked desires and inclinations; they can have no true fear of God, no true faith in God.”2
Here he explains the reasons why he used these words which also connote actions:
(1) Because the Scholastics minimize original sin and argue about its being kindling, that it is a corporeal quality; they ask whether that quality was contracted by contact with the fruit or from the breath of the serpent and whether it is increased by medicines, etc. They do not mention the more serious faults of human nature.
(2) Because they attribute too much to human powers and their elicited actions.3
(3) Because the equitable reader can easily judge that being without fear of God and being without faith are not faults of action [culpas actuales ] but durable defects in the unregenerate nature.
(4) So that he could teach what original righteousness (the deprivation of which is sin) in the first man was and so that the fear of God and faith in God could thus be placed [properly], because they are special parts of the divine image and the foundations of the rest of the virtues.
[III] [Bellarmine writes:] “Chemnitz (Exam. Conc. Trid., p. 456) assigns the words of Gen. 6[:5] to original sin, though the discussion there concerns the imagination of the heart, that is, actual thought.”
We respond. A secondary actuality testifies about the nature of the primary actuality;4 an effect manifests the quality of the cause. Thus Scripture is describing the hidden wickedness adhering in the innermost fibers of our heart from the effect so that we may be able to penetrate to some understanding of it. For since “every imagination of the human heart is only evil every day” [Gen. 6:5], from this it is easily understood that: (1) The very heart of man is infected with the poison of sin.
(2) All the powers of the soul, even the superior ones, as they call them, busy as they are with thinking and deliberating, have been corrupted.
(3) Finally, the corruption clings to us the entire time of our life.
Dr. Chemnitz carefully considers this and therefore concludes his published explanation of this decision as follows: “What Andrada says, that it is not the heart itself but the imagination of the heart which is being accused, is nonsense. For just as good things are brought forth from the good treasure of the heart, so evil things are brought forth fro the evil treasure of the heart, ‘for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks,’ as Christ says in Luke 6[:45]. Jeremiah calls it ‘the corrupt heart of man’ [Jer. 17:9].” Those are the words of Chemnitz. Therefore the accusation of Bellarmine concerning the removal of the distinction between original and actual sin goes up in smoke and vapors, now that it has been examined by us.
§ 86. But what is the opinion of Bellarmine about the proper nature and definition of original sin? He admits (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 15): “Some Catholics claim that original sin is not mere privation but a positive quality, namely, a corrupt concupiscence or sickly quality in the soul constantly exciting corrupt desires.” This is taught by Lombard (Sentent., 2, dist. 31, letters B and C), Henricus (Quodlib., part 2, q. 11), Gregory of Rimini (Sent., 2, dist. 30, q. 1), Driedo (De grat. et lib. arbit., bk. 1). But to Bellarmine this opinion appears worthy of absolute disapproval, and yet it is the truth. He first notes: “Concupiscence in this question does not mean an appetite for good nor the actual movement of desire, which of itself is indifferent. Instead, it is that defect by which people are prone to seeking sensible5 goods contrary to the order of reason.” In the second place he notes:
This corruption resides especially in the flesh, that is, in the inferior part of man that is called “sensuality.” Yet even in the superior part a similar fault is found, because it, too, is prone to lusting for honors, vainglory, and other vanities. On account of this, the apostle in Galatians 5 lists among the works of the flesh also idolatry, heresy, enmity [cf. vv. 19–21]. “Flesh” at times is taken for the entire person such as he is without the grace of God after the fall.
We respond. (1) What Bellarmine clearly confesses in contradiction to almost all the Scholastics must be most carefully noted and placed deep in our understanding: “The defect of corrupted concupiscence has a place not only in the sensuality—that is, in the lower faculties of the soul—but also in the superior faculties.” The benefit of this observation is very great. For if such a defect adheres to the very reason of the man who is not yet reborn, it cannot be said that concupiscence comes from a material condition, that is, out of the struggle between the inferior and superior parts.
(2) If such an inclination toward evil is found even in the superior faculties of the soul, Bellarmine should not have defined concupiscence in general such that because of this corruption people are prone to an appetite for sensible goods contrary to the order of reason. On the contrary, in fact, reason itself is at times carried by an inclining force to think up evil things; and the will itself, or the rational appetite, to choose evil things. How, then, will only sensible goods be established as the object of this corrupt concupiscence? How can it be said that this concupiscence is driven contrary to the order of reason or, as the Scholastics say, that reason always intercedes for the best things?
