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fhansen
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In post 40 I meant, “…once the deprivation of OJ-original justice-is gone…”
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Vico
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This is addressed by St. Thomas Aquinas in De Malo. Concupiscence as it is part of original sin does not mean consenting to the temptations of it, but feeling that temptation, which remains after baptism, but not with the lack of original justice (which makes one liable to punishment).
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fhansen
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Ok, so then you mean to say, along with Aquinas, that concupiscence is original sin?
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Vico
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He said materially not formally. There is the original sin of Adam, an actual sin, and the result of it, that we inherit, born with an inclination to sin (concupiscence) and without grace.
The cause of the fall is the will, this cause is the formal element. Concupiscence is temptation to sin in the descendants. Adam and Eve did not fall due to concupiscence. Adam and Eve had the preternatural gift of integrity (freedom from concupiscence). He states in the Summa:
On the contrary, Augustine says (Retract. i, 15): “Concupiscence is the guilt of original sin.”
By baptism, original justice is restored in what concerns the will but not in the material element because the lower powers resist reason.
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fhansen
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Ok, But I didn’t imply that A&E fell due to concupiscence. Aquinas is obviously speaking of the state of OS when he says that concupiscence is OS, materially. So, whatever the cause, does it make perfect sense to you to say that concupiscence is original sin, rather than simply a consequence of it?
Maybe the CE is wrong. The singular natural outward manifestation of the loss of original justice/ sanctifying grace in fallen man may well be no more or less than concupiscence, while, OTOH, as the CE rightly puts it, death and suffering are merely physical evils and wouldn’t be strictly or directly related to the loss of original justice.
But still, if, as I think you say, the will is made right by the restoration of original justice then why shouldn’t it follow that the lower powers would now obey as well, as they did in A&E,* if* concupiscence is the material cause of the state of original sin? There should be no distinction within man between the state of either: lack of original justice and possession of concupiscence, if one is the formal cause and the other the material. Once the first (deprivation of original justice) is gone, then the other (concupiscence) should vanish as well.
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Wesrock
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What if it’s only a matter of God justifying us while not restoring absolutely (yet) the powers of reason over the material appetites? Essentially, we are not yet restored to impassible bodies in which reason has perfect control over appetites because God has seen fit to leave concupiscensce and other penalties of original sin in us until the resurrection. That’s really what it comes down to. Justification given but the resurrection and other portions delayed. The end result though is far greater than the original justice Adam and Eve had, though.
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fhansen
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I tend to believe that what you say is the truth of the matter. God can tweak causes to behave any which way He wants I’m sure.
For His purposes. And I think the struggle is a good one. Adam basically opened the door to moral relativity, whereafter man, “free” from God, could experiment with whatever he deemed right in his own eyes. We continue that experiment, hopefully coming to learn what’s truly of eternal worth, with the help of grace, and embracing that above all else. In this we "work out our salvation, we participate in our achieving justice as we strive towards the perfection God has for us.
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Blue_Horizon
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If I discovered xrays because the gadget on my bench top melted the chocolate in my pocket … and fried my Fjewels at the same time…and my descendants forever after were born with a big toe missing…this isn’t going to change just because my children stay away from xrays gadgets.
So an act of the soul of pure Adam, under grace, somehow damaged his material body so that it was no longer perfectly responsive to his soul which we call concupiscence.
He also lost grace and further original justice (his soul was not rightly ordered to God).
As generation is by means of passed down matter his descendants inherited the same unresponsive type of body.
In baptism God promised he would restore both grace and heal the soul’s disorder towards God. He did not promise to heal concupiscence which materially caused disorder remains and we must each salvifically fight until death.
Why would the fact that we stop or never commit the same acts that Adam did to damage the body … somehow heal the damage he passed down through material generation.
Our soul no longer has the ability to master the body to do just that.
Once gone it’s gone.
It’s like “bricking” a tablet or PC. Once we upload an operating system or firmware that damages the uploading facility itself we can no longer fix or improve our PC.
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Vico
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That concupiscence by which we are disposed to evil desires, is in a way called original sin as it is the material element in original sin.
The cause of the original sin in Adam and Eve is their will (this is formal element). The consequence (this is material element) of that is what we are born with and is not eliminated by baptism. Original justice is not restored in its material element but is in the formal element. The lower powers still resist reason.
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fhansen
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Ok. The formal cause of OS in Adam’s descendants is deprivation of original justice. And I’m just unsure, unless accomplished by a supernatural act perhaps, how the formal and material causes of anything can be separated. I’m working on it tho.
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Vico
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From St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T.: “so that the will being turned away from God, all the other powers of the soul become inordinate. Accordingly the privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God, is the formal element in original sin; while every other disorder of the soul’s powers, is a kind of material element in respect of original sin.”
So there is an progression of formal element at one time, and then added later, the material element.
- The actual sin of the first parent:
a. formal: aversion from incommutable good yielding privation of original justice
b. material: conversion to commutable good yielding depression of lower powers - Original sin in descendants
a. formal: lack of original justice
b. material: concupiscence
Compendium No. 196
"In this way, then, the privation of original justice is a sin of nature, in the sense that it has its origin in the inordinate will of the first principle in human nature, namely, of the first parent. Thus it is voluntary with respect to nature, that is, by the will of the first principle of nature. And so it is transmitted to all who receive human nature from him, for they are all, as it were, his members.
This is why it is called original sin, for it is transferred from the first parent to his descendants by their origin from him. Other sins, that is, actual sins, pertain immediately to the person who commits them; this sin directly touches nature. The first parent infected nature by his sin, and nature thus contaminated thereupon infects the persons of the children who receive their nature from the first parent."
