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

The present Question is not only a necessary sequel to the preceding, but also its explanation and confirmation: for those who oppose the possibility of the state of pure nature throw every stone in their power to assail it. They assail it most vigorously with three principal arguments, drawn sometimes from natural evils, such as diseases, pains, and other defects of bodies; sometimes from concupiscence, which wages perpetual war against reason and resists it; sometimes from ignorance, which, taking away the knowledge of good and evil, binds the faculty of the will so that it cannot be exercised upon such objects. But since these men think that these things can neither be absent from rational nature without grace, nor present in it without sin, as seems to be urged by innumerable testimonies of St. Augustine, they therefore judge that state impossible in which both grace and sin are excluded from that nature: and so they deem the state of pure nature to be fictitious and chimerical.

But that we may the more easily solve all these windings and difficulties proposed by them, and establish and confirm the possibility of the state of pure nature,

Note 1. The calamities and miseries of body and soul can admit a twofold account: For either they are the pure and simple defects and appendages of nature itself as deficient and corruptible: Or they are punishments inflicted by God, the avenger of crimes, upon each of the first Parent's posterity on account of his sin, as all Theologians commonly hold; which the Adversaries deny, teaching that no punishment, however slight, can be inflicted upon innocent nature; and they contend that St. Augustine removes from divine power and equity the infliction upon the innocent of punishments no less slight than grave; and that Augustine does not speak of punishment as punishment, but as evil: and that he wills that evil cannot be inflicted except under the aspect of punishment, or cannot fail to be a punishment: finally, that he contends such miseries cannot be inflicted except upon sinners. Behold the head and synopsis of the first difficulty: whence they conclude that the divine law, sanctioned by eternal truth, by no means allows God to make a creature miserable without any fault; for this, they say, belongs not to a Lord, but to a Tyrant: whence it follows that this is as impossible as that God is not God.

Note 2. Concupiscence can be used in a twofold sense: namely, either for the power of concupiscence, or for the motion or act of that power. Again, each of these can be taken in a threefold sense: First indeed broadly, for the power or act of appetiting any good whatever, whether spiritual, or material and sensible; in which sense it is the same as the will, or the act of willing. Second, more strictly, for the power or act of appetiting only sensible things; and thus it is the same as the sensitive appetite, or the act of that faculty appetiting those things which are fitting or necessary to nature and do not conflict with the honorable. Third, finally in the strictest sense, for those disordered motions of the sensitive appetite, rebelling not only against the dictate of right reason, but also against the will rightly and justly desiring, and alluring and drawing it toward evil. Taken in the first and second mode, concupiscence is a certain natural perfection implanted in us by God; for it is the very will, or its act, by which the soul appetites good, and pursues those things which pertain to natural perfection and the conservation of nature itself. — Nor does it matter that it can break out into evil and base acts: for on that account it is no less a natural perfection in itself: for just as it would be absurd to judge that life, sense, and intellect are not natural perfections concreated in us by God, because the intellect can decline into falsehood, and the senses can be deluded about sensible objects, and life can cease through death: so equally would it be absurd to deny that the power of appetiting is a natural perfection granted by God, because it can break out into vicious motions rebellious against reason. But concupiscence taken in the third mode is not a natural perfection, but a defect of nature vitiated by sin.

Note 3. Ignorance (which is the lack of that knowledge which man is born apt to have) is chiefly distinguished into three kinds: namely, Invincible, Crass, and Affected. 1. is that by which we are ignorant of some thing which we are either not bound to know or cannot know. 2. is that by which we apply little or no diligence to knowing a thing which nevertheless we are bound to know. 3. is that by which someone spontaneously wills to be ignorant of what he is bound to know, that he may sin more freely: for example, if one were unwilling to know on what day he must fast, that he might more freely give himself to feasts. The first excuses from the whole, the second from so much, the third accuses, and by no means excuses. The first removes all malice; the second part of malice; the third increases it, not indeed according to degree, for since ignorance diminishes the voluntary, an act done from such ignorance will have lesser degrees of malice than if it were done from perfect knowledge: but it is said to increase malice, because to the prohibited operation it adds the affection of such ignorance. Now the present discourse is about invincible ignorance of the natural law, from which (as St. Augustine seems to teach) infinite sins proceed from men, even at times from saints; and with which the condemned nature of man is born; which therefore is so contrary to rational nature that whatever arises from it makes man guilty of fault. Therefore, say the Adversaries, it cannot be that man be created in the state of pure nature, in which there would be such ignorance, whose horrid darkness cannot be veiled except by the illumination of grace. Three things therefore are to be discussed in the present question: namely, first, that the miseries of the body are not so much punishments of sin that they cannot even be simple effects of nature, and therefore can exist in the state of pure nature. Second, that even in that state concupiscence could prevail. Third, that even in that state men could labor under ignorance.

First Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could be subject to death, and diseases, and the other corporeal miseries. This is the Doctor's teaching in 2 dist. 10, q. unica n. 3, where he concedes that although the first Parent, innocence standing, was immortal by divine benefit, nevertheless by the constitution of his nature he could have died: not indeed from without, but from within; because man in the state of innocence was of the same nature as he is now, as to substance and connatural qualities. Therefore just as he now has contrary parts, from whose mutual action and struggle he can fail, so also in the state of innocence he could have died, unless by the eating of the tree of life his nature had been wholly restored; and consequently the Doctor judges that much more would man be mortal in the state of pure nature. — To this concurs St. Thomas in 2 dist. 18, q. 1, art. 2, in these words: God could at the beginning, when He created man, also form another man from the clay of the earth, whom He would leave in the condition of his nature, namely that he would be mortal and passible, and feeling the penalty of concupiscence as regards reason; in which nothing would be derogated from human nature, because this follows from the principles of nature. Nor would this defect in him have had the aspect of fault or punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the will. By which words he plainly teaches our assertion.

Proof of the conclusion: first indeed from the authority of St. Augustine book 6, De Genesis ad litteram chap. 25, where, after he had said: The body of Adam before sin was both mortal because it could die, and immortal because it could not die: for it is one thing not to be able to die, as God created certain natures immortal; another thing to be able not to die, according to which mode the first man was created immortal, which was to be afforded him from the tree of life, not from the constitution of nature; he subjoins: He was therefore mortal by the condition of his animal body, but immortal by the benefit of his Creator, etc. By which he plainly indicates that man from his nature was in truth mortal, even in the state of innocence. Therefore much more would he be mortal in the state of pure nature.

It is proved 2. by reason: If man from his nature required the immortality of the body, it must be either from within or from without; namely, either from his constitutive principles, or on account of the singular care and providence of God preserving man from all corruption: but from neither head can the natural immortality of man be derived. Not indeed from within, for if the body of man were intrinsically immortal, it would not be composed of the elements, nor capable of the vegetative and sensitive soul, since these import perpetual struggle, consumption, and defect; wherefore neither would it be a fitting abode for the rational soul; for this presupposes the operations of sensitive and vegetative life. Nor from without; for such immortality would not have befallen man in a natural manner, but in a preternatural order, and by a certain special and extraordinary reason; and therefore it would not have been connatural to him, but would have accrued to him only by a supernatural way. — Then, if the immortality of the body had been connatural to human nature, God would hardly have promised it to man as the reward of his obedience, and would have threatened death in vain as the just punishment of disobedience; for on account of sin those things which are natural to man are neither taken away nor diminished; since even in the demons the natural things persevered intact: but God had pledged immortality to the First Parents as the reward of their observance and obedience, and had threatened death if they should become hostile: therefore it is a sign that immortality was not connatural to man; and therefore that man from his nature is mortal. — Finally, that is not due to the nature of man which is beyond his natural constitution: but the immortality of the body is not according to the nature of man: for man, according to nature, is a mixed, living, and sentient body: but that which is such has also according to nature that it be corruptible, and therefore could at some time be corrupted; therefore never to die and be corrupted is not according to the nature of man: nor is that power of not dying natural... [truncated]

