Chapter I: The Nature of Actual Sin.
Connection with the preceding commonplace.
§ 1. Actual sins, the countless offspring conceived by the mother, original sin, are brought to life by the midwifery of corrupt concupiscence so that original sin is no less fertile than Countess Mathilda of Holland, who, by a singular childbearing, miraculously produced 365 children. Guicciardinus, Erasmus, Ludovicus Vives, and [Wolf] (Cent. 13, p. 554) have written about her on the basis of the annals of Flanders (yet be sure not to extend that comparison farther than an equality of fertility). Just as “an evil tree produces evil fruits” (Matt. 7:17; Luke 6:43), as “poisoned waters also flow from a poisoned spring” (Jer. 6:7), and “as bitterness grows from a root of bitterness” into the branches on high (Heb. 12:15), so also countless sins of every kind proceed from the innate corruption of the heart as from a poisoned spring and a very bitter root (Matt. [15:19]), the very evil fruits of an evil tree.
CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF ACTUAL SIN
Why actual sins are so called.
§ 2. These fruits are called “actual sins” to differentiate them from original sin. For as the latter is said to be original because it begins to inhere in us with the beginning of our nature, so the former are said to be “actual” from acting, because they are not innate in us, nor are they equal in all, but because they are acted out by us, namely, by deeds, words, and thoughts. For this reason, Augustine (Contra Faustum, bk. 22, ch. 27) defines actual sin: “It is a statement or a deed or a desire against the eternal Law” and “It is a transgression of the Law” (De cons. evang., bk. 2, ch. 4).
We accept both these definitions of Augustine, and thus Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et statu peccati, bk. 1, ch. 1) does us an injustice when he writes: “So great is the ineptness or shamelessness of some Lutherans that they are unafraid, without mentioning his name, to list the first definition of Augustine among the errors.” He seeks a pretext for this accusation from the fact that Hesshusius (De sexc. error. pontif., locus 4, no. 1) had written: “The Papists define sin in this way: that it is a word or deed or lust against the Law of God.”
We respond. Hesshusius is not disapproving the definition itself but the faulty application of the definition, because the Papists accept it as a general definition of sin and even apply it to original sin. Nevertheless it is only the definition of actual sins, as Bonaventure (commentary on Sent., 1, dist. 35, art. 1) notes correctly.
Whether all sins are voluntary.
§ 3. In the same place, it seems to Bellarmine that a mention of voluntariness is wanting in the definition of Augustine. To this objection he responds: “This word can be easily gathered from the other parts of the definition, because nothing is properly against the Law except that which is voluntary, and because the Law is not properly given except to those who have the use of free will.”
We respond. (1) Augustine says (De vera relig., ch. 14): “Every sin is voluntary.” Nevertheless he correctly adds (Contra Julianum, bk. 3, ch. 5): “This must be understood as a reference to actual sin, not to original sin.”
(2) But if it should be said in general that there is no sin except a voluntary sin—that is, except it be committed according to choice by the planning and action of one’s own will—the result will be the denial of original sin. Thus this axiom is attributed to the Pelagians by Augustine (De haeres., chs. 15 and 88; Ad Bonifac., bk. 4, ch. 7; De bono persever., bk. 2, chs. 5 and 11; De grat. et peccat. origin., bk. 2, chs. 6 and 13).
(3) What of the fact that not all actual sins are voluntary—that is, committed in the manner and way of those who have knowledge and choice—since some are misdeeds of ignorance and sins of infirmity?
(4) Yet every actual sin can be called voluntary in this manner and respect: insofar as it is opposed to compulsion. Man sins voluntarily, that is, not compelled, but freely.
(5) If Augustine calls original sin voluntary elsewhere, he explains it with the subtle explanation that it arose from the evil will of the first man (Retract., bk. 1, ch. 13), that it has a seat in that will of man, and that in adults the depraved nature consents to that sin.
(7) In connection with this, Bellarmine accepts this definition of Augustine as the general definition of sin (“Sin is a word or deed or desire against the eternal Law”). For in ch. 2 he divides sin, which he had defined in the first chapter, into original and actual sin. From this a Pelagian is quick to conclude: infants do not do or say or desire anything against the eternal Law, since the Law is not properly given except to those who have the use of free choice. Therefore in infants there is no sin in the proper sense.
(8) Hence sin is more rightly defined in general by the evangelist as “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). This definition, remarkable in its brevity, expresses the true and proper nature of sin, namely, that it is an aberration from the Law or a disharmony with the Law, whether that is inherent in nature itself (such as original sin) or is found in words, deeds, and impulses of concupiscence (such as all actual sins). In fact, with its breadth this definition embraces the sin of omission, which is also “lawlessness.” Thus what Scaliger writes about the word αὐταυτὸς (which he made up, Exercit. 365, sect. 2) is most rightly attributed to St. John [the Evangelist], signifying that it expresses with remarkable completeness its own definition.
