Aquinas: Does original sin reach everyone? Mary, miraculous formation, cloning, and the father's role in passing it on (Summa I-II, q. 81 aa. 3-5)

Orientation #

He picks up at article 3 of the question on original sin and works straight through articles 4 and 5, saying at the end of article 3 “We take a little break here now. We’re going to four.” He refers back to the proportion established earlier — original sin from Adam as actual sin from the will through the members (prev. lecture). The previous class covered the devil as indirect cause of sin and the opening of q. 81.

The class, in order #

1. Objections of article 3 (“it seems that the sin of the first parent is not passed over by origin to all men”) #

Three objections against universal transmission:

1. Death is the punishment of original sin, but those found alive at the Lord’s coming never die (1 Thess.); so they do not contract it.
2. No one gives what he does not have; the baptized man does not have original sin; so he does not pass it to his son.
3. Christ’s gift is greater than Adam’s sin (Rom. 5), yet Christ’s gift does not pass to all men; so neither does Adam’s sin. Sed contra: Rom. 5, “death passes over into all, in whom all have sinned.” Aside: he tells of giving a young woman preparing for baptism a prayer book with an examination of conscience — baptism wipes away sins, but bad habits acquired remain to be corrected.

2. The body of article 3 and the Immaculate Conception (“all men apart from Christ alone”) #

Thomas: by Catholic faith all men save Christ alone contract original sin from Adam, otherwise not all would need the redemption that is through Christ. He notes at once that this is “Thomas getting in trouble with the Blessed Virgin.”

• The resolution offered in class: the definition says Mary was conceived without original sin by special privilege, through the merits of Christ — redeemed by way of prevention, so it remains true that all needed redemption through Christ.
• Illustration (attributed to St. Thérèse of Lisieux): picking you up after you trip over the rock is good; taking the rock away before you trip is better — so preservation is still owed to him.
• A student presses that this is not redemption strictly speaking; he answers it is redemption in a more perfect way.
• He compares Thomas’s error here to Peter’s denial, and notes Thomas submitted all his works to the Church’s judgment. Duns Scotus is named as influential in developing the doctrine.
• Dating: defined 1854 under Pius IX; relics of the occasion (chair, vestment) in a Roman basilica.

3. Digression: why the Marian definitions came late (“the Marian century”) #

From De Koninck: had these been defined earlier there would have been confusion about Christ and Mary — she would seem a Mother God; and now that Mary’s mysteries are brought out fully, the mysteries of Joseph can be developed, for the same reason of order (Joseph not on Mary’s level, Mary not on Christ’s). Parallel: the Trinity is not fully revealed in the Old Testament, because God’s unity had to be revealed first — hence the Muslim charge of polytheism, and the golden calf. Parallel in Thomas: in the Summa the substance of God (simplicity, perfection, goodness, infinity, omnipresence, immutability) comes first and one God last, before the operations and the Trinity.

• A student adds that surrounding culture shapes how a faith is lived (corruption, adultery accepted even in Catholic nations), supporting gradual revelation; he agrees, adding that some things are simply too hard to grasp at once.
• Also mentioned: De Koninck’s audience with Pius XII before the definition of the Assumption, arguing that as Thomas says Peter is not in heaven now (his soul is), Mary would not be in heaven without her body; a Jesuit “Father Pius” of Chicago who defended Humanae Vitae and wrote on St. Joseph; an anecdote about a man threatening to leave over the definition — “You already left”; Newman’s difficulty with infallibility.

4. Reply of article 3 (“just as from the will of the soul through the motion of the members”) #

The reason: as actual sin passes from the will of the soul to all the members naturally apt to be moved by the will, so original guilt passes to all who are moved by Adam by the motion of generation. It would be gratuitous — a special gift — for it not to be passed on, since passing it on is natural. Replies:

1. More probably and more commonly held: all found alive at the advent die and post modicum, after a little, rise. If Jerome’s reported opinion (in an epistle on the resurrection of the flesh) that some never die is true, then in them there is still the reatus, the guilt or debt of death, the punishment being remitted by God. He notes Thomas’s “probabilius” does not simply reject Jerome; a student recalls “we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye,” and his own phrase “the quick death.”
2. Baptism takes away original sin as regards the spiritual part — the mens, which means not reason only but the will, recovers grace — but there remains the fomes, disorder of the lower parts of the soul and of the body itself. A man generates not insofar as he is renewed by baptism but insofar as he retains something of the oldness of the first sin.
3. As Adam’s sin passes to all bodily generated from him, so Christ’s grace passes to all spiritually generated by faith and baptism — removing not only the first parent’s guilt but all actual sins, and introducing to glory. Quip about delaying baptism until you are ready to go.

