HeyJ L (2009), pp. 781–792 FELIX CULPA: THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN AS DOCTRINE OF HOPE IN AQUINAS’S SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES SEAN A. OTTO Wycliffe College Toronto I. INTRODUCTION Original sin is among the more confusing and difficult doctrines of the Christian Church, yet it is central to understanding the Christian faith and the human condition as lived within and through that faith. To the Christian, the empirical reality of sin and its consequences – disorder, disease, despair, death, in other words, the problem of evil – is a key issue. All people are born subject to pain (physical, mental, and spiritual) and death; this is the human condition. The doctrine of original sin takes this empirical reality and tries to make sense of it in the context of the good creation of a good God. Within his Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas’s discussion of original sin occurs in the context of his examination of the suitability of the Incarnation in Book IV, where it holds an important place, as we shall see. Thomas’s ideas about original sin in relation to the Incarnation are to be understood in relationship to his conception of original justice and the prelapsarian condition of humankind: original justice and the innocence of humanity before the Fall are the counterpoint to original sin and the guilt of humanity in the postlapsarian world. Moreover, it is necessary to understand how original sin, a sin by way of origin, is transmitted from one generation to the next. Is the seeming pessimism of the doctrine of original sin, whether as a simple (or simplistic) explanation of the condition of fallen humanity or even as a justification of God, sustainable in light of Thomas’s exploration of the suitability of the Incarnation? Let us turn first to the conception of original justice and prelapsarian innocence. II. ORIGINAL JUSTICE Original justice is a term used to express the initial harmony that human nature enjoyed before the Fall. In this state, the lower parts of the human body were all under the complete control of reason, and reason and will were completely subject to God. This was not a purely natural state, but a state of grace: original justice was a gift from God to the first human beings He created.1 ‘According to St. Thomas, Adam received from God, from the first moment of his creation, this gift of justice [and that] grace and original justice . . . removed neither his essential fallibility nor his freedom.’2 Thus, the first human beings were able to follow God freely, and to experience the good of such a state, but they were also able to fall away from such a state; they were able to turn away from God. r The author 2009. Journal compilation r Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 782 SEAN A. OTTO This grace was necessary to order our beings properly. For, as Georges Van Riet explains, ‘although all intellectual nature would be, as such, apt to receive grace, our human nature, which is at the same time rational and sensitive, is not apt to do so, by reason of its composition, in consideration of which a new supernatural aide is needed.’3 We are corporeal and spiritual at the same time, and thus it is necessary that our corporeality be compensated for by this supernatural grace so that we may achieve our final end, which is union with God.4 When God created the world, He did so intending it to be as perfect as possible. To this end, He created a great diversity of things so that all levels of goodness might be realized, so that creation might fittingly mirror the goodness of the Creator.5 It would not be fitting, of course, for one creature to reflect the entirety of God, since this would make said creature a second God (ST 1a47.1c). Therefore, a gradation and plurality in creation are necessary to accomplish the intent of the Creator. This necessity requires that there be corporeal creatures that are able to be corrupted. Creatures that are able to be corrupted exist, and therefore they sometimes do become corrupted, and this is evil. The ability to be corrupted is not, in itself evil; evil lies in the actual corruption.6 The word interdum (sometimes, on occasion) points to the ‘factual, nonnecessary way that evil happens.’7 As corporeal creatures, we are able to be corrupted and able to die. In the state of original justice, however, Adam was not subject to the necessity of death; the state of grace was a protection against corruption, disease, and death.8 All human beings were meant to have a portion of this state of grace. This supernatural gift of original justice was meant to be handed down to all the descendents of the first parents. As P. de Letter, S.J., elaborates: St. Thomas expresses [the] social character of original justice by saying that it was given to the first parent of our race as an accident to the specific nature. He means to say that this gratuitous or preternatural ‘proprium’ of our nature – which did not result from the constituents of our nature but was superadded to it gratuitously – was to pass on together with nature through generation to all of Adam’s posterity. The first man was to be the fountainhead not only of nature but of grace as well.9 Accidental qualities relating to the nature of human beings are passed on from parent to child, and thus, original justice, as an accident relating to the nature of human beings, would have been passed on in the same way: According to nature man engenders one like to himself in kind. So children necessarily resemble their parents in whatever concomitants follow on the nature of the kind, unless a mistake occurs in the functioning of nature, which would not happen in the state of innocence. Now original justice in which the first man was created was a