On the Propagation of Original Sin - by Gisbertus Voetius

 

On the Propagation of Original Sin

Response by Samuel Lydius of Dordrecht, dated July 2, 1636

Original sin is ignored by the Gentiles, denied by the Jews and Heretics, and consequently they remove either entirely or to a great extent the necessity of Christ's grace. Among the Jews, R. Lipman, author of the virulent book Nizzahon, sharply criticizes Christians, saying that they claim God, on account of a trivial matter—namely, the bite of a single apple—condemned Adam, who did this in error, along with all his posterity, both in this life and in the future age. See his words cited by Munster in his notes on Hebrew Matthew chapter 1. Although Aben Ezra in his commentary on Genesis 3 considers this sin more serious, and the author of Fasciculus Myrrha admits that all born from Adam become wicked and hard-faced because of Adam's sin; and other Rabbis also occasionally mention the "yetzer hara" (evil inclination)—for thus they call the indwelling sin. Nevertheless, today's Jews quite obscurely remove it. Thus Rabbi Judah of Modena, chief of the Venetian synagogue, in his Italian treatise on the doctrine and rites of the Jews, chapter 50, states that Adam's sin does not damn souls, but only harms the soul insofar as it affects Adam's body: hence it is that doing good becomes more difficult for Adam's posterity. Therefore, no other justification from original sin is required than that the Messiah will remove those difficulties and bodily impediments, making our corrupt nature less imperfect and more suited to worshiping God.

Among the Heretics, the Pelagians denied Original Sin (as Augustine notes in De Haeresibus chapter 88, and John de Laet and Vossius in their treatise on the Pelagians). Today the Anabaptists, Coornhert, and Socinus follow them. See also the Remonstrants in their Apology p. 84, 87, and their Response to the Leiden Professors p. 97-98.

Against all these, knowledge of this truth and right faith must be retained in our churches, so that we may acknowledge our misery, despair of ourselves, humble ourselves, aspire to Christ's complete grace, firmly apprehend it, rely on it alone, ascribe our salvation to it, and worthily give thanks to our merciful God. To accomplish this, we will attempt in these theses to explain more precisely that perpetual and paramount doubt about the mode of propagation, contributing our small part, if perhaps some lovers of learning can be led to a more accurate investigation and clearer knowledge of this matter, or at least to a more learned ignorance.

I. Hypotheses about Sin

We will not explicitly explain what original sin is, lest we labor in vain or remove from students' hands the obvious authors of commonplaces and synopses. We only present certain assertions and establish them as hypotheses underlying our determination of the question. Our hypotheses about sin are these:

First hypothesis: That evil exists, and evil is something.

Second: That evil has no nature, but the loss of good has received the name of evil, as Augustine says in City of God book 11, chapter 9—that is, evil as such is not a positive being, but a privative one. However, we distinctly accept privation with William of Auxerre in Summa Aurea 1.2, tract 26, q.2, fol. 85, not as meaning the absence of something, but as meaning that which deprives and corrupts something.

Augustine philosophizes about evil thus in Enchiridion chapter 11: "What else is that which is called evil than the privation of good? For in the bodies of animals, to be affected by disease and wounds is nothing other than to be deprived of health," etc. See also chapters 13-14 there, and City of God book 11, chapter 18, and book 14, chapter 13. And see the consensus of other fathers cited by Suarez in Metaphysics part 1, disputation 11.

Add Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae 1a, questions 48-49 and question 71, article 6, with Cajetan, Valentia, Báñez, Sylvius, and other commentators. And in book 3 Contra Gentiles chapter 10 with Ferrara's commentary, and in the Disputed Questions on Evil. And in Summa 1-2, question 61, article 6. Also William and other Sentences commentators on book 2, distinction 46, where they teach that sin is nothing or non-being. Bonaventure on book 2, distinction 37, where he explains that the Master, following Augustine in saying sin is nothing, clarifies that sin is nothing differently than that which in no way exists.

Especially among more recent authors, Suarez in Metaphysics part 1, disputation 11; Rada in Controversies between Thomas and Scotus part 2, controversy 16. Compare our theologians: Plessius in On the Truth of the Christian Religion chapter 12, and from him Eilhard Lubin in his Phosphorus; Martyr in his Loci Communes on Sin; Rolloc in On Efficacious Calling chapter 24; Melanchthon in his Loci Communes, and from him Victor Strigelius in part 1 of Loci Communes p. 28; Peucer in part 3 of Arguments and Responses p. 397, 409, where these matters are treated accurately and perspicuously.

Zanchi in book 1 On the State of Sin and the Legal State chapter 2 determines these matters briefly and philosophically. Thus these essential predicates are subordinated: 1. original stain, 2. sin or evil of fault, 3. evil, 4. privation or privative being/non-being. And vice versa, they are divided and descend thus: Privation or evil is either of fault or of punishment. Evil of fault is sin. Sin is either original or actual. Original sin is sin.

To this second hypothesis, received among all fathers, scholastics, modern philosophers and theologians, Marcus Friedrich Wendelin opposes himself (beyond Danaeus cited below) in book 1 of Moral Philosophy chapter 3, question 7, because sin of omission is pure privation, but sin of commission (e.g., theft) is a positive action to which deformity is added. Therefore, he says, they differ greatly—being pure privation and something that by its formal nature is privative. But this difficulty can be removed in one word: the question here concerns sin in the abstract, or lawlessness and viciousness formally speaking, not sin in the concrete insofar as it is considered together with its material substrate.

Third: That sin does not have a positive cause as such, directly and per se efficient and properly speaking, but rather a deficient or accidentally efficient cause. See Thomas with his followers in Summa 1a, question 75, articles 2-3; Contra Gentiles chapter 12; Question on Evil question 1, article 3. Durandus on book 2, distinction 25, question 3. Martyr in his Locus on Sin; Plessius and Lubin cited above, who all follow Augustine in book 12 of City of God chapter 7.

Wendelin opposes this again in the cited location, question 4. But with the distinction that Keckermann (whom he attacks) uses in book 1 of Logic chapter 15 and in his Theological System book 2, chapter 4—and especially that which Suarez in the cited location from the scholastics employs—this controversy can easily be resolved.

Fourth: That an evil thing, on account of its diminution and imperfection, is understood by us with more difficulty, and therefore we conceive it and speak about it not infrequently as if it were a positive being. However, the disorder, unfitness, and vice of a positive thing—which is as it were the formal aspect of sin, or formally sin itself—must be accurately distinguished from the thing itself, or the action or quality, as from its material and subject, which is good and to which evil inheres or adheres (so to speak). Lest we ignorantly confuse evil with the action itself or natural quality (which is a good creature of God, or rather, a co-creature).

This is against new errors that say malice is essential to things themselves and deny that in sin the substrate act or natural or vital motion must always be distinguished from the vice of the act. See the authors just cited and all the disputations of all Scholastics and more recent Philosophers, and the Theologians' commonplaces and metaphysical treatises.

Fifth: That evil is rightly distributed into that of fault and that of punishment, of which the former is called base evil, moral evil or evil in the moral genus, and by the appropriate name "sin," which is defined in 1 John 3 as "lawlessness," and by Thomas in Summa 1-2, question 61, article 6 as "deviation from rule and goal."

Sixth: That the same thing in different respects can be both evil of fault and evil of punishment, yet in such a way that evil of fault and punishment do not coincide—contrary to the ignorant sophisms and inept question-begging of certain people who dare to judge these matters magistrally, and indeed in the public theater of the world, before they have learned the terms of the art. See my Thersites Heautontimorus section 1, chapter 4, and the disputation On the Accidental Uses of Sin, with all our systematic and polemical writers where they treat of sin, God's providence, Adam's first sin, and original sin.

Compare also the Sentences commentators on book 2, distinction 36, and Scholastics on Summa 1-2, question 87, article 2. Although they disagree on this: Whether the very defect of sin, as justly permitted by God, insofar as it is formally the privation of good befitting nature (namely, of honest good) is punishment both of preceding sin and of itself. But Valentia, along with many others, establishes and defends the affirmative as more probable in Summa 1-2, disputation 6, question 17, point 3. So that according to them, by the defect of sin as it is a certain damage to the soul, sin is avenged formally insofar as it is the voluntary defect of due perfection. And thus this damage is referred to God as a cause not so much efficient as justly deserting, as Becanus says in Scholastic Theology part 2, book 1, treatise 2, chapter 4, question 4.

Seventh: That sin is rightly distributed into original and actual.