(3) The defect of corrupt concupiscence does not reside especially in the sensitive appetite but equally in the rational and sensitive appetites, yet it does reveal itself more in the sensitive part, as Augustine explains throughout [his works]. That is, people who are not yet reborn in some way understand that the movements of the sensitive appetite are corrupt, but they do not acknowledge the corruption of the reason and the will, nor do they acknowledge that those doubts about God, faithlessness, security, the secret pride of the heart, etc., are sins.
Is corrupt concupiscence a positive quality?
§ 87. On the basis of these presuppositions, Bellarmine intends to prove that concupiscence is not a positive6 quality. In the first place he sets the authority of Augustine, who teaches (De pecc. orig., bk. 2, ch. 4; Adv. Julian., bk. 4, ch. 5; and on Psalm 103, conc. 4): “The defect of concupiscence that exists in man is in animals that lack reason by nature. But now, there is no corrupt quality given to animals, but only a sensitive appetite.” Again (De nupt. et conc., bk. 1, ch. 25), he denies that “concupiscence exists substantially, but is like a weariness.” [Bellarmine comments upon this:] “But Augustine takes the word ‘substance’ to mean everything positive.” [According to Bellarmine,] in De pecc. merit. et remiss. (bk. 1, ch. 16) and throughout his corpus Augustine “assigns the cause of concupiscence only to the absence of grace. Therefore concupiscence is not a positive quality but is sensuality itself deprived of the restraint of original righteousness.”
We respond. (1) Augustine (De civit. Dei, bk. 14, chs. 2–4) recognizes that the defect of a corrupt concupiscence adheres also in the superior powers of the soul. How, then, can it be said that according to the mind of Augustine the corrupt concupiscence is nothing else but sensuality itself or the movement of the sensitive appetite?
(2) The comparison of man, corrupted by sin, with the beasts is extended further than the scope that Augustine intends. Man is being compared to the beasts through the impetus inclining toward lust and the other sins. Yet it must certainly not be inferred from this that the sensitive appetite in man in his purely natural state was created like this by God, that is, with that impetus inclining toward sin. No! Because what is nature in the beasts is a defect in man. Before the fall, the sensitive appetite in man was not only wholesome and outwardly expressed by the added gift of original righteousness, but [man] also had been created by God sound and upright inwardly, because God had created [it as] the appetite of man and not of a beast.
(3) Against the Manichaeans, Augustine correctly denies that concupiscence is a substance, that is, something self-existing. [But] he does not deny that it is a corrupt quality. In fact, he calls it clearly (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 258): “an affection of an evil quality”; ch. 31: “a sickly affection of the flesh”; and here and there throughout his work he calls it “an ailment and a weakness.” From this Thomas correctly concludes ([ST,] 1.2., q. 82, art. 1): “Just as a bodily ailment has something of privation, according as the balance of temperament and health are removed, and also something positive, such as the humors themselves that have become disordered, so also original sin is not just deprivation but [also] a corrupt disposition [habitus ].”
(4) Augustine assigns the origin of corrupt concupiscence to the privation of grace, but with the word “grace” he does not mean a supernatural and extrinsic gift, but the concreated gift of original righteousness. But, in fact, he bears clear witness that through the fall of the first man not only was grace taken away but [human] nature also was corrupted.
§ 88. After drawing his argument from the authority of Augustine, Bellarmine adds various lines of reasoning by which he tries to prove that original sin is not a positive quality.
(I) “If concupiscence were a positive quality, it would have a positive cause;7 but there is no such cause, because it was not God nor the devil nor the serpent nor the fruit nor man himself.”
We respond. When we say that corrupt concupiscence is a positive quality, we do not understand this according to metaphysical precision. The metaphysicists make a subtle distinction between a thing itself and the evil attending the thing, which they say is always privative and not something positive. When Scripture describes original sin not as a mere privation but also as corrupt concupiscence, it is imitating the manner of speaking which moral philosophers [ethicis ] use, for they acknowledge corrupt dispositions [habitus ] and evil actions.
