Augustine's struggle with generation of the soul

[awfulthings9]

Augustine struggled with the concept that, if God created our souls, it is logically challenging to argue, as we do, that we inherit or contract a state of original sin from our original parents. If, he reasoned, our soul is created by God and not generated by our parents, who would our soul inherit a state of original sin from individuals who had no part in its creation.

For this reason Augustine flirted with the idea of generation of the soul, which is that the soul is derived from the parents, along with the physical body (later part of a heresy called Traducianism), rather than being created by God and placed within the naturally conceived body.

However, the church has rejected the idea of generation (CCC 382). Eccl. 12:7 tells us that while the body returns to dust, the spirit returns to God who created it.

As the church has declared an official stance, I’ll go with the party line, but my question is this: how would one answer Augustine, helping him to reconcile this struggle?

 

[awfulthings9]

Anyone?

 

[Huiou_Theou]

So, Here you are – a topic which really interests you, and it seems the whole world is just ignoring you.

The interesting thing is to trace this struggle out to the end of the Pelagian heresy – where St. Augustine argues that “original sin is a sin by analogy…” see CCC #404 – eg: because it has the same effect, the deprivation of heaven. Or in my opinion, which is the root of the matter, because heaven is Jesus Christ – and we are not with him now, unless through the sacraments which are temporally applied.

As the CCC notes, #406, it was Augustine’s struggle with Pelagianism which led to the formulation of the Doctrine explicitly.
Augustine’s arguments form the convincing basis of the doctrine, and it is based on the universal tradition of the Church to baptize with an exorcism – both east and west, Pelagians, and not, which ultimately supports the doctrine because the tradition held by the “heretics” witnesses against themselves.

Romans 5:12, as translated by Jerome is used in the doctrine.
Of course, the Latin of Jerome – was formulated with tradition in mind, which officially interprets scripture. The translation was also formulated at the same time as Augustine lived – so the issue was being studied by both at the same time.

I have some protestants annoying me with really shallow arguments against the BVM, so I probably won’t be able to continue the conversation right now – best of wishes.

 

[aquinothomas]

Since I was just involved in another discussion with a similar topic, I’ll take a stab at this as well. Coming from a Thomist perspective, which is very similar to the Augustinian view on this issue, we inherit original sin for one primary reason: we share the same human nature with our first parents, and because we share that same nature, we collectively inherit the guilt of original sin. Aquinas talks about this in the Summa:

"Therefore we must explain the matter otherwise by saying that all men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they have one common nature, which they receive from their first parents; even as in civil matters, all who are members of one community are reputed as one body, and the whole community as one man. Indeed Porphyry says (Praedic., De Specie) that “by sharing the same species, many men are one man.” Accordingly the multitude of men born of Adam, are as so many members of one body. Now the action of one member of the body, of the hand for instance, is voluntary not by the will of that hand, but by the will of the soul, the first mover of the members. Wherefore a murder which the hand commits would not be imputed as a sin to the hand, considered by itself as apart from the body, but is imputed to it as something belonging to man and moved by man’s first moving principle. In this way, then, the disorder which is in this man born of Adam, is voluntary, not by his will, but by the will of his first parent, who, by the movement of generation, moves all who originate from him, even as the soul’s will moves all the members to their actions. Hence the sin which is thus transmitted by the first parent to his descendants is called “original,” just as the sin which flows from the soul into the bodily members is called “actual.” And just as the actual sin that is committed by a member of the body, is not the sin of that member, except inasmuch as that member is a part of the man, for which reason it is called a “human sin”; so original sin is not the sin of this person, except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from his first parent, for which reason it is called the “sin of nature,” according to Ephesians 2:3: “We . . . were by nature children of wrath.”

• (I-II, 81,1)

The Traducian theory of the origin of the soul for each person, which Augustine struggled with, teaches that the soul is imparted through procreation (not infused) and this is not the Thomist theory. For St. Thomas, the soul is infused by God at the moment a new person comes into existence (for Catholics, that is at conception). So, ontologically, the soul and its powers are neither diminished nor destroyed by original sin, but we lose original justice and our inclination to virtue is diminished. That avoids the potential contradiction of having God infuse a “damaged” soul…what we inherit is actually habitual concupiscence as a penalty for original sin (the guilt of original sin), and this is a tendency of the soul to sin but isn’t an ontological imperfection.