Eighth: That original sin is so called and exists not by imitation but by propagation, and that it is properly sin—with the universal agreement of Christianity, against the Pelagians. See Coccejus's Catholic Treasury tome 2, book 2, article 2; the Pelagian History of John de Laet and Gerard John Vossius; the Harmony of Confessions and public and private catechisms; and all the commentators on Romans 5 and writers of commonplaces; finally, the opponents of Coornhert, the Socinians, and the Remonstrants.

Ninth: That this sin is twofold, or rather bimembered (if I may speak thus): imputed or first, and inherent or arising from the first. The former, in one person, lost the entire human race to be propagated from that one by the ordinary law of generation—as the original fault corrupting and infecting the entire nature in its root, and from it deserving the loss of happiness for both the first parent and his posterity, as the Carthusian says in his Refutation of the Alcoran book 1, chapter 13. The latter infects and corrupts each individual person in and through the common participation of common nature, because according to the most free and most just will of God, original justice was given to Adam not only as an individual person but also as the generative (I add, also federal) principle of the human race, as the same Carthusian states.

Tenth: That the first or imputed sin is the meritorious cause of inherent sin, and consequently the latter is the just punishment of the former. This was skillfully explained and defended by Tilenus in a manuscript colloquy with John Corvin before he lapsed into Remonstrantism. Moreover, that this imputation of Adam's first sin is held by the common consent of ancient and modern Christianity was proved by induction in a special booklet by Andrew Rivet, titled Decree of the National Synod, etc., held at Charenton December 26, 1644, etc. See that work.

However, it should not be concealed that while that principal thesis stands, a question can nevertheless be raised—and is in fact raised by some, among whom is John Maccovius in his disputation On the Mode by which Original Sin is Derived from Adam to All His Posterity, year 1643, respondent Nicholas Arnold of Poland: Whether it is therefore imputed because individuals sinned that sin with him in Adam; or whether only from God's mere good pleasure, so that individuals are understood to have sinned in Adam not subjectively but only causally, because through that sin of Adam the guilt of the same is subjectively in us and consequently inherent original sin.

To this question is connected or subordinated the hypothetical or textual question: Whether Romans 5:12 "in whom" should be expounded as "in whom." Concerning these questions, we will perhaps treat sometime in problematic disputations.

Eleventh: That inherent sin is simultaneously, but in different respects, both just punishment inflicted on account of Adam's first sin, and unjust guilt. Because each person ought to have rectitude and conformity with the law, both dispositively and habitually, or an inherent inclination and modification of all faculties and powers to serve God in all things always and promptly. Hence it is not badly said by Theologians that in each precept of the Decalogue, especially in the tenth, the sin of nature or inherent original sin is forbidden, and conversely its opposite is commanded: the image of God, or habitual rectitude, promptness, and disposition to all good due through thoughts, words, and deeds.

If you say that man is not bound to lack that which by natural necessity is in him from birth and cannot but be present; nor is he bound to possess or have that which was already lost in Adam before he was born: I respond that the image should have been preserved by him in Adam, the federal head and root of the covenant of works.

Twelfth: That inherent sin is the root, seed, source, principle, and origin of all actual sins—in which respect it is truly and piously said by our Catechism that we are prone to all evil. Concerning this we have spoken in the dissertation against the innovators in Thersites Heautontimorus section 1, chapter 5.

Thirteenth: That punishment is by nature prior to human guilt. For the former precedes, the latter follows in the sign of reason or order of consequence. Because God thus punishes (whether by justly denying His image, or withdrawing, or inflicting by positive action—concerning which see below) e.g., Titius, hence it is that he is necessarily subject to darkness and that original disease, by necessity of consequence—just as when light is not present or bestowed, darkness occupies and covers the air and earth; when health is not given, disease is present and inherent.

Fourteenth: That its parts (so to speak) or moments to be considered in it are these two: aversion from good and conversion to evil; or (as others prefer to speak) lack of justice and depravity of nature, which they also call disease, evil disposition, disposition to evil, propensity, proclivity. For where the principles of human actions do not have the light of the divine image nor the rectitude of original justice, there darkness and unrighteousness must necessarily succeed. And thus the Scholastics in Summa 1-2, question 82, article 1, say it is not pure privation but the disordering of the soul's parts.

Fifteenth: That original sin is not man's substance, nor qualities or primary natural powers emanating from the subject's form, nor secondary powers, nor acquired or infused habits; but an evil affection or malign disposition of nature, a permanent disordering that supervenes accidentally and now inheres and attaches to the powers and impedes and perverts their activity whenever they are about to go into action—not otherwise than bodily illness and languor. And as an infant born lame with a clubfoot is prone to limping and limps as soon as he actually moves his foot.

First, mediately and per se it is subjected in the powers of understanding and willing—not indeed the primary powers considered absolutely and in themselves, but in their order to objects both natural and supernatural. In order to the latter they are plainly dead; and thus Luther rightly said that free will is pure nothing. In order to the former they languish because they cannot be borne to them in the due mode and end, nor fully.

Sixteenth: That what many of our theologians determine—that original sin is not pure privation or defect and lack of original justice, but also inclination and depravity of nature contrary to that justice and succeeding in its place, and therefore a positive quality; and that Danaeus for this reason reproves Augustine in his commentary on De Doctrina Christiana chapter 11—this should be understood thus:

1. They speak thus in opposition to certain Pontifical Doctors or other Neo-Pelagians who dream here of the mere absence of justice without any guilt or reason of sin, and of man as a middle subject in pure naturals, and consequently of original sin as pure negative non-being. Concerning this error see Whitaker On Original Sin book 1, chapter 1, section 9; Chamier Panstratia tome 3, book 1, chapter 2, sections 9-10; Timothy Bright in book 2 On the Image of God chapter 1, section 11.
2. Or it can be said that they mean this: that this privation is not idle, such as rest, celibacy, virginity, but is such as affects the subject with evil disposition, like tyranny, anarchy, disease. Most use this last simile when they urge the positive (Danaeus in the cited location; Keckermann in his System of Theology). Now disease is a privative being, not positive, if we speak properly and attend to the definition of disease.

Disease is "impaired action"; or as Sennert says more fully: "It is the impotence or unfitness of the parts of a living human body to exercise natural actions, arising from their constitution contrary to nature." Institutes of Medicine book 2, part 1, chapter 1. For disease must be placed in the impotence to act, as Galen says in book 1 On the Differences of Diseases chapter 2.

Thus also the formal and essential nature of sin is the privation of due rectitude in actual being or in an active principle, in order to the law—or the privation of conformity to the law. Indeed, Keckermann in book 2 of his Theological System chapter 4 says with equal reasoning that sin in general is not a naked and simple privation (such as rest) which brings no evil impression and disposition to the subject, but is a privation evilly affecting and disposing the subject, like disease.

And Keckermann in chapter 5 (where he wants original sin to be a positive quality) calls upon and praises the saying of Thomas in Question on Evil question 3, article 1: "It is not a simple privation like blindness, but retains something of that which is deprived, like disease." Matthias Martinius in his Method of Theology p. 388 explains the privative nature of sin in general in almost the same way.

3. What if we say they are speaking not of lawlessness or sin as such, formally, abstractly and precisely, but rather concretely about sin with and in its subject—namely, action or quality, or with the object, occasion, and quasi-matter from which.
4. But if they speak about sin as such, it must be said that by "positive quality" or "positive" they mean something really and subjectively inhering in the manner of a habit, or quasi-habit (as Zanchi and others with the Scholastics speak), not only by thought or also through imputation alone—in which way Pighius and Catharinus explain the entire nature of original sin. This signification of "positive" is noted by Goclenius in his Lexicon.

Or "positive" is not taken by them Physically (for thus it is from God) but Logically, so that it is the same as an affirmed quality inhering in the subject. Thus it is opposed to "negative," broadly noting any adjunct and attribute of a thing, logically—so that we say: not only is he not endowed with original justice, or not only is he destitute of that justice and rectitude (in the way a stone or dog lacks it), but also he is utterly distorted, corrupted, etc.

Thus of Tiresias we say not only "he does not see" but "he is blind." Similarly, of a seditious magistrate it is said: he not only does not keep the order he ought, but moreover disturbs everything. And of a gluttonous man: He not only does not keep the due diet, but is daily drunk. And of a man of afflicted health: Not only does he not enjoy that health and vigor which he used to have, but also he is subject to many diseases.