We set out the matter itself more clearly. The Papists argue that original sin is only the privation of original righteousness, the supernatural gift, but that meanwhile the very nature of man is still such as it was first created. We, however, declare that not only was concreated righteousness lost through original sin but also that thereby the very nature of man was corrupted in strange and wretched ways. We call the corruption of nature, which includes the tendency and impulse of all the powers of the soul toward evil, a positive quality not as if a power to act were in and of itself a sin, but because this power to act in man only has the tendency and is ready to sin. Meanwhile, we do not forbid making a subtle distinction between the power to act itself and the corruption of that power, just as one makes a distinction between the act itself and the corruption of the act.
But now, if one asks about the cause of that corruption, we respond briefly from Christ’s parable in Luke 10. The cause of the corruption is the wounding devil and the sinning will of the first man. The actual sin [peccatum actuale ] of the first man, who was obedient to the seduction of the devil, corrupted, wasted away, and “leavened” with sin, so to speak, the entire human nature which was in him and of which there was nothing outside of him. “Why is Bellarmine looking for a hidden crack for the introduction of this corruption when he has a wide-open door?” With these words, Augustine responds to Pelagius, who was asking this very thing (De nupt. et concup., bk. 2, ch. 28). (See more about this argument in the preceding commonplace On the Image of God [Commonplace XI, §§ 57–93].)
(II) “If the corruption of concupiscence were a positive quality, it could not be shown how it was transmitted to offspring, because acquired dispositions are not passed down to progeny.”
We respond. Along with the human nature itself, the defect and corruption of the nature are propagated by parents into their children. Those who are afflicted with stone produce children afflicted with stone; why should not Adam the sinner beget a son who is a sinner?
(III) “God is the author of all positive things.”
We respond. [That is true] as far as the things are positive and good, but not as far as a positive quality is evil.
(IV) “Even if a sickly quality would inhere in the flesh, yet it could not be understood how the infected flesh infects man, because the body does not act on the spirit.”
We respond. This argument does not militate against us who argue in favor of the propagation of a corrupted soul from a corrupted soul because we are not following Lombard, Driedo, and the other supporters of this opinion in this point, because they claim that the soul is polluted from its contact with the flesh and say that the corrupt concupiscence of the soul springs forth from a sickly quality of the body.
(V) “It would necessarily happen that the quality would be diminished and extinguished over so long a time.”
We respond. Sin has pervaded the entire [human] nature like yeast. That is why it is called “the sin which clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) and “the evil lying close at hand” (Rom. 7:21), which is not abolished except together with the total corruption of the body.
(VI) “For the flesh to lust against the spirit, it is enough for a sensitive appetite to be present which lacks the restraint of original righteousness. For the mind to follow the temperament of the body, it is enough for sense and reason to have their root in the same essence of the soul.”
We respond. The sensitive appetite before the fall had no need for a restraining bridle but, because of its intrinsic good, was carried only toward the good. Gen. 1:31: “God saw everything which He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” If corruption had not intervened, from where would that disorder of the human nature have come, which God had created as good in itself and as sound in all its parts?
(VII) “It would follow that original sin is not removed through Baptism, since corrupt concupiscence remains in people who have been baptized.”
We respond. Augustine (Con. Jul., bk. 6, ch. 6) says: “Sin is forgiven; it is not that it does not exist but that it is not imputed.” Again (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 25): “The concupiscence of the flesh is removed in Baptism; it is not that it does not exist but that it is not imputed for sin.” In the same place he says, “Even after Baptism there remains that weakness, that affection of an evil quality.” This is not satisfied by the counterargument of Bellarmine, who says that “the expressions ‘evil quality’, ‘weakness,’ and ‘sickly disposition’ mean the natural inclination of sensuality itself deprived of original righteousness, but not something positive corrupted by a taint.” On the contrary, through the fall not only has original righteousness been lost, but also the very nature of man has been corrupted, as we showed from Scripture in its own place [§§ 72–78].
Is original sin only guilt?
§ 89. After explaining and refuting the opinion of those Catholics8 who claim that original sin is a positive quality, Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 16) disapproves also of the opinion of Pighius and Catharinus, who argued that original sin was nothing other than the first disobedience of Adam, which was in him in reality but is in his descendants only by imputation, so that there is nothing in reality adhering in infants that has the true nature of sin. This Pelagian error Bellarmine treats more gently than is right.
