Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Note 1. For the state of pure nature two things are required, in which the purity of nature is judged chiefly to consist: one positive, namely, that in that state human nature possess its entire natural perfection; that is, a substance complete in every way, faculties fitted for operation, and divine providence ready at hand assisting in all things: the other negative, namely, that it possess nothing naturally undue to itself, or that is not fit to inhere in it within the very order of nature, whether evil or good: that is, that it be neither illumined by the gifts of grace, nor by other benefits conducing to the supernatural end, nor infected by any sin, especially original sin; nor be liable to the punishments deriving from it. From this negation of original sin and of any grace whatever, the state of pure nature takes its name; for the purity of nature in the present case denotes only the negation of all those things which do not pertain to man's natural constitution and order. Therefore we call the state of pure nature the mean between the state of original justice, in which the first man was fashioned, and the state of sin, into which he fell. I say the mean, by the negation of the extremes, such that it includes neither sanctity, which gives the possessor a right to eternal life, nor sin, by which he would be excluded from it on account of the guilt of damnation.

Note 2. That state of pure nature has nowhere existed, nor does it seem likely to exist in the future; for the first parents of mankind, fashioned immediately by God, were endowed at once with grace and other heavenly gifts, and enriched in order to the supernatural end, to which they together with their whole posterity were destined. But of their posterity, as many as are conceived — if you except Christ the Lord of the only Virgin Mother of God — are infected with the lethal stain of original sin, and are damned before they are born: and so there is no man who was truly fashioned in the state of pure nature, nor does any seem likely to be so fashioned; since all, by vitiated propagation, are conceived in iniquities; and healed and cleansed by the medicinal grace of Christ the Lord, they are ordained to the attainment of eternal beatitude. — But whether that state is possible not only according to God's absolute power, but also as He works according to the natural inclination of things, very many of the Recentiores deny, teaching that that state is impossible, and that the contrary opinion savors of Manichaeism; and that it is one of the capital errors of Pelagius attacked by St. Augustine. Which assertion indeed Calvin long ago published in book 1. of the Institutes, chapter 15, n. 1, and likewise Luther on chapter 3 of Genesis, where among other things he writes: Let us hold that justice was not a certain gift that came from without, separate from the nature of man, but was natural to it: so that it was of the nature to love God, to believe God, to acknowledge God. These things then were natural in Adam, as it is natural for the eyes to receive light. And further within: Moreover, he says, these things prove that original justice was of the nature of man: yet it having been lost through sin, it is manifest that natural things did not remain intact, as the Scholastics rave.

Note 3. That the gifts and divine aids granted gratuitously to men are of a twofold kind: for some perfect man in order to the end and operation of the natural order: others illumine and assist him in order to the supernatural end, and to operations proportioned to the dignity of that end. Of the former kind are certain special extraordinary aids, exceeding the common activity and course of natural causes, which God sometimes bestows upon natural agents, by which they may carry out their operation, and overcome the extrinsic obstacles that would arise from the concurrence of other causes, and attain the intended natural end. Of the latter kind, however, are all those aids of divine grace by which man, beyond the capacity and order of nature, is promoted to the supernatural end, namely eternal life, which we can obtain only by the benefit of grace divinely infused, according to that of Ephesians 2: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not of yourselves: for it is the gift of God, that no one may glory. — Concerning both aids the present Question is moved, but chiefly concerning the latter: for we inquire whether God can truly create some man in that state, such that, immune from original sin and from the punishments deriving from it, he may be ordained to the sole natural end, and need no benefit of divine grace, and ought not to be illumined and assisted by it.

Single Conclusion. — Man could truly have been created in the state of pure nature. This Conclusion is now common among Catholic Doctors; and the Subtle Doctor holds and teaches it as valid in 2 dist. 22, qu. unica, n. 7, where, demonstrating that there is no immediate opposition between guilt and grace, since a middle state could exist between the two, he says: For someone could be in pure natural things then without grace as without guilt: therefore these are in no way immediately opposed. — The Angelic Doctor affirms the same in 4 q. De malo art. 1, ad 1m, where he says: The lack of the divine vision belongs to someone in two ways: in one way thus, that he have not in himself that from which he could arrive at the divine vision, and thus the lack of the divine vision would belong to him who would be in mere natural things without sin: for thus the lack of the divine vision would not be a punishment, but a defect consequent upon every created nature: and in 2 dist. 30, qu. 1 he says that the defects of human nature which now exist can be compared to it in two ways; namely, either to it as considered in its natural principles, and thus, he says, they are not punishments of it, but natural defects: or to it as despoiled of the contrary perfections which it had received in the first Parent, and thus they are the punishment of the sin committed by him and transfused into his posterity.

Proof 1. From the definition of the supreme Pontiffs Pius V in the year 1570, and Gregory XIII in the year 1579, and Urban VIII, condemning various propositions published in writings or words and defended by Michael Baius. But among these condemned propositions, the twenty-second was: The sublimation and exaltation of human nature into the fellowship of the divine was due to the integrity of the first condition, and therefore must be called natural, and not supernatural. By the fellowship of the divine nature, however, he understands nothing other than what is had through sanctifying grace, as is gathered from proposition 12. Propositions 21, 25, 27 contain the same; but proposition 79 explains his mind more evidently, in which he says: False is the opinion of the Doctors, that the first man could have been created and instituted by God without natural justice: for he had said before that that natural justice was that in which the first man was created: but he was fashioned without sin and illumined by sanctifying grace: he wills, therefore, that man could not have been created without that justice and rectitude which the first man obtained by the benefit of divine grace infused into him: and therefore he denies that a middle state could have existed, in which man would have neither that justice in which he was created, nor the sin with which he is now born; and so he judges the state of pure nature to be impossible. — But since these propositions were condemned in Baius, it does not appear how they can again be defended by certain of the Recentiores as rash.

