Aquinas: The devil as cause of sin, how original sin is passed on, and why only Adam's first sin is inherited (Summa I-II, q. 80 a. 4; q. 81 aa. 1-2)

Orientation #

He finishes the last article on the devil as cause of sin (whether the devil is cause of all our sins) and then opens q. 81 on the transmission of original sin, reading its prologue and first two articles. The next class continues on original sin, drawing also on the Scriptum.

The class, in order #

1. Finishing the devil’s causality: objections (“whoever sins mortally becomes a slave of the devil”) #

Obj. 2: whoever sins mortally becomes a slave of the devil (John 8:34); one is addicted to servitude by him who has overcome him (2 Peter 2); therefore every sinner has been overcome by the devil. He remarks: “Those premises don’t seem to be leading to that conclusion, do they?” Obj. 3 (Gregory): the devil’s sin is irreparable because he fell with no one suggesting; so if men sinned with no one suggesting, their sin would be irremediable — clearly false. He calls it “interesting”. Sed contra: the book On Ecclesiastical Dogmas — not all our bad thoughts are excited by the devil, some arise from the motion of our own free judgment. He notes he has never seen the work itself; his footnote refers it to Gennadius of Massilia, c. 494.

2. Thomas’s reply and the answers (“occasionally… and indirectly, the devil is the cause of all our sins”) #

Indirectly and per accidens the devil causes all our sins, insofar as he induced the first man to sin, vitiating nature so that all are inclined to sinning — example: one who dries out wood is called the cause of its burning, since dried wood is easily kindled. Directly he is not the cause of all sins, as Origen proves: even were there no devil, man would desire food and venereal things, which can be disordered unless ordered by reason, which is subject to free will.

• ad 1 (Dionysius): the multitude of demons is cause of all our evils according to their first origin.
• ad 2: one becomes a slave not only of the one who overcomes him but of the one he voluntarily subjects himself to.
• ad 3: the devil’s sin was irremediable because he sinned with no one suggesting and had no proneness from a preceding suggestion — which can be said of no human sin. Aside: “Let the devil off a little bit there.”

3. A dialectical place, from Christ’s temptation (“if the devil tempted even Christ”) #

Prompted by a student’s newsletter argument: if the devil tempted Christ, he will tempt us. He analyses the topic: a predicate more apt to belong to one subject than another, yet found in the less apt one, belongs all the more to the other. The devil dislikes tempting one who will not follow his suggestion (stones into bread, come down from the cross); if he nevertheless tempted Christ, then much more us. “I don’t know who thought that dialectical place up… it’s a good one.”

4. The prologue of q. 81 (“man is the cause of sin to another man by outwardly suggesting”) #

Man causes sin in another outwardly by suggestion, as the devil does (aside: Shakespeare, “sweet suggesting love”); but he also causes sin in a special way by origin — hence original sin. He puts the question: is it called original because it is the first sin, or because we contract it by our origin from Adam? “Maybe both.” Three things to consider: (1) its transmission, (2) its essence, (3) its subject. Five articles on the transmission: (i) whether the first man’s first sin is derived by origin to his posterity; (ii) whether the other sins of the first parent or of our other parents are also derived — in which case the race would grow progressively worse; (iii) whether it passes to all generated from Adam’s seed; (iv) whether to one formed miraculously from some part of a human body, as Eve was; (v) whether, if the woman had sinned and not the man, original sin would be introduced. Aside: at Nativity Parish in St. Paul, Minnesota, the ladies put the fifth question to the resident auxiliary bishop, who answered no — as Thomas does. He adds anecdotes of that “very saintly” bishop: ladies rushing to receive communion from him rather than from a mere priest; a child asking a priest, not a bishop, to bless a rosary from Knock; the bishop preaching that Minnesota’s sticky July weather came from our sins.