5. Article 4: a man formed miraculously from human flesh (“formed miraculously from human flesh”) #

Objections that he would contract original sin:

1. Gloss from Augustine on Genesis: in Adam’s loins the whole posterity was corrupted, because it was not separated before in the place of life and afterwards in the place of exile; such flesh would be separated in the place of exile.
2. Original sin is caused as the soul is infected from the flesh; the whole flesh of man is infected; so from whatever part the soul would be infected. (Falstaff joke on having more flesh than anybody.)
3. Original sin comes to all insofar as all were in Adam sinning; such a man was in Adam; so he would contract it. Sed contra: they were not in Adam according to a ratio seminalis, which alone causes the passing of original sin (Augustine, On Genesis to the Letter bk. 10). A student asks what “miraculously formed” means; he answers: like Adam from the dust, or Eve from the rib — rather than by generation.

6. Reply of article 4: the seed-like reason is the active power in generation (“the active power derived from Adam by origin”) #

Argument: original sin passes insofar as posterity are moved by Adam by generation; but there is no motion to generation except through the active power in generation; the seminal reason is nothing other than the active power in generation; a man formed by divine power from human flesh would not have that active power derived from Adam; therefore he would not contract original sin. The proportion again: neither does the act of the hand pertain to a man’s sin if the hand is moved not by his will but by another.

• Student: God would not be compelled to create such a being in grace. He agrees the point is only the non-contraction of original sin — such a being would be as in a state of pure nature. He adds that lacking original justice in us is a privation in the strict sense, not a mere negation, because it was given to Adam to be passed on with nature.
• Student on human cloning: he answers you must still make use of someone’s generative power; the soul is not ours to produce, God concurs. Parallel: God cooperates with nature, not with the adultery, when a body is produced — and this is at the root of the prohibition of direct sterilization (only tolerated as an effect, never directly intended), because we lack dominion where God is involved. Replies: (1) Adam was in the place of exile only after his sin, so it is on account of the sin, not the place, that guilt passes to those his act of generation reaches. (2) Flesh infects the soul only as it is the active principle in generation; and the same answer to (3), which adds that such a man was in Adam according to bodily substance but not according to seed-like reason. Asides: the two chief mysteries — Trinity and Incarnation — both involve a generation and a birth, which is why abortion offends not only nature but the two supreme articles of faith. A student notes how this birth-motif is corrupted in science fiction and fantasy (alien-human hybrids, false Christ-figures), de-Christianizing the culture.

7. Article 5: if Eve alone had sinned (“if Adam had not sinned, but Eve sinning”) #

Objections that the sons would contract it:

1. We contract from parents insofar as we were in them (Rom. 5, “in whom all sinned” — he notes this refers to Adam, not Eve); but a man pre-exists in his mother as in his father.
2. The mother gives the matter; but death and passibility come from the necessity of matter, and these are the punishment of original sin.
3. Damascene (bk. 3): the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin beforehand, purging her, that Christ be born without original sin — unnecessary unless the infection were drawn from the mother, since he had no human father. “That’s a pretty good argument.” Sed contra: Rom. 5:12, “through one man sin came into this world” — if the woman transmitted it, it would have been said through two, or rather through the woman, who sinned first. Aside on Damascene “in trouble too,” and the comparison with John the Baptist cleansed in the womb.

8. Reply of article 5 and the biology question (“the active principle in generation is from the father”) #

Reply: original sin is carried over insofar as the first parent moves to generation; according to the teaching of the philosophers the active principle in generation is from the father, the matter from the mother; hence original sin would not be contracted from the mother. So if Adam had not sinned and Eve had, no transmission; conversely, yes. He adds his own tag each time: “according to the teaching of the philosophers, but not according to the teaching of biologists.”

• Word-lore: semen = seed, whence seminar and seminal; mater whence materia; the poets’ Mother Earth; Shakespeare’s Timon on the “common mother, whose womb immeasurable… teems and feeds all.”
• He grants Aristotle thought the whole seed came from the father, which modern biology denies; the male determines the sex, “so Henry VIII is kind of punishing the wrong person.” Aristotelian point: the agent makes like itself, so the male principle intends a male, the female being a kind of defect. Anecdote: a fellow student told Kasurik his newborn was a boy — “Aristotle says that shows perfection in the male principle”; and a present student missed Tuesday’s class because of a birth.
• Student: must this be changed given modern biology? His answer: the sperm is still more active than the egg, and the reasoning rests on the active principle, which still holds — “but the woman is not as passive as Aristotle thought.” He notes the old view that the menstrual blood was what one conceived from, whereas it is really the corruption of what was disposed.
• Student on two women conceiving by technology — would such a child have original sin, “need we baptize that egg?” — left with “quite a little bit of fancy footwork,” no resolution.