The adversaries answer that that censure is contrary to those nine supreme Pontiffs by whom the doctrine of St. Augustine against the Pelagians was long ago praised, commended, and approved: in which doctrine nothing is more frequent than that God would be unjust or impotent, if He were to create a creature unstained by sin, subject to the miseries to which it is now subject on account of original sin: and therefore, lest the holy Roman Pontifical See seem contrary to itself, every care must be taken that the later Pontiffs not be judged to depart from the opinion of the earlier ones. And thus the doctrine of the three praised Pontiffs was not that censure of Baius which we set forth. Next they subjoin that those Pontiffs condemned the aforesaid proposition not as false, but as disturbing to peace, since it was contrary to the common opinion of the Scholastics received long ago in the schools with their consent; for since the Bull proscribes at once and respectively many of Baius's propositions as heretical, erroneous, suspect, rash, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears; and does not determine which of those propositions in particular were heretical, which erroneous, etc., it suffices that one part of this censure fall upon this proposition, namely that by which it is said to have given birth to scandal, or offended pious ears. Finally they affirm that they themselves, and everyone else who so thinks, ought to remain with them in doubt between the censure of the three Pontiffs and the opinion of St. Augustine, which he so often proved and followed, and which the Apostolic See admonished should be followed. — On the contrary: first, it is false that the aforesaid proposition concerning the impossibility of the state of pure nature was approved by the ancient supreme Pontiffs, the praisers of Augustine, since no mention of it is made in those chapters drawn from the doctrine of St. Augustine and approved by Pope Celestine in the Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul; nor in the Canons of the Councils of Orange and Mileve, or in others specially celebrated against the Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians, in which the opinion and doctrine of St. Augustine is praised and proved. Moreover I say that it does not befit a Catholic man to set the opinions of supreme Pontiffs against one another, and to say that in receiving and expounding them the authority of the recent Pontiffs must be so defended that the opinion of the ancients be not injured; as if the authority were not equal in each Rector of the supreme See and Successor of Peter, and as if it were licit to appeal from the Recentiores to the more Ancient, as if the latter had established a contrary doctrine. — Secondly, I say that there is no room for rashness in the fact that they apply, by their private judgment and at their pleasure, the milder part of the censure to the aforesaid condemned proposition: for thus they open the way of eluding the note of any other proposition whatsoever proscribed by those Bulls; for of any other one could similarly say that it was reproved and prohibited, not as false, but as offensive and disturbing to peace. Next, it is false that the aforesaid proposition was not condemned as erroneous, or heretical, rash, or suspect; for since it is the foundation of almost all the others condemned there, it is certain that if any among those propositions are heretical and erroneous, as the censure affirms many to be, certainly this one especially, which is the basis and prop of the others. — Finally I say that it is plainly unworthy of Catholic men to remain in doubt between the definition of the supreme Pontiffs and the authority of a particular Doctor of the Church: for thus any heretic could elude all definitions, both of the supreme Pontiffs and of Councils, as if to be postposed to the doctrine of St. Augustine, or even of Sacred Scripture, to which he pretends to cling obstinately. Whence, if it was licit for St. Augustine against the Epistle of the Foundation, chapter 5, to say: I would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me, anyone can with better right say: I would not believe Augustine, unless the authority of the Church and of its supreme Rector moved me.

Second proof of the Conclusion; for St. Augustine in book 3 against Maximinus, chapter 15, affirms that man, formed to the image of God, therefore becomes by grace a son of God, because he is not so by nature: but if by grace he becomes a son of God, not by nature: therefore this is not connatural to him, or due to him connaturally: for it implies in express terms that something is gratuitous and yet due by nature: and consequently that human nature could have been created pure, without any safeguard, without such a gift. And in book 6 De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 27, he says that the power not to die was bestowed upon Adam from the tree of life, not from the constitution of nature: therefore it is false that the immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but a natural condition. Finally in book 1 against Julian, chapter 16, he says, that the grace of God was great there, where the earthly and animal body had not the bestial lust: therefore the integrity of the first creation, or the absence of unbridled concupiscence, as the Adversaries explain it, was not his natural condition, but a gratuitous benefit of God.