Finally, in ch. 17 and the three following chapters, he explains and makes known his own opinion of original sin, where he wishes to appear to treat and define this evil more carefully than the rest of the Scholastics. Nevertheless he still errs by omission, establishing it only in the bare deprivation of original righteousness and in some sort of guilt. We shall see what he offers. He says:
The word “sin” is taken in two ways: in one way for the freely [chosen] transgression of a commandment; in the other way for that which remains in the soul of the sinner after the act of transgression, just as heat is acquired through heating. That this is truly sin and is properly called sin is clear from the fact that those who have committed sin are called sinners properly and formally.
Later, he applies this to original sin in this way:
If sin is taken in the first way, it must be sought not in ourselves but only in its first origin, that is, in our first parent. It is nothing else but that voluntary disobedience through which he stripped himself and his posterity of original righteousness, made them guilty of death, and rendered them filthy and disgraceful before God. This sin is communicated to us through imputation.
In De stat. pecc. (bk. 4, ch. 16) he states it in this way:
When the children of Adam are said to have sinned in Adam, it must be understood to mean that they contracted sin in potentiality and not in actuality, because at that time they themselves were not in actuality but were in potentiality, or, what is the same, they sinned not in themselves but in their parent. But inasmuch as there were in Adam a perversion and a bending of the will left from the action through which he was called a sinner in addition to the act of the sin, so also in all of us there are also a similar perversion and bending adhering in each person besides the imputation of the disobedience of Adam. From this fact the Scholastics claim that original sin is the privation of due original righteousness. Nevertheless they do not agree in the explanation of this.
Because of this, Bellarmine establishes five classes [of Scholastics]. Later, he adds his own opinion about the nature of original sin:
If sin is taken as an action militating against the Law, original sin is the first disobedience of Adam committed by him not [merely] as an individual person but as he who represented the entire human race. But if sin is taken for that which resides in man after the action and from which he is called not a sinning man but a sinner, then original sin is the lack of original righteousness or the habitual aversion and bending of the will, which can also be called the defect which makes the mind hateful to God.
He presents his proof for both parts of this opinion in chs. 18 and 19 and resolves the contrary arguments in ch. 20.
We respond. (1) Bellarmine is contradicting both himself and the truth. For earlier he wanted to prove that original sin does not consist in a positive quality, but now he is calling it a habitual aversion and inclination of the will, and compares it with heat acquired through heating, which certainly are positive qualities. However, if he understands the terms “habitual aversion” and “bending” as the mere lack of original righteousness without any corruption of the natural powers (as he is forced to understand them to preserve his hypotheses), then we abandon him to follow Scripture, which describes the latter evil not only as the mere deprivation of original righteousness but also as a defective habit or corrupt inclination. As long as it describes the former through the defects which are habits in the soul, and as long as it attributes to it the effects of commission, then for so long it calls it defectiveness inherent in the nature, etc.
(2) The first actual sin of Adam exists in one way in him but in a different way in us. The personal sin in Adam was the cause of original sin; that is, when Adam sinned, he lost the concreated righteousness for himself and his descendants and caused the entire human nature inherent in his loins to languish through the leaven of sin. But actual sins in us are the effects of original sin, that is, of the corruption and uncleanness which we acquire from our first parents through our carnal generation.
(3) Original sin is not the actual sin of our first parent but the consequence of it, namely, the corruption of the nature which arose from it and which was propagated into all his children through carnal generation.
(4) The whole strength of Bellarmine’s opinion consists in this: that he calls original sin a habitual aversion. But how does he describe this? In ch. 17 he calls it “a perversion and bending inherent in everyone until it is remitted through Baptism.” In ch. 19 he calls it “an aversion remaining in the fashion of a habit.” He clarifies that in this way:
As he who averts his face from the sun remains averted until he again turns his face toward the same sun, and as a finger bent voluntarily retains that curvature until it again is straightened through a contrary action, so also the will which has departed from God remains in that departure until it again approaches God through repentance.
