Page:Duns Scotus, defender of the Immaculate Conception (1955).djvu/24

 Scotus agrees that original sin is transmitted through natural propagation from Adam. He does not admit, however, following St. Anselm, $19$ that there is involved in original sin a physical corruption of our nature which in turn becomes communicated as a real taint to the soul. The transmission of original sin is not due to any physical infection of human nature, but solely to the fact that we are children of Adam. Adam, having lost original justice, could no longer transmit it; and so now we come into existence with the moral deordination (not a physical quality) of the lack of original justice due according to the antecedent decree of God. It is this fact which constitutes original sin in us, and the reason why it is found in us is our natural descent from Adam. $20$

Incidentally, says Scotus, we can see here why newborn children arrive in this world as '’debtors,” and why this is accounted a sin to them, punishable with privation of the Beatific Vision, unless the sin is removed by Baptism. Adam received original justice for himself and for human nature as such; therefore God justly demands this primordial justice of human nature in whomsoever found. $21$

Scotus denies, then, that concupiscence constitutes original sin. The deordination of concupiscence, he holds, comes