The same is also proved of the miseries of the body: and that from St. Augustine, who seems to have held the first position in determining whether, on the hypothesis that Adam had not sinned, his sons and posterity would have been born with ignorance, concupiscence, infirmity of strength, pains, and other inconveniences of that kind: therefore false is what the Adversaries say, namely that it is as it were a dogma spread through all the most holy domains of Augustinian doctrine; which from the first beginnings of the received Catholic Religion even to his last breath he taught without wavering, namely that under a just, omnipotent, and good God a rational creature can by no means be tortured with so many and so great miseries, of which the state of pure nature is as it were composed, unless his fault deserve it. Equally false, they say, is this doctrine the capital foundation on which the chief part of that edifice which Augustine built against the Manichees and Pelagians rests, which if it were withdrawn it becomes impossible to defend the doctrine handed down against those pests. — The antecedent is proved from book 1, De peccatorum meritis, et remissione chap. 37, where he does not dare to define whether the same infirmity and mediocrity of body would have been in infants, if Adam were not to sin: whence he reasons only by conjecture and infers, either that the stature must be supplied divinely, as was done in Eve: or that the motive virtue must be increased and its organs strengthened, so that infants born could do what chicks newly issued from the egg do: which granted, there would remain in the infant as much of misery as of due perfection were lacking, and to be acquired in time. I wonder, he says, if the first men had not sinned, whether they would have such sons, who would use neither tongue, nor hands, nor feet. For on account of the capacity of the womb it was perhaps necessary that little ones be born, although since a small part of the body, yet God did not make a little bride for man, whom He built into the woman. Thence, and his sons the omnipotence of the Creator could make at once full-grown as soon as issued. But that I may omit this, He could certainly do what He bestowed on many flocks also, whose chicks... [truncated]

The Notator replies book 2, chap. 19: So great are the goods which proceed from the toleration of evils, that they ought deservedly to be despised, if even a just man suffer something of such penal molestations without fault. — Against this: it is therefore false, as he elsewhere asserted, that evil cannot be inflicted upon a rational creature except under the aspect of punishment, or cannot fail to be a punishment; for if adults already justified, the justice of God safe, suffer such penal molestations, when conflict with them can be fruitful, whence there arise a harvest of virtue and of greater glory; why should not the same equally be able to happen in the state of pure nature, namely, that according to the series of natural providence, and through the aids of the natural order, men subject to molestations of body and mind might from this acquire a great harvest of moral virtue? It is confirmed from this, that he affirms there that some good due to innocent nature can be deferred for a time; namely when it happens that by the deferral it becomes greater: and he alleges St. Augustine as author of this assertion, while by that reason he defends the equity of the counsel which Joseph entered upon in Egypt, when he at first reduced his brethren into those straits which Scripture narrates. For it was not fitting, he says, that their passion throughout that whole time, in which they were troubled, tend to the future exaltation of glory, which was to be revealed in them when the brother was known. What evil then would it be, if a rational creature existing in the state of pure nature were at some time pressed by miseries, and deprived of a good due to it, that it might the better estimate the benefit from it, when it understood from how great a misery God had freed it, and how great a good He had conferred upon it? For, that a purely natural state be said to be possible, it is not necessary that it be perpetual: but it suffices us that it be granted as possible at least for some time; and it will be, if there can be some deferral even of a good that is due: for in this way also we say absolutely that Christ was mortal, even though immortality was due to Him, and to be granted at an appointed time.

It is proved 2. That St. Augustine constantly asserts that God can, apart from the fault of man, inflict temporal punishments upon him, and that without any prejudice to His divine justice and equity. This I establish most of all from the commentary on Psalm 70, where Augustine speaks thus: I greatly wonder at the love and fear of God; fear of God because He is just; love because He is merciful: for who would say to Him, what hast Thou done, if He should damn a just man? What then is His mercy, that He justifies the unjust? Now St. Augustine speaks of damnation not properly taken, juridical and punitive: for that implies, on the hypothesis that he who is supposed to be damned is innocent; but it is understood of the infliction of evils, which are imposed upon the damned as punishment: so that God can inflict these upon the just; even though not as punishment: therefore this infliction of evils does not necessarily presuppose sin.

The Notator replies, author of this assertion, book 3, chap. 16: First indeed, that St. Augustine speaks of the just as they are in the present state of life, in which on account of the merit of original guilt God can damn them, that is, not impede them lest they lapse into sin and damnation; for since God gratuitously confers perseverance upon justified men, it can be said that He damns them when He denies that gift of perseverance, from the denial of which follows mortal sin, and thence eternal damnation; but this gift, he says, God sometimes denies on account of contracted original sin. — Against this, first: this interpretation is altogether ridiculous and alien to the mind of St. Augustine: for what need is there to presuppose original sin in order that God may deny to man the gift of perseverance; and to deny the gift even before original sin? Did He not permit the Angels to lapse with perseverance lost; in whom nevertheless no original sin had preceded? Second, this interpretation militates directly against the Council of Trent, affirming in session 5, Canon 5, and of the sixth session chap. 11, etc. that in the baptized there is nothing at all which removes them from entrance into heaven: and that the whole temporal punishment is always remitted in baptism: and that there is nothing of damnation in those who are truly buried with Christ through baptism into death. For does there not remain much of damnation and the sum of punishment removing from entrance into heaven, if after baptism there still remain that merit of original sin by which the aid to persevere is taken away, that is, by which salvation is made impossible? Third, finally this explanation also plainly conflicts with St. Augustine, who affirms in many places, most of all book 1, De peccatorum meritis chap. 37, that in the baptized concupiscence indeed remains, but that baptism works this, that it may not harm the dead what was in the born. And book 2, chap. 4, he says it remains for the struggle. All sins being deleted, he says, and even the guilt dissolved, by which it held all originally, it remains meanwhile for the struggle, doing no harm at all to those who do not consent to its illicit things. And chap. 28: But this law of sin... [truncated]