In the same place he distinguishes this habitual aversion from a sinful habit in this way:
An acquired habit is a positive quality, but a habitual sin is a privation. An acquired habit cannot be removed by one act of the will, however effectual it may be. But a habitual sin is removed by one act. An acquired habit can exist with a contrary action and with grace, but habitual sin cannot. Finally, an acquired habit cannot properly be called voluntary because it remains in us for some time, though we do not will it and are opposed to it; but a habitual sin is voluntary because we remain in sin voluntarily, and if we wish effectually not to remain in it, we do not.
(But what will become of Thomas, who in [ST,] 1.2., q. 82, art. 1, calls it “a corrupt habit”?) Finally, Bellarmine says:
This habitual aversion is the same thing as the privation of grace and a stain or filthiness of the soul. For as the grace of God adheres in the will in the manner of a habit and causes the will formally to turn to God and to be righteous, upright, and beautiful, so also, because of its loss, the will becomes habitually averse, unrighteous, bent, and misshapen.
All of this is from Bellarmine, drawn from the darkness of the Scholastics and of corrupt reason and minimizing the hideousness of original sin in many ways. For if the habitual aversion is completely removed through Baptism not only with respect to guilt but also with respect to the actuality, if by one contrary act of turning back to God the stain is wiped away completely, if that perversion and bending cease immediately to exist as soon as we will effectually that it cease, why does Scripture accuse this sin with such tragic words? Why does the apostle complain so wretchedly about it? In fact, why does God become so angry with man because of a stain so insignificant and so quickly passing? Rather, we believe the Holy Spirit, who bears clear witness that original sin is not a mere privation of a supernatural gift, but a terrible corruption of the entire nature and of all the powers of the soul; not a common stain, erasable by one contrary act, but a sin adhering very closely throughout life in our most inward parts and fibers; not an external hindrance by which [human] powers, whole in themselves, are impeded in their actions, but disarray and disorder intimately inherent in all our faculties through which man has lost his concreated uprightness and wholeness and is inept toward every good, prone to every evil, subject to the wrath of God, and bound with the knots of eternal death.
The Manichaeans.
§ 90. Having thus taken care of the opinions of the Pelagians and the Pelagianizers who err concerning the nature of original sin by saying too little, it remains for us to refute the opinion of the Manichaeans and Flacians who err in excess and confuse original sin with the very nature of man. According to Augustine (De haeres. ad Quodvultdeum, heresy 46), the Manichaeans used to teach: “Carnal concupiscence is not a weakness present in us because of the faulty nature in the first man but is a contrary substance inhering in us in such a way that when we are freed and cleansed, it is separated from us,” etc.
The Flacians.
Flacius follows the Manichaeans not in all things but in this: that he claims that original sin is an evil substance, for he describes it thus (Clav., part 2, tr. 6, De pecc. orig., p. 480): “The entire man, such as he now is, either in substance or in accidents, to the extent that he is such, is pure abomination and sin.” Ibid.: “Once, at the first creation, we were something very good both in accidents and in substance; afterward we were essentially changed into something very bad in its substance, as if a very fine wine had been changed into a very sour vinegar.” Page 482: “I assert and opine that original sin is a substance in this way: the rational soul, and especially its most noble and substantial powers, namely, the intellect and will, are now so completely inverted that they are the true, living image of Satan,” etc. Page 496: “Scripture testifies that man was created into a new form as if Satan had built for himself a new and wretched building from the ruins of a beautiful home.”
Those are the words of Flacius. Things similar to these ideas are found in his other writings, but especially in Demonstrationes de essentia imaginis Dei et diaboli, in Defensio sanae doctrinae de justitia ac injustitia originali published at Basel in 1570, in the book Nosce te ipsum, etc.
Whether Dr. Luther approves of the error of Flacius.
