Dist. 31, 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/31/q/bon-sent-II-d31-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether original sin is contracted in the soul from the flesh through some appetite and will of the soul.*

Secondly it is asked whether original sin is contracted in the soul from the flesh through some appetite and will of the soul. And that it is so, seems [to follow]:

1. *First*, by the argument of Augustine, which he makes in the book *Of Eighty-Three Questions*, showing that no one can be made worse by another, but if he is made worse, this will be from himself. For he says thus: If he is made worse, then [it is] either from a superior, or from an equal, or from an inferior. From an inferior it cannot be; from an equal not, because it does not prevail over it; from a superior not, because that one would be either good or evil. If good: then it would never make it worse. If evil: then it is already inferior and worse. The same is argued in the matter at hand; and from this it follows that the soul cannot be made evil except with its own will cooperating.

2. *Likewise*, every sin is from some will; for the will alone is the principle of sin: therefore original sin, which is in an infant, is either from its own will, or from another's will. If from another's will, namely Adam's, then since we were in Adam only *in a certain respect*, original sin would not be in man except *in a certain respect*: therefore on account of it we ought not to be eternally deprived of the vision of God. But if this is false, then it was not solely from another's will. It remains, therefore, that it is contracted from one's own will.

3. *Likewise*, a superior does not suffer from an inferior except by the desert of fault, or unless it subjects itself to it by mere will; but the soul, when it is united to the flesh, before the union has no fault: therefore if it is infected by the flesh, this is not without a voluntary subjection of the soul itself.

4. *Likewise*, if an angel were to enter an infected body, it would not be said on this account to contract original sin: if therefore the soul contracts it, this is only on account of some appetite which it has toward the flesh.

5. *Likewise*, if an innocent soul were placed in the infernal fire, it would never burn: therefore if the flesh is no more active than fire; [then] if it is infected by the flesh, this is only on account of the affection of the soul itself toward the flesh: and if this is true, original fault is contracted by means of the appetite and will of the soul.

**On the contrary:**

1. The sin which is contracted by the will of the soul is *actual* sin: therefore the sin which infants contract ought not to be called *original* sin, but *actual* sin.

2. *Likewise*, if original sin were from the will of the soul itself, then it would have to be punished with the punishment of *sense*: if therefore it is not punished with the punishment of *sense*, but with the punishment of *loss*, as will be seen below; then it does not seem that it is caused by the will of the soul.

3. *Likewise*, nature and will are disparate principles, so that the effects which are from nature and those which are from purpose are diverse: if therefore original sin is for that very reason called original, because it is from nature, then it is not from one's own will.

4. *Likewise*, the sin which is from one's own will is committed through one's own act; but no sin committed through one's own act is remitted without one's own act: therefore if original [sin] were contracted from the will of the soul, it would never be destroyed in infants through baptism. But if this is contrary to faith, it remains that original sin is not contracted through the will of the soul.

5. *Likewise*, if it is contracted through the will, [it is] either through the natural [will], or through the deliberative [will]. Not through the deliberative, because in the very instant of creation the soul is united to the flesh. Not through the natural, because the natural will is always right and is so moved according as God the author instituted it: therefore in no way can it be the principle of sin: it returns, therefore, to the same as before.

### Conclusio

> Original sin is not contracted by the soul by means of the deliberative appetite, but by means of the natural appetite which the soul has toward the body, not indeed as an efficient cause, but as a cause without which not.

**I respond:** It must be said that when it is asked whether original sin is contracted from the will or appetite of the soul, this can be understood in three ways. For it happens that one understands this in such a way as pertains to the perversity of heresy; and in such a way as pertains to the probability of reason; and in a third way also, as pertains to the truth of faith.

For since there is a twofold appetite in the soul, namely the natural and the deliberative; if it be understood thus, that the soul first deliberates about the infection of the flesh, and is joined to it voluntarily and from deliberation, and from this contracts original fault; to understand it so is heretical, for the reason that the Catholic doctors say that «the soul is infused by being created and created by being infused». And the Apostle, speaking to the Romans, in the ninth chapter, of Jacob and Esau, says: *Before they had done anything good or evil* etc.