The distinction by Rhetoricians of kat' arsin and kath' thesin is well known. Thus in sin the Scholastics distinguish aversion from God and conversion to a changeable good: they call the former privative disordering, the latter positive (Scotus on book 2, distinction 35; Cajetan in Summa 1-2, questions 71-72, where he also uses "positive" in the same sense).

And most subtly Rada shows in part 2, controversy 16, that positive and privation cannot simultaneously belong to the formal nature of sin; and if any positive entity of moral evil is attended to, it is not sin, because in itself it is good and from God the author of nature. Thus also commonly the Scholastics with their Thomas in Summa 1-2, question 82, article 1, and with them Bellarmine in book 5 On the Loss of Grace and State of Sin chapter 5, concede indeed that it is a corrupt habit that not only contains privation of justice but also perversion of all powers; or that it is languor and depravation of the whole nature behaving in the manner of a habit. But they in no way want it to be a positive being properly so called. As can be seen in the same Bellarmine in the cited book, chapter 2, nearly at the end. Compare our theologians cited just below.

5. It can also be said that whatever positive or positive quality they admit here, they meant or could have meant nothing other than what the Ethicists mean when they say that vices as inherent qualities are opposed to special virtues not privatively but contrarily. Thomas explains how this happens in Contra Gentiles book 3, chapter 9: "Evil does not oppose good positively except by reason of some goodness."

Compare the same author in Question on Evil questions 2-3, articles 1-4; and Question on Power articles 6 and 11. And among more recent authors, Suarez in Metaphysics part 1, disputation 11, sections 1, 5, 17, 22, where he learnedly shows that evil by reason of the act it includes is contrarily opposed to the act or good of virtue, and proportionally to the habit. So that these things do not prevent sin as such—that is, lawlessness formally accepted and distinguished from the being or good substrate—from being formally and properly speaking a privation, and not being a positive being properly and strictly speaking, but on the contrary distinct from it by the entire genus.

6. Finally, it can be said that "positive" is taken here comparatively and therefore improperly, not properly and strictly—in the way one privation with respect to another has itself in the manner of a habit or positive being. Thus virginity is formally a privation, and yet in order to the opposite defloration or devirgination and all fornication, it is a habit; and again, defloration and fornication with respect to succeeding virginity is not only pure and ineffective privation, but also active, namely an act and quasi something positive, and that by reason of its substrate.

Thus tyranny with respect to the anarchy succeeding it has itself in the manner of a positive habit; and yet this is the privation of privation. In the same way polygamy relates to the divorce or repudiation by which all those wives are dismissed. And lethargy or disease of the chest, which is impeded and partly cured by fever, and gangrene by amputation or mutilation of a member: here privation is removed by another privation, disease by disease (how this happens and with what distinction this should be said, I leave to Physicians to explain), and the deprived privation has itself in the manner of a habit; yet it does not cease to be privation in itself and considered absolutely.

But I will adduce another similar example very familiar to theologians. Sin of commission is formally and remains a privation according to the definition of evil and sin, and yet by commonplace writers and scholastics it is said to consist in an act (which is something positive) and not in pure privation—oppositely and comparatively, that is, to sin of omission; and all this is to be understood by reason of the substrate act. See the Scholastics subtly inquiring about sin of omission.

Therefore, let it be and be called a habit or real and positive quality metaphorically and improperly, because in the manner of a habit it is something inhering and permanent, and as a principle "quo" or elicitive produces from itself all vicious acts. Nevertheless, in itself, formally and abstractly considered, it is a privation, of which God is not the cause.

This distinction of privation is not badly explained by Bonaventure on book 2, distinction 22, of the second principal question 2, section 33: "It must be said that concupiscence can be spoken of in two ways: either according as it is punishment, or according as it is concupiscence. If we speak of it according as it is punishment, thus it indicates order to guilt, and in this way it has a meritorious cause and an ordering cause. For man deserves to have such rebellion from his guilt and disobedience. But God orders this evil to another preexisting evil from His justice.

"In another way we must speak of concupiscence according to what it is, and thus concupiscence indicates two things. For in saying 'appetite,' it indicates nonetheless excess in the act of appetite. That appetite, I say, as substrate is good and is from God; but that excess in appetizing, although it may seem to be position, is nevertheless more privation, nor does it have an efficient cause but a deficient one, and therefore, since God is no one's deficient cause, in this way it is not posited to be from God, but is rather from free will defecting through guilt and from the Devil instigating.

"That concupiscence by reason of excess indicates privation, although it may seem to indicate position, is plain. For this is concupiscence with respect to the appetitive power, which paralysis is with respect to the motive power. And just as a paralyzed member trembles and moves most swiftly, and this comes not from increase of power but rather from detriment of power, not from strengthening of power but rather from dissolution: so also in concupiscence it must be understood that the appetite burns in love of temporal things and cannot contain itself, indeed consists in continual motion and repetition of concupiscence. This, I say, must be understood to come from defect of restraint, just as wild beasts move when bonds are broken and ships when rudders are destroyed.

"Therefore, the reasons showing that concupiscence is not from God should be conceded, insofar as they conclude about concupiscence according to what it is. But concupiscence according to what is position, as was said about pains of commission, can be from God as first and ordering cause in punishing." In this or a similar way the mind of our theologians can and should be explained.

The reasons are these:

I. Reason: Because otherwise they would depart from the theses and hypotheses of the Fathers, Scholastics, Philosophers, and indeed from their own principles and axioms concerning the nature of evil and sin. See the authors cited above in thesis 1, hypothesis 2, and add Augustine's writings against the Manichaeans; and Rada in the cited location; and Becanus in Scholastic Theology part 2, tome 1, section 1, chapter 5, question 1. And Plessius in On the Truth of Religion chapter 12. And Eilhard Lubin's Phosphorus on Evil. Especially Peucer, Zanchi, etc. Finally, all reformed and Lutheran Logicians and Metaphysicians in their chapters on Evil and Privation.

II. Reason: Because otherwise the odious consequences with which Bellarmine in book 5 On the Loss of Grace etc., chapter 1 burdens our theologians (cited above in thesis 1 and soon below in reason 7) cannot be solidly refuted and cut off, nor can suspicion or calumny be clearly removed concerning affinity with Manicheism and concerning God as author of sin.

For thus Bellarmine in book 5 on grace and state of sin, chapter 2, p. 448, edition in octavo: "But in truth both seem to be Manichaeans—Illyricus and his Lutheran adversaries, but he more so. They indeed, while they define original sin to be a real and positive quality, are compelled to say either that God is not the cause of that evil quality, and through this not the cause of all things that really exist (which is one of the errors of the Manichaeans); or certainly that He is the cause of sin (which is a graver error than that of the Manichaeans)." I wish someone would try to solve this consequence.

III. Reason: Nor is the consequence with which Illyricus presses the orthodox accurately and expeditiously refuted. It is this: "Those who posit a good substance and evil quality in man are Manichaeans. But the orthodox do this. Therefore..."

It follows that too much would be conceded to Illyricus and indeed to the Manichaeans if any sin were established as a real and positive quality. Because it would necessarily have to be from God, for God is the first cause of all entity.

IV. Reason: Because otherwise the common definition of original sin from Anselm could not be retained and defended: that it is "the lack of original justice due to be present." Which definition nevertheless the Apology of the Augsburg Confession retains and defends, as does the Worms Colloquy, Melanchthon, and with Peucer in the cited book pp. 438-440, and Martyr in Loci Communes book 2, chapter 1, section 19.

V. Reason: Nor could the definition of sin in 1 John 3 be defended, which says it is "lawlessness." For the alpha privative in Greek usage clearly indicates privation. And our theologians defend that definition as a true and legitimate explanation of the essence. Therefore, it is not of its essence to be a real and positive quality.

VI. Reason: Because otherwise these most absurd absurdities would be committed: First, that whatever is in the more proximate and proper genus would not be in the species, and whatever is of the essence of the genus would not be of the essence of the species. Evil and its subject species—namely sin—would essentially be privation or privative being; and yet that species of evil and sin which we call original sin would not essentially be something privative but positive.

And to the question "What is original sin?" it would have to be answered that it is a positive quality and positive being properly so called, insofar as privation is opposed. Which is absurd.

Second, because it would follow that the opposite genus is predicated of one disparate species—namely, positive being of original sin, which is nevertheless contained under privative being—as if someone were to predicate "sensitive" or "animal" of a stone. Which is absurd.

VII. Reason: Because it would follow that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, and Melanchthon, and other of our theologians when they passim refute recent Pontificals concerning pure naturals against the corruption of original stain, arguing for free will from Bonaventure, Thomas, and the Scholastics on Summa 1-2, question 82, and approve their truth as suitable for determining this question—would be falsely attributing something to them.