Proof 3. and the preceding argument is confirmed: the Angels were never infected with original sin, and yet, according to St. Augustine, they could have been created without grace: therefore also men, immune from the stain of original sin, can be produced without it. The consequence is evident from the parity of reason: the antecedent is proved from St. Augustine lib. 22. De Civit. Dei, cap. 1. where he affirms that God in the Angels fashioned nature and bestowed grace: for speaking of the good will of the holy Angels, he says: Who had made these, save He who created them with good will, that is, with the chaste love whereby they clave to Him, at once fashioning for them nature and bestowing grace? In which words he distinguishes the donation of holy love from the creation of nature, in that the former is a bestowal of grace, the latter a formation of nature. It is confirmed by what he subjoins, while inquiring into the causes of so unequal an outcome of the Angels, the blessed and the damned, he thinks it can be said that the evil Angels received a lesser grace of divine love: for how would they have received a lesser, if each received what was due to his nature? — It is confirmed again by what he subjoins, that there then belonged to the Angels what is now said of men: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us: for how would that saying have belonged to the Angels, unless as it is now understood that charity was gratuitously poured forth by the benefit superadded to nature, so it is believed to have been done then? How by the Holy Ghost, if nature drew with itself the necessity of receiving Him against its will? How, finally, by the Spirit who is given, if nothing properly and of itself is given, and no peculiar reason of benefit and gratuitous gift intervenes, besides that which is included in the creation of nature? — It is confirmed finally from book 13. Confessionum, c. 2. 3, seq., where St. Augustine, speaking of the creation of the Angels, distinguishes a twofold action of God toward them: one which he calls the creation of nature, or, as he says, the inchoation of the spiritual creature, by which it had that it should at least float darksome, like an abyss, unlike God: that is, by which it had that it should exist, but without the spiritual things of the mind. The other which he calls the bestowal of grace, or illumination, by which that intellectual creature received these supernatural ornaments, and was illumined with the splendor of grace; concerning which he says these words of God speaking are to be understood: Let there be light, and there was light. This, he says, I understand of the spiritual creature, because there was already a life of whatever sort which you would illuminate: but as it had not merited of you that it should be such a life as could be illuminated, so neither, when it now was, did it merit of you that it should be illuminated, so that both that it lives in some manner, and that it lives blessedly, it should owe to nothing but your grace; in which words he plainly designates that both were to God equally easy and equally a matter of choice: to suffer the Angels, unproduced, to remain in their very nothing, and, the light of grace denied, to leave those produced formless in natural darkness. — Whence they must acknowledge a twofold benefit of God altogether gratuitous: first, that they live in any manner; second, that they live blessedly: for he says, addressing God: what then would be lacking to you for the good that you are to yourself, even if those things either were altogether none, or remained formless, which you made not from indigence, but from the plenitude of your goodness! It is evident, therefore, that grace was not connatural to the holy Angels: and so much the less must this be said to be connatural to man. Which indeed is plainly deduced from the same St. Augustine. — For what he said here of the Angels, he had said almost the same of the first man in the books De Genesi ad litteram, where he likewise distinguishes a twofold operation of God: one by which He wrought man, that he might be man; the other, that he who was already man might be pious and wise: As, he says, man works the earth, not to make a thing be earth, but to work that man may be: so He Himself works that he be just, if man depart not from Him through pride. And again: Wherefore, by which manner of speaking it is said that man works the earth, which was already earth, that it be adorned and fruitful, by that manner of speaking it is said that God works man, who was already of the soil, that he be pious and wise. From which it is evident that St. Augustine distinguishes the productive action of God with respect to man, inasmuch as he is man, from another action by which he becomes wise, just, and holy.

Proof 4. The Conclusion by theological reason: that God can easily execute at His nod which implies no contradiction, nor does it beseem His majesty and the virtue of operating: but such is the state of pure nature; which I thus evince: this state chiefly embraces three things: First indeed it supposes human nature powerful with its essential perfection and all faculties fitted for operating, and connatural accidents, together with the concurrence of divine Providence ready at hand and naturally due to it; Second, with no supernatural gifts, by which it would be illumined for the higher order and end exceeding its ingenerate powers: Third, immune from original sin and from all punishments flowing from it: but neither of these implies a contradiction, nor beseems God operating. Not indeed the first, because He in fact fashioned all natures complete in all their numbers: For He saw all things that He had made, and they were very good. Not even the second, for it is established that man can be created by God without all original sin, as in fact the first Parents were fashioned by God without sin. Not finally the third: for since supernatural gifts are undue to nature, and it belongs to the divine will and gratuitous liberality to adorn human nature equally with Angelic nature with them, it is manifest that God can abstain from their bestowal: therefore from neither head does the state of pure nature imply a contradiction. — Further, if grace and the other supernatural gifts were owed connaturally to the Angel, or to man not infected with original sin, such that he could not, according to the regal order of operating, be created by God without them, it would follow that those gifts and sanctifying grace at once were and were not grace for the Angels and first Parents. It would indeed have been, as is supposed, and as the very name signifies: but it would not have been grace, because it repugns to grace properly so called that it be due to nature, or connatural. For the supernatural gifts of grace and glory, by which the rational creature is ordained to the supernatural end, do not regard its natural power, but only its obediential power, as the Theologians commonly teach; who therefore distinguish a threefold receptive power in creatures: one indeed Natural, in which are received accidents connatural to the subject, as light in the eye, science in the intellect, etc. Another Violent, in which are subjected accidents repugnant to the nature of the subject, as heat in water. Another finally Obediential, by which the rational creature is subjected to God for receiving the forms of the supernatural order. But it is certain that God, in the ordinary mode of operating, is not bound to bestow upon a creature even immune from original sin those things which it can receive by obediential capacity alone, since that regards a preternatural mode of acting; nor is the creature naturally ordained to receive those forms by obediential capacity; otherwise that capacity would not be obediential, but natural: therefore those gifts are not connaturally due to the rational creature. — Finally, men and Angels, however innocent, are only adoptive sons of God; for the only natural Son is Christ the Lord; but every creature is by nature and by force of its origin a servant of God, since such servitude is founded in its nature: but an adoptive son has a right not by reason of birth, but only by reason of gratuitous liberality, both to the inheritance and to the things pertaining to the inheritance; therefore neither Angels nor men, however free from sin, have from their nature a right to the intuitive vision of God, which is their inheritance, nor consequently to the grace necessary for the attainment of that inheritance. Whence deservedly St. Cyril of Alexandria, book 1 on John, chapter 13, affirms that the creature, since it is a servant, is called to supernatural things only at the nod and will of the Father.

The adversaries answer, that grace indeed properly so called is not due to the rational creature from the exigency of its very nature, or by the right of natural works; that it is nevertheless due, and connatural, on account of certain decencies, congruities, and equities which arise from other heads: for nothing, they say, is more connatural to the innocent image of God naturally fashioned with the capacity of enjoying God Himself, than grace: whence although God would not act against justice if He denied grace itself to the creature, He would nevertheless act against wisdom and the regal mode of operating, if He did not furnish to the creature itself the means for obtaining that end to which it is ordained by its nature. — They confirm this from the fact that the Theologians affirm sufficient grace to be grace absolutely, and nevertheless to be so due to the rational creature, even in the state of lapsate nature, that it cannot be denied to it by God in the ordinary way; otherwise God would command impossibilities, and the same man would sin in that which he could not avoid: therefore, they say, similarly, sanctifying grace, without which no one can, would no less be properly grace, although by congruity it would be connaturally due to the rational creature. — On the contrary: first, this response supposes what is false, namely, that man is ordained by his nature to the vision and fruition of God as to a connatural end, as will be evident below. Second, it speaks by implication; for if man be ordained to that end by his nature, it follows that to innocent man, or man without original sin, grace and the vision and fruition of God are due not only by a debt arising from the wisdom of God, or from some congruity, but even by the very right of nature requiring this end from within, to which it is naturally ordained; and consequently requiring the means necessary for the attainment of that same end.