§ 91. Before we dispatch this error, reply must be made to the false charges of Bellarmine (De stat. peccat. et amiss. grat., bk. 5, chs. 1ff.), who does not hesitate to prosecute Dr. Luther and all who follow him as being guilty of [this teaching]. He uses these arguments: (I) Luther, in his commentary on Genesis 3, claims: “Sin is of the essence of man”;9 in his commentary on Psalm [51] he says, “The fetus in the womb is sin.”10
We respond. Luther is here arguing against the Scholastics who claim that original righteousness was not an intrinsic quality of [human] nature but a superadded, exterior gift. In opposition to these, Luther declares that original righteousness before the fall and original sin after the fall are of the essence of man, that is, that original righteousness was the integrity of the entire human nature, and that original sin is the deepest intrinsic corruption of it, and not the mere corruption of an extrinsic gift. In the same sense he calls the entire man “sin,” that is, corrupted and depraved by sin. Dr. Luther has explained his opinion clearly in these and in other passages. For he writes (commentary on Genesis 4): “Spiritual people should distinguish between original sin and the creature.”11 And on Genesis 25: “The disorder or deformity must of necessity be distinguished from the creature.”12 In his explanation of Psalm 90, he uses the word “accident” in his description of original sin.13
(II) Wigand (Propositiones de peccato originis, proposition 119) says, “Original sin is a guilty thing and by its own nature is worthy of eternal death and is condemned by God, unless remission is made through Christ.” Proposition 123: “Through original sin the entire substance of man has been corrupted and depraved.” Hesshusius (De peccat. orig.) says, “The image of God in man was preserved.” Chemnitz (Resolv. de peccat. orig.) says, “The entire mass of the soul was corrupted by a great and extreme corruption.” He writes (Exam. Conc. Trid.): “Sin is anything which is in opposition to the Law, whether it be a defect or an inclination or an action.” All of these seem to Bellarmine to be either imprudent or going astray off into the camp of Flacius.
We respond. With what conscience does Bellarmine bring this charge against those very diligent interpreters of this dogma and very careful refuters of Flacius? Obviously he has removed their clarification and twists their words into an alien sense. Wigand calls original sin “a guilty thing,” that is, as he explains himself clearly, man is guilty before God because of it. Thus he is contrasting the word “thing” to a bare negation with this meaning: original sin is not a bare negation but a thing or entity, namely, a privation and a faulty quality. Because of sin, the entire substance of man is correctly called corrupt, but from this it does not follow that it has been changed into a different substance. In man the image of God was his very substance, that is, an essential perfection of the human substance. In the words of Chemnitz which Bellarmine cites from the Examen, a typographic error is obvious: the word “reason” [rationis ] must be corrected to read “action” [actionem ], something of which Bellarmine cannot be ignorant because those words are quoted from Augustine.
(III) “Lutherans claim that original sin is a positive quality. Therefore they are Manichaeans.”
We respond. Truly Bellarmine is calumniating, for we do not say that original sin is something self-subsisting or a concreated accident of nature, but a depraved inclination and a corruption of the entire nature in that sense which we have fully explained earlier [§§ 69–80]. Well? Does not Bellarmine himself acknowledge a defective habit which is a positive quality (De stat. peccat., bk. 5, ch. 19, col. 414)? Will he on this account allow the Manichaean heresy to be attributed to himself?
Original sin is not the substance of man itself.
§ 92. We shall list briefly the arguments which must be set against Flacius. (I) Scripture distinguishes original sin from man himself when it calls it: “the evil lying close at hand” (Rom. 7:21), and “the sin which clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) and “is indwelling” (Rom. 7:17). The royal prophet declares that he was conceived in sin (Ps. 51:[5]) and asks in Ps. 25:7 that God would forget his sins, but he wants Him to remember him. The apostle, too, distinguishes carefully between his own person and the sin which dwells in him and lies close at his hand (Romans 7).
(II) The image of God in the first man was not the very substance of man but an accidental perfection, as we have shown in its own place [On the Image of God in Man before the Fall (Commonplace XI), §§ 94–98]. Therefore original sin, which took the place of the divine image, is also not a substance but the extreme corruption of the substance.
(III) Original sin is not from God but from Satan and the corrupt will of man. Yet every substance comes from God the Creator.
(IV) The order of the foremost articles of faith prove this very thing. God creates the very nature of each human even after the fall and shapes it in the womb (Job 10:8 and in many other places). But God neither creates nor shapes sin. The Son of God assumed the true human nature consisting of body and soul, and, accordingly, He is of the same substance [ὁμooύσιoς] with us, but He did not assume sin. Heb. 4:15: “He is like us in all things with the exception of sin.” Christ redeemed people from sin, but He did not redeem sin itself. He justifies man from sin, but He does not justify sin itself. Through Baptism He cleanses man of his sins, but He does not baptize sin itself. He raises the body from death, unites it with the soul and makes it a partaker of eternal life, but He does not admit sin itself into the fellowship of eternal life.