Second reply. That passage of Augustine is corrupt: for, he says, where it is read if He should damn a just man, it ought to be read, if He should damn an unjust man: then because there St. Augustine speaks of the unjust: then because his mind was to excite contrition by the commendation of divine justice; but this has its place in the damnation of the unjust, not of the just: therefore, etc. — Against this, first: there are no exemplars which report this opinion otherwise than we have expounded: whence I can deservedly reply what St. Augustine wrote against Faustus book 11, chap. 1: These men, he says, if they are stopped by manifest truth, so blunted that in lucid words they cannot find in them what their fallacy has dug out: they answer that that testimony which was brought forward is false. O blind, fleeing from certainty, pertinacious in madness: so invincible are the things which are brought forward against you from the codices, that you have nothing else to say except that they have been falsified? — Second, if in the first place that unjust had been written, what need was there to repeat it again? Third, this conduced to the aim of Augustine, namely that he might strike terror into sinners: for if God, by His absolute command over creatures, can inflict even upon the innocent every dire punishment, how much ought a sinner to fear and guard himself? For even these things they do in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? says Christ the Lord, Luke 23:31.

You will object 1. Sacred Scripture specially affirms that death is not from God, but from sin: God made not death, says the Wise man in the first chapter, but, it says chap. 2, envy of the devil death came into the world: whence St. Paul to the Romans ch. 6: The wages, he says, of sin, death: but if death were natural to man, God, who is the Author of nature, would be also the Artificer of death, and it could truly be said that He made death: therefore man in truth is not by his nature mortal. — I answer, that God indeed made it not: for He had endowed the first man with the benefit of immortality to be transferred to all his posterity, if he had abstained from sin, as he could most easily; and His intention was that he should not sin, and live forever: whence death is rightly said to have been indicted against His intention, from the sin of man, and the envy of the devil. Hence all those aforesaid contexts are understood of nature as it truly is fallen, and was innocent: not indeed of nature, which could be under the state of purely natural, namely with the gift of innocence, and free from sin; and therefore nothing against our assertion is established from these.

You will object 2. It is unjust that man be afflicted with diseases, pains, and molestations, unless by sin he have deserved these: but man in pure nature would lack even original sin: therefore in that state it would not be just that he experience those miseries. The Notator proves the major with many texts of St. Augustine, most of all from book 8, De Genesis ad litteram, chap. 14, and book 3, De libero arbitrio, chap. 9, where he says: If, sins withdrawn, misery persevered, or even sins preceded, the order and administration of the Universe is rightly said to be deformed: therefore, etc. — I answer, that miseries and corporeal afflictions are of twofold genus: for certain of them are natural defects consequent upon the very nature of men, as are diseases, corporeal death, etc. But others are preternatural, as the punishment of damnation and of eternal combustion. The former follow the very nature of man: but the latter are hurled by God, the avenger of crimes, upon sinners. Of the latter St. Augustine speaks, not indeed of the former, which could happen in the state of pure nature, because God by His ordered providence is not bound to impede the action of natural causes, lest corporeal ones, defective by their nature, should not fail.

You will object 3. St. Augustine in the books against Julian, and elsewhere, proves original sin against the Pelagians, from this, that children, destitute of actual sin, are subjected to death, diseases, pains, and other corporeal miseries: but this discourse would establish nothing, if man in the state of pure nature, in which original sin would not prevail, were liable to the same miseries: therefore in that purely natural state he would not be subject to these calamities. — I answer, that St. Augustine, and the other Fathers, the expugnators of the Pelagians, conclude indeed rightly original sin from those corporeal afflictions with which infants are subject from the very beginning of their conception. For they speak of fact, and according to the tradition of faith, and Sacred Scripture, by which it is established that the first man was endowed by God with the benefit of integrity, immortality, and exemption from pain, the promise being touched of transferring to his posterity these gifts and privileges, if he himself should not sin. Whence, since God is not unjust, nor unfaithful, nor does He fail in His promises, the holy Fathers rightly conclude, from those miseries inflicted upon the whole human race, a posteriori some sin of Adam as the occasion why God willed to strip men of these benefits, and devote them to those molestations; for fault lies hidden, says St. Prosper, book Against the Collator chap. 2, where punishment does not lie hidden, and the society of sin is convicted by the communion of the penalty.