Third finally, he says also erroneously that the notion of debt repugns to grace properly so called only in that it would suppose a work of the creature, but not that it would arise from the natural exigency of the creature itself; such that it would not cease to be, and truly to be called, properly grace, even if it were owed to nature, provided no work preceded on account of which it be judged due. For, as we shall prove in the first Tractate of the following book, by the name of grace properly so taken the holy Fathers and Councils understand a gratuitous gift, superadded to nature, exceeding its due and exigency; not merely that which is not owed to our works by way of wages: otherwise free will and whatever natural perfections could be called grace properly so called: since we performed no work before God granted these gifts to us. But that this is most absurd and erroneous, the Councils and Fathers, as many as proscribed the heresy of Pelagius, judged. — To the confirmation he says that the example concerning sufficient grace is not to the purpose; for although sufficient grace is sometimes said by Theologians to be due to the rational creature, it is no less grace properly so called, because it is not owed to it absolutely, as if God could not deny it to man without injustice; but only by congruity, and on the hypothesis that he be ordained and elevated to the supernatural end, which ordination and elevation is undue to him, and is done by God altogether freely. But according to the opinion of the Adversaries, the elevation itself to the supernatural order is so due to a nature free from original sin, that God cannot abstain from it except in punishment of sin; nor consequently can that nature be created without grace and the other aids necessary for the attainment of its supernatural end.

1. Objection drawn from the manner of speaking of the Holy Fathers. — They object therefore 1. The gifts of integrity and of sanctifying grace are said by the Holy Fathers to have been natural to the first Parents: for Celestine in the Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul, chapter 1, says: Men in the transgression of Adam lost natural possibility and innocence. And St. Augustine in many places, especially book 11 De Genesi ad litteram, affirms that men, by losing the supernatural gifts, could have lost even the things of nature and natural possibility: therefore, according to the ordinary power of God, and His providence over each thing according to its natural exigency, men before sin could not have been created without gifts of this kind, and therefore not in the state of pure nature.

I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent I say that the holy Fathers call natural not only that which man connaturally requires, but also that which human nature received in its origin and creation, although it be undue to it and preternatural. Thus the Apostle to the Ephesians 2 says that we are by nature children of wrath; wherefore St. Augustine, book 1 Retractationum, chapter 15: Properly, he says, that nature is called [natural] in which we were created without vice. And in sermon 14 De Verbis Apostoli, he calls original sin the sin of nature, or natural; not because it is connatural to human nature, but because it is in us from the very beginning of life and nature, and with it is transfused and propagated to all the posterity of Adam. Therefore although the gifts of integrity and of sanctifying grace were undue to Adam and beyond his natural lot, they could nevertheless be called natural by the Holy Fathers, because they were granted to him from the beginning of his formation. Hence it is that the Author of the books Hypognosticon assumes for the same reason that man can naturally do what he wills, and has the same gift of possibility which was lost through the fault of the first Parent.

2. Objection brought from the ordination of man to beatitude. — It is objected 2. God could not fashion a rational creature guilty of no sin incapable of attaining true beatitude, in which it might rest: but man created in the state of pure nature, destitute of the supernatural gifts of grace and charity, would be incapable of attaining true beatitude: therefore he could not be created in that state. The major is established from the fact that all men naturally desire beatitude: for St. Aug. says lib. 13. De Trinitate, cap. 8. That all wish to be blessed the truth cries out, nature compels, which the Creator, supremely good and immutably blessed, has instilled in it. Thence it comes that every rational creature flees misery, and as the same holy Doctor says in the Enchiridion, chapter 101: So we will to live, that we not only do not will to be miserable, but can by no means will it. — But they prove the minor: man cannot be truly blessed unless he enjoy the clear vision of God and his supreme love, by which he may as it were comprehend God Himself: for the rational soul, by this very thing that it is naturally rational and the image of God, is of so immense a capacity that it is satiated by no other thing, nor consequently can it be blessed, save by the possession of that immense divine essence alone, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, especially lib. 14. De Trinitate, cap. 8. and lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 1. Whence St. Bernard, in the sermon on the dedication, says: My soul can be occupied by created things, but cannot be satiated: and being capacious of God, whatever is less than God will not fill it. But this fruition of God cannot be obtained by the powers of nature: therefore neither can man be formed in the state of pure nature; since he cannot in that state be ordained to beatitude. — I answer to the major, that indeed man, free from sin, cannot be created by God without ordination to some beatitude and ultimate end; but that end can be twofold: namely natural, consisting chiefly in adhesion to God through knowledge and love, attainable by the powers of nature; and supernatural, consisting in the clear vision of God, or love, and beatific joy. But on the hypothesis that man had been created in pure natural things, he would have been destined and ordained only to the former end and beatitude. For that he is now ordained to supernatural beatitude and the ultimate end was of surpassing grace and divine liberality, according to that of Titus 3: That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs according to the hope of life everlasting. The former beatitude man desires by a natural and innate appetite; to the latter indeed, since he has only an obediential capacity, therefore he does not desire it naturally by an innate appetite, inasmuch as it is supernatural, but only by an elicited one. The former coincides with the natural ultimate end of man; the latter, however, is the same as his supernatural ultimate end. But since God, by gratuitous liberality, above the capacity and exigency of nature, has ordained men to that supernatural beatitude, He doubtless could have abstained from that ordination, free as it was to Him, and have ordained men only to natural beatitude, by creating them in the state of pure nature. But if you ask in what that natural beatitude would consist? I answer, that the Theologians constitute it in the perfect and sweet contemplation of God, as of the Author of nature, which indeed would not extend to the intuitive and clear vision of Him; but would be only an abstractive knowledge of Him gleaned from creatures, especially from separate and spiritual substances. That contemplation, moreover, would be the root and incentive of the natural love of God and of the other natural virtues of which man is naturally capable, and by which he could attain those goods which would fill the natural satiety of soul and body and the ingenerate desire of beatitude.

