Dist. 30, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/30/q/bon-sent-II-d30-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether original sin is ignorance.*

Secondly it is asked concerning this, whether original sin is ignorance. And that it is so, seems to be the case.

1. On that passage of the Psalm: *The sins of my youth and of my ignorance* etc., the Gloss: « *Of my ignorance*, that is, original sin, which is in little ones ». And a little before: « *The sins of ignorance* designates those which are in little ones, who are held by original sin ».

2. Likewise, Hugh in his book *On the Sacraments*, in the seventh part: « Original sin is a vice which we contract by being born, through ignorance in the mind and concupiscence in the flesh »: therefore it seems that original sin is ignorance. But if you say that this is said *by way of cause*, there stands against it what Hugh consequently says in the same part: « These four evils appear in man: pride, ignorance, mortality, and concupiscence. Pride is a fault of the mind, mortality a penalty of the flesh only, but ignorance is both fault and penalty »; but it is nothing but the original fault: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, original sin is most of all to be blotted out by the Sacrament of faith: therefore it is more directly opposed to faith itself, which is in the cognitive [power], than to any virtue existing in the affective [power]. If therefore ignorance designates the privation of a virtue directing the cognitive [power], it seems that original sin is properly ignorance.

4. Likewise, the penalty corresponds to the fault; but to original sin there is properly owed the penalty of the privation of the vision of God: therefore if this designates a privation on the part of the cognitive [power], it seems that the original sin itself does too; and if this is true, the same returns as before.

5. Likewise, just as there is sin in coveting those things which are not to be desired, so there is sin in disbelieving those things which are to be believed: therefore just as to have a necessity toward *coveting* is a fault, so to have

a necessity toward *disbelieving* is a fault. But the little one has both necessities; and he has nothing but the original [sin]: therefore just as original sin is posited in the little one to be *concupiscibility* or concupiscence, so it ought also to be posited to be ignorance.

**On the contrary:**
1. Bede says that four things are inflicted upon us on account of sin, namely ignorance and infirmity etc.: therefore since original sin is not called *infirmity*, by like reasoning neither [is it called] *ignorance*, which is a penalty inflicted on account of it.

2. Likewise, Augustine *to Valentinus*: « Ignorance in those who could not know is the penalty of sin ». If therefore ignorance in little ones is invincible, it seems that it is a *penalty*, and not a *fault*; especially since we see little ones excused from all fault on account of ignorance.

3. Likewise, original sin is blotted out in baptism; but a baptized little one is just as ignorant as an unbaptized one: therefore ignorance cannot be original sin.

4. Likewise, if someone by some act of his own falls into madness, that madness is not said to be in him a *fault*, but a *penalty*: therefore by like reasoning, if someone has fallen into ignorance from the sin of the first parent, it ought not to be called the original *fault*, but its *penalty*. And here there can be a place for the argument *from the greater*, since ignorance ought more to be imputed as fault when one falls into it by one's own act than by another's act.

5. Likewise, since original sin is concupiscence, as has been proved above and Augustine says, if it were ignorance, then since concupiscence and ignorance are of diverse genera, there would be in each person a plurality of original sins; which will be shown below to be false.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** It can be granted that original sin is ignorance, insofar namely as it is conjoined to concupiscence.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as it was said above concerning ignorance in adults — namely that it is not sin except insofar as it has a will accompanying it — so on the contrary cognition is not a virtue unless affection is joined to it. In this way it must be understood in the matter at hand, that ignorance, if it designates pure *nescience*, is thus only a penalty; but if it designates *nescience* as it is *conjoined to concupiscence*, it is thus a fault, for the reason that such ignorance has an opposition with virtue and grace. For grace, coming into the soul, not only rectifies the affection through charity, but also the cognitive [power] through faith. For the will cannot be directed unless reason too is equally directed; and the liberty of free choice consists at once in reason and in will. — In this way therefore it can be granted that original sin is ignorance; and thus master Hugh and the Gloss understand it, and the arguments which are brought for the first part proceed [correctly].

**To the arguments for the affirmative part:**

Yet as to that which is objected concerning the privation of the vision of God, it must be said that that argument fails in two ways. First indeed, because the privation of the vision of God is owed not only to sins which regard the cognitive [power], but rather to those which regard the affective [power], since the vision is the whole reward which is rendered to all virtues and meritorious works. Secondly, because, when we say that little ones are punished by the privation of the *vision*, this is to be understood consequently to mean that they are deprived both of the dowry of fruition and of the dowry of holding.

**To the arguments for the negative part:**

But the arguments which are brought for the opposite proceed concerning ignorance itself, insofar as it designates *pure nescience*, and thus it is a penalty, not a fault. But insofar as it has concupiscence joined to it, it is a fault.

*To 5.* — Nor yet does it follow from this that there are in us several original sins, as the last argument concludes, for the reason that where one thing is posited on account of another, there is only one thing. — When therefore we say that ignorance by reason of concupiscence is original sin, we do not on account of this posit in us several originals differing in essence, but we posit this: that since the original is one, it disorders and vitiates the whole soul not only according to the *affective* [power], but also according to the *cognitive* [power], yet in such a way that it does so principally to the affective. Hence more properly is the original made known through *concupiscence* and *the privation of due justice* than through *ignorance*, because both concupiscence and the privation of due justice

make known the original itself insofar as it is a fault, and therefore they are predicated of it by predication *per essence*. But ignorance makes it known more insofar as it is a vice disordering the cognitive [power]; hence it is predicated of original sin, insofar as ignorance itself is sin, more by predication *per cause* than *per essence*. And this the very word of Hugh insinuates, when he says that the original itself is « a vice which we have contracted through ignorance ».

Anselm himself also declares this in his book *On the Virginal Conception*, where he says that every sin is injustice, and all justice and injustice consist in the will. — ¶ And thus it is clear what original sin is *per essence*, since it is concupiscence and the privation of due justice; it is clear also how original sin is said by Hugh to be *ignorance*, and consequently those things which have been adduced for either part.