Second Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could labor under ignorance.

It is proved from St. Augustine in many places, most truly De Genesis ad litteram book 10, chap. 14, where, since he had wavered among differing opinions about the creation of the rational soul: and had embraced that one which teaches that for each man a single soul is created: yet since thence it seemed to follow that injury is done to divine equity, in that He would compel an innocent soul, mixed with sinful flesh by no fault of its own, to dwell in that ignorance in which all the sons of men are submerged at the beginning of their life; St. Augustine answers, that no inconvenience follows from this, if it were said that the harmless soul was permitted to lie for a time in those shadows of beginnings: But when, he says, little by little from this obligation and torpor the soul, coming to itself, can be converted to God its own, and merit His mercy and truth first by the piety of conversion, then by the perseverance of keeping His commandment; what does it hinder that it be submerged a little in that sleep as it were, from which we are little by little raised into the light of understanding, on account of which the rational soul was made, and can by the will choose a good life? He concedes therefore that the soul can at some time labor under an ignorance which does not arise from sin, or which is not indigestible, as he speaks there; for if it were in some way indigestible, it would be attributed to the Creator. He judges therefore that those gifts can be deferred, with which the rational creature is not unworthy to be endowed, namely knowledge, without any sin of its own: therefore an ignorance can be admitted which does not arise from sin: because if it had its origin thence, it would not be indigestible, nor attributed to the Creator.

It is proved 2. more evidently from the same in the 3rd book De libero arbitrio, where he expressly affirms that human nature can be created with concupiscence and ignorance, no sin presupposed; for he there distinguishes the natural difficulty of those laboring from the penal one: and adds, that if ignorance and difficulty were natural, which is now penal to man, nevertheless his Creator would still be to be praised: But his Creator, he says, is everywhere praised; either because He began it from its very beginnings with a capacity for the highest good, or because He aids its progress.... For not on this account did He create it much, because it is not yet so great as it received that it could be by profiting.

The Adversaries reply. That St. Augustine wrote these things when younger, while he disputed against the Manichees, and before the heresy of Pelagius had sprung up: wherefore he emended that opinion in Epist. 28 to Jerome. — Against this, this response is altogether silly and false; First, for in that Epistle to Jerome there is not even a little word by which St. Augustine signifies that that conditional proposition taken from book 3 De libero arbitrio; if ignorance and difficulty were natural, nevertheless God would be to be praised, does not please him, or is false, as will be evident to the reader. Second, he confirms this very opinion in book 1 of the Retractations, chap. 9, where he reviews that passage of the third book De libero arbitrio in these words: To which misery of just damnation belongs the ignorance and difficulty, which every man suffers from the beginning of his birth: nor from this evil is anyone freed except by the grace of God. Which misery the Pelagians are unwilling to descend from just damnation, denying original sin: although ignorance and difficulty, even if they were the natural beginnings of man, God would not thus be to be blamed, but praised; as we disputed in the same third book De libero arbitrio. But it is established that the first book of the Retractations was written after the Epistle to Jerome: since Augustine in the first book of the Retractations cites the last book De Civitate Dei, and in Epistle 102, says that he had given to Jerome, and had at hand the books De Civitate, of which he had written only five: therefore the Epistle to Jerome was written with the first book of the Retractations not yet written; and therefore it is false that Augustine in that Epistle emended what he had written in the books De libero arbitrio. Add that not when younger, but already an old man he treated the same opinion, and again proved it in the book De bono perseverantiae chap. 12, where, having related among other things the aforesaid words, although ignorance and difficulty, etc., he says; These things I said in book 1 of the Retractations, when I was retracting the books De libero arbitrio: And finally... [truncated]