They insist: That sweet contemplation of God, whatever it might be, would not satiate the soul of man, for from it he would desire the clear vision of God; since from the knowledge of effects the natural desire of seeing the cause is excited: therefore that contemplation would not be satiating for man, nor consequently beatific; and consequently a natural beatitude cannot be given. — I distinguish the antecedent: that there would arise from such a contemplation the desire of seeing the cause, which would be absolute, and productive of disquiet, I deny: that it would be conditional, and not disturbing the quiet of the mind, I concede: for the appetite of seeing the cause, the effects having been seen, is absolute only in him to whom such vision appears possible: whence since to man existing in pure natural things the possibility of the divine vision, which is supernatural, would not be naturally known, it follows thence that the appetite of the clear vision of God would be only conditional, and inefficacious. But an inefficacious volition, or velleity, since it does not move man to the attainment of the desired thing, produces neither disquiet nor anxiety.

They urge again: The beatific vision is naturally due to the rational creature, inasmuch as it is its ultimate end: therefore man desires it naturally, nor can God deny it to man without the fault of the man himself and sin presupposed. They prove the antecedent from St. Augustine, who frequently reproaches the Pelagians, especially book 1 ad Bonifacium, chapter 22, and book 1 against Julian, chapter 3, because they said infants are born without original sin, and yet are excluded from the kingdom of Heaven if they die without baptism: whence sermon 14 De Verbis Apostoli he thus inveighs against Pelagius: Why do you tear away the patrimony of the kingdom of Heaven from an innocent one? where is that justice of God? Say, I beseech you, what does the unbaptized little one offend in? that he has no guilt? etc. But this discourse would not hold unless Augustine judged eternal beatitude to be so connaturally due to man that it can be denied to him only on account of guilt: therefore, etc. — I answer 1. The antecedent of the adversaries contradicts both Scripture and the holy Fathers, who affirm that eternal beatitude is not connatural to man, but supernatural, and the greatest benefit of divine grace. Therefore David the Royal Prophet attributes it not to nature but to grace, Ps. 83: Grace, he says, and glory will the Lord give: and St. Paul pronounces absolutely: The wages of sin is death; but the grace of God, life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord; that is, grace conferred through Christ. Whence St. Augustine lib. 1. De Trinitate, cap. 6. alluding to the place of Paul 1 ad Timoth. 6, Whom no man hath seen, nor can see, says: The Divinity can by no means be seen with human sight: but it is seen with that sight by which they who see are already not men, but beyond men. — I answer 2. That St. Augustine rightly carps at the Pelagians; for he argues from the order already established, according to which the intellectual creature is ordained to the supernatural end, as is the possession of the kingdom of Heaven, which indeed now cannot be denied to anyone except on account of his own guilt; because punishment cannot be inflicted upon anyone except on account of guilt: but exclusion from glory, such ordination supposed, cannot fail to be a punishment. But Augustine does not speak of the state of pure nature, in which man would not be ordained to eternal glory.

Finally they insist: Natural beatitude can be none at all: therefore all that inclination which man has toward beatitude must be toward that which we call supernatural. They prove the antecedent from the fact that every beatitude must chiefly comprise four conditions: namely, that the blessed can neither be offended, nor deceived, nor die, nor be anxious, but secure concerning the perseverance of his beatific state: but these cannot be had in the state of pure nature: therefore, etc. This they prove from St. Augustine in many places, especially from lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 25. where he says: The just man lives not as he wills, unless he has arrived where to die, to be deceived, to be offended is altogether impossible: and since it is certain that it will always be so. For this nature seeks: nor will he plainly and perfectly be blessed unless he has attained what he seeks. The minor will be established in the following Question, in which it will be proved that the state of pure nature would not be without death, miseries, and anxiety over the loss and forfeiture of any good possessed.

— St. Augustine confirms this, Epist. 52, where, after he had said:

How great is the vanity, how great the insanity, and how great the falsehood, for mortal man leading a wretched life with mutable spirit and flesh, burdened with so many sins, subject to so many temptations, liable to so many corruptions, to trust in himself, that he may be blessed: when even that which he has as chief in the dignity of his nature, that is, mind and reason, he cannot vindicate from errors unless God, the guardian light of minds? He concludes: Let us therefore cast away, I beseech you, the vanities of false Philosophers and their lying insanities: because neither shall we have virtue, unless He Himself be present by whom we swear, nor beatitude unless He Himself be present whom we enjoy: and may He absorb all our mutable and therefore corruptible self, which of itself is weak and ever prone to miseries, by the gift of immortality and incorruption: therefore no felicity is to be hoped for on earth.

— I deny the antecedent: and to the major of its proof I say that the four aforesaid conditions desired for beatitude pertain not to temporal but eternal beatitude; not of this life, but of another; nor natural, but supernatural, from which the anxieties of death and the dread of disease are banished forever: for the Adversaries themselves confess that beatitude can be distinguished as twofold: one imperfect, which St. Aug. calls less resplendent than the beatific vision. Another truly perfect, which consists in the very clear vision and fruition of God. The former, they say on Augustine's authority, Adam had in the state of innocence, in which he saw God not intuitively, but only abstractively; destined thence to attain the latter if he had stood firm and unmoved in the former. Why then will it not likewise be licit for us to distinguish a twofold beatitude, one perfect and supernatural, another imperfect and natural, to which pure nature could tend and arrive, and through which it could be promoted to that supernatural and more excellent one?