For it is certain that Thomas with the scholastics understands no other positive than what is said with a qualification and comparatively (as I have just explained), not positive being properly and absolutely so called, which is opposed to properly speaking privative being. For Thomas never calls any sin thus, as is clear from Summa 1a, questions 48-49; book 3 Contra Gentiles chapter 10; and the Disputed Questions on Evil.

If they attributed anything else to Thomas, they would certainly be twisting him and perverting his meaning. For he certainly meant nothing less by his "positive" and "in the manner of a habit" than a real and positive quality. For they openly repudiate this, as can be seen in Bellarmine and Valentia in the cited locations. Compare the Leiden Synopsis, disputation 15.

VIII. Reason: Because of all sin, and especially of actual sin of commission, theologians say that it is a quality or action and that it is something positive. See Zanchi in the cited location and Rolloc in On Efficacious Calling chapter 24, p. 142, where he defines thus: "Sin is a quality or action of a rational creature that is lawless, or repugnant to God's law." Compare the same author chapter 27, p. 161. This is to be understood of sin concretely, as consisting of substrate and lawlessness, as no one fails to see—unless one wants them to contradict themselves most shamefully.

Sin of commission is formally a privation, and yet oppositely to sin of omission it is called something positive.

IX. Reason: Let there be added the consensus of the most distinguished theologians, who either openly and distinctly determine it to be privation, or at least explain its positive in such a way that it does not oppose but rather coincides with or is reduced to properly speaking privative being.

Melanchthon in Counsels part 1, p. 533: "Rightly, properly, and truly original sin is said to be the privation of justice, which God implanted in man at creation. 'Privation' here signifies what it customarily signifies to Dialecticians, as when we say: Darkness is the privation of light, or confusion the privation of order."

And later: "When therefore we say it is privation, or loss, or spoiliation, we speak plainly and properly, understanding 'privation' to be a form that can be present... That cavil should be solved thus: 'Nothing should not be punished. Sin is nothing. Therefore it should not be punished.' One thing is nothing negatively, another nothing privatively. For nothing privatively exists in an existing subject; it is corruption and confusion—as the ruin of a house is the confusion of that ordered edifice.

"Then, it is true that after the privation of light and justice, many errant motions of error follow, as an averted will from God burns with love of self and evil pleasures without God. The mind, blind and ignorant of God, plays with opinions about God; one person imagines one thing, another another, as the idolomania of all nations shows. Thus after privation follow positives, as they commonly speak, and yet the deformity or disorder even in that positive is also privation.

"As far as I can see, these things are said clearly and skillfully, and have nothing absurd, and are the true meaning of Prophetic and Apostolic doctrine. Perhaps caviling natures find many things that they can subtly object to, but those cavils can easily be explained by experts. For true things are strong, as Demosthenes says: 'Truth is strong.'"

Peucer in his Examination of Melanchthon part 1, p. 442 says it is a privative accident, not positive. And p. 432 he praises these definitions of Bonaventure: "When it is asked what original sin is, it is rightly answered that it is immoderate concupiscence. It is also rightly answered that it is the lack of due justice, and in one of these responses the other is included."

Hemmingius in his Syntagma of Institutes, title on sin, theses 19-20: "Now since it is certain that original justice (whose lack is original sin) comprises two things—namely, integrity of all powers in Adam and the approval by which Adam was accepted by God—it follows that original sin is defect, corruption, and guilt. And what kind of defect and corruption original sin is can be known more correctly from the partition of integrity. For since the integrity of human nature was the image of God, obedience and proper ordering of all powers—of mind, heart, and body—toward God, it follows that this defect and corruption is the blotting out of God's image and disorder of all powers—of mind, heart, and body."

Zanchi in the cited book, chapter 4, thesis 2, section 5: "Here I embrace first the privation of all original justice, saying that all have been made unjust—that is, deprived of all justice and rectitude that would have been propagated into them if Adam had not sinned. In the second place I also embrace the corruption of the whole nature by the name 'corrupt.' For it could not happen otherwise than that, with original justice removed by which Adam was whole and right, corruption of the whole nature would follow. For this reason I also added those words 'whole as they are, in soul and body,' to show that the whole man was both despoiled of original justice and all rectitude, and consequently totally corrupted."

And later at the end of the paragraph: "By Augustine it is also called, among other things, disorder, and affected quality, and disease. He wanted to signify especially the corruption and depravity of nature."

Aretus in Examination of Theology, locus 3 (which is on original sin), p. 105:

Q: What is original sin?

A: It is the depravation and corruption of the whole human nature. The ancients defined it as the lack of original justice that ought to be present.

Polanus in book 6 of his Syntagma, chapter 3, p. 337: "By 'positive' here we understand not a thing subsisting created by God, but what is not simply nothing nor simple privation (as death is privation of life or darkness is privation of light), but what is simultaneously both defect and destruction of a positive thing created by God, and a vicious habit exciting and generating internal and external motions deviating from God's law and displeasing to God. Nevertheless, that concupiscence is rightly called privation because it is deviation from God's Law."

Rivet in the Synopsis of Leiden Theology, disputation 15, thesis 26: "Scripture certainly, whenever it suggests original sin to us, tends to inculcate not mere privation but something somehow positive—that is, affirmative: namely, such a vice by which the flesh lusts against the spirit (that is, by which man is prone to evil and contrary to divine law), as Romans 6:12."

Ames in book 1 of his Medulla, chapter 13, thesis 5: "This sin is called man's deviation or wandering, because it is in man the habitual privation of conformity due to the law of man."

Maccovius in his disputation Loci Communes part 2, disputation 14, p. 257: "Theologians call the first part a privative quality, the second positive. It is not positive Ethically or Physically, for an Ethically positive quality is virtue, and a Physically positive quality is a natural quality existing from the creator or nature; per se it is the quality of neither, except departing from right reason and from God. Therefore it is positive Logically. But logically a positive quality is an affirmed quality inhering in a subject, good or bad."

Rolloc in chapter 25 on efficacious calling, where he made positive quality a part of original sin, explains himself thus, p. 153: "But concerning this threefold matter of original sin thus far. These parts of the matter of sin, since they are so many entities, and are from God the author, have each a quality of goodness implanted in them. For apostasy or defection is good in and through itself; likewise, the lack of original justice (since it has a certain nature of a thing made by that motion of defection) is from God and good in itself; finally, that positive quality that succeeds in the place of holiness and the image of God is from God as principal efficient and is good per se. Therefore, just as the entity is threefold, so the goodness is threefold."

Where he clearly shows that he makes original sin positive when accepted materially—in which way any actual sin can be called a positive, real, and indeed good being by reason of its matter and substrate act. Which he explains more fully on p. 154: "Just as the matter of original sin is threefold, so the lawlessness is threefold. For each material part has its own lawlessness and adventitious form, in which the nature of sin is placed: Apostasy has its lawlessness, lack has its own, and finally the positive quality has its own. This threefold lawlessness is not from God as efficient, but from evil instruments—first the Devil, then Adam, and then that man, whoever he is, who is born from Adam. For we too, who suffer from this hereditary disease, are ourselves the cause of our disease."

And most manifestly on p. 158, where in defense of the Lombard's opinion against Bellarmine concerning positive quality, he badly distinguishes thus: "To the assumption we respond: In that evil positive quality there are two things: first, the quality itself, which is being; second, the malice or lawlessness, which is privation. Of the quality itself and being, God is the author and principal efficient. But of the malice and lawlessness, not God but an evil instrument is the efficient cause." Compare the authors cited below in the penultimate thesis.

X. Reason: If these things I have brought forward to reconcile the explanations of orthodox theologians do not sufficiently satisfy someone, I ask him to communicate more abundantly and better things candidly without contention or slander. And indeed, first let him teach whether and how both the privative of this sin properly and logically accepted, and the positive depravity or corruption or disease of nature, or habitual disposition or inclination to evil, are really so distinguished among themselves that the latter should in no way be conceived and called privation or privative being properly according to logicians and metaphysicians.

Let him remember that I am asking not about the depravity of nature or evil disposition concretely as it contains the substrate subject (which is a real and positive quality), but abstractly, formally, precisely, as such and qua such, as it is clearly distinguished by the entire genus from the subjected quality.

