CHAPTER VIII
guilt in the seed than there is in the spittle spat forth by means of the evil will of an angry man, or even in the shedding of his own blood. For what is at fault is not the spittle or the blood, but the evil will. So it is clear how it can be true that there is no sin in infants at the time of their con ception and that Holy Scripture can appear to oppose this. For there can be no sin in infants at that moment since there is no will in them; nevertheless, sin can be said to be in them because they contract in the seed the necessity of sinning just as soon as they are human beings.
CHAPTER VIII
That There Is Neither Sin nor the Necessity of Future Sin in the Seed Assumed from the Virgin Now if I am right, then the seed which is taken from the parent has no sin in it, because it does not yet have a will. So it is clear that what the Son of God assumed from the Virgin into His person could not have been blem ished by sin. But we have said that the seed is contracted from parents with the necessity of sinning at that future time when it will have been enlivened with a rational soul. There are three reasons for this necessity of sinning.
First, human nature is born in infants with the obligation to make satisfac tion for the sins of Adam (and perhaps also in some respect for the sins of its recent ancestors). Yet human nature cannot make satisfaction, and as long as it does not, it sins. Second, human nature cannot recover by means of its own efforts the justice which it has deserted. And third, the soul is weighed down by a corrupted body and cannot even understand justice; but if the soul cannot understand justice, then it can neither have it nor keep it.
Therefore, if it can be shown that the seed which the Son of God assumed from the Virgin is free from these three necessities, then it will be clear that