You will object 1. It does not seem congruous to divine equity and justice, that an innocent creature have reason so bound, and sunk in so profound an ignorance as is in children, except in vengeance of some crime: but in the state of innocence there would be no sin: therefore neither such ignorance and binding of reason. — I deny the major; both because this binding of reason follows the very defect and state of nature, as is sufficiently established from Augustine; And because even in the state of innocence there would have been sleep, as St. Augustine concedes, book 6 Contra Iulianum, chap. 10. For it remains in adults justified, in whom for a third or fourth part of life reason is bound, and lulled to sleep, and all use of science interdicted, namely at the time of falling asleep, which nevertheless no one afflicts as repugnant to the justice and equity of God: therefore neither will it be repugnant, that God suffer the souls of infants to grow torpid as it were for a while in sleep; whence little by little awakening into the light of understanding, on account of which the rational soul was made, they can by the will choose a good life, as we said above from St. Augustine: For if, he himself adds, book 3 De libero arbitrio chap. 2, we in no way rightly call a young tree and rude shrub sterile, although several ages pass without fruits, until at a fit time it brings forth its fertility: why should not the soul also (though little?) be praised with due piety, if He attributes to it such memory, and by studying and profiting it arrive at the fruit of wisdom and justice?

You will object 2. Error and folly, which are the fruits of ignorance and a certain disconvenience of evil nature, cannot be except the punishment of sin; for, as St. Augustine says in the Enchiridion chap. 19: Error itself, by itself, either great in a great matter, or small in a small matter, is always an evil: Who, unless erring, denies that it is evil to approve false things as true, or to hold the uncertain as certain, or the certain as uncertain? And book 5 Contra Iulianum, c. 1: Who, he says, does not daily prove, with human affairs as witnesses, that a little one first knows nothing, and afterwards, if it pertains to the lot of wisdom, knows rightly, and so from infancy advances to middle wisdom.... And you are unwilling to cut down even the root of it, or you do cut it down, which is worse, you deny it. Therefore St. Augustine judges original sin to be the cause of the ignorance of little ones: and therefore it could not be tolerated in the state of pure nature. — I answer, that these are indeed disconveniences of nature, and that in fact they are the punishment of original sin, the state of innocence having been lost through it, in which not only would there have been the greatest facility for acquiring knowledge and wisdom, but also, as the Doctor teaches in 2 dist. 20, quaest. 1, the posterity of Adam, if he himself had not sinned, would have been confirmed in grace, and illustrated with all wisdom and knowledge, and so preserved from ignorance and sin. But this does not stand in the way that man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could labor under ignorance: for since all our cognition hangs upon the senses, which do not perceive spiritual things, nor the essences of things, thence it comes that natural reason is dim and fails in many things, and labors under much ignorance and various errors.

Third Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could be agitated and stimulated by the motions of concupiscence.

The truth of this Conclusion follows and stands from the preceding. For truly if man, constituted in such a state, could be pressed by internal and external molestations of body and mind, without doubt he could also be agitated by the motions of concupiscence: especially since he consists of two parts appetiting different things; For the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for the one sighs after and seeks corporeal pleasures: the other the delights of the mind, namely virtue and wisdom: the one delights in terrestrial and corporeal, the other in celestial and spiritual goods and gifts: and therefore they have native inclinations repugnant to one another.

It is proved besides: if anything stood in the way of man's being formed subject to the motions of concupiscence, chiefly because God would have to be judged the author of that concupiscence as of nature: but thence nothing inconvenient follows, nor is any injury inflicted upon the supreme majesty and wisdom of God: therefore nothing stands in the way. The major is evident from the very Novator himself, book 3, chap. 22, where he says that St. Augustine repeats nothing more frequently with greater authority, inculcates nothing more sharply, than that God can be said to be the author of shameful concupiscence as of modesty only by an erroneous and blasphemous opinion. And book 2, chap. 18, after he had declaimed at length against the whole and shameful concupiscence, in order to show that that state of pure nature, in which there would be the same struggle of flesh with spirit, the same repugnance of concupiscence with virtue, the same necessity of blushing at so great foulness, would be chimerical and impossible, concludes in chaps. 20 and 21, that he who asserted these things would be ungrateful and irreligious toward God, and also blasphemous. The minor is proved: on the hypothesis that man would be created without sin, with concupiscence, and at the same time with grace, by which he could resist concupiscence, God could be its author without any prejudice to His divine wisdom and divine majesty: therefore equally He can be the artificer of that state, in which, no sin preceding, nature would have concupiscence annexed to itself, which reason, sustained by natural aids, could resist. The antecedent is evident; for from this nothing is detracted from divine holiness, since no sin annexed is supposed in that state, and from that struggle of concupiscence with the will, the amplest harvest of merit and virtues can be gathered. For since the Novator concedes in book 3, chap. 19, that that unhappiness of the Apostle, agitated by the goads of concupiscence, and therefore crying out, Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? is to be reckoned as nothing, nor that misery to be true misery, since it is an occasion of virtue to be exercised; why could it not equally avail for the exercising of virtue, and p... [truncated]

