The Reparation of Our Fallen Nature

THE REPARATION OF OUR FALLEN NATURE OUR fallen nature, deprived of the God-given gifts of original justice by the sin of the first man, was repaired by Christ's passion, death and resurrection. That is our faith in the Redemption. Yet, not all the gifts of the original state are restored together with grace in baptism. In the baptized, human nature remains a fallen nature, subject to both moral and physical misery. This also Catholic doctrine teaches, and, moreover, experience confirms. Our faith adds: not until the day of the resurrection, but then without fail, will the lost gifts be restored. Such is our faith and it fits wonderfully the facts of our present human condition. But faith seeks understanding. And we ask: why this delay in the reparation of our fallen nature? If Christ's Redemption is complete and superabundant, as it is beyond any shadow of doubt, why must we wait for the restoration of the preternatural gifts bestowed on our nature in the beginning, till the day of the exaltation and glorification of the entire Mystical Body of Christ, the day of the resurrection? It is true, we do r.eceive in baptism sanctifying grace and with it the beginning of eternal life and the pledge of salvation, that is, all that is most vital in view of eternity. But for the time of our stay on earth, baptismal grace leaves us with the physical and moral miseries that are the consequences of the sin of the race. And we must ask: Why? Why does not the all-powerful grace of the Redeemer in baptism work the miracle of restoring the original state, as no doubt it could? Why the delay? There may be reasons of fittingness for it, for example: should not the members of Christ be in this world as Christ Himself was: full of grace yet subject to every human misery except sin? But, some will ask, would it not be better otherwise? And is there nothing more to be said for the present way of the repara564 THE REPARATION OF OUR FALLEN NATURE 5()5 tion of our fallen nature than that it is fitting, corwenit? No more stringent doctrinal foundation, which could satisfy more exacting minds? St. Thomas's theology of the fall and of its reparation by the Word Incarnate should be of such a nature as to establish a doctrinal and " rational " foundation of the manner of our reparation such as the faith proposes this to be. And it may be worth the trouble to examine this theology and to see why the reparation of our fallen nature takes this two or threefold stage which we know from the faith: Christ's passion, death and resurrection; our restoration to the life of grace in baptism; and the final restoration of our nature on the day of the resurrection. ORIGINAL JusTICE AND ORIGINAL SIN 1 From the beginning our call to the supernatural end of the vision of God, our supernatural elevation, followed a social pattern. This was rather to be expected if grace perfects nature after the manner of nature. And the present situation of mankind in which the supernatural economy shows the same social structure-men are saved in the Church, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ-is in itself a presumption that the original elevation of men to the supernatural order was also social. St. Thomas expresses this social character of original justice by saying that it was given to the first parent of our race as an accident to the specific nature.2 He means to say that this gratuitous or preternatural "proprium " of our nature -which did not result from the constituents of our nature but was superadded to it gratuitously-was to pass on together with nature through generation to all of Adam's posterity. The first man was to be fountainhead not only of nature but of grace as well. If that was the case, then we can see why the personal gift 1 For this section, cf. our two articles, "Original Justice and Adam's Sin," and "Our Sinful Inheritance," in The Clergy Monthly, !l4 (1960). • Summa theol. I, q...