concomitant of the nature of the species, not as being caused by the basic elements of the species, but as a gift given by God to human nature as a whole. And the evidence for this is as follows: opposites belong to the same class as each other; now original sin, which is the opposite of that original justice, is said to be a sin of human nature as a whole; hence it is propagated by parents to their descendents. And so by the same token children would have resembled their parents as regards original justice.10 The relationship between original justice and original sin is explicit here; they are exact opposites. As such, they are part of the same class or genus; both are said to relate to ‘human nature as a whole’ and so they both are (or would be) effective in all human beings and thus are (or would be) transmitted in the same way from one generation to the next and so on. FELIX CULPA 783 This, then, was the state of the first man and woman: They were able, through God’s grace, to order their entire being towards its proper end, God. In this state of innocence they were not constrained by the necessity of death. This state was to be transmitted to all of their descendents, along with human nature. They were free, however, to reject this state of innocence, and did so in the Fall. This rejection by the first parents of the state of original justice resulted in the state of original sin, to which we now turn. III. SIN BY WAY OF ORIGIN According to the catholic faith, there is a sin by way of origin.11 It can be seen at work in the world around us by its effects: suffering and death.12 This sin, this fault, is found in all human beings as a result of the Fall of Adam. Rudi A. Te Velde explains it like this: According to this doctrine [original sin], the first sin of Adam has been passed on to the whole of mankind by way of origin, that is, transmitted through sexual reproduction from generation to generation. That the sin of Adam, acting as head of the human race, is the cause and source of original sin is strongly suggested by the famous statement of St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans (5:12) . . .. Human nature was created at first faultless and without sin; but as the result of the sin of Adam, that nature has contracted a culpable defect. The first sin has led to the fall of all humanity in this world.13 From very early on, then, original sin has been part of the message of Christianity. Paul’s statement in Romans 5:12 is important for understanding the meaning of this sin by way of origin: ‘Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.’ Thus, Paul believed that there must be some way that sin entered the world through Adam and on to all human beings. Augustine (and Thomas) interpreted Paul’s words to mean that ‘all human beings are . . . somehow ‘infected’ by sin, simply by reason of their being born from human parents.’14 This does not, however, mean that original sin is to be thought of in terms of a biological disease. Te Velde argues that Thomas’s ‘talk about the ‘first parent’ is not to be taken literally as referring to a real biological ancestor of the human race, whose sin is transmitted to all members of humanity as some sort of hereditary defect.’ For this would be to miss the point: the real focus is on how we are to understand our moral status.15 Of course, Thomas would not have denied the historical existence of the first parents, but the emphasis in his discussion of original sin is on Adam as representative of humanity as a whole.16 Thomas speaks of an essential unity of humankind and maintains that all human beings have solidarity with Adam. Van Riet points out that Thomas expresses this notion in many ways: Sometimes he connects it to the designs of God: in the intention of God, original justice was destined for all humanity, but on the condition that the first man remain faithful. Sometimes this externalization is internalized; Adam transmits to his descendents human ‘nature,’ but the one which is in him after his sin, with the disease which infects it. Or again the assembly of men is supposed to form but a single man; humanity is comparable to a college or a city where every member wants what the chief, prince, or premier (princeps) wants; it resembles an organized body so that every member, the hand for example, executes the action demanded by the will, in this way all men are ‘prompted’ by Adam in so much as they are begotten by him.17 784 SEAN A. OTTO The first description is based on the idea that God graced Adam with the gift of original justice at the moment of his creation and that this gift was subsequently lost in the Fall. Because this gift was meant to be passed on to all humanity (as we have seen), along with human nature, through Adam, its opposite, original sin, is able to be passed on (and in fact is passed on) in the same way: One sort of quality a person has in his own right and another by a gift of grace. Just so, something can belong to human nature by right, resulting from the very elements of nature, and another by a gift of grace. In this last way . . . original justice was a definite gift of grace divinely bestowed upon all human nature in the first parent, which grace the first man lost by the first sin. Hence even as that original justice would have been transmitted along with human nature to the descendents [of the first parents], so the opposite disorder is in fact transmitted.18 Adam, as the source of human nature, would also have been the source of this grace of God, original justice, if he had not sinned.19 As a result of his sin, Adam lost original justice, not only for himself, but also for all humanity.20 One must, therefore, think of original sin in terms of a privation of grace, as a lack of a supernatural gift, rather than as