You will object 1. No vice can be natural to man: but concupiscence, since it inclines to sin, is a certain vice: therefore it cannot be connatural to man. — I deny the minor; for concupiscence in the state of pure nature would not properly be a vice; but a defect of nature itself consequent upon its constitutive principles. For just as from this, that man is naturally constituted of matter and form, it follows that he is corruptible; and just as from this, that he is from nothing, he is also peccable, from which defect God frees no one except in the state of beatitude; so the contrariety and struggle of appetites in man follows naturally from his intrinsic constitution, namely because he consists of a spiritual and a corporeal part, of which the one savors of heavenly, the other of earthly things. This very thing St. Augustine teaches expressly in book 5, contra Iulianum, c. 7, where he consents to Julian in this, that he said concupiscence to be natural: Since, he says, we say both that concupiscence is natural and that it can be conquered, and whether we judge either of them good or evil, the question itself is disputed between us. The same St. Basil teaches in the book De Virginitate, where he says: The natural appetite to gluttony or luxury tickles the body. And St. Chrysostom, hom. 19 to the people of Antioch: Although, he says, we judge custom, how shall we conquer concupiscence, whose root has its beginning from nature? For to concupiscence is natural; but to concupiscence evil is already of custom. It stands therefore that concupiscence is an appendage of nature itself; and therefore would be in the state of pure nature.

You will object 2. Concupiscence is not from God, but from sin, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, most of all in the books De Nuptiis, et Concupiscentia: whence St. James ch. 1: Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted of God: for God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempteth no man: but every one is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured: yet if concupiscence were natural to man, and would befit him in the state of pure nature; since God is the author of nature, concupiscence would also have to be said to be His workmanship: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major: that concupiscence is not from God, inasmuch as it is the appetitive power of sensible goods fitting to nature and by no means repugnant to reason, I deny: inasmuch as it is the propensity of the appetite to a good contrary to reason, by which it is called the fomes of sin, I concede. For concupiscence can be used in a twofold sense, as was said in the second Notandum: of the latter St. James speaks, not indeed of the former.

You will object 3. The motion of concupiscence injects shame: whence men deservedly blush at it: but in the state of pure nature nothing would be shameful or to be blushed at, because nature is the work of God; but he does injury to God who blushes at His work: For what, says St. Augustine in book 2 De Nuptiis, et Concupiscentia, chap. 9, would shame a man of any work, which not man, but God made in man: since all artificers with as much labor and industry as they can strive that they blush not at their own works? But surely that shames us, which shamed those first men, when they wove coverings. That is full of sin, that is the wound and vestige of sin, that is the allurement and fomes of sin: therefore in the purely natural state there would be no concupiscence. — I deny the minor; for deservedly indeed in the purely natural state there would be shame of concupiscence, as of the work which follows from it, not because it is the work of God, but because it is a defect of nature and an imperfection following from the natural condition and constitution: for more natural things follow any state of man which, although they do not flow from original sin, nevertheless inject shame, of which kind is the evacuation of the belly, which doubtless is natural to man even though not sinning; and therefore that shame which the act of concupiscence injects could be natural, even if there had been no sin in man. But when St. Augustine affirms that shame to be an appendage of vice, he speaks of concupiscence inasmuch as it is now the punishment and fomes of sin, as is evident from his words.

You will urge: if concupiscence flowed from the very natural constitution of man, it would be lawful for all to consent to its desires: for nature unstained by no sin cannot incline to anything perverse: but this appears most absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. — I deny the consequence of the major; for those motions of concupiscence, although they proceed from nature, can be repugnant to right reason; for nature, although good, inasmuch as it is defectible, can do something evil; since the nature of the Angels and of the first Parents had been created immediately by God, and was depraved by no vice before they sinned, and nevertheless sin proceeded from it. Whence in that state those motions of concupiscence could have existed, not that sin should thence be made, but that there should be an occasion of more goods, namely of exercising virtue more generously, and of making it worthy of greater praise and reward; because the more perilous the contest, the more illustrious the victory stands forth: by which reason St. Ambrose in the book De Viduis affirms the purity of men to be more excellent than that of Angels; For the Angels, he says, contend without flesh: but Virgins triumph in the flesh. Although indeed we cannot deny that in that possible state of pure nature there would be motions of concupiscence, the enticements and allurements of beauty, and the enticements of pleasure, which would tickle the senses, and irritate the appetite, and allure the mind, which indeed those goads of dishonest and base concupiscence would follow, which are not in the power of the will, and at which especially every honest and wise man is ashamed, which seem to be natural, and not able to be subjected to reason, as also the motions of the heart, for Aristotle hands down that both exist beyond reason, in the book De causis motuum animalium: nevertheless those motions would be fewer and more remiss than in fallen nature, and would be more easily subjected to reason. Whence St. Augustine, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, chap. 16: *This, that, he says, the motion of the genital members obeys not reason, is from the punishment of sin, namely... [truncated]

