Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Loss of Grace · Book VI: The Punishments of Original Sin
Chapter 16: What the heretics of our time think concerning the effect of original sin
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Amissione Gratiae et Statu Peccati, Book VI. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
The things disputed by us thus far concerning the evils that follow original sin cannot, unless I am mistaken, displease the Sectaries of our time. But there remains a controversy between us, in that they will have three other effects of original sin which Catholics do not acknowledge. One is the loss of free choice; for we hold that free choice was wounded, they that it was extinguished, through the sin of Adam. Another is so great a corruption of nature that man, even justified, cannot but always sin. For we willingly admit that men cannot, by the powers of corrupt nature alone, perform anything of good that pertains to piety and eternal life; yet by the powers of nature repaired and healed through grace, and with God himself always cooperating and helping, we believe that man can fulfill the law, live well, and merit eternal life. But for these two controversies there will not be wanting a proper place in the disputations that follow.
The third effect, then, is to hate God, to flee the judgment of God, to doubt of the promises of God, to despair of the remission of sins and of everlasting salvation. For these and like things they will have to be now original sin itself, now its fruits. See the Augsburg Confession and the Apology, article 2.
But that motions of this kind are not effects of original sin — except perhaps remote and mediate ones, as are all sins — can be demonstrated by two reasons. First, because such motions do not exist in man except by the mediating command of the will. Accordingly, the proper cause of sins of this kind, as also of the rest of the actual sins, is the human will — as, with the Catholics, even the adversaries confess in the Augsburg Confession itself, article 19, and Philip in the Commonplaces, under the title On the Cause of Sin. Then, because those motions are found in many in whom there is no original sin, as in the demons; and they are not found in many in whom there is original sin, as in infants. We confess, however, that the propensity to these sins, and the lack of the habits or virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with which the first man had been adorned in paradise, without doubt pertain to the sin of origin, or to its effects.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XVI. De effectu -peccati originalis, quid sentiant nostri temporis haeretici. Quae sunt hucusque a nobis disputata de malis consequentibus originale peccatum, Sectariis nostri temporis, ni fallor, displice¬ re non possunt. Remanet autem controver¬ sia inter nos, quod ipsi tres alios effectus peccati originalis esse volunt, quos Catholici non agnoscunt. Unus est amissio liberi arbi¬ trii, nos enim laesum, ipsi extinctum libe¬ rum arbitrium, per Adae peccatum esse vo¬ lunt. Alter est, tanta naturae corruptio, ut non possit homo, etiam justificatus, non semper peccare. Nos enim libenter ad¬ mittimus, non posse homines solis viri¬ bus naturae corruptae quidquam boni prae¬ stare, quod ad pietatem et vitam aeternam pertineat : tamen viribus naturae, per gra¬ tiam reparatae ac sanatae, et ipso Deo sem¬ per cooperante et adjuvante, credimus homi¬ nem posse legem implere, bene vivere, vi¬ tam aeternam mereri. Caeterum his contro¬ versiis duabus in sequentibus disputationi¬ bus non deerit proprius locus. Tertius igitur effectus est odisse Deum, fugere judicium Dei, dubitare de promissi¬ onibus Dei, desperare de remissione pecca¬ torum, et sempiterna salute. Haec enim et si¬ milia nunc ipsum originale peccatum, nunc ejus fructus esse volunt. Vide, confessionem Augustanam et Apologiam art. 2. Caeterum non esse ejusmodi motus pecca¬ ti originalis effectus, nisi forte remotos ac mediatos, ut sunt omnia peccata, duabus rationibus dcmonsti’ari potest. Primum, quo¬ niam non existunt in homine tales motus, nisi mediante imperio voluntatis. Proinde, propria causa ejusmodi peccatorum , ut etiam actualium caeterorum, est voluntas hu¬ mana, ut cum Catholici fatentur etiam adver¬ sarii in ipsa Confessione Augustana art. 19. et Philippus in locis, tit. de causa peccati. Deinde, quoniam isti motus inveniuntur in multis, in quibus non est originale peccatum, ut in daemonibus; et in multis non inveniun¬ tur, in quibus est originale peccatum, ut. in infantibus. Fatemur tamen propensionem ad .haec peccata, et carentiam habituum, seu *Si LIBER Vi. virtutum fidei, spei, et charitatis , quibus peccatum originis, vel ejus offectus sine du- primus homo in paradiso ornatus fuerat, ad bio pertinere. FISIS IiECIMJE OlTAIlTiv CONTUOVEHSIFE GENERALIS.