a fault or biological defect. We must not, of course, understand this to mean that we are now in a pure state of nature; such cannot be the case. Original sin does not belong to human nature by right any more than original justice did. Sin is not natural; it is, as we shall see, a disordering of nature.21 The second description offered by Van Riet rests on the essential unity of humanity: we can all, in a sense, be understood as one human being, or as one collective. In this way, the will of one (namely, Adam) can move the others. So it is with original sin: we are born into a body of common humanity wherein we partake in the sin of Adam and suffer the results of that moral fault. Van Riet also argues that ‘among these diverse formulations, that of collegiality is the most inadequate, since it could evoke the idea of a participation which presupposes a consent which is even actually conscious . . . .’22 Thomas himself writes this: It can be said that all who are born of Adam can be considered as one person inasmuch as they share the one nature they receive from the first parent, even as in political matters all belonging to one community are reckoned to be like one body, and the whole community like one person . . .. So then the many human beings descending from Adam are, as it were, many members of the one body. Now the act of a bodily member, the hand for instance, is voluntary, not by a will which the hand has on its own, but by the will of the soul which first sets the member in motion. Hence murder which the hand commits should not be imputed as sin to the hand, as though the hand were considered to have its own life isolated from the body, but inasmuch as it is part of a human person and moved by the principle which first sets human actions in motion. So too the disorder which is in an individual person, a descendent of Adam, is not voluntary by reason of his personal will, but by reason of the will of the first parent, who through a generative impulse, exerts influence upon all who descend from him by way of origin, even as the will of the soul moves bodily members to their various activities.23 There is a distinction to be made: just as the hand of the murderer is only guilty as it is a member of the murderer’s body, so a human being is only guilty of original sin as a member of humanity. Original sin is not a matter of personal sin, committed by my own free will; rather, it is a sin I find myself guilty of inasmuch as I am part of humanity, having been born into the factual history of mankind, which is from the start a history of damaged freedom (status naturae corruptae).24 FELIX CULPA 785 We are guilty of original sin as human beings, but it is not our own sin, performed as a result of our own will, that makes us guilty. Our guilt arises from an extension of the will of Adam, or the influence of Adam’s will on our human nature through the act of generation.25 Thus, Van Riet’s concern, although valid, is laid to rest. For Thomas there cannot be a personal sin of our own will involved in original sin; original sin is purely the result of an act of Adam’s will: Accordingly, the sin passing in this way from the first parent to his descendents is called ‘original,’ as a sin passing from the soul to the body’s members is called ‘actual.’ Similarly, even as an actual sin committed through some bodily member is a sin of that member only as part of the person himself, and so is called ‘a sin of man,’ so also original sin is the sin of the individual person only because he receives human nature from the first parent; and it is called a ‘sin of nature,’ according to Ephesians [2.3], we were by nature children of wrath.26 Te Velde submits that one cannot explain original sin rationally by using this metaphor, but argues further that this is not Thomas’s point: ‘Considering all human beings born of Adam as one, as constituting a concrete ‘we’ of historical mankind in this world, might provide an intelligible model by means of which one can account for the moral dimension of the causality of original sin.’27 Thomas’s argument works because considering all human beings as part of the collective body of humankind is very useful in trying to understand the transmission of original sin, since it eliminates so many of the objections that otherwise arise. We would not, for example, hold a man born blind to be guilty of that which rendered him blind. So, if we consider original sin in terms of personal, actual fault, we can see that a problem presents itself: how are human beings to be held guilty for something that their original parent has done? If original sin is a result of our human nature, and we cannot be held guilty for a defect of our nature, how can we be guilty of original sin? The answer: we cannot be. Considering original sin in terms of the individual leads to a fundamental misconception; original sin is not a personal sin, and it cannot be considered in such terms. Observe here a shift in the interpretation of original sin, Thomas ‘emphasizes the crucial point that the culpable character of original sin cannot be accounted for as long as human individuals are considered purely in themselves, isolated from the fact of belonging, through being born of human parents, to the collectivity of historical mankind.’28 The model of collective humanity leads us into a new way of considering original sin. We are again led to consider original sin in terms of a privation.29 Original sin is only comprehensible in relationship to original justice, the supernatural grace superadded to human nature in the paradisian state in which Adam was created. This grace allowed Adam’s being and will to be ordered towards their proper end, God. Original sin is the loss, the deprivation, of this grace, without which we are not able to