Perhaps they will answer that that imperfect and less resplendent beatitude designated by them is a disposition to the more excellent one, which that natural beatitude devised by us would not be. — But truly, what hinders us from saying equally that man in pure natural things could be left for some time in the state of that natural beatitude, until, without any merit of his own and out of the pure liberality and grace of God, he should be promoted and transferred to the supernatural: just as the Adversaries themselves contend that Adam could have been left for some time in the state of his imperfect and less resplendent supernatural beatitude, that then, his merit accruing, he might be transferred to the perfect, namely the intuitive vision of God? For we do not contend that man constituted in the state of pure nature must necessarily remain perpetually therein; such that, the benefit of God accruing, he could not be raised to a more excellent and more perfect state: but it suffices us that he remain in it for some time, that that state be not judged impossible, — To the confirmation, and to each opinion of St. Augustine, I say that he speaks not of natural beatitude and of the state of man who would be in pure nature, but of the present state of lapsate nature, and of perfect beatitude, to which we are ordained by the grace of God, and without which we cannot truly be blessed; since we now remain bound by sin, and are pressed by grave hardships and the punishments conjoined with them. But if St. Augustine seems to deny that there is any other beatitude besides the eternal and supernatural, in comparison with which whatever other beatitude be conceived seems to be misery alone, I say he speaks in that sense in which that which is supreme and most excellent is said to be alone in such a genus, and the others which are far inferior are said to be nothing besides it; and in the manner in which God in Sacred Scripture is affirmed to be alone: Art not thou he that art alone? Ps. 11; while the remaining beings besides Him are said to be nothing; so Isaiae 10: As if standing things stood not, so are they, and as a thing of nought and emptiness are they accounted of Him. Whence as created beings, although respectively to God they are called nothing, yet in themselves, pro suo modulo, vindicate to themselves a true and real ratio of being; so that natural beatitude which men can attain in the state of pure nature would participate, pro suo modulo, the ratio of beatitude, proportioned namely to man existing in such a state, from which finally he would be promoted by the benevolence of God to a more excellent one.

3. Objection drawn from the love of God. — They object thirdly: A rational creature cannot be instituted by God except with a will ordered to loving the Creator and to being loved with chaste love, that is, immediately, and only for Himself: but that love cannot be had without the benefit of grace, as St. Augustine indicates in innumerable places: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major: He cannot be created thus without being ordained to love God with a natural or supernatural love, I concede: with only a supernatural love, and which is perfect charity, I deny. Therefore a twofold love of man toward God can be distinguished; one indeed less perfect and of pure nature, which man could exercise by the powers of nature and with the aid of connatural providence: another more perfect and sublime, which he cannot elicit except by the aid of the Holy Ghost, and which is called perfect charity poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us, whereby we love God not only as the Author of nature and the munificent bestower of natural benefits, but also as the Author of grace and the eternal Maker of our salvation.

They insist, that this distinction of a twofold love of God, natural and supernatural, has neither foundation nor trace in Sacred Letters, nor in the Councils, nor in St. Augustine or the other holy Fathers: but is altogether a human fiction, devised by the benefit of Aristotelian Philosophy: therefore this distinction is not to be admitted in the Schools of Christians. — I deny the antecedent, whose falsity appears as regards all its parts: First indeed Sacred Scripture affords a trace and argument of that natural love of God; for in chapter 1 to the Romans, the Apostle affirms not only the Philosophers knew God by the natural light of reason, but also in chapter 2 teaches that the Gentiles who had not the law did naturally the things that are of the law: whereas the first and highest law signified by the natural light and inscribed in the hearts of men is that God, the Creator of all, must be loved: whence St. Bernard, lib. De diligendo Deo: Justice, he says, cries within by innate and not unknown reason, that He must be loved whose we wholly are, and that we owe all to Him, we do not ignore. For if men can naturally know God to be the Creator of all things, the Author of themselves, and the best Parent and most liberal benefactor, it is highly connatural that they can also pursue Him with natural love; for nature so inclines to the love of parents and benefactors that those appear to have stripped off human sense and reason among all, even Barbarians, who act otherwise. Whence deservedly St. Paul, chapter 1 to the Romans, pronounces that those Gentiles who naturally acknowledged God were thereby inexcusable, because they glorified Him not as God, nor gave thanks, and served the creature rather than the Creator. But the worship of God consists chiefly in His love, according to that of St. Aug., Epist. 120: Piety is the worship of God, nor is He worshiped save by loving: therefore the Apostle judges that the Gentiles ought to have pursued God with natural love. — As regards the Councils, they also furnish evident argument of that distinction: especially Orange, canon 25, and Trent, Session 6, Canon 3, while namely they define the aid of the Holy Ghost to be necessary for loving God, not in whatever manner, but as is required for salvation, or as is required that the grace of justification be conferred: for that limitation, "as is required for salvation," would be put in vain if no other love of God were possible except the perfect and supernatural, which leads to salvation and justification. Therefore, etc. The holy Fathers sufficiently indicate this same thing, as is established both from the praised St. Bernard and equally from St. Augustine, lib. 6 Contra Iulianum, chapter 10, where concerning little ones dying without baptism he thus speaks: If this will not be evil for them, namely to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven, they will not therefore love the kingdom of God as innocent images of God. But if they will love it, and will love it as much as innocents ought to love His kingdom from which they are created to His image: do they suffer no evil from this very separation? In which words he affirms that those little ones, though excluded from glory and left to the powers of nature alone, will love the vision of God, and will have grief that they must be deprived of it forever; for they would not grieve over the loss and forfeiture of God unless they pursued Him with love: but who will say that those infants condemned to the penalty of loss and despoiled therefore of all heavenly gifts terrify with supernatural love into the beauty of God to be seen? There remains therefore that their love toward God be purely natural. Add that among the condemned propositions of Baius this was num. 32: That distinction of a twofold love, namely natural, whereby God is loved as the Maker of nature, and gratuitous, whereby God is loved as Beatifier, is vain and fictitious, devised to mock Sacred Letters and very many testimonies of the ancients: therefore to deny that twofold love of God savors not of a Catholic.

