Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Grace of the First Man
Chapter 1: The controversy is proposed, whether the first man was created with some supernatural gift
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Gratia Primi Hominis. 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).
Since in this last part of our work it is set before us (God graciously helping) to discourse of the grace conferred on the human race in our first parent; of the loss of that grace through the sin of the same first man; and lastly of the reparation of grace through Jesus Christ our Lord: the order of the matter demands that we make the beginning of our disputation from that which stands in the first place.
About to dispute, then, of the grace of the first man — and of a threefold grace, namely the grace of the soul, which is called original righteousness; the grace of the body, that is, the immortality of the body; and the grace of place, that is, paradise — we shall take our start from that question which in the order of nature precedes the rest. And that question is: “Whether the first man was created with some supernatural gift.” In which question, from one and the same principle, the Pelagians and the Lutherans have gone off into contrary and conflicting opinions.
For the Pelagians, since they acknowledged in the first man no supernatural gift, but only natural faculties, and at the same time observed that nothing is now wanting in man which is required for constituting human nature, came to this opinion: that they thought men had lost nothing at all through Adam's sin, and that human nature now also is such as the first man had received it at the beginning from the hand of the Creator. Contrariwise the Lutherans, since they hold it for settled that man through the fall of the first parent was made worse, and since they contend (in which they agree with the Pelagians) that there were no supernatural gifts in the first man, have been driven to this: to say that something natural — such as, above all, free choice — is now wanting to the nature of man. But the Catholic Doctors, who do not doubt that our first parent was adorned at the beginning of creation with many supernatural gifts, avoid those two errors without any difficulty. For they teach that through Adam's sin the whole man was truly made worse; and yet that he lost neither free choice nor the other natural gifts, but only the supernatural.
Of the error of the Pelagians the witness is St. Augustine, who both in the book On Heresies, chapter 88, and more openly in epistle 106 to Paulinus, writes that the Pelagians held that the first man was created altogether such as we now see the other men born; and that men are now born without any supernatural gifts is beyond controversy.
That the Lutherans, and the other heretics of this time, agree with the Pelagians in the same principle we shall easily demonstrate. For John Calvin, in book 1 of the Institutes, chapter 15, section 8, describing the condition of the first man, makes no mention of supernatural gifts, and places the difference between human nature as it was at the beginning and as it is now in this, that at the beginning it had free choice, and now lacks it. “God, then,” says he, “furnished the soul of man with a mind by which it might discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might see, the light of reason going before, what is to be followed or fled. To this he joined the will, with which choice rests. In these excellent endowments the first condition of man excelled.” And a little after: “In this integrity man was strong in free choice, by which, if he willed, he could attain eternal life.” And that this integrity was natural to the first man the same Calvin declares in the words following, where he describes the fall of the same first man: “Hence,” says he, “so great a darkness was cast over the philosophers, because in the ruin they sought the building, and in the scattering the well-knit joints. They held this principle, that man would not be a rational animal unless there were in him free election of good and evil; it came also into their minds that otherwise the difference between virtues and vices would be taken away, unless man ordered his life by his own counsel. Rightly indeed, thus far — had there been no change in man; and since that change escaped them, no wonder they mingle heaven with earth. But they who, having professed themselves disciples of Christ, still seek free choice in man lost and sunk in spiritual destruction, by dividing between the placits of the philosophers and the heavenly doctrine, are plainly foolish, so as to touch neither heaven nor earth.” In which words, while Calvin confesses that it was rightly judged by the philosophers that man would not be a rational animal unless there were in him free election of good and evil, he signifies plainly enough that it pertains to the nature of man that there be in him liberty of choice, just as it pertains to the nature of the same man to be a rational animal. Wherefore, since Calvin places the change which was made through sin in the loss of free choice, it follows that Calvin affirms that that integrity in which the first man was created was altogether natural.