5. Article 1: the objections (“the son does not carry the iniquity of the father”) #

1. Ezekiel 18: the son does not carry the father’s iniquity — but he would if he contracted it. “That’s really interesting.”
2. An accident is not transferred by origin unless its subject is, and an accident does not pass from subject to subject; but the rational soul, subject of guilt, is not transferred by origin — Aristotle saw this in On the Generation of Animals.
3. Everything carried over by human origin is caused from the seed; the seed lacks the rational part of the soul, which alone can cause sin.
4. What is more perfect in nature is more powerful in acting; but perfect flesh cannot infect the soul united to it (else the soul could not be purified while in the flesh); much less can seed.
5. Ethics III: no one is blamed for what is by nature, only for what comes of negligence; those are called bad by nature who have turpitude from their origin. So nothing from origin is blameworthy. His test case: can you be criticized for having leprosy — or Ebola — from your parents? Sed contra: Romans 5, by one man sin came into this world; which cannot be by imitation, because of Wisdom 2, by the envy of the devil death came into the world.

6. Article 1 body: the inadequate explanations (“all these ways are insufficient”) #

Thomas answers “by way of faith”: the Catholic faith holds it, which is why infants are carried to baptism as soon as born, to be washed from an infection of guilt; the contrary is the Pelagian heresy (he wonders aloud whether the Protestants follow it). Aside: as a boy he read his cousin Don’s volumes of Augustine on the Pelagians, on grace and on good works. Two earlier attempts, and their failure:

1. Some said the rational soul is passed on with the seed, so infected souls derive from an infected soul — rejected as erroneous. (His gloss: the dog gets his soul from his parents; I do not. I thank God for my body through my parents, not for my soul through them.)
2. Others: bodily defects pass from parent to offspring (a leper generates a leper; a gouty man a gouty man — podagra, foot, like “pedestrian” — by some corruption of the seed, though the corruption is not itself leprosy or gout); since body is proportioned to soul and a defect of the soul redounds into the body and conversely, the soul’s guilty defect passes by the seed, though the seed is not the subject of guilt. Both are insufficient: granted that bodily defects and, consequently, defects of soul do pass (sometimes from the foolish the foolish are generated — “we won’t give any examples of that”), the very fact that one has a defect from origin excludes the notion of guilt, whose definition requires that it be voluntary. Even granting the soul were passed on, since the infection was not in the offspring’s will it would lose the character of guilt obliging to punishment — Ethics III: no one is blamed for being born blind; rather he is pitied. Aside: at this impasse, “something rouses him to consider more correctly” — Thomas’s guardian angel.

7. Article 1 body: all men as one man (“many men derived from Adam are, as it were, many members of one body”) #

1. All men born from Adam can be considered as one man, insofar as they agree in the nature received from the first parent — as in civil matters all in one community are regarded as one body and the whole community as one man; and Porphyry (whom Thomas often quotes) says that by participation in the species many men are one man.
2. The act of a member, e.g. the hand, is voluntary not by the will of the hand but by the will of the soul that first moves the members. Hence a homicide the hand commits is not imputed to the hand, considered by itself apart from the body, but insofar as it is something of the man moved by his will.
3. So the disorder in this man generated from Adam is voluntary not by his own will but by the will of his first parent, who moves by the motion of generation all derived from his origin. Therefore it is called original sin, as a sin from the soul derived to the members is called actual; and it is not this person’s sin except insofar as he receives nature from the first parent — whence it is called a sin of nature, Ephesians 2, “we were by nature sons of anger.” He stresses: “Now this is a tough doctrine. Who can accept this?” — but it is Thomas’s explanation and agrees with how Scripture speaks. The proportion: Adam is to us as my will is to my hand. Student exchange: a comparison — an elected official acts in the name of all; when the president declares war, the headlines say the United States declares war. He accepts the analogy with a correction: we did not elect Adam, it is the other way around, but Adam is juridically representing us, not merely first in a series. A student adds that theologians say Adam knew he was acting that way. He also notes original sin is a sin in a different sense from mortal and venial (actual) sin — yet not equivocally. Aside: Romans 5 will get “a lot of ribbons next week” — billions thanking Adam, more embarrassing than Peter’s denial.