(V) Whoever claims that sin is the very substance of man entangles himself in many absurdities and scarcely—or not even scarcely!—restrains himself from blasphemy. For from this pronouncement it follows that either God is the Creator of sin or that the devil is the creator of a substance; that the Son of God is either contaminated by sin or is of a different substance [ἑτερoύσιoν] from us and that man was transformed into a different substance through the fall; that one Adam was created in substance but that a different Adam fell into sin; that original and actual sins are of different kinds and are species of different genera; that either man himself is not going to be raised or that sin is going to be raised; etc.
(VI) Finally, the ancients teach with one accord that sin is not something which subsists of itself but is something introduced, that it is not a nature but a fault and corruption of a nature. Tertullian (De resurr., p. 75): “We maintain that the old [man] just as well as the new pertains to the difference of moral conduct, and not to any difference of substance.” See also Irenaeus (Adv. haeres., bk. 5), Basil (Oration Quod Deus non sit auctor mali), Ambrose (Hexaem., bk. 1, ch. 81; De vocat. gent., ch. 3), Chrysostom (on Ephesians, sermon 13, col. 1037), Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 1, ch. 3; De pecc. orig., bk. 2, ch. 33; De nupt. et concupisc., bk. 1, ch. 23; De natura et grat., ch. 201; and in all his books against the Manichaeans), Cyril, Nazianzen, Damascenus (Orth. fid., bk. 4, ch. 21), etc.
The counterarguments of Flacius.
§ 93. The more powerful counterarguments of Flacius, which Fraxineus repeats and urges, are these: (I) “A distinction must be made between a sound substance and a corrupted one: the former is from God; the latter, from the devil.”
We respond. Every substance, whether it is sound or corrupted by its own defect, is from God by creation and is still sustained by Him through preservation. But if the entire substance of man is sin, it follows that God is the Creator and Preserver of sin. But the devil could not have changed the nature of man by sin essentially, because essential changes must be ascribed to God alone.
(II) “A distinction must be made between the natural and theological consideration of man.”
We respond. A multifaceted manner of consideration does not cause man in himself to be multifaceted in substance. Not only philosophy but also theology acknowledge that man is one in essence, but they do ascribe various affections to him on account of the substance itself and on account of the corruption adhering to the substance. The regenerated Paul is the same person (as far as substance is concerned) as Paul the persecutor. People who are not yet reborn have the Law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14) and by the leading of nature sometimes do the things which are of the Law. But the Law is not written in sin itself because [sin] is certainly lawlessness, nor do the heathen do the things which are of the Law by the leading of sin.
(III) “Christ assumed human nature, not the kind which we have but [the kind] which was in Adam before the fall. Also the same man will be resurrected but will be changed in the form of his substance.”
We respond. If human nature as it was before the fall and human nature as it is in us after the fall are substantially different, it certainly follows that Christ is not of the same substance [ὁμooύσιoς] with us. It is rightly said that Christ assumed human nature not as we have it—namely, corrupted and infected with sin—but such as was in Adam, namely, holy and sound. Yet it remains firmly fixed that He assumed the same human nature which we have after the fall, that is, with regard to substance but not with regard to qualities. The same response must be given to the other attempt to escape. The same flesh will rise again, but it will not be a partaker of the same corrupted qualities. Some change will occur, but not a substantial change, for if the substantial form of man will be changed, how will the same man rise again?
The arguments of Flacius.
§ 94. The more powerful arguments of Flacius are these: (I) “In its description of original sin, Scripture uses substantial language, for it calls it ‘the flesh,’ ‘the old man,’ and ‘the body of sin.’”
We respond. That happens through the customary metonymy of Scripture because of the intimate and, in this life, indissoluble conjunction of [human] nature and the original disease. Meanwhile, Scripture declares this matter correctly, calling this evil “near at hand” and “close” [cf. Rom. 7:21; Heb. 12:1].