order ourselves properly.30 Thomas writes: Through the gift of original justice the spiritual part in man had perfect hold over the inferior powers of the soul, while it itself was perfected by God as being subjected to him. As has been said, original justice was taken away by the sin of the first parents. As a result, all the powers of the soul are in a sense lacking the order proper to them, their natural order to virtue, and the deprivation is called the ‘wounding of nature.’31 From the effects we can cast light on the cause. This ‘wounding of nature’ is the result of original sin, a result of the loss of original justice. Human beings now struggle with ignorance, malice, weakness, and concupiscence.32 Ignorance is a result of our reason being deprived of its ‘direction towards the truth’ (ordine ad verum); malice a result of our 786 SEAN A. OTTO will being deprived of its ‘direction towards the good’ (ordine ad bonum); weakness a result of our irascible appetite being deprived of its ‘ability to face the difficult’ (ordine ad arduum); and concupiscence a result of our concupiscible appetite being deprived of its ‘ability to temper the pleasurable’ (ordine ad delectabile moderatem ratione).33 Thus are we disordered; we cannot control our passions and turn them to their proper end. And so, Te Velde explains: It is this loss of original justice, and consequently the inability to preserve the right order between the parts of human nature in the actual exercise of life, that is transmitted together with human nature from generation to generation. It is not a defect of nature itself, but a disordered disposition of nature, a self-indebted lack of harmony in the complex human self, which underlies the actual exercise of human life in history.34 Through all of this Thomas is attempting to describe humanity in its historical reality; it is not his intention to explain the origin of evil or sin. No such explanation can be made: evil is not wholly intelligible, and so, in the end the cause of evil is neither entirely knowable nor fully explicable. Evil is spoken of in terms of fact. Thomas’s theory acknowledges that original sin cannot ultimately be explained; it is rather an attempt to describe a reality that exists.35 His discussion does not arise from the conclusion of a moral theory, but rather a conclusion of faith: ‘Original sin characterizes the factual condition of humanity seen in the light of faith.’36 One problem remains, however. Human beings are disordered by the Fall and thus unable to obtain their proper end. We sin and fall short, and we die. Through all of this, we are unable to bring ourselves to our calling, we are unable to consummate our reason for being: ‘From a religious point of view, death means the final confirmation of the human inability to respond to . . . [the divine] appeal and to come to share in the divine life to which man is called.’37 This inability on the part of humanity to justify itself is for Thomas important in any understanding of the Incarnation. IV. THE ARGUMENTS IN THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES ABOUT ORIGINAL SIN AND JUSTICE Thomas’s discussion of original sin in the Summa Contra Gentiles is found in chapters 50 to 52 of Book IV. It fits within a larger section covering chapters 50 to 55 in which Thomas examines the Incarnation in the context of sin and gives arguments for its suitability. These arguments from fittingness begin much earlier, in chapter 42, which is a discussion of the nature of the logos and why it was fitting for the Word to become man. One of these arguments is that ‘the Word is the exemplar for the artistry of creation . . ..’38 The language used here points to the drama of Thomas’s narrative: ‘The references to the artistry of creation and the image/exemplar relationship of our nature and God hint at the dramatic shape of the arguments from suitability. The primacy of dramatic structure is evident in Thomas’s chief argument from suitability, which has to do with original sin.’39 As we shall see, the dramatic nature of the problem of human sin leads to the dramatic nature – the radicalness – of the solution. Thomas takes Paul as the basis for his interpretation of original sin, the authoritative text being Romans 5:19: ‘For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just.’ 40 The use of this passage at this FELIX CULPA 787 point makes clear that Thomas’s understanding of original sin points to a more important doctrine, that of the Incarnation. The arguments of the Pelagians are the focus of Thomas’s initial salvos in chapter 50: ‘since the Pelagian heretics denied original sin, we must now show that men are born with original sin.’41 The argument begins with the story of the Fall in Genesis 2:15-17. Thomas points out that death was not necessary before the introduction of sin. However, since Adam did not die immediately after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we must understand that the necessity of death, rather than immediate death, was the result of the first sin. Now because everyone dies, and the necessity of death is the penalty of sin, it must be that all sin in some way. This sin cannot simply be actual sin (i.e., sins of free act) since babies sometimes die, and they have no actual sin. There must, therefore, be another form of sin and thus there is a sin by way of origin; something passed on to all human beings in how they come to be.42 And so, ‘supporting evidence for original sin can be garnered from ‘probable indications,’ universally observable in the human condition. From the presence of the penalty, we can surmise the fault.’43 Thomas points us back to Romans (5:12) as further proof of the existence of original sin: ‘Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.’ He then tells us what original sin is not. It cannot be a sin of imitation, since the Apostle Paul tells us as much,44 it would further seem that the Devil would be the most likely candidate to spread this sin by way of imitation, but we know from Paul that sin came into the world through the act of one man.45 Nor can it be the actual sins of the parents, because David tells us that he was born in iniquity, and it is beyond doubt that his parents were married and his birth legitimate.46 Job refers to the uncleanness of human seed, which Thomas tells us must be understood as sin.47 Thomas does not, it should be noted, clarify here exactly how this uncleanness is supposed to be understood in terms of biology; he simply states that Job is referring to something in human beings that is a fault by way of origin. The ninth and tenth paragraphs of the chapter give us arguments in favour of original sin from the practice of the Church. Nothing that the Church does is ineffective; because the Church baptizes infants, whom we have seen have no actual sin, there must be some efficacy in the act, and therefore original sin is further proved.48 The final sentence of the chapter is worthy of note: ‘Thus, then, according to the tradition of the Catholic faith one must hold that men are born with original sin.’49 Thomas subordinates human reason to what the faith teaches; reason is not devalued, however, because it is shown to support what faith teaches when it is properly applied. Chapter 50 lays the foundation for the rest of the argument concerning original sin and its relationship to the Incarnation by simply illustrating that original sin exists. Considered within the whole work, we can see something of what Thomas thinks of the relationship between original sin and the Incarnation: The location of the consideration of original sin is instructive. There is a twofold subordination of the intelligibility of the topic; it is subordinate to revelation and – within revelation – to the topic of the Incarnation. Thomas’s favorite source for the doctrine is Romans, where Paul retrospectively identifies a typological relationship between Adam and Christ. The subordination of original sin to the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ makes clear the Christocentric character of the fourth book, indeed of the whole text.50 What Thomas says about baptism at the end of chapter 50 is interesting to note and compare with what he says about it later on as a further insight into the Christocentric 788 SEAN A. OTTO nature of the arguments: ‘baptism and the other sacraments of the Church are a remedy of sorts against sin . . .. But baptism, according to the common custom of the Church, is given to children recently born.’51 Baptism is singled out here in the first place to illustrate that newborns have some fault in them that has to be cleansed, and in the second as the rite of initiation into the faith, without which we are not able to reach the kingdom of God.52 The sacrament of baptism is a spiritual rebirth into life: ‘regarding the spiritual generation that takes place in baptism, one must consider that the generation of a living thing is a kind of change from non-living to life.’53 We have been deprived of our spiritual life by original sin and our actual sins lead us farther and farther away from this spiritual life. ‘Baptism, therefore . . . had to have the power to take away both original sin and all the actual, committed sins.’54 In chapter 56 Thomas writes: ‘Since . . . the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must be applied singly to each of its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the Church are said to be.’55 The sacraments are, then, a way in which we receive grace and all the gifts of the sacrifice of Christ. In baptism this means that we are cleansed of our sins, especially original sin; baptism is ‘chiefly ordered against this infection . . . .’56 The use of the language of infection is worthy of note; it might lead one to think of original sin in terms of biology and disease. But, as we have seen, this is not a correct understanding of the transmission of original sin. Because having some defect by way of origin seems to exclude the character of guilt, which is essentially something voluntary, the transmission of sin cannot be simply a matter of passing on a defect from parents to children . . . . It is not appropriate to speak about original sin in terms of a defect that is passed on biologically from parents to children, because this would cancel the moral character of sin.57 Thomas raises this objection in chapter 51: ‘what follows on a thing from its natural origin is natural to that thing. But what is natural to a thing is not a sin in it; thus, lack of vision is not a sin in a mole. Therefore, sin could not flow into others by reason of their origin from the first man.’58 He answers this objection in the following chapter. Original sin is passed on because original justice has been lost by the sin of the first man. Original justice was meant, as we saw above, to be passed on along with human nature from Adam to all of his descendents. When Adam sinned he lost this grace, and just as original justice was meant to be passed on, now original sin is passed on because of the loss of original justice: ‘The nature’s origin passes along the defects mentioned because the nature has been stripped of that help of grace that had been bestowed on it in the first parent to pass on to his descendents along with the nature.’59 Thomas establishes firmly in chapter 52 that original sin exists by answering a series of objections that he posits in chapter 51. By refuting these arguments, Thomas moves us towards a discussion of the suitability of the Incarnation. Adam’s obedience would have meant that subsequent