But still much more openly Martin Luther asserted the same thing, in the commentary on chapter 3 of Genesis. For discoursing of the original righteousness of the first man, he concludes thus: “Wherefore let us determine that righteousness was not a certain gift which came from without, separate from the nature of man, but was truly natural: so that it was the nature of Adam to love God, to believe God, to acknowledge God; these things were as natural in Adam as it is natural that the eyes receive light.” And below: “Moreover,” says he, “these things prove that original righteousness is of the nature of man; and that, it being lost through sin, the natural endowments did not remain entire, as the Scholastics rave.” Nor will there be need to labor in reporting the opinions of the other heretics: both because almost all hold Luther or Calvin for their highest doctors; and also because all who have been separated from the Catholic Church on account of Luther's dogmas define that that wrestling of flesh and spirit which we all experience is truly and properly sin, though the man be just, and strenuously resist the motions of concupiscence. From which this follows: that by their opinion man could not have been created at the beginning such as he is now born — because, namely, he would always and necessarily, from his very institution, be sinning, and thereby his sins would be thrown back upon God, the author of nature. Original righteousness, therefore, which restrained that rebellion of the flesh, pertained, by the adversaries' opinion, to the natural constitution of man, not to supernatural gifts. Hither also ought to be referred certain articles condemned a few years ago by two Supreme Pontiffs, Pius V and Gregory XIII. For article 21 runs thus: “The raising and exaltation of human nature into the fellowship of the divine nature was owed to the integrity of the first condition, and hence is to be called natural, not supernatural.” And article 26 stands thus: “The integrity of the first condition was not an unowed exaltation of human nature, but its natural condition.”
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
mus homo cum dono aliquo supematurali conditus. Cum in hac postrema nostri operis parte de gratia humano generi in primo nostro parente collata, deque ejus gratia; per pec¬ catum ejusdem primi hominis amissione ; ac demum de gratia; per Jesum Christum Domi¬ num nostrum reparatione propositum nobis sit (Deo bene juvante) disserere : ratio or¬ dinis postulat, ut ab eo, quod primo loco positum est, disputandi principium facia¬ mus. Igitur de gratia primi hominis disputatu¬ rus, ac de gratia triplici, videlicet de gratia aninne, qua; dicitur justitia originalis; de gratia corporis, id est, de corporis immorta¬ litate ; et de gratia loci, hoc est, de paradi¬ so ; ab ea qua;stione ducemus exordium, qua; natura; ordine eseteras antecedit. Est autem ea qumstio : « Utrum primus homo cum do¬ no aliquo supematurali conditus fuerit. » In qua qua;stione, ex uno eodemque principio Pelagiani, ac Lutherani in contrarias, pug¬ nantes que sententias abierunt. Pelagiani enim, cum in primo homine nul¬ lum supcrnaturale donum , sed naturales tantum facultates agnoscerent, et simul ani¬ madverterent, nihil in homine nunc deside¬ rari, quod ad naturam humanam constituen¬ dam requiratur, in eam sententiam venerunt, ut existimarent per Adami peccatum nihil omnino homines perdidisse, talcmquc nunc Tom. V. quoque humanam esse naturam, qualem initio primus homo de manu Conditoris ac¬ ceperat. Contra Lutherani cum pro comperto ha¬ beant, hominem per lapsum primi parentis factum esse deteriorem, et cum nulla super- naturalia dona (in quo cum Pelagianis con¬ veniunt) in primo homine fuisse contendant, eo venire compulsi sunt, ut dicant aliquid naturale, quale in primis est liberum arbi¬ trium, natura; hominis nunc deessc. Porro Catholici Doctores, qui multis su- pernaturalibus donis primum nostrum pa¬ rentem initio creationis ornatum fuisse non dubitant, duos illos errores sine ulla difficul¬ tate declinant. Docent enim per Ada; pecca¬ tum totum hominem vere deteriorem esse factum ; et tamen nec liberum arbitrium, neque alia naturalia dona, sed solum super- naturalia perdidisse. Erroris Pelagianorum testis est S. Augusti¬ nus, qui tum in lib. de ha;res. cap. 88. tum apertius in epistola 10G. ad Paulinum scribit, sensisse Pelagianos talem omnino conditum fuisse primum hominem, quales nunc ccete- ros homines nasci videmus ; nasci autem nunc homines sine ullis supernaturalibus do¬ nis extra controversiam est. In eodem principio cum Pelagianis conve¬ nire Luthcranos, cmterosque hujus temporis hmreticos facile demonstrabimus. Joanncs enim Calvinus in i. lib. Institut. cap. 15. §. 