Chapter VI: The Subject of Original Sin.
CHAPTER VI: ON THE SUBJECT OF ORIGINAL SIN
The subject of original sin1 is the whole man.
§ 95. Now that we have explained the nature of original sin, let us take a look at the subject [affected by] this disease. This consideration contributes very much to the understanding of its severity. Therefore we say that man is the subject of original sin not only in a part of himself but also completely in soul and body, with his individual members and powers. We confirm this with the following arguments.
(I) Scripture says that the whole man is “conceived and born in sins” (Ps. 51:5), “from an unclean seed” (Job 14:4), and that he is “flesh” (John 3:[6]).
(II) It also shows this same thing through his individual parts. Regarding the mind and intellect of man, it says that man is “blind,” that he is “darkness,” that he “cannot understand the things which are of the Spirit of God” (Eph. 5:8; 1 Cor. 2:14). Regarding his will and heart, it says that “every imagination of the heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 6:5; 8:21), that the “heart is corrupt and inscrutable” (Jer. 17:9), that man is “a slave to sin” (John 8:34), that he is “dead in his sins” (Eph. 2:1). Regarding his body and members, it says that his eyes and right hand cause man to stumble (Matt. 5:29–30), that sin resides in “our mortal body” (Rom. 6:12), and in Rom. 3:13ff. almost every member of man is listed.
(III) Since habits2 and privations involve the same subject, it is thus possible to conclude what the subject of original sin is: from the subject of original righteousness, whose place it took. Original righteousness was not merely a righteous temperament of the body but was especially an uprightness of all the powers of the soul. Therefore original sin is not merely a sickly quality of the body. Original righteousness included the soundness and conformity of the powers of man with both tables of the Decalogue, and it was located not merely in exterior actions or the inferior powers, but its seat was the entire soul of man with all its strengths and powers. Therefore original sin is not only the disobedience of the sensitive appetite, nor is its seat only in the inferior powers of the soul. Rather, this spiritual leprosy pervades the entire man so that “from the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness in him” (Isa. 1:6).
(IV) The renewal of man reveals the same thing. For since it is necessary for people to be renewed by the Holy Spirit in soul and body, surely soul and body have been corrupted by original sin. In Eph. 4:23 the devout are “renewed in the spirit of their minds”; in Rom. 12:2 they are reformed by “a newness of their mind,” so that, Col. 3:2, “they know the things which are above.” According to 2 Cor. 7:1, “they cleanse themselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting their sanctification in the fear of God.” Therefore they have been corrupted throughout their nature, in flesh and spirit.
Not only the inferior faculties of the soul.
§ 96. Therefore some of the Scholastics must not be heard, [namely,] those who argue that original sin must be placed only in an inferior sensitive faculty of the soul, but that the superior powers of the mind and reason are immune to it. They look for support for their error in Romans 7, where the apostle says (v. 18) that good does not dwell in his flesh, and in v. [25], where the apostle separates the mind from the limbs and the flesh and says, “They serve the Law of God with their mind, but with the flesh they serve the law of sin.” But in this text the apostle does not take “flesh” to mean only the body and the sensitive appetite but the whole man with all his powers and faculties, insofar as he has not yet been reborn and is still under the oldness of the flesh. For he contrasts it to the Spirit and is complaining that, insofar as he has not yet been reborn, he is using neither his mind nor will nor sensitive appetite correctly, just as Christ says, John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Also, in Gal. 5:20, among the works of the flesh, the apostle lists heresies—which, as is manifestly evident, are operations of the mind and not of the sensitive appetite. In Rom. 8:6 thought is attributed to the flesh. Similarly, [in Rom. 7:23] he understands “the law of the mind” not to be the mind as it is by nature, but the mind as it has been renewed and illumined by the Spirit, and he understands “members” as all the powers with their instruments in man (insofar as he has not yet been regenerated). He also says that he serves the Law of God with his mind [Rom. 7:25], not according as it is rational, but according as it has been reborn.
Bellarmine himself confesses this.
§ 97. This obvious truth has earned the approval even of Bellarmine himself. He writes (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 15, col. 429):
It must not be denied that a similar fault is found even in the superior part of the soul, for that part of the soul is also inclined to a lust for honors, empty glory, and other vanities and is at times obedient to desires for such things despite our own unwillingness. Thus the blessed Paul in Gal. 5[:17] said that the flesh lusts against the Spirit and immediately lists the works of the flesh. He lists not only fornication, drunkenness, and others of that kind but also idolatry, heresy, enmity, etc. [vv. 19–21], which St. Augustine notes carefully in De civit. Dei (bk. 14, chs. 2–4), where he shows that “flesh” is sometimes used for the entire man as he is without the grace of God after the fall of Adam, and that he who lives according to himself and not according to God is said to be “carnal.” Thus even though the defect of concupiscence may be principally in one’s sensuality, nevertheless it also has a seat in the mind. But St. Augustine speaks about the defect of sensuality almost everywhere in his books against the Pelagians, because this defect shows itself more in sensuality, [but] not because he was unaware that it also had a place in the mind.
When he writes this, Bellarmine is clearly contradicting himself, for when (in De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 7, col. 375) he intends to prove that concupiscence is not sin, he uses this argument: “The apostle is saying that an evil of this sort is not in himself but in his flesh. But it is clear that the flesh is incapable of sin, properly so called.”
Some of the Scholastics claim that there are two evil qualities in man: one in the flesh, the other in the soul; the latter springing from the former, since the soul is defiled from its contact with the flesh. (See Lombard, Sent., 2, dist. 31, letters B and C; Henricus, Quodlib. 2, q. 11; [Gregory of] Rimini, Sent., 2, dist. 30, q. 1, whom Driedo follows, Grat. et lib. arbitr., bk. 1.)
Others claim, to the contrary, that the kindling of sin lies only in the flesh, something which Occam explains in this way (part 3, Quodlib. 10):
The kindling [fomes] is an inordinate quality of the flesh which inclines the sensitive appetite toward a misshapen and defective act in someone having the judgment of reason. Just as a sickness is sometimes caused by a disproportion of the humors and, at other times, a quality different from the humors is caused by their putrefaction, so also the kindling is either a disproportion of humors or a quality different from the humors.
Those are the words of Occam. Biel wanted to win favor on both sides, for he writes (Sent., 2, dist. 30. q. 2, art. 6): “According to the teacher, two sickly qualities must be posited: one in the soul, because sin is only in the soul; the other in the flesh, because the quality is in the seed before the soul is poured in. Otherwise it would not be drawn from the parent.” Article 7: According to Anselm, “one quality appears to be sufficient, which is subject to the flesh, because plurality must be avoided.”
1 That is, the substance in which original sin inheres.
2 See above, p. 33 n. 1.