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/Compendium.htm#196
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fhansen
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This is good. So we inherited the “averted will”, which is arguably equivalent to the loss of original justice?-but, either way, even once rectified we remain with the lower appetites in conflict with reason, the mind, the spirit. I’m not sure if this would necessarily actually entail a progression as much as it might all have been instantaneous, simultaneous with the act of sin Adam committed.
Either way it just seems rather odd that restored justice wouldn’t automatically manifest itself in just behavior, in self-control, that it wouldn’t include the tendency and means to act justly. But it seems that God perhaps deemed it worthwhile that we should struggle directly with this temptation and tendency towards injustice that Adam first entertained and actually succumbed and opened the door to with his act of disobedience, so we’d have a taste of the knowledge of both good and evil. Otherwise it seems that the material cause -concupiscence- should flow from or remain simultaneous to the formal cause- deprivation of OJ.
Anyway it seems that, even after Baptism, we’re still in a struggle of wills-for whether or not subjugation to and communion with God is better than whatever we think might be obtained by not being in subjugated to/in communion with Him.
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Vico
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Catholic Encyclopedia on Concupiesence
From the explanation given, it is plain that the opposition between appetite and reason is natural in man, and that, though it be an imperfection, it is not a corruption of human nature. Nor have the inordinate desires (actual concupiscence) or the proneness to them (habitual concupiscence) the nature of sin; for sin, being the free and deliberate transgression of the law of God, can be only in the rational will; though it be true that they are temptations to sin, becoming the stronger and the more frequent the oftener they have been indulged.
Ming, J. (1908). Concupiscence. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm
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fhansen
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So after all this Ludwig Ott put it this way: “Most of the post-Tridentine theologians do not regard concupiscence as an essential constituent part of original sin, but as its consequence.” Not in agreement, IOW, with Augustine who identified concupiscence with the state of OS and with Aquinas who specified it to be the material element of that state.
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Vico
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And your read this also in Fundamental of Catholic Dogma, p. 111?
As the turning towards the creature manifests itself above all in evil desire, St. Thomas with St. Augustine, sees in concupiscence, which itself is a consequence of original sin, the material element of origInal sin: peccatum originale materialiter quidem est concupiscentia, formaliter vero est defectus originalis iustitiae (S. th. I II 82, 3).
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fhansen
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Yes, which modern theologians disagree with. That’s the point. Concupisence, according ti them, is a consequence, among others, not a cause or essential element. It also sounded like the moderns might not accept that the formal cause is limited to deprivation of OJ, as Anselm apparently taught.
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Vico
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Council of Trent, First Decree on Original Sin
If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.
Catholic Encyclopedia:A short but important statement of the Catholic doctrine on this point may be quoted from Peter the Deacon, a Greek, who was sent to Rome to bear witness to the Faith of the East: “Our belief is that Adam came from the hands of his Creator good and free from the assaults of the flesh” (Lib. de Incarn., c. vi). In our first parents, however, this complete dominion of reason over appetite was no natural perfection or acquirement, but a preternatural gift of God, that is, a gift not due to human nature; nor was it, on the other hand, the essence of their original justice, which consisted in sanctifying grace; it was but a complement added to the latter by the Divine bounty. By the sin of Adam freedom from concupiscence was forfeited not only for himself, but also for all his posterity with the exception of the Blessed Virgin by special privilege. Human nature was deprived of both its preternatural and supernatural gifts and graces, the lower appetite began to lust against the spirit, and evil habits, contracted by personal sins, wrought disorder in the body, obscured the mind, and weakened the power of the will, without, however, destroying its freedom.
Ming, J. (1908). Concupiscence. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm
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fhansen
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Ok, do you think we could conclude then, along with the “modern theologians” apparently, that concupiscence is not OS, materially?
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Vico
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Original justice is both supernatural gifts and preternatural gifts. Although sanctifying grace may be restored, the preternatural gifts are not, so original justice is not completely restored with baptism. St. Thomas Aquinas says “the concupiscible powers are not completely subject to reason when the restraint of original justice has been removed” and in our modern teaching also: Catechism 418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).
Did you read De Malo of St. Thomas Aquinas where the material sense is commented on?:
- Concupiscence as belonging to original sin is habitual rather than actual. But we should understand that habits make us apt to do things. And causes can in two ways be apt to do things. Causes can be disposed in one way to do something by forms that incline them to do it, as, for example, the forms that heavy material substances have from what produced them incline the substances to move downward. Causes can be disposed in another way to do something by the removal of an impediment, as, for example, wine pours out of a cask when the hoops preventing the outpouring are broken, and excited horses rush headlong when their restraining bridles are snapped. Therefore, we can speak about habitual concupiscence in two ways. * We can speak about habitual concupiscence in one way as a disposition or habit inclines one to desire inordinately, as, for example, if frequent actual concupiscence were to cause habitual concupiscence. And then we do not call the concupiscence original sin. * We can understand habitual concupiscence in a second way as the very proneness or disposition to desire inordinately, which happens because the concupiscible powers are not completely subject to reason when the restraint of original justice has been removed. And then original sin in a material sense is habitual concupiscence.
And yet it does not follow that if habitual concupiscence positively understood does not have the nature of actual sin as caused by personal acts, habitual concupiscence understood as the removal of an impediment does not on that account have the nature of original sin as caused by the act of our first parent. This is so because we do not call original sin sin for the same reason we call actual sin sin. For actual sin consists of a person’s voluntary act, and so what does not belong to such an act does not have the nature of actual sin. But original sin belongs to a person by reason of the nature that the person gets from another by physical descent, and so every defect in the nature of offspring derived from the sin of our first parent has the character of original sin, provided the defect is in a subject capable of moral fault. For as Augustine says in his Retractions," we call concupiscence sin because it was caused by sin.
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thinkandmull
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Can you explain this post?
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