The explanation of the apostle’s definition: “Sin is lawlessness” [1 John 3:4].
§ 4. Sin is formally a defect. But every defect exists in some being, every privation exists in some subject, every evil in some good—thus sin also, since it is a privative entity. The form [formale]1 of sin, namely, a privation or defect itself, is expressed by St. John [the Evangelist] through the negative particle α-and has the nature of the genus in the definition. Furthermore, since privations are most accurately stated and understood through a comparison of qualities [habituum]—as when we say that darkness is the privation of light—and, on the other hand, because the norm of righteousness or conformity with God as the Archetype is the νόμoς (the Law itself), therefore the distinguishing characteristic of sin is taken from the Law, so that from it comes a definition from the contrary; and this is the best [manner] in describing privations since they are understood only through a definition of what is foreign to it [νόθῳλόγῳ]. Sin is ἀνoμία, that is, a discrepancy, an aberration, a turning away from the Law, whether this is found in the nature itself or in actions; since it happens “without Law” [ἄνευ νόμoυ], as self-chosen service, so also it comes with the name “lawlessness” [ἀνoμία]. Finally, because the Law obliges one to obedience or punishment, therefore it is easily concluded from this that guilt or obligation to punishment is joined with lawlessness by an indissoluble connection.
Philipp’s definition of sin.
§ 5. Master Philipp [Melanchthon] wanted to explain the remarkable brevity of this most exact definition in the definition which he brought out against Eck in the Colloquy of Worms in 1541, and which was previously approved by Dr. Luther: “Sin is a defect or inclination or action conflicting with the Law of God, offending God, damned by God, and making us guilty of the eternal wrath of God and of present and eternal punishments, unless remission should occur on account of the Son, the Mediator.” On the basis of this definition, it is easy to make judgment about any of the descriptions of the ancient fathers, many of which definitions are extant.
The definitions of the ancient fathers.
Ambrose (De parad., ch. 8): “Sin is a violation of the divine Law and disobedience to the heavenly Commandments.”
Augustine (Ad Simpl., bk. 1, question 1): “Sin is a turning away from the Creator and a turning toward inferior, created things.” De duab. anim. contra Manich. (ch. 11): “Sin is the will to obtain or retain what righteousness forbids.” De Gen. ad lit. imperf. (ch. 1): “Sin is the corrupt assent of the free will.” De vera religione (ch. 16): “Sin is to desire eagerly those things which Christ despises or to flee those things which He endured for our salvation.” De fide contra Manich. (ch. 8): “Sin is nothing else but to err in the precepts of truth or in the truth itself.” De lib. arbitr. (bk. 1, ch. 16): “All sins are contained in this one class: when someone is turned away from divine and truly enduring things and turned toward changing and uncertain things.”
Chrysostom (on Matthew 18): “Sin is not obeying God.”
Damascenus (Orthod. fid., bk. 4, ch. 23): “A deviation from the commandment is sin.”
Anselm (on Hebrews 2): “Sin is doing forbidden things or not doing what has been commanded.”
“Furthermore, it was not the intent of the devout ancients to establish an exact definition in those statements, a definition which would include all that is considered under the name of sin. Rather, they wanted to set down some descriptions which did not include the entire nature of what they were defining in dialectic fashion but in a fashion appropriate to the material about which they were speaking in some specific debates and homilies.” Those words are of Dr. Chemnitz (Loci theol., part 1, locus 7, ch. 3).
Whether every lawlessness is sin.
§ 6. What Andradius Payva (Defens. fid. Trid., bk. 3) and Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et statu peccat., bk. 1, ch. 1; bk. 5, ch. 14) say against this is frivolous, namely: “Not every lawlessness is sin, since the sins of nature and of art are a sort of ‘lawlessness.’ This very general definition of St. John [the Evangelist] does not fit them at all.”
We respond. The apostle is not speaking about any lawlessness taken in the most general sense, but about a discrepancy from the norm of the divine Law, something which the added article2 teaches as much in the subject as in the predicate of the proposition, which here argues that a certain lawlessness is being indicated and that a full definition (namely, reciprocal) of sin is being given. In Titus 2:14, we are said to have been redeemed by Christ “from all lawlessness.” How inept will that interpreter be who here wants to think about the errors of the arts or about the natural defects of bodies!
1 “Form” is that which gives the being of a thing or makes it what it is.
2 The Greek definite article (“the”) is used with “lawlessness” in 1 John 3:4.