Since I had thus explained these things with second thoughts, it seemed good to bring in an abundant caution against the calumnies of the ignorant—to examine the consensus of our more recent Belgian theologians. And behold, Altingius presented himself to me in his recently published Problems, where he determines this question accurately, saying that sin abstractly taken is a positive quality not ethical or physical but logical—that is, an affirmed but bad quality inhering in the subject, such as leprosy or curvature. And he makes the positive cause of it man's will freely averting itself from God (Romans 5:12; 1 Timothy 2:14).

The reasons by which he proves the positive sufficiently show me that I agree very well with his concepts as to the sum of the matter. But let the reader consult the author himself.

Nicholas Vedelius in disputation 2 on original sin held at Franeker in the year 1641, respondent John Roldanus, question 5, where to the objection of Corvin against Molinaeus (chapter 8, p. 120) and of Bellarmine (book 5 On the Loss of Grace, chapter 15), he thus defends the positive: "They play," he says, "with the ambiguity of the phrase 'positive quality,' which we do not take strictly or physically, nor even properly logically, but improperly and broadly, insofar as it is active and operative—in which way disease, beyond the privation (which is the equality of temperament removed), also has something positive, namely the humors themselves inordinately disposed, as Thomas speaks, and they trouble and vex the body. From this distinction of the ambiguous word, the other arguments of Bellarmine are also easily solved."

Cloppenburg in his disputation on the state of man under the fall held at Franeker in the year 1646, disputation 5 (which is the 2nd on the sin of origin), most plainly determines this question, expressly corrects the improper and somewhat harsh phrase of some concerning the positive, and rightly presses them with this argument in thesis 8:

"Indeed, those who speak thus without that heresy of interpolated Manicheism, unwillingly with precision and exactness as if they deemed Original Sin to be something positive, whether a habit or another quality, cannot defend their opinion except by establishing one of these two: either that souls are by traduction, and in their generation sin is simultaneously generated by positive act; or that they are indeed created by God pure, but infected by the Seed or impure Flesh."

And in thesis 14: "On account of these and similar intervening questions, it is altogether safer to believe that original sin is formally the Privation of original justice, than that it is something Positive—since with it, no less than from that hypothesis, it is believed to be sin in the true sense and habitual aversion of nature from God."

Maccovius in his recently published posthumous little works, in Anti-Socinus p. 83: "Namely, in inherent sin there are two things materially: one is the lack of original justice; the other is the natural propensity to evil. The formal reason of sin is placed in both, namely in the privation and in the propensity. For the privation by itself without the propensity is punishment; the propensity of itself without the privation is not culpable—for thus man was created by God prone to love himself; this was good. But the privation, and the propensity deprived of that bond of rectitude, are both culpable—and thus man sins."

And p. 85: "To this question [namely, whether concupiscence materially taken is only privation or also a positive quality] I respond: I judge it better not to assert that concupiscence materially is a positive quality. For: I. If it were, we would then have to say that the propagation of original sin is done through the body. But this cannot be said. II. Philosophers teach that like begets like in species; therefore, since the parent has such concupiscence, his child born from him cannot not have the same; but that the parent has it appears to us to follow from the sole privation of original justice. III. If we call it a positive quality, we seem to confess that it comes from God as from an efficient cause; but we must say that it is only from God as from a just judge. IV. Privation of rectitude suffices for the definition of lawlessness. How therefore we should respond to the question proposed, appears from what has been said."

And p. 87: "But observe that when concupiscence is thus opposed to original justice (which is the image of God in us and a good quality left in us in the first creation, uniting and holding together soul and body in order and directing all things to God), we should not understand this opposition in the manner of two contrary qualities (for it is of the nature of each of such qualities that one positive quality expels another positive quality from the same subject); but as of a positive quality and privation or bad disposition (which it is more correct to call a privation in a broad sense or equivocally than a positive quality), arising per accidens from the removal of original justice by the just judgment of God, succeeding it and holding its place."

Altingius in his Problems of Theology: "It is statuted to inhere in the seed and embryo from the very beginning of conception, but inchoatively, dispositively, materially. Nor does Ketlet dissent in book 1 of Miscellaneous Theology (written in English), chapter 6: 'As if a spiritual infection were in the seed, which is not sin actually or formally, but virtually—in the way infection in the seed of a leper is not leprosy or disease formally but only virtually.'"

With this roughly agrees the explanation of Zegedinus in his Loci Communes p. 236; of Thomas in his disputed question on the original, question 4, article 4, and in Summa 1-2, question 83 and book 3, article 1, and his commentators Cajetan and Valentia in the cited location. The words of Alagona in his Compendium of Thomas 1-2, question 83, are these: "Original sin, as it is in the first cause, is in Adam; as it is in an instrumental cause, it is in corporeal seed, not in flesh; as in a subject—because flesh is not capable of guilt except by reason of punishment—it is in the soul."

Valentia adds in the cited location: "The body, seed, and sown thing are not infected subjectively with an evil quality, but are only said to be polluted causally (Stapleton says 'dispositively') insofar as they are certain instruments by which Adam's guilt is derived to posterity in the ordinary manner of generation."

This mode the authors cannot explain unless they either presuppose that the soul was created existing pure and holy (which is false—see Francis Junius on Genesis 2) or at least attribute physical action to the body upon the soul, and that either by God's occult judgment, as Pareus says Against Bellarmine book 4 On the Loss of Grace chapter 12; or by natural concomitance and communication that is between matter and form, as Estius says in book 2, distinction 31, article 1; or by God's ordination, which established that this stain should flow and be derived from the head Adam into all, and that through seed as a vehicle. Zanchi in On the State of Sin and Legal State book 1, chapter 4, thesis 3, at argument 4, where with distinctions and cautions applied, he strives to defend this opinion against exceptions and reasons, and cites there for himself Calvin in book 2 of the Institutes chapter 1, sections 5-7. The same author in On the Works of Creation part 3, book 2, chapter 5.

But this opinion is refuted:

1. Because our theologians at least cannot concede physical action of the body upon the soul unless they cease to attack the Pontifical opinions about the action of corporeal things and fire upon demons and damned souls, and about the direct action of baptismal water upon the soul of those baptized.

2. Because it is presupposed that the seed is the subject of infection or sin virtually. But I would like it to be proved and explained what virtual sin is, distinct from actual sin; and that seed or body is the subject of sin, and not only man. Zanchi in the cited location tries to respond thus to the difficulties objected to this his opinion:

"That this contagion and sin is first in flesh as in a root, and therefore inchoatively by inchoation, etc.; but when the soul has come, it is perfected in it and more kindled, as in suitable matter or subject."

Which he explains there with certain similitudes.

Response: The explanation is indeed clear and ingenious, but there is no proof. For the principle is always begged, and those hypotheses about human seed and about the embryo as subject of sin; about corporeal contagion to be propagated corporally through the body; about infection of the soul through the body—as if sin were the substance of Flacius Illyricus (not otherwise than a fetid or poisonous vapor in corporeal things), or at least a real and positive passive quality in the third species of quality.

All of which are too crude to be digested by a philosophical stomach. And this opinion could be attacked with almost the same reasons with which Whitaker in book 1 On Original Sin chapter 8 attacks the opinion of Thomas in Summa 1-2, question 83, article 2, section 1. But we attack this mode more fully below in thesis 3.

V. Corollary: Nor do they explain the mode or respond anything distinctly to the posterior question proposed distinctly in thesis 3, who say that the mode of propagation is generation from corruptible seed terminated to a human person. Here only the prior question proposed in thesis 3 is answered, and indeed only to its first member—so that the latter member remains unexplained and undecided, and not even is the mode of generation by traduction of the soul from parents excluded. So that if this explanation is compared with those things that are left undecided, it is a mere explanation of the "that," but none of the "why" or causal.

VI. Corollary: The opinion of Vedelius in his new Theological Little Works, where in the controversial questions on God and creation, p. 226, he speaks thus: "As to the posterior part (namely, the positive corruption of the whole nature), parents by means of or with the cooperation of their soul, which has the power of generating, produce the body of the infant, and through that infect its soul. And thus it is infected by the soul of the parent as by a principal cause, by the body as by an instrumental cause of the parents' soul"—this opinion remains subject to most of the difficulties already touched upon.

VII. Corollary: Nor does the distinction of Alagona in his Compendium of the Summa of Thomas 1-2, question 83, article 1, sufficiently satisfy: "The infusion of the soul, as it indicates order to God, is not the cause of sin, just as God is not; but in order to the flesh, when it is infused, thus. Likewise, it is better that it exist with a corrupted body than not to exist at all, especially since it can be cleansed through grace."

