CHAPTER XXIX
of the man and wife mentioned above, to that same degree ought our first parents to be judged more severely.
Finally, every man is either saved or condemned. Every man who is saved is admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven, and every man who is condemned is excluded from it. He who is admitted is elevated to the likeness of those angels in whom there never was or will be any sin; but this elevation cannot occur as long as there is any taint of sin in him. So it is impossible for a man to be saved if he has any sin, however small. Therefore, if what I have called 'original sin' is any sin at all, then it is necessary for every man who is born in original sin to be condemned for it--unless it has been removed from him.
CHAPTER XXIX
How the Inability To Have Justice Excuses Infants after Eaptism I have said that the inability to have justice does not excuse the in justice of infants. But perhaps someone will ask: 'If there is sin (i.e., injustice) in infants before they are baptized, and if you say that the in ability to have justice is inexcusable, and if Christian baptism removes only the sin that precedes baptism, then since an infant is without justice for as long as he is an infant in the period following his baptism (for if justice is ''uprightness of will kept for its own sake," an infant cannot even under stand the justice which he should keep), why isn't an infant unjust even after he is baptized? If a baptized person dies in infancy before he knows how to repent (though not dying immediately after baptism), then since he does not have the required justice and since his inability to have it is no excuse, he is in an unjust state when he dies and so is not admitted into the Kingdom of God--since no unjust person enters therein. But the Catholic Church does not
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believe that baptized infants who die before they know how to repent are ex cluded from the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, if baptism removes the future sin of infancy, then why doesn't it also remove those future sins which a person will commit later in his life?'
I reply that baptism completely blots out all the sins which existed before baptism. For this reason, the original inability to have justice which was imputed as sin to infants before they were baptized is not imputed to them afterwards. The inability to have justice could not excuse the absence of justice before baptism, since this inability is culpable; but even though this inability remains after baptism, it excuses the absence of justice because it is no longer culpable. Whence it follows that justice, which infants owed before they were baptized and for which they could offer no excuse, is not required of them as a kind of obligation after they are baptized. For as long as their only reason for not having justice is their original /I.e., natural/ inability to have it, they are not unjust, since there is no lack of required justice in them. For one cannot be liable for something which exists in him without culpability. Therefore, if baptized infants die before they know how to repent, they are not unjust; rather they are saved as if they were just-saved both by means of the justice of Christ, who gave Himself for them, and by means of the justice of faith on the part of the Church, their Mother, who believes on their behalf.
More out of conjecture than out of certainty, I have discussed original sin to the best of my ability, and I shall hold my present views until God make known to me some better understanding. But if someone else has a different interpretation, I shall not reject his opinion--or anyone else's--provided it can be proven to be true.
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ON THE HARMONY OF THE FOREKNOWLEDGE, THE PREDESTINATION,
AND THE GRACE OF GOD WITH FREE CHOICE
(De Concordia Praescientiae et Praedestionationis et Gratiae Dei cum Libero Arbitrio)