8. Article 1: the replies (“the son is said not to carry the sin of the father”) #

• ad 1: the son is not punished for the father’s sin unless he shares the guilt — and here he does, guilt being derived by origin as actual sin is derived by imitation.
• ad 2: though the soul is not passed on (the seed’s power cannot cause the rational soul), it moves toward the disposition for it; so through the seed human nature is passed from parent to offspring, and with the nature the infection of the nature. His gloss: original justice was a free gift of God given to human nature in Adam, to be passed on with the nature; losing it, he passes on the nature without it — “and that’s why I’m so disordered. You too.”
• Student objection: the subject of original sin is the rational soul, which comes not from Adam but from God. His reply: human nature involves body as well as soul; God does not create the soul unless the body is there; our nature comes through our parents, and we receive that nature without the original gift. He defers the full answer to the later question on the subject of original sin.
• ad 3: guilt is not in the seed as an act, but in virtue, by way of the human nature which such guilt follows.
• ad 4: the seed is the source of generation, the proper act of nature serving propagation; so the soul is more infected by seed than by flesh already perfected and determined to one person.
• ad 5: what is by origin is not blameworthy if the one born is considered by himself, but is, if considered as referred to some source — as one born suffers the ignominy of his stock from the guilt of the forebears from whom he is caused. His example: if you were born of Hitler. Aside (on how much human nature is united): the Smith College president wrote that “all lives matter” and had to apologize to students, since it was taken to detract from “Black lives matter.” His comment: “I’m sorry. Some of you matter, some of you don’t” — and one would then also have to say the unborn matter. A student ties it back to Thomas: foolish men generate foolish children; foolish teachers generate foolish students.

9. Article 2: are the other sins also transmitted? (“the other sins… are passed over to posterity”) #

Objections:

1. Punishment is owed only to guilt; but some are punished by divine judgment for the sins of their proximate parents — Exodus 20, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons unto the third and fourth generation.” He notes this is one of the texts that worries people about their understanding of Scripture. And by human judgment, in the crime of lèse-majesté, sons are disinherited for their parents’ sins. (His own case: what of a child of rape?)
2. One can transfer more readily what one has from oneself than what one has from another — as fire heats more than water does; but a man passes on the sin he has from Adam; much more his own. “That’s a good argument.”
3. We contract original sin because we were in Adam as in the beginning of a nature he corrupted; but we are likewise in our proximate parents as in beginnings of our nature, which, already corrupt, can be corrupted still further (Apocalypse, last chapter). Sed contra: good is more diffusive of itself than evil; but our proximate parents’ merits are not carried over; much less their sins. He notes this too uses a dialectical place. Asides: Thomas must have got a headache with this and taken a little wine to relax his mind; a reference to one of the times he fell down in prayer, having stumped himself.

10. Article 2 body: species and individual (“a man generates the same in species, but not according to the individual”) #

Augustine raises this question in the Enchiridion and leaves it unsolved — “My goodness, didn’t expect this, did you? But Thomas is not going to be stopped by that.” Thomas’s reason: a man generates one the same in species but not in individual. Therefore what pertains directly to the individual — personal acts and the like — is not passed on: the grammarian does not pass on to his son the science of grammar, which he acquired by his own study. What pertains to the nature of the species is passed on, unless nature is defective — one who has an eye generates one with an eye, unless nature is deficient — and, if nature is strong, some individual accidents pertaining to the disposition of nature, such as swiftness of body or good natural talent; but in no way what is purely personal. Now, as to a person something belongs according to itself and something from the gift of grace, so also to nature: original justice was a gift of grace given divinely to the whole of human nature in the first parent, to be passed on by him, and lost by his first sin; so the opposite disorder is passed on with the nature. But the other actual sins, of the first parent or of anyone, corrupt nature not as to what belongs to nature but only as to the person, i.e. as to proneness to action — hence they are not passed on. Asides: he doubts he passed the science of logic to his sons (“maybe geometry, but not grammar”); one summer he taught geometry to the neighbour children, and the boys persisted while the little girls were drawn off to bake cookies (a student: they can make circles and squares a different way). A fortiori, the teacher does not always pass it on to the lazy student. And his father, who learned machines in his uncle’s machine shop, was put into ordnance in the First World War for fixing a machine no one else could; courting his mother, he would leave her with the farmer’s wife and go out to the field to fix the machine — “that’s personal.”