You urge: The love of God, without which the rational creature cannot be fashioned, or at least unless it have it in its power, cannot be other than that whereby God is loved for the sake of God: for if God be loved on account of something else, that will not be the true and chaste love of God which he wishes to attain through God: for, as St. Augustine says on Ps. 77: They who seek God on account of earthly benefits seek not God, but those things, because in the same manner God is worshiped with servile fear, not with free love: thus therefore God is not worshiped: for that is worshiped which is loved: whereas such chaste and right love cannot be had without the true and properly so-called grace of God, as the same Doctor teaches, sermon 15 De verbis Apostoli. chapter 11, and lib. 6 against Julian, chapter 3: therefore, etc. — I deny the minor: for neither would some measure of love of God for Himself be impossible in the state of pure nature, such as is now possible in the state of corrupt nature by the powers of free will, as we shall demonstrate on 3 sent. Nor does it follow either that every love of God which is not purely for Him is vicious and inordinate, as we shall prove in the same place, both from Scripture, wherein He more often exhorts men to love and worship God on account of His surpassing benefits toward us; but He exhorts not to vicious and impure love: and from the Councils and Fathers, who commend even such love of God; and finally, because if God could not be rightly loved except for Himself, and no other good were done except what proceeded from such love, it would follow that there is no other virtue besides charity; which manifestly conflicts with Sacred Scripture itself and the doctrine of the holy Fathers. — By the authority of St. Augustine I say that he himself is to be understood by the aforesaid words of him who would be so affected that he would not love God if those benefits were not granted; as if God would be unworthy of love unless He were beneficent; which affection and estimation of the will is indeed altogether vicious and inordinate. Or he is to be understood of him who loves God on account of His benefits so that he holds the benefits as the better reason, than God Himself, whom he in a manner postpones to them, according to what Augustine himself says on the same Psalm 77: The heart is right with God, he says, when for the sake of God it seeks God.... But the heart is not right with God where it rather loves those things for the sake of which it requires the help of God.

You will insist again: That the principal error of Pelagius was that he asserted some pure and chaste love of God could be had by the powers of nature. Whence there was a grave contestation between him and the Catholics, as St. Augustine testifies, lib. De gratia et libero arbitrio, chapter 18, saying: Whence also in men the charity of God and of neighbor, except from God Himself? For if not from God, but from men, the Pelagians said: but if from God, we say the Pelagians [are answered]. Whence also lib. De natura, et gratia, chapter 2, he says of those who heard nothing of Christ, and who can only believe in God their author, and by living rightly fulfill His will, that they cannot do this without the benefit of the grace of Christ: If anyone, he says, this could be done, or can be done, this I too say, which the Apostle says of the law: therefore Christ died gratis. — I answer, that St. Augustine there speaks of the love and good works conducing to supernatural beatitude; for at the beginning of the chapter of the book just cited he had said: Human nature, begotten in a mass from that one transgressor, if it can suffice itself for fulfilling the law and perfecting justice, ought to be secure concerning its reward, that is, eternal life: even if in some nation, or at some earlier time, the faith of the blood of Christ lay hid from it. Add that Pelagius especially denied grace necessary, not for moral and honest works only, but for supernatural works, by which we are promoted to eternal felicity: and therefore St. Augustine there speaks not of the former works to be elicited by the powers of nature alone, but of the latter, which cannot be done without the aid of grace.

You will urge moreover: That the Gentile Philosophers also acknowledged that the love whereby God, known by the natural light, must be loved as more Just than all, cannot inhere in men without the benefit and grace of God Himself, as St. Augustine testifies in many places, especially lib. 8 De Civit. chapters 5 and 10, and lib. 4 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3: therefore in the state of pure nature no love of God could inhere in men. — I answer. That the sense of the Philosophers was that they willed that love, and Philosophy and wisdom, and the other eminent endowments of man, indeed could not be had without the benefit of God; not indeed of the supernatural order — for the Adversaries themselves openly confess that the Ethnic Philosophers discussed or knew nothing at all concerning the elevation of nature to the supernatural state — but of the natural order, gleaned namely from that special providence of God which does not exceed the limits of the same order, and which does not transcend the capacity of the Philosophers. Therefore in this sense in Augustine, lib. 8 De Civit., chapter 5, they said: the Author, Gift, and maker of things, and illuminator of truth, and bestower of beatitude: and that from Him we have both the principle of nature, and the truth of doctrine, and the felicity of life, which consists chiefly in His knowledge and love: and lib. 4 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3, they also said: That the true virtues are only those which are in a manner impressed upon the mind by the form of that eternal and immutable substance which is God. Nor does it matter that there and elsewhere often St. Augustine says that His grace and its sweetness ought to be given to us by God, that we may love Him: for he understands that we love Him more perfectly than Philosophy teaches, and than the natural powers alone can supply: by which reasoning he requires grace also that we exercise patience and the other virtues more perfectly, according to what he says lib. 22 De Civit., chapter 22: To this end let me be helped altogether by grace in these evils, that with a heart so much the more faithful, so much the stronger we may endure: for which purpose he says Philosophy also profits the learned of this age, since to certain few Gods, as Tullius says, they gave the matter, or to men from them, as it were the greater gift, which could be given.