8. describens primi hominis conditionem, nullam mentionem facit supematurali um do¬ norum, in coque ponit discrimen inter na¬ turam humanam, qualis initio fuit, et qualis nunc est, quod initio habuerit liberum arbi¬ trium, nunc eo careat. « Ergo, inquit, ani¬ mam hominis Deus mente instruxit, qua 12 170 LIBER I. bonum a malo, justum ab injusto discerne¬ ret; ac quid sequendum, vel fugiendum sit, praeeunte rationis luce, videret. Huic adjunxit voluntatem, penes quam est electio. His praeclaris dotibus excelluit prima hominis conditio. » Et paulo post : « In hac integri¬ tate libero arbitrio pollebat homo, quo, si vellet, adipisci posset vitam aeternam. » Hanc autem integritatem fuisse primo homini naturalem, declarat idem Calvinus in verbis sequentibus, ubi describit ejusdem primi hominis lapsum : « Hinc tanta, inquit, Philosophis objecta caligo, quod in ruina aedificium, et in dissipatione aptas juncturas quaerebant. Principium illud tenebant, non fore hominem rationale animal, nisi inesset libera boni et mali electio. Veniebat etiam illis in mentem, alioqui tolli discrimen inter virtutes et vitia ; nisi proprio consilio vitam homo institueret. Probe quidem hactenus, si nulla fuisset in homine mutatio, quae dum ipsos latuit, nihil mirum si coelum terrae misceant ; qui vero Christi se discipuli esse professi, in homine perdito, et in spirituale exitium demerso, liberum arbitrium adhuc quaerunt, inter philosophorum placita, et coelestem doctrinam partiendo plane desi¬ piunt, ut nec coelum, nec terram attingant. » Quibus verbis dum fatetur Calvinus recte a philosophis indicatum esse non fore homi¬ nem rationale animal, nisi inesset libera bo¬ ni et mali electio, satis aperte significat, ad naturam hominis pertinere, ut insit in eo libertas arbitrii, quemadmodum ad naturam ejusdem hominis pertinet, ut sit animal ra¬ tionale. Quare cum mutationem, qua} per pec¬ catum facta est, Calvinus in liberi arbritrii amissione constituat, efficitur, ut integrita¬ tem illam, in qua primus homo conditus fuit, omnino naturalem fuisse Calvinus affirmet. Sed multo adhuc apertius Martinus Luthe- rus rem camdem asseruit in comment. ad 3. cap. Genes. Disserens enim de originali ju¬ stitia primi hominis, ita concludit : « Quare statuamus justitiam non fuisse quoddam do¬ mum, quod ab extra accederet, separatum a natura hominis, sed fuisse vere naturalem, ut natura Ada1 esset diligere Deum, credere Deo, agnoscere Deum, haec tam naturalia fuere in Adamo, quam naturale est, quod oculi lumen recipiunt. » Et infra : « Porro, inquit, haec probant, originalem justitiam esse de natura hominis, ea autem perpecca- . tum amissa non mansisse integra naturalia, ut Scholastici delirant. » Neque opus erit in aliorum hajreticorum sententiis referendis laborare, tum quod Lutherum , vel Calvinum pene omnes pro summis doctoribus habeant, tum etiam quo¬ niam quotquot sunt ab Ecclesia Catholica ob Lutheri dogmata separati, luctam illam carnis ac spiritus, quam omnes experimur, vere proprieque peccatum esse definiunt, quamvis homo sit justus, et concupiscentiae motibus strenue repugnet. Ex eo vero id sequitur, ut non potuerit homo ex eorum sententia talis initio condi, qualis nunc nascitur ; quia videlicet semper ac necessario ex ipsa sui institutione pec¬ caret, ac per hoc ejus peccata in auctorem naturae Deum refunderentur. Originalis igi¬ tur justitia, quae rebellionem illam carnis coercebat, ex adversariorum sententia, ad naturalem hominis constitutionem, non ad dona supernaturalia pertinebat. Huc etiam referri debent articuli quidam ante paucos annos a duobus summis Pontificibus damna¬ ti, Pio V. et Gregorio XIII. Sic enim habet art. 21 : « Humana} natura} sublimatio, et exaltatio in consortium divina} natura}, de¬ bita fuit integritati primae conditionis, ac proinde naturalis dicenda est, non superna- turalis. » Et art. 26. ita se habet : « Integri¬ tas primae conditionis non fuit indebita hu¬ manae naturae exaltatio, sed naturalis ejus conditio. » CAPUT XII. Hominem non esse initio conditum , qualis