Pelagian, chap. 25, where, answering the Pelagians objecting, from the Manichees, that the calamities and diseases with which little ones who have not yet sinned are tossed about proceed from the commixture of two natures, namely of good and evil, he answers: The Catholic truth refutes these, confessing original sin, by which the human race was made a mockery of the demons, and the progeny of mortals destined for laborious misery. But it would not be so, if human nature had persevered in that state in which it was first founded by free will. Thence it follows that in the state of pure nature there would be much less dissension and struggle between the rational and sensitive appetite than in the state of fallen nature: and that man now has lesser powers for working moral good than he would have in the state of pure nature if it existed. Which indeed three arguments seem effectually to persuade: the first indeed because man on account of original sin is clad in the servitude of the demons, and is tossed about by their temptations without ceasing. The second is, that to fallen man, if he be not aided by grace, he has scarcely the faculty of keeping the natural law. The third, that through sin he has been despoiled in great part even of gratuitous aids within the order of nature, and also wounded in natural things, as Christ the Lord signifies, Luke 10, by the parable of the man fallen among robbers. But nothing of those three would occur in the state of pure nature. Not indeed the first, because then there would have been no cause why he should be so subjected to the temptation of demons. Nor the second, because man in that state would have means fitting, not only physical but also moral aids, for keeping the whole natural law, and for attaining his ultimate natural end. Nor the third, because pure nature would not only not be to be despoiled of goods connatural to it, but neither would it be to be wounded in them in any part; since by that very fact it would not be pure, that is, having nothing more, and nothing less, than it would bear of itself and in view of the beneficent condition of its Creator; therefore it cannot be denied but that fallen nature by reason of its fall is in some measure... [truncated]

TO BE OBSERVED nevertheless that man, created in the purely natural state, cannot repress and conquer the rebellious motions of the sensitive appetite without the special aid of God within the order of nature. Which St. Augustine indeed indicates not obscurely in book 3 of the book De arbitrio, chap. 20, where he says: It behooved the sons of God not only worshipping not to prohibit, but also to adjure, that each one conquer the punishment which his origin had deserved by his aversion… Although in ignorance and difficulty the soul has been born, nevertheless it is not compressed by any necessity to persevere in that state in which it was born. Which it has the faculty, with the Creator adjuring, to exercise itself, and by a pious study can acquire and take to itself all the virtues; and therefore if it should not will, to be held guilty of sin by right, as if it had not well used the faculty which it received. But these things would be said in vain, unless God, aiding, were at hand as often and as long as is needed, for the completing of the natural faculty through the aids necessary to it.

TO BE OBSERVED besides, that that aid is indeed undue to man in such a state; it is nevertheless natural as to its entity and substance; both because in that state nothing would be entitatively supernatural: and because man, constituted in the purely natural state, would not be ordered to a preternatural end; but would pursue God as the Author of nature, as it were the object of his beatitude, through natural cognition and love. — Nor does it matter that those aids are sometimes called by St. Augustine by the name of grace; for St. Augustine himself in Epist. 95 to Pope Innocent, acknowledges a twofold grace: one of creation, and as it were natural, another of predestination, and supernatural: For although, he says, a certain grace of God not to be disapproved is said to be that by reason of which we have been created, that we might be something, nor yet should we be such a thing as that which does not live should fall, and the tree which does not feel, or the beast which does not understand: but men, who both are, and live, and feel, and understand, and on account of so great a benefit we ought to give thanks to our Creator: thence deservedly even this can be called grace, because it has been given not by the merits of the works of any predecessors, but by the gratuitous goodness of God: but there is another, by which predestinated we are called, justified, glorified, that we may be able to say, if God be for us, who is against us?