human beings would have been born with original justice. His disobedience, however, has shown the inability of humanity to justify itself, and has lost for all people the original state of grace. ‘The need to satisfy for original sin, then, is the primary argument for the suitability of the Incarnation.’60 The Incarnation, however, seems foolishness to human beings, since satisfaction could have been made in other ways. The mystery of the Incarnation exceeds all human reason, and so can often seem unsuitable. Thomas argues that the very distance between God and FELIX CULPA 789 man makes the Incarnation suitable. Unless God came to us, we might think that union with Him would be impossible. The Incarnation destroys idolatry by reordering created things to God. The Incarnation manifests God’s love for us, and also demonstrates the ‘dignity of human nature and the nobility of human destiny.’61 However: the main reason for the Incarnation is the need to satisfy for sin. The satisfying power of Christ’s sacrifice results from his ‘extraordinary charity’ (propter eximium caritatem), which unites the human will in perfect obedience to the will of God.62 This is what humanity is unable to do for itself: we cannot, after the Fall, unite our will in perfect obedience to the will of God. Because of this, because Adam threw off original justice and lost for all his descendents this grace, we are not able to justify ourselves. And because this state of being came into effect through the sin of one man, only by the justice of one man could the wrong be made right: Accordingly, if the restoration of original justice in our human race was to happen not by way of pure mercy or pardon on the part of God but by way of immanent reparation, then the re-insertion in the specific nature of its lost preternatural accident could be done only by one of the human species who had a hold on the specific nature and was not held by it . . . . Hence . . . for such a reparation of our fallen nature the Incarnation of God was necessary . . . . Only God made man could be the second fountainhead of grace in mankind.63 This is what Paul understood in light of Easter, and why he refers to Christ as a second Adam (I Cor. 15:45, cf. Rom. 5:14). This is, in turn, what Thomas understood and why original sin forms the basis for his arguments for the suitability of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, came to make satisfaction for sin, and restore what was lost in the Fall, and this was the only way in which it could happen and thus the ultimate reason for the suitability of the Incarnation. V. CONCLUSION Two notions stand out in Thomas’s discussion of original justice and original sin. The first is the idea of each human being as a part of the whole of humanity and common human nature: Against traditional interpretations, he emphasizes the crucial point that the culpable character of original sin cannot be accounted for as long as human individuals are considered purely in themselves, isolated from the fact of belonging, through being born of human parents, to the collectivity of historical mankind. In other words, the idea of original sin presupposes a concept of a ‘we’ in a morally relevant sense, prior to the individual moral agent.64 Thomas points to a common human nature when he speaks of original sin, and thus, a notion of a common moral fault, a sin of nature, can be understood. This can be helpful in light of modern individualism; we are not, in fact, islands unto ourselves. We are, as individuals, a part of something more than ourselves; we have a solidarity with each other through Adam, as the representative of our common nature. Thus we are able to understand the human condition into which we are born a little more easily: As human beings we have . . . a common nature, and in coming to share this nature by means of generation we are moved by a will, by an impulse of freedom which causes the lack of moral order, 790 SEAN A. OTTO and which we cannot help but recognize in our historical existence and in ourselves, since we are all human.65 The second notion that stands out is Thomas’s understanding of original sin in light of the Incarnation. We have seen that the suitability of the Incarnation is rooted in the need for Christ to satisfy for our sins. Ultimately, sin leads to sin and all this leads us farther away from God. This is the state of affairs in which we live as a result of the Fall and original sin. In the Incarnation, however, original sin is destroyed and its power is broken: ‘O truly needful sin of Adam, which was blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault, which merited so great a redeemer!’66 The Incarnation makes the doctrine of original sin a doctrine of hope. Notes 1 See Summa Theologiae 1a 95.1, henceforth ST. All translations of the ST have followed those of the Blackfriars’ editions (London: Blackfriars, 1964–76, reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Translations of the Summa Contra Gentiles (henceforth SCG) have followed those of the University of Notre Dame reprints (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). All translations from French are strictly my own. 2 ‘D’après saint Thomas, Adam reçut de Dieu, dès le premier moment de sa création, ce don de la justice . . .. La grâce et la justice originelle . . . ne supprimaient . . . ni sa faillibilité essentielle, ni sa liberté.’ Georges Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal dans la philosophie de la religion de saint Thomas’, Revue Philosophique de Louvain 71 (1973): pp. 36–7. 3 ‘Bien que toute nature intelectuelle soit, en tant que telle, apte à recevoir la grâce, notre nature humaine, qui est à la fois rationelle et sensible, n’y est apte, en raison de sa composition, que moyennant une nouvelle aide surnaturelle.’ Ibid., p. 36. 4 ‘For human beings are composed of soul and body, and of an intellectual and a sensory nature. And if the body and the senses be left to their nature, as it were, they burden and hinder the intellect from being able freely to attain the highest reaches of contemplation.’ (Est enim homo compositus ex anima et corpore et ex natura intellecti et sensibili: que quodammodo si sue nature relinquantur, intellectum aggravant et impediunt ne libere ad summum fastigium contemplationis pervenire possit.) Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 5.1, translated as On Evil by Richard Regan, edited with an introduction by Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 234. 5 ‘For he brought things into existence so that his goodness might be communicated to creatures and re-enacted through them.’ (Produxit enim res in esse propter suam bonitatem communicandam creaturis, et per eas repraesentandam.) ST 1a.47.1c. For a discussion of the possibility of evil within a good creation, see Rudi A. Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death: Thomas Aquinas on Original Sin,’ The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawryrow, eds. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005): pp. 145–7. 6 ‘We have already observed how the completeness of the universe requires inequality among things in order to achieve all degrees of goodness. One degree of goodness is that a thing should be so good that it can never fall away. Another degree of goodness that a thing should be good yet of such a sort that it can fall away from goodness . . .. The perfection of the universe requires them both; likewise some that can cease to be good, and in consequence on occasion do. Such a defection from good is precisely what evil is.’ (Dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, perfectio universi requirit inaequalitatem esse in rebus ut omnes bonitatis gradus impleantur. Est autem unus gradus bonitatis ut aliquid ita bonum sit quod nunquam deficere possit. Alius autem gradibus bonitatis est ut sic aliquid bonum sit quod a bono deficere posit . . .. ita perfectio universi requirit ut sint quaedam quae a bonitate deficere possint, ad quod sequitur ea interdum deficere. In hoc autem consistit ratio mali, ut scilicet aliquid deficiat a bono.) ST 1a.48.2c. 7 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 146. 8 Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ pp. 36–7. 9 P. De Letter, S.J. , ‘The Reparation of Our Fallen Nature’, The Thomist 23 (1966): p. 565. 10 ‘Dicendum quod naturaliter homo generat sibi simile secundum speciem. Unde quaecumque accidentia consequuntur naturam speciei, in his necesse est quod filii parentibus similentur, nisi sit error in operatione naturae, qui in statu innocentiae non fuisset. In accidentibus autem individualibus non est necesse quod filii parentibus similentur. Justitia autem originalis in qua primus homo conditus fuit, fuit accidens naturae speciei, non quasi ex principiis speciei causatum sed sicut quoddam domun datum toti naturae. Et hoc apparet quia opposita sunt unius generis; peccatum autem originale, quod opponitur illi justitiae, dicitur esse peccatum naturae; unde traducitur a parente in posteros. Et propter hoc etiam filii parentibus assimilati fuisset quantum ad originalem justitiam.’ ST 1a.100.1c. 11 ST 1a 2ae. 81.1c and SCG IV, 50. See also T.C. O’Brien, O.P., ‘Appendix 3: Thematic Conspectus of Catholic Teaching,’ and ‘Appendix 7: Sin Caused by Origin,’ in Summa Theologiae, vol 26, edited by T.C. O’Brien, O.P. (London: Blackfriars, 1965). 12 See ST 1a2ae 85.5, SCG IV 50.3. 13 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 143. 14 Ibid., p. 143. 15 Ibid., pp. 152–3. 16 Ibid., n.20, p. 153. FELIX CULPA 791 17 ‘Tantôt il la rapporte aux desseins de Dieu: dans l’intention de Dieu, la justice originelle était destinée à toute l’humanité, mais à condition que le premier homme demeurât fidèle. Tantôt cette vue extrinséciste est intériorisée: Adam transmet à ses descendants la  nature  humaine, mais telle qu’elle est en lui après son péché, avec la maladie qui l’infecte. Ou encore l’ensemble des hommes est censé ne former qu’un seul homme; l’humanité est comparable à un collège ou à une cité où chaque membre veut ce que veut le chef, le prince, ou le premier (princeps); elle est semblable à un corps organisé: de même que chaque membre, la main par example, exécute l’action commandée par la volonté, ainsi tous les homme sont  mus  par Adam en tant qu’ils sont engendrés par lui.’ Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ p. 37. 18 ‘Sicut autem ad personam pertinet aliquid secundum seipsam et aliquid ex dono gratiae, ita etiam ad naturam potest aliquid pertinere secundum seipsam, scilicet quod causatur ex principiis ejus, et aliquid ex dono gratiae. Et hoc modo justitia originalis . . . erat quoddam donum gratiae toti humanae naturae divinitus collatum in primo parente, quod quidem primus homo amisit per primum peccatum. Unde, sicut illa originalis justitia traducta fuisset in posteros simul cum natura, ita etiam inordinatio opposita.’ ST 1a2ae.81.2c, cf. SCG IV, 52.6. 19 See above, p. 4 and ST 1a.100.1c. It should be noted that although Thomas’s reasoning here seems circular (original sin is passed on because original justice would have been, original justice would be passed on because original sin is) this is not really the case. Thomas is careful to note that the two are opposite sides of the same coin, and thus in their effects they are both universal, effecting all human nature, and thus, they are (or would have been) transmitted in the same way. 20 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ pp. 157–8; De Letter, ‘Reparation of Our Fallen Nature,’ pp. 565–8; Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ pp. 37–8. 