9. Replies of article 5 and the father-mother proportion (“in the father the son pre-exists in an active principle”) #

1. The son pre-exists in the father as in an active principle, in the mother as in a material and passive one; hence no parity.
2. Some say that on Eve’s sin alone the sons would be free of guilt but still subject to death and passibility from the necessity of matter the mother supplies, as a natural defect. This is unfitting: immortality and impassibility in the first state came not from the condition of matter but from original justice, by which the body was subject to the soul insofar as the soul was subject to God. The defect of original justice is original sin; so if there were no original sin in those sons, there would be no defect of original justice, and so no passibility or necessity of dying.
3. The purgation in the Blessed Virgin was not required to prevent transmission of original sin but because the Mother of God had to be cleansed to maximum purity — nothing is a worthy receptacle of God unless pure. His comment: “Why don’t you go all the way then, Thomas,” and the joke that at his death his guardian angel told him he had something to learn. “Holiness befits the house of God.”

• Extended aside (his own, not Thomas’s): granting the modern point that most of the matter of the child comes from the mother, and that she is more active in nourishment and growth, the father remains chiefly the maker. Hence the father sees the child as a continuation of himself, the mother as a fulfillment of herself — as matter sees form as its perfection, while the agent sees the form as a continuation of itself. Signs: fathers push sons into their own occupation (the doctor’s son, the lawyer’s son; the Bushes); his father’s business friend whose son flunked out of Amherst and was set up with a filling station instead — his father admired the man’s wisdom; his own father seeing him work in the factory (“learning it from the ground up”) and later saying “I think you’re going to have a better life than I had”; a cousin saying after his father’s death “that’s just like your father,” which pleased him; his neighbour with no son playing catch with his daughter, who enjoys it.
• Further asides: the bishop’s two brothers who taught at his high school, one of whom became mayor of Saint Paul; his father and uncle taking Kasurik’s course on Marxism in a Twin Cities college consortium, and a viewer complaining that a Catholic was teaching Marxism on educational TV because Kasurik spoke in the person of Marx; his memorizing a passage of the Nicomachean Ethics (“we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and being mortal, of mortal things”) and his father’s reaction.

His words #

• “gratuitous” — of a gift over and above nature: it would be gratuitous if original sin were not passed on, since passing it on is natural.
• reatus — the guilt or debt of a punishment, remaining even where the punishment is remitted.
• mens — “doesn’t mean just the reason, but the will.”
• fomes — the disorder remaining after baptism in the lower parts of the soul and in the body, by which a man generates not according to his mind.
• “the quick death” — his old phrase for what happens to those alive at the Lord’s coming.
• probabilius — “with more probability,” Thomas’s own hedge, which he says does not simply reject Jerome.
• ratio seminalis, “seed-like reason” — “nothing other than the active power in generation.”
• privation vs. negation — lacking original justice is a privation, because it was owed to us through Adam; a purely natural creature would merely lack it.
• “redeemed by prevention” — Mary preserved from contracting original sin through Christ’s merits.
• Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma — “You have written well of me, Thomas,” which he notes the Blessed Virgin did not say.

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 81, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Romans 5:12, quoted in the sed contra of aa. 3 and 5

Mentioned

• 1 Thessalonians, on those alive at the Lord’s advent; and “we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye” (student)
• Jerome, epistle on the resurrection of the flesh, to “Minerius” (name as transcribed)
• Augustine, gloss on Genesis (Adam’s loins); On Genesis to the Letter, bk. 10
• John Damascene, bk. 3, on the Holy Spirit purging the Virgin
• Summa Theologiae I, on the substance of God (order: simplicity to unity) (inferred locus)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, the passage on immortalizing (inferred: bk. X)
• Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, “common mother, thou…”

His questions #

• Does original sin pass to all men who descend from Adam? Yes — to all moved by Adam through the motion of generation, Christ alone excepted.
• If Mary was conceived without original sin, was she not redeemed? She was redeemed in a more perfect way, by prevention, through Christ’s merits.
• Why were the Marian doctrines defined so late? Earlier definition would have confused Christ and Mary, as earlier revelation of the Trinity would have confused God’s unity.
• How can the baptized, who no longer have original sin, transmit it? Because they generate not as renewed by baptism but by the flesh, where the fomes remains.
• Would a man formed miraculously from human flesh contract original sin? No — he would not have the active generative power derived from Adam.
• Would a human clone contract original sin? Left open; he says someone’s generative power would still have to be used.
• If two women could conceive by technology, would the child have original sin? Left open — “quite a little bit of fancy footwork.”
• If Eve alone had sinned, would her sons contract original sin? No — the active principle in generation is from the father; and they would not be passible or mortal either, since that came from original justice, not from matter.
• Must Thomas’s answer change given modern biology? He allows the woman is not as passive as Aristotle thought, but holds the male principle is still the more active, so the reasoning stands.
• Why then was the Virgin purged by the Holy Spirit? Not to stop transmission, but because the Mother of God had to be of maximum purity: holiness befits the house of God.