11. Article 2: the replies (“never are sons punished for their parents unless they share the guilt”) #

• ad 1: as Augustine says in the letter to Avitus, in spiritual pains sons are never punished for their parents unless they share the guilt, by origin or otherwise, because all souls are immediately from God (Ezekiel 18:4); but bodily punishment is sometimes inflicted by divine or human judgment, insofar as the son is something of the father according to the body.
• ad 2: what one has from oneself one can more readily pass on — so long as it is passable at all; the actual sins of proximate parents are purely personal, hence not passable.
• ad 3: the first sin corrupts human nature by a corruption pertaining to nature; other sins corrupt it by a corruption pertaining to the person alone.

His words #

• “dialectical place” — a topic of probable argument; here, a predicate more apt to one subject than another, found in the less apt, holds all the more in the other.
• “occasionally / indirectly” — his rendering of the devil’s per accidens causality of all sins.
• “transferred / carried over / passed over by origin” — traducitur, transmission of sin by generation [ed.: traduction].
• “guilt” — culpa, as distinguished from punishment.
• “peccatum naturae” — sin of nature, as against sin of the person; his Latin for what original sin is.
• “original justice” — the gift of grace given to human nature in Adam, to be passed on with the nature.
• “good genius” — natural talent, among the individual accidents that can be propagated if nature is strong.
• “purely personal” — what belongs to the individual as such, and therefore is not transmitted.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 80, a. 4 (objections 2–3, sed contra, body, replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, prologue (division into five articles)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, a. 1 (five objections, sed contra, body, five replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, a. 2 (three objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Quoted within these: John 8:34; 2 Peter 2; Ezekiel 18:4, 18:20; Romans 5:12; Wisdom 2:24; Ephesians 2:3; Exodus 20:5; Aristotle, Ethics III; Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals; Augustine, Enchiridion; Augustine, Letter to Avitus; Gennadius, On Ecclesiastical Dogmas; Gregory; Dionysius; Origen; Porphyry; Apocalypse, last chapter.

Mentioned

• Augustine’s works against the Pelagians, and his short works on grace and good works
• Shakespeare, “sweet suggesting love”
• The temptation of Christ (stones into bread; come down from the cross)

His questions #

• Do those premises lead to that conclusion (the slave-of-the-devil argument)? No — he flags the gap and lets it stand.
• Is it called original sin because it is the first sin, or because we contract it by origin from Adam? “Maybe both.”
• If the woman had sinned and the man not, would original sin be introduced? No — as the auxiliary bishop answered, and as Thomas holds (article five, not yet read).
• Can you be criticized for having leprosy, or Ebola, from your parents? No — nothing merely from origin is blameworthy considered in the man by himself; but it is, referred to its source.
• How can a sin be mine that I did not will? All from Adam are as one man; the disorder is voluntary by the will of the first parent, as the hand’s homicide is voluntary by the will of the soul.
• Does the Protestant follow the Pelagians? Left open — “I wonder or not.”
• A student: the subject of original sin is the rational soul, and that comes from God, not Adam — so how is it transmitted? Human nature includes the body; nature comes through the parents, and comes without the gift of original justice; the full answer waits for the question on the subject of original sin.
• Are the other sins of the first parent, or of our proximate parents, passed on? No: they are purely personal; only the first sin corrupted nature as nature.
• Did I pass the science of logic on to my sons? No — like grammar, it is acquired by one’s own study and is not transmitted.