21 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ pp. 157–9. 22 Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ p. 37. 23 ‘. . . dicendo quod omnes homines qui nascuntur ex Adam possunt considerari ut unus homo, in quantum conveniunt in natura quam a primo parente accipiunt; secundum quod in civilibus omnes qui sunt unius communitatis reputantur quasi unum corpus, et tota communitas quasi unus homo . . .. Sic igitur multi homines ex Adam derivati sunt tanquam multa membra unius corporis. Actus autem unius membri corporalis, puta manus, non est voluntarius voluntate ipsius manus, sed voluntate animae, quae primo movet membrum. Unde homicidium quod manus committit non imputaretur manui ad peccatum, si consideraretur manus secundum se ut divisa a corpore, sed imputatur ei inquantum est aliquid hominis quod movetur a primo principio motivo hominis. Sic igitur inordinatio quae est in isto homine ex Adam generato non est voluntaria voluntate ipsius, sed voluntate primi parentis, qui movet motione generationis omnes qui ex ejus origine derivantur, sicut voluntas animae movet omnia membra ad actum.’ ST, 1a2ae.81.1c. 24 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 157. 25 See Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ pp. 153–7; De Letter, ‘Reparation of Our Fallen Nature,’ p. 566; Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ pp. 37–8. 26 ‘Unde peccatum quod sic a primo parente in posteros derivatur, dicitur ‘originale’, sicut peccatum quod ab anima derivatur ad membra corporis, dicitur ‘actuale’; et sicut peccatum actuale quod per membrum aliquod committitur, non est peccatum illius membri, nisi in quantum illud membrum est aliquid ipsius hominis, propter quod vocatur ‘peccatum humanum’, ita peccatum originale non est peccatum hujus personae, nisi inquantum haec persona recipit naturam a primo parente; unde et vocatur peccatum naturae, secundum illud Ephes., Eramus natura filii irae.’ ST 1a2ae.81.1c. 27 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 156. 28 Ibid., p. 163. 29 See Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ pp. 153–7; De Letter, ‘Reparation of Our Fallen Nature,’ p. 566; Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ pp. 37–8; ST 1a2ae.81.1c. 30 ST 1a2ae.81.2c; 85.3c. 31 ‘Dicendum quod per justitiam originalem perfecte ratio continebat inferiores animae vires; et ipsa ratio a Deo perficiebatur ei subjecta. Haec autem originalis justitia subtracta est per peccatum primi parentis, sicut jam dictum est. Et ideo omnes vires animae remanent quodammodo destituae proprio ordine, quo naturaliter ordinantur ad virtutem; et ipsa destitutio ‘vulneratio naturae’ dicitur.’ ST 1a2ae.85.3c. 32 For a discussion of concupiscence in Aquinas see Conan Gallagher, ‘Concupiscence’, The Thomist 30 (1966), pp. 228–59. 33 ST 1a2ae. 85.3c. See Van Riet, ‘Le problème du mal,’ pp. 36–7. 34 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 159. 35 Ibid., p. 150. 36 Ibid., p. 152. 37 Ibid., p. 160. 38 Thomas Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995): p. 154. 39 Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative, p. 154. 40 SCG IV, 50.2. 41 ‘. . . quia Pelagiani haeretici peccatum originale negaverunt, ostendendum est homines cum peccato originali nasci.’ SCG IV, 50.2. 42 SCG IV, 50.3, see Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative, pp. 154–5. 43 Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative, p. 155. 44 Romans 5:14, SCG IV, 50.5. 45 SCG IV, 50.6. 46 Psalm 50:7, SCG IV, 50.7. 47 Job 14:3–4, SCG IV, 50.8. 48 SCG IV, 50.9–10. 49 ‘Sic igitur, secundum Catholicae fidei traditionem, tenendum est homines nasci cum peccato originali.’ SCG IV, 50.11. 792 SEAN A. OTTO 50 Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative, p. 155. 51 ‘Baptismus et alia sacramenta ecclesiae sunt quaedam remedia contra peccatum . . .. Exhibetur autem baptismus, secundum communem ecclesiae consuetudinem, pueris recenter natis.’ SCG IV, 50.9. 52 SCG IV, 50.9–10. 53 ‘. . . quidem circa spiritualem generationem, quae per baptismum fit, considerandum est quod generatio rei viventis est mutatio quaedam de non vivente ad vitam.’ SCG IV, 59.1. 54 ‘Oportuit igitur baptismum . . . talem virtutem habere quod et peccatum originale, et omnia actualia peccata commissa tollat.’ SCG IV, 59.1. 55 ‘Quia vere . . . mors Christi est quasi universalis causa humanae salutis; universalem autem causam oportet applicari ad unum quemque effectum: necessarium fuit exhiberi hominibus quaedam remedia per quae eis beneficium mortis Christi quodammodo cuniungeretur. Huiusmodi autem esse dicuntur ecclesiae sacramenta.’ SCG IV, 56.1. 56 ‘. . . Baptismus, qui contra eam [i.e., original sin] principaliter ordinatur . . ..’ SCG IV, 59.6. 57 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 154. 58 ‘Quod consequitur aliquid secundum suam originem naturalem, est ei naturale. Quod autem est alicui naturale, non est peccatum in ipso: sicut in talpa non est peccatum quod visu caret. Non igitur per originem a primo homine peccatum ad alios potuit derivari.’ SCG IV, 51.6. 59 ‘Considerandum est etiam quod praedicti defectus per naturalem originem traducuntur ex eo quod natura destitutia est auxilio gratiae, quod ei fuerat in primo parente collatum ad posteros simul cum natura derivandum.’ SCG IV, 52.10. 60 Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative, p. 156. 61 Ibid., p. 156. 62 Ibid., p. 156. 63 De Letter, ‘Reparation of Our Fallen Nature,’ p. 568. 64 Te Velde, ‘Evil, Sin, and Death,’ p. 163. 65 Ibid., p. 163. 66 ‘O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!’ From the Exsultet, found in (among others) Dom Gaspar Lefebvre O.S.B., The Saint Andrew Daily Missal (Great Falls, MT: St. Bonaventure Publications, 1999), p. 580.