Response: This opinion is subject to the same arguments as the preceding ones because it presupposes that flesh per se and separately, without the soul, is the subject of sinful corruption, and from there it is derived into the soul, and the essence of the soul is infected first, and then the powers by the corrupted flesh.

I add that the distinction itself of the infusion of the soul in order to God and in order to flesh into which it infuses the soul labors under obscurity and impropriety (not to say something graver). For if it can rightly be said that God by His infusion in order to the flesh into which He infuses the soul is the cause of sin, how by equal reasoning could it not be said that God by the infusion and impression of first and second grace into a sinful or imperfect man is the cause of sin—not indeed in order to God, but in order to man, e.g., Peter, to whom grace is impressed?

If our theologians, in the controversy about the imperfection of our works and our sanctification in this life (concerning which see Beza's excellent treatise and after him Davenant's On Justification), had said that the Impression of divine grace or the Holy Spirit is the cause of sin and culpable defect as it indicates order to corrupt or imperfect man, totally or partly carnal, to whom grace is infused or impressed—but is not the cause of sin as it indicates order to God—would they not cry out that God is made the author of sin?

III. Conclusion: The soul of the father producing the soul of Titius, or by any other traduction, whether from some spiritual and incorporeal seed (thus Bright in his Physics), is not the cause of this sin, as the Luciferians wanted, and most Western Doctors, as Jerome testifies in his letters to Marcellina and Anapsuchia. He attacks their opinion in his letter to Pammachius against John of Jerusalem and in Apology 2 against Rufinus, although Augustine wavered, as is clear from book 2 of Retractations chapter 56, book 10 On Genesis Literally, and the book On the Origin of the Soul.

This entire invention, which seems to be adopted by today's Lutherans, rests on those false hypotheses: That generation consists in the production of forms. Which see refuted by the Scholastics and more recent thinkers who philosophize from them. That the soul is the adequate subject of sin. Which, although Whitaker in book 1, chapter 8 urges against the Pontificals, is nevertheless rightly corrected by Pareus on Romans 5:12, p. 492. And that sin is a positive quality or a certain corporeal contagion that is first in the soul and thence passes into the body and is communicated to it. That the human soul is not or cannot be produced by God's immediate creation.

All of which, since they are gratuitously presupposed, we deny with the same facility. Besides, the adversaries of the creation of souls can explain no certain traduction, although divided into five sects they have devised five modes, all of which see refuted in Baronius in the cited location.

IV. Conclusion: It remains therefore that there is no other particular, proper, and proximate efficient cause (deficient, that is) of original sin than each man in whom original sin is, and that through his sin in Adam as meritorious cause and through his own defectibility. For when no obstacle is placed by God from justice on account of the first sin, it necessarily and consequently falls into defect and evil disposition and erupts as soon as man is man.

For being destitute, he destitutes himself and pours out from himself and into himself and flows (so to speak) together with his faculties and active principles this unrighteousness—just as when the sun does not supply its light, darkness is actually present.

Therefore, each person is simultaneously both the proximate principle and subject of his own individual original sin, and the author and possessor—just as man is of his own natural faculties and acquired habits. And Adam himself was such of this original disease in his own person.

If anyone seeks a further cause, it should no more be given or can be than when the mutability of Adam is alleged for his defect or fall. If anyone responding to those asking what is the intrinsic, proximate, physical, and direct efficient (or rather deficient) cause by which Adam's lability was promoted to actual fall, and by which his mutability came from justice into injustice and produced or was made to produce the first actual sinful motion or first actual lawlessness—if anyone can respond accurately and in terms so as to satisfy himself and others, he will also by equal reasoning respond and satisfy those inquiring about the proximate, physical, direct cause by which original inherent sin is first generated and actually results and exists in each man.

But if he cannot ascend beyond what we have already brought forward in explaining the origin of inherent sin in explaining the origin and first intrinsic, physical, direct cause of the first sin of the first parents, and consequently confess learned ignorance, let him prefer to acquiesce in Melanchthon's counsel (see part 2 of Counsels p. 127) rather than to entangle his own and readers' minds with absurd word-battles and irrational reasons. For whoever here seeks further things seem to absurdly imagine:

1. That there is a real and positive per se cause that by real action and causality produces this sin.
2. And consequently that causality, propagation, and communication here are positive and Physical, not privative and moral.
3. That the transfused sin is like a liquid, or a passive quality, and therefore is traduced as heat is traduced from fire into wood, or odor from a flower or spice into the hand or clothes, etc.

When rather it should be conceived in nearly the mode by which participation of rights and dominions (which offspring would receive at the first instant of conception or birth from the force of a paternal contract that had been entered into many years before) is conceived—and conversely is conceived some privation of privileges, likewise poverty, ignominy of a family imposed because of the crime of the progenitor. Explain, I ask, how that is propagated and traduced, and you will have explained by analogy the propagation of sin.

Concerning whatever remains incomprehensible to us here, we conclude with Augustine in book 2 On Marriage and Concupiscence chapter 22, when the Pelagian Julian asked through what hidden crack it entered: "Why do you seek," he says, "a hidden crack when you have an open door? 'Through one man,' says the Apostle, 'sin entered into the world.'" And in book 5 On the Morals of the Church chapter 21, where he confesses that nothing is better known than that original sin is traduced, nothing more obscure than how it is traduced. And with Whitaker in book 1 On Original Sin chapter 8: "How it was propagated from Adam to posterity must be believed rather than investigated; it can be investigated more easily than understood, and is understood better than explained."

I have said what I could in so obscure and vexed a question, so that the objection of adversaries may be answered clearly and solidly. Their objection is this:

"If sin is propagated from parents into posterity, it is propagated either through the soul or through the body. Not through the soul, because then it would necessarily be propagated either from the corrupt soul of parents or from corrupt seed by traduction; or a soul infected with sin would be created by God and united to the body. But both are absurd. Not through the body, because then either the body or seed would be the subject of sin, and the infected body would infect the soul, previously pure, as soon as it was united to it. All of which are absurd and inexplicable."

And this was formerly Pelagius's and his followers' principal argument, as also Pighius's and today's Pelagians. And indeed, Zanchi says in the cited location at argument 9, it is not nothing.

If anyone brings us more and better things, or more expedient ones, for the illustration of this matter, we will certainly thank him. But lest we be weighed down by suspicion, as if we wanted to pursue new and vain curiosities and indeed heterodoxies (as today there is a great crop of cavillers), I looked around in my manner after the first edition of this disputation to see which theologians I could praise as supporters in this part, so that I might adorn a second edition with this cloud of witnesses.

And behold, Ursinus presented himself in his Theological Treatises p. 204: "But even if they could obtain the entire Minor, nevertheless there is another response to the Major sufficient, so that it is not necessary to dispute anxiously either about traduction or about the mode of propagation of original sin. For even if we concede that the souls of individual men are created by God when they begin to live, nevertheless we must not imagine that souls exist for some time before they are inserted into bodies. For they are both created and united to the body simultaneously, as it is said, 'He breathed into his face the spirit of life.'

"Just as the substance of bodies also, although taken from the substance of parents, is nevertheless rightly said to be created—that is, formed—by God; and the substances of sinning men as well as of devils are conserved by God; yet on account of this God does not become the author or conserver of their sin or malice: so also the substance and natural faculties of souls God both creates and deprives of His gifts—which He had given to Adam on the condition that He would also give them to posterity if he retained them, but would not give them if he cast them away through his ingratitude.

"The soul deprived of divine spirit and light, although it is inclined to appetites and operations, is nevertheless blind and not inclined to such appetites and actions as God's law requires. And by this reasoning, inclinations despoiled of their rectitude exist evil by their own nature and fight with divine law. Those defects in mind, will, and heart, insofar as they are inflicted by God on them and their posterity, are just punishments of sin committed by parents and offspring in parents. But the inclinations vitiated by these defects, and the defects themselves (because they make it so that man neither is nor can be conformed to divine law), insofar as they are drawn to themselves and their offspring by sinning, and are received by both and exist in both, are sins.

"The sum therefore is that souls are created by God and as part of the offspring of sinning parents are punished by privation of justice; and simultaneously while these things happen, they are corrupted by the guilt of the first parents, who had drawn this privation to themselves and their posterity by their sin, according to the saying: 'By one man's transgression many died.' Likewise: 'By the disobedience of one man many were made sinners.'"

"Since this member of the division was omitted in the major premise, there is no consequence of the argument."