Finally you will insist that St. Augustine teaches in many places that every love of a rational creature is charity or cupidity; since namely it is necessary that a rational creature in every voluntary action tend to God or to a creature, that it rest in one or the other as last: if in God, it is charity: if in a creature, cupidity. But in this division St. Augustine acknowledges no other charity except that which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, nor any other cupidity except that by which the rational creature is vitiated and exorbitates from its ultimate end: but this doctrine would be false if some natural love of God were granted which was not comprehended under that divinely infused charity, for it would not truly be cupidity. - I answer. That St. Augustine there takes charity not strictly and properly, for the love of God, whereby He alone is loved for Himself and above all things, and inasmuch as charity is opposed to cupidity; but broadly, for the love of the good and honest, whereby the honest is loved, in which sense lib. 2 ad Bonifacium. chapter 1, he says: What is the cupidity of the good, except charity? Add to these that, notwithstanding the testimonies of St. Augustine produced by Michael Baius for confirming this proposition, this proposition of Baius num. 37 was condemned by the praised supreme Pontiffs: Every love of a rational creature is either viciously cupidity, whereby the world is loved, which is prohibited to us: or that laudable charity, whereby God is loved, poured forth in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Wherefore there is no reason why the Followers of him should again obtrude upon us this same proposition.

1. OBJECTION DRAWN FROM THE VIRTUES AND WORKS MORALLY GOOD. — They object 1. That state implies for the nature of a rational being which both excludes sin and has annexed the impotence of acquiring rectitude and justice, and of exercising virtue: but the purely natural state excludes sin, as is supposed, and has that impotence annexed: therefore that state implies [a contradiction]. They prove the minor from St. Augustine teaching in many places that the rules of whatever rectitude and virtue are to be acquired exist in God: in whom must be discerned whatever true thing is discerned concerning the virtues, as he affirms lib. 2 De libero arbitrio, chapters 12, 13, 14; whence it comes that the mind cannot be wise, just, good, but only distorted and perverse, unless it love those unchangeable rules of wisdom and justice, as he says in the same place, chapter 19. Hence lib. 1 Retract., chapter 9, where he recounts and approves what he had written lib. 2 De libero arbitrio, he says: Not only the great, but even the least goods cannot be, save from Him from whom are all goods: that is, from God, and through the gift of grace, as the words immediately preceding signify. Hence he subjoins: The virtues whereby one lives rightly are great goods: but the powers of the soul, without which one cannot live rightly, are middle goods... Wherefore the abundance and magnitude of the goodness of God has provided not only great, but also middle, and least goods: His liberality is more to be praised in great (that is, virtues) than in middles, such as the will and faculties of the soul: by which he signifies that God confers a greater grace upon us by giving the virtues than He conferred by conferring the faculties of the soul; and therefore that the virtues are not conferred except through supernatural grace. — I answer 1. By denying the minor, and to its proof I say first, that St. Augustine in none of the places cited by the Adversaries affirms that the rules of the virtues cannot be known except in God, although they shine forth most perfectly in Him, and better and more evidently is their knowledge had from Him than from creatures. — I say 2, that he asserts nowhere even that the grace of God is so necessary that without it the rules of the virtues can neither be known nor inquired into: nor is this gathered from the praised words of lib. 1 Retractationum; for there St. Augustine speaks, as he is wont elsewhere in many places, of the virtues conducing to meriting life everlasting, which therefore he teaches are alone the true virtues, for eliciting which grace is chiefly required, as he indicates lib. 1 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3: If for attaining true beatitude, he says, which immortal faith, which is true in Christ, promises us, the virtues of man profit nothing, they can by no means be true virtues. — I say 3. that by those or similar words St. Augustine does not intend that grace is so necessary for acquiring and exercising the virtues that, it failing, man cannot elicit any moral virtue: for he most constantly affirms, as we shall prove more fully elsewhere, that many men even in the state of lapsate nature, outside the state of sanctifying grace, indeed even of faith, exercise works of justice and virtue: for thus most expressly does he speak of the works of infidels alien from the grace of Christ, lib. De Spiritu et littera, chapters 27 and 28: Certain works of infidels, and of those alien from the grace of Christ, are such that according to the rule of justice we can not only not blame them, but deservedly and rightly praise them. And although he says those works, if well examined, would scarcely have the due praise of justice, he subjoins: Yet the image of God has not been so erased in the mind by the stain of earthly affections, that there have not remained in it as it were the ultimate lineaments; whence it can deservedly be said that even in the impiety of his life he does or understands something of the law. And he adds thirdly: as certain works elicited by the powers of nature do not hinder the just man from life everlasting, provided Julian confess those works to be sterile unto life everlasting: and that all those things which lead to it are inspired by none other than God the Father through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. But it is certain that man would not be weaker in pure nature than in lapsate nature: therefore similarly he could in the state of pure nature, without sanctifying grace and faith, exercise some works of justice and virtue.

You will insist: That St. Augustine in the same place against Julian proves that virtues acquired outside faith and grace are not true virtues: therefore they are false and feigned, and so no moral good, no virtue, could be exercised in the state of pure nature devoid of grace. — I answer that St. Augustine speaks comparatively, not absolutely, such that he wills that virtues acquired outside grace have not the same perfection and so great force for restoring the integrity and felicity of man as Christian virtues have, whereby our old man is put off from day to day that the new may be put on, and whereby we are promoted to eternal felicity and salvation. Which when we do, he says there, we have the same true virtues because the truth is that for the sake of which we do them, that is, consonant with our nature unto salvation and felicity; for not absurdly was virtue defined by those who said: Virtue is a habit of the mind consonant with nature after the manner of reason. Well said they: but what is consonant for liberating and beatifying the mortal nature they knew not. — Behold wherein St. Augustine places the truth of virtue: that it be consonant with nature unto salvation and true felicity, or, of what sort it be that is consonant with the nature to be liberated and beatified.

The other arguments drawn from the misery of the human body, concupiscence, etc., the Adversaries reject and urge; but lest the present Question be more diffuse, he will recount and refute them.