There is also another appetite in the soul, the natural one, and through this appetite it can be understood in two ways that original sin is contracted. In one way, so that it be understood to be contracted from the corruption of the flesh and the appetite of the soul, [so] that the corruption of the flesh is as it were material; but the natural appetite of the soul toward the body, which is [ordered] to the union itself and precedes the union in nature, although it does not precede it in time, stands in the character of an efficient [cause] in that manner in which one says that sin has an efficient cause; and thus original sin is said to be contracted from the infected flesh by means of the appetite, through which the soul is bound to the flesh and in a certain way condescends to it, and through this subjects itself to it and by subjecting itself is perverted. Nor yet on this account will that fault be said to be enacted, but contracted, nor personal, but natural, because that appetite is a natural appetite; yet it does not cause sin of itself, but with the corruption of the flesh joined to it, which is propagated from the first parent. — Although this seems to be said with probability, nevertheless it seems to deviate from the truth in this, that it places the principal cause of the contraction of original [sin] on the side of the soul, whereas the Saints and doctors say that original sin is principally derived from the first parent, from whom we are not propagated except according to the flesh.

In another way it can be understood that original sin is contracted by the soul through the natural appetite of the soul itself toward the flesh, so that the principal ground is placed on the side of the flesh, and that natural appetite is the cause *without which not*; and this indeed holds the truth, and it is necessary to posit it. For the flesh could never infect the soul, unless the soul had a natural connection to it. But the natural connection is only through the appetite of the soul itself toward the body, through which the soul is so bound to the flesh that, as was said above, unless it have the virtue by which it may govern the flesh, it necessarily is borne downward with the flesh, and through this is taken captive in the servitude of sin. — And on account of this it is to be conceded without qualification that original sin is contracted, and in no way ought it to be called enacted. And this very name indicates it, that it is called *original*, not *actual*, sin; it is called *natural*, not *voluntary*. — Hence the arguments which are adduced for the second part are to be conceded.

**To the objections:**

*To 1.* But to that which is objected, that man cannot be made evil by another; it must be said that Augustine there speaks of another agent which is so other that it is not naturally bound to that which is to be made worse. But it is not so in the matter at hand; for the flesh has a natural connection with the spirit through the natural appetite of the one toward the other.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that original sin is either from one's own will or from another's will; it must be said that [it is] from another's will. — But to that which it adds, that we were in Adam himself only *in a certain respect*; it must be said that this is true, because we were in *causal* potency; but just as *in a certain respect* is reduced to *without qualification* through the operation of nature — for whereas before we were in *potency*, now we are beings in *act* — so also the original sin of the offspring, which was *in a certain respect* before the generation of the offspring itself, in the very propagation of the offspring begins, from the union of the soul to the body, to be sin *without qualification*; nor is there required there an actual or new deliberation, but the propagation itself and the conjunction of the soul to the flesh suffices.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that a superior does not suffer from an inferior etc.: it must be said that this holds true in those things between which there is no natural connection; and therefore it has no place in the matter at hand, since there is a natural connection of the soul to the flesh, as was said above. — It could nevertheless be said that Adam in some way merited [it]; but this will appear better when it is treated how divine justice is preserved in the union of the soul to the flesh.

*To 4, 5.* To the last two arguments the response is already clear from what has been said. For if an angel were placed in infected flesh, and an innocent soul were placed in the flame; neither would the former be infected, nor would the latter suffer. But this would not be on account of the defect of the deliberative appetite, but on account of this, that there would not be there an appetite, nor a natural connection, and without this the soul cannot be infected by the flesh, as was said before, although this is not the principal cause. For a like natural appetite would be preserved in the soul toward the flesh, if man had stood [in innocence]; and yet the soul would contract no fault.

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