Second, [that happens] because original sin does not sin apart from nature, since it does not subsist of itself and separately, but the substance of the human heart has been defiled as far as this original stain is concerned, and because God does not accuse sin separately but the nature itself as a sinner and as lawlessness or on account of sin. Thus Scripture with good cause uses substantial language. What is meant with the expression “the old man” the apostle explains clearly in Col. 3:8 and 12: “Put away wrath, malice, and put on compassion, kindness,” etc. What he means with “the flesh” he explains in Gal. 5:19: “The works of the flesh are evident: fornication, impurity,” etc. What he means by “the body of sin” he explains in Col. 3:5: “Mortify your members which are on the earth.” Where he explains the members of that body, the body of sin could quite suitably be understood as the law of sin or the impetus toward sin, as is clear from Rom. 7:23: “I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind.”
(II) “Original sin is the root and source of all sins (Rom. 7:17), but elsewhere, as in Matt. 15:19, the heart itself is called the root and source of sins. Therefore the heart itself is original sin.”
We respond. Original sin as such and of itself is the source and cause of actual sins. The heart of man is this not as such nor of itself, but according as it is corrupt and, therefore, on account of something else.
(III) “Sin is all of that which conflicts with the Law. Yet the heart itself, the soul itself, the whole man himself conflicts with the Law. Therefore original sin is the heart itself, the soul itself, the whole man himself.”
Bellarmine makes the ridiculous statement that “Chemnitz cannot deal with this argument because he concedes the major premise.” But Dr. Chemnitz dealt with it most firmly a long time ago, namely, stating that sin properly and formally is lawlessness, an actual deviation from the Law, but not everything which is lawlessness is sin. Thus that the heart itself and the whole man are called “sin” must be understood such that all the powers of man and all the faculties of his soul have been corrupted by sin. Meanwhile, there remains the permanent distinction between the faculties themselves and their adhering corruption, between the nature and the defect of the nature.
(IV) “Whatever cannot be separated from something is of its essence. Original sin cannot be separated from the substance of man. Therefore it is of his essence.”
We respond. Both propositions are false, for there are inseparable accidents, and the poison of sin will be wiped out of the flesh in the resurrection.
(V) “The stony heart is removed in regeneration, and a heart of flesh is given. Therefore a substantial change occurs.”
We respond. A heart is called “stony” because of the similarity which exists between the stubbornness of the heart and the hardness of stone, and it is called a “fleshy” heart because of the similarity which exists between the flexibility of the heart and the softness of the flesh. Thus, in the use of figurative language, the stony heart is said to be removed and a fleshy heart given in its place when, through the Holy Spirit, the hardness is removed and a person’s heart is made soft and pliant.
1 In classical physiology, the “humors” are bodily fluids such as blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.
2 Cf. AC II 1 in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, trans. Charles Arand et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 36, 37.
3 “Elicited actions” are the acts called forth or accomplished by a human ability. The opposite of this is “commanded actions” (Roy J. Deferrari, A Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1948–49], s.v. “actus” 1.o).
4 “Secondary actuality” (actus secundus) is the actual operation of a thing, whereas “primary actuality” (actus primus) refers to a power or potential that is not currently actualized. Gerhard means that, in Gen. 6:5, the evil thoughts of a person’s heart (an actual sin) show that he has original sin.
5 In philosophical usage the word “sensible” means “perceptible by the senses,” not “reasonable” or “prudent” as it often does in modern English.
6 That is, posited within the realm of reality. Here “positive” does not mean “good.” Its opposite, “negative,” means “lacking,” not “bad.” Here Bellarmine is trying to prove that concupiscence is not a something, but is a lack.
7 That is, some actually existing cause, causing the concupiscence, not simply the absence of some opposite cause, preventing the concupiscence from arising.
8 Read Catholicorum (without quotation marks) with Cotta and the 1610 Jena edition instead of “Catholicorum” (with quotation marks, an addition by the nineteenth-century editor, Edward Preuss).
9 Lectures on Genesis (1535–45/1544–54), AE 1:166 (WA 42:124).
10 Commentary on Psalm 51 (1532/1538), AE 12:348 (WA 40/2:380).
11 Lectures on Genesis (1535–45/1544–54), AE 1:237 (WA 42:177).
12 Lectures on Genesis (1535–45/1544–54), AE 4:355 (WA 43:392).
13 Cf. Psalm 90 (1534–35/1541), AE 13:127–28 (WA 40/3:571).