Danaeus in part 3 of his Isagoge chapters 18-19, concerning whom I especially rejoice that he expressly denies that generation is a cause, and warns that two questions must be accurately distinguished:

Thus he says in chapter 19, p. 151: "Others imagine different things to explain this mode. But this has been partly explained by us already. For the mode of this propagation must be completely separated from its cause. For one question is what is the cause of this propagation; another is what is its mode. The cause of fever is abundance of yellow bile; the mode of bringing it on was either excessive drinking or too much wakefulness.

"Concerning the cause, it is the just ordination and law of God concerning the sin of the first man. Therefore, the mode remains to be expounded, although we have already partly said in the preceding chapter what it is. The mode is the propagation of man from man, which happens by that law of nature by which each thing procreates its like. Thus a horse is propagated from a horse; from an ox, an ox; from a serpent, a serpent; from a viper, a viper is born—and that by natural law. From the noble, noble things; from the ignoble, ignoble things. Therefore, from man, and indeed from a corrupt one, a man also corrupt is necessarily procreated—just as from a poisonous serpent a poisonous serpent, from an elephantic or leprous father, a leprous son.

"This reason of propagation has nothing obscure or difficult. Wherefore, by the law of being born from sinful parents, children become sinners. And this is the mode of propagating Original sin. But, as I said, not the cause, because that man is made, it is necessary that he be infected with this sin: therefore, he must be born from man. Wherefore, the mode of propagating this sin is the procreation of man from man. The cause, however, is that he is born under this law and punishment imposed by God on Adam for sin.

"From which it is also clear that the actual sin by which we all sinned in him directly causes this original sin; generation or propagation, however, only applicatively—substituting, that is, the subject in which that common sin produces its effect. Although indeed that now many thousands of years have passed does not prevent it from producing its effect, for it is a moral cause, not real; and a moral cause, when it produces its effect, need not exist.

"But we do not deny that there is also some vice in the body. For we feel concupiscence itself in the flesh or lower part, which is called sensuality, concerning which also St. Paul says so much, and especially in Romans 7, where he speaks of the evil inhabiting in the flesh and opposing the law of the mind. But we said that that vice is not a positive quality, but is sensuality itself insofar as it is naturally apt and prone not to obey reason but to lust against right reason—not from some implanted quality inciting it, but from the lack of original justice, which perfectly subjected it to reason."

Cloppenburg in The Gangrene of Anabaptist Theology, disputation 4, thesis 12: "The Remonstrants explain the emanation or propagation of evil (correctly thus far at least) by that natural condition which they draw from Adam as sinners—by which, deprived of the good of grace and glory, they cannot propagate posterity otherwise than deprived of the same good," p. 57 verso.

Among the Pontificals, Lorinus inculcates almost the same thing, except that he mixes in the error about removed original sin, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes 12:7, p. 489: "It suffices that the soul is touched by contact with the body that the generating man made and prepared; in such a generated man with nature, original sin common to the whole nature immediately enters, propagated by such generation, given that old LAW and covenant of GOD with the first parent as with the Author and Head of the entire university of men henceforth to be generated, although the soul of the one generating may lack original sin from which it has now been justified. And thus almost Bellarmine in book 4 On the Loss of Grace, and before him Durandus on book 2, distinction 31, question 2, where they reject the mode of propagation through flesh and infection of the soul from flesh, and finally what as to the sum of the matter they conclude with us."

The words of Durandus, who is perhaps not at hand for everyone, I exhibit here: "Nor is it otherwise traduced except that defective nature is traduced by one who made himself and us such... It is not traduced from the soul of the father, nor [is the soul] drawn from corrupt seed by traduction. But from the just ordination of God it happens that in the very instant in which the rational soul is created and infused into an organic body from such seed, [original sin exists]. Therefore, although the rational soul is produced pure by God, as is clear—yet nevertheless on account of the sin of the first parent who corrupted human nature, it is propagated vicious in its posterity, and consequently propagates it vicious..."

The words of Durandus, I exhibit here: "Nor is it otherwise traduced except because defective nature is traduced by him who subjected himself and us to such defects by his guilt." And later, at distinction 32, question 2: "Such guilt, which can be called sin, comes to us from the first parent; but the very punishment we incur is from God to us." And a little later: "Original sin, insofar as it names guilt, is not contracted from the fact that the soul is united to flesh absolutely, etc., but is contracted through the fact that the whole composite of soul and body is traduced in the manner spoken of above from one who sinned."

Scotus says almost the same thing on book 2, distinction 32. Scharpius cited part of his words in the cited location.

We add certain problems related to this controversy:

I. Problem: If it is explained thus, and both questions are statuted by the Pontificals as we have now explained them, and in general it is established by both parties that there is depravity or corruption of nature that is formally a privation, does any real controversy remain between us and them?

Response: Affirmative. Because they (at least most of them) constitute that privation in the defect of a per se supernatural gift (namely, original justice), with which absent man nevertheless has free will for good and for evil. See Bellarmine in the cited location and Gregory of Valentia on Summa 1-2, disputation 6, question 15, point 1, and others cited by those two.

And compare from our theologians Whitaker throughout book 2. Moreover, they say that positive inclination or propensity to evil is of the lower appetite or sensuality, etc., not of the will—which we deny. See Whitaker book 1 from chapter 1 to the end.

Furthermore, they want the defect of original justice and the destitute sensitive appetite considered according to themselves to have the nature of punishment only and not of guilt; but that according to extrinsic denomination it somehow has the nature of guilt insofar as this defect is referred to Adam's first sin from which it is produced through vitiated origin. Thus Thomas in Summa 1-2, question 82, article 4; Viguerius in his Institutes chapter 18, section 5, verse 1, fol. 244. Which we do not concede.

Finally, they say that the fomes is something indifferent and an occasion of sin, but properly and formally is not sin.

II. Problem: What should be determined about Arminius's opinion in disputation 31, thesis 10?

Response: If he wanted nothing other than what we said above, and admitted that distinction about privative and positive that our theologians cited above inculcate, then certainly we do not contend with him. But if the serpent of the Pelagians and Pontificals lay hidden under that grass, and to extenuate the efficacy of sin and corruption and assert the powers of free will for good, he attacks the positive here—as Corvinus does against Molinaeus chapter 8, pp. 119-120—this assertion is suspect to us.

III. Problem: Whether and how Christ was and was not in Adam, so that he was immune from both imputed and inherent original sin?

Response: We establish that Christ was in Adam physically according to the origin of his flesh (Acts 17, compared with Luke 3:23, 38), against the Anabaptists and Weigelians. For Adam was the common principle and root of the human race, from whose loins all men were born in a long series successively; and among them David, from whom through intervening ancestors Christ (Matthew 1:2; Acts 2:30), whose generation was univocal, although the mode was supernatural.

Nevertheless, we deny that he was in Adam morally and federally according to the confederation with Adam as the principle, root, representative head of the common covenant initiated by God with him. We consequently deny that he was a consort, participant, and confederate of Adam so considered, and that he suffered federally with the same and participants of him (so to speak) in the covenant. Which becomes known to us a posteriori from the very event and fact of sinlessness (Hebrews 7:26), and from the antithetical comparison of the first and second Adam and the confederated members of each, as well as the covenant of works or the old covenant and grace or the new covenant (Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15).

We deny, finally, that the guilt of Adam's sin could or should have been imputed to Christ, and consequently that the depravity of nature could have been penally traduced into him—because he was not in Adam, nor did he have anything in common with him as a confederate, member, and participant of the Adamic covenant, nor was he considered or reputed in him as in the head and federal root.

For what place would there be for the second Adam and other head and opposite federal root, the mediator of the new covenant, in the old covenant or in the head of the old covenant?

And this I think is the higher cause to which we must ascend when it is asked why Christ was not subject to sin equally with other men. Respond: Because by God's justice he did not incur that punishment that we all incur.

If it is asked why he did not incur it? Response: Because he neither sinned in Adam nor was he reputed and considered in Adam qua head and root of the first covenant, and consequently the judgment and guilt of the first sin did not reach him.

If it is asked why he was not in Adam so considered? Response:

1. Because God's good pleasure (which is the sole foundation of our inclusion and reputation in Adam as common principle and federal head) was that he should not be in him.
2. And because there is no consideration or reputation of the second Adam and mediator, no necessity for him in the old covenant, and no part for him there.
3. I also add: Because absolutely he could not be and be considered in that covenant under this condition—that, the principle and root standing, he would stand with it; falling, he would fall. For it would imply a contradiction if it were said of the human nature assumed or to be assumed hypostatically by God, and therefore of the divine person: "He can sin, he can not sin"; consequently, "He can be penally subjected to original sin, both imputed and inherent, on account of the transgression of the Adamic covenant, and thus to actual sins arising thence." Concerning which we have treated elsewhere in the disputation On the Power of God.

I know that not a few theologians assign this reason for immunity from original sin: that he was generated from a virgin by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and not according to the ordinary law of carnal generation. But this reason does not seem adequate, nor to rise to the first root of this immunity—namely, the right itself. But it only explains the very effect or event, or at most some subordinate means or condition.

For if anyone did not expressly deny with us that Christ was in Adam and was a participant of the first and common covenant and its transgression, how could he defend his immunity from guilt and sin and reconcile it with divine justice and truth?

Again, suppose God produces another man outside the common and ordinary law of generation (which is not impossible). By what reasoning will you prove him immune from the punishment of original sin unless you can prove that he was not in Adam federally and therefore immune from that covenant and its transgression?

Compare Molinaeus in Anatomy of Arminianism chapter 10, section 16, axiom 1. From this our explanation I think it is now clear what should be responded to Corvin's objection, by which he presses Molinaeus, who in Anatomy of Arminianism chapter 7, section 6 had conceded (and rightly) that Christ was in Adam, as indeed one of his posterity.

Briefly: Those who were in Adam only originally, naturally, seminally, radically (as Christ was), and not also morally and federally (as all other men were in him, except Christ), do not participate in guilt and the punishment of death and spiritual corruption.

What others respond to this objection through the distinction of passive or merely material principle and not effective or active principle—so that both were Adam with respect to all other men, but only the former and not the latter with respect to Christ—seems to me to remove difficulty with another difficulty (perhaps more difficult). As we will sometime show (God willing) in problematic disputations.

If we cannot satisfy ourselves and others, we must rather acquiesce in Melanchthon's counsel—see part 2 of Counsels p. 127.

IV. Problem: How can human souls that were not in Adam and were not propagated from him by traduction be subject to both imputed and inherent original sin?

Response: Although this substance of the soul is not drawn from Adam but from God's immediate creation, nor was the soul itself in Adam as to the origin of essence, nevertheless the whole man or human composite consisting of soul and body was in Adam both morally or reputatively as in the federal principle, head, and root, and naturally as in the root and principle of origin through generation. The soul itself was also in Adam as to the origin of subsistence.

For man or the whole man generated man, and he in turn another. And although he did not produce him according to the substance of the soul, he nevertheless touched the union of the body with the soul produced by God according to the ordinary law of generation—in which generation properly and formally consists.

And in this opinion as to the sum of the matter I see agreeing: Zanchi in the already cited book, p. 63, edition in quarto; and Francis Junius in the disputation on original sin, theses 14-15; Pareus in the notes on Romans chapter 5:12; Rivet in the Synopsis of Leiden Theology in the location cited above; and Altingius in his Problems of Theology part 1, problem 27; and Parker in his book On the Descent to Hell section 65, p. 120, whose words are most worthy to be exhibited here:

"Body and soul alike flow from Adam, but in a disparate manner of propagating: the former indeed is by traduction, but the latter by infusion, which in this respect is from the parent—that God creates the soul not qua soul simply, but qua the soul of one of Adam's sons; whence both by creating it is infused and by infusing it is created, and it has no subsistence outside the body, but by union to the body both is created and is infused.

"Learnedly Athenagoras, the Christian legate: 'Not soul generates soul, but man man'—that is, the soul is by no means by traduction, but nevertheless from the parent, by that reason which I have just stated. This is explained more fully by Cyril of Alexandria thus: 'The mothers of terrestrial men, serving nature for generating, have in the womb indeed flesh gradually coagulated. But God sends a spirit to the fetus in the way He knows. And the nature of flesh is one thing, that of soul another. But nevertheless, although mothers become mothers only of bodies that are from earth, yet they are said to give birth to the whole man who consists of soul and body, not to part of him. For no one would call Elizabeth "sarko-tokon" and not "psucho-tokon."'

"Pacianus of Barcelona accommodates this to Christ himself: 'In the last times, Christ received the soul indeed with the flesh from Mary; he came to save this, he did not leave this among the dead, this he joined to his spirit and made his own.' And just as the soul is propagated from Adam himself, so also sin equally with the body is propagated from Adam. For Adam is said to have generated sons in his image (Genesis 5:3); but the image is in the soul, not in the body alone. 'What is born of flesh is flesh' (John 3:6); flesh here comprehends the natural soul of man itself."

VI. Problem: Whether it is stated accurately enough by Polanus in the cited chapter, p. 337, that original sin, which properly and formally is sin, is said to exist prior in seed in the order of generation and time (as Thomas speaks in the Disputed Question on Original Sin, question 4, article 3). And whether it is rightly said by another theologian that it exists first in the already animated body and then in the soul, and that on account of this reason: because the body is conceived from impure seed and the body before union is infected with a principle and certain disposition of sin; but the soul is created pure by God, and thus in punishment of the first transgression both is deprived of its purity and, infected by the contagion of the body, is corrupted.

Response: Negative. Because they would have to assume various false hypotheses that we reject above, if indeed they want to defend their thesis to the end. They would contradict themselves and our orthodox theologians there.

For I against it think should be established: First, that the adequate and first subject of sin is man or the whole composite, not blood or seed or embryo, which are not even animals or living things, much less rational and endowed with free will, consequently capable of moral goodness or badness, of punishment and reward.

Second, the organic body itself united to the soul is not properly the subject of sin. Indeed, not even both essential parts taken together, not united into human nature and person. For the human person is the subject of sin properly speaking. For what Scripture sometimes attributes to the body and integral parts of the body must be understood incompletely, synecdochically, and improperly, mediately and through another—insofar, that is, as the parts are in the whole and constitute the whole, in which immediately and per se the sin is.

Third, if it must be said that this sin is per prius in one part or the other, rather with almost all theologians this should be attributed to the soul than to the body, and that by the law of contraries. For the image of God and all theological or moral virtue, whether in act or in habit or elicitive principle considered, is per prius in the soul and not in the body. Therefore, the same must be said of its opposite—namely, sin, whether original or actual.

Fourth, no moral evil or sin is given that is only inchoatively such and only a fomes of sin, not formally evil or sin. But whatever is beyond moral good is either moral evil or pure indifferent and neutral, which by its formal nature can speak no moral impurity, baseness, infection, depravity, or pravity.

And certainly I do not see how they can explain and defend their fomes as being moral corruption, pravity, and evil disposition (which nevertheless is not formally sin nor can deserve punishment) as a certain third thing distinct from sin and opposite virtue, and yet solidly refute the fomes of the Pontificals, Socinians, Remonstrants (Apology pp. 84 & 86), to which they do not want to attribute the formal nature of sin and guilt.

Fifth, as to the temperament from which as from a direct principle per se, or properly speaking per se cause, they suspend the infection and inexistence of original sin per prius in the already informed body and then in the soul, and therefore in the whole composite—and in which they place almost the entire defense of this mode of traducing sin—I say that it in itself and per se is morally indifferent and neutral, not evil or vicious, no more than humors and all parts and all members of the body.

Because, of whatever kind it is in any man, it is directly and per se produced by God as by the first cause and is God's creature. And because it is the subject or substrate, or that good in which there is moral pravity. Therefore, it is not the very pravity or sinful disposition. Because also it is the occasion and fomes (if I may speak thus) of the opposite good or virtue, but per accidens.

For per accidens and through the intervention of the regenerating spirit, melancholic, choleric, sanguine temperaments become instruments that He can and does use—either for profound humiliation over sins and gravity and constancy in the ways of the Lord, or for zeal, fervor, and fortitude in the Lord's work, or for spiritual joy and self-sufficiency in God's grace, etc. Just as the same temperaments are occasions and (per accidens, that is, of the corrupt or unsanctified soul) become instruments of heresies, quarrels, prodigality, etc.

For they are apt by nature to become instruments of justice and injustice. Although from the state of the fall they do not have receptive or passive potency to justice except remote and obediential, because the world cannot receive the spirit (John 14).

Moreover, because natural concupiscence and all sensuality is neither the matter nor form of any sin, nor does it have anything vicious in itself (as Polanus rightly says in book 6 of his Syntagma, chapter 3). Therefore, neither does bodily temperament—indeed, much less.

Finally, because when they attribute so much here to this philosopheme about temperament, they must beware lest they concede anything to the docility of Remonstrant teaching or good disposition in the first moment of conversion, which they refer to temperament and education (Apology chapter 10, fol. 118-119, etc.). Compare above, appendix 2 to the disputation On Creation, p. 849.