Human Destinies: Philosophical Essays in Memory of Gerald Hanratty

Chapter Seven: Man’s Natural Condition

s e v e n man’s natural Condition aquinas and luther on Original sin † Michael Nolan in his Lectures on Genesis (chapter 3) martin luther writes: “it is a cause for great error when some men minimize this evil [original sin] and speak of our depraved nature in the manner of the philosophers, as though it were not depraved.” He further explains his view of this teaching: the scholastics argue that original righteousness was not a part of human nature but, like some adornment, was added to man as a gift, as when someone places a wreath on a pretty girl. the wreath is certainly not part of the maiden’s nature; it is something apart from her nature. it came from outside and can be removed again without any injury to her nature. therefore they maintain about man and about demons that although they lost their original righteousness, their natural endowments have remained pure, just as they were created in the beginning. . . . nothing was more common and received more general acceptance in the schools than this thesis.1 185 186 † Michael Nolan in contrast he states his own view: “sin has not merely deformed nature , most shamefully, but has perverted it in the worst possible manner .”2 luther writes rhetorically, but he lived among scholastics, of whom a substantial number must have held, in some form, the theory he attacks. it would appear that thomas aquinas was among these. in his Commentary on the Sentences aquinas discusses God’s providence , which extends to all creation, and seeks to deal with the problem that evil is found in that creation. He believes that realities are of two kinds: realities that have free will (voluntarii) and others, which he calls naturalia. the latter are in turn of two kinds: the heavenly bodies and those found on earth. there can be no evil in the heavenly bodies, for they are incorruptible. as for the naturalia on earth (the world of nature), in it things on the whole happen for the better. (aquinas is, in this respect, a dedicated follower of aristotle, according to whom what nature does is normally successful.) turning to the world of voluntarii , he says that these also are of two kinds: angels and human beings . He asserts, without providing any particular evidence, that the number of good angels was greater than the number of those that rebelled, and indeed was perhaps greater than the number of all those that will be damned—human beings, it would seem, included.3 For the most part, then, God’s creation is good. But he admits that in human nature good is found for the lesser part (in paucioribus). He explains: “in human nature good seems to be in fewer things: and the reason for this can be given in two ways [dupliciter]: one is through the corruption of human nature from original sin . . . the other can be taken from the very condition of human nature.”4 He explains the condition of human nature as follows: there is a type of nature that has an admixture of potency but that has nevertheless in its very nature a certain power directing its operation , and so it is in angels, and hence such a nature falls away from rectitude for the lesser part. But in human nature the secondary perfections by which operations are directed are either acquired or infused . Hence the Commentator [averroes] compares the potential human intellect to prime matter, and the Philosopher [aristotle] man’s natural Condition 187 compares it to a tablet on which nothing has been written. and so human nature considered in itself equally or indifferently to what is to be understood or to be done, and because according to Dionysius evil happens in many ways and good only in one way, (human nature) is for the greater part turned to evil.5 aquinas appears to be formulating a super-murphy’s law. not only will things go wrong if they can go wrong, but they are more likely to go wrong. But how is this labile state related to original sin? in what sense is it caused by original sin? aquinas writes: “the defect acquired from the origin is acquired, not through any subtraction or corruption of any good that human nature possesses from its own principles, but through the subtraction or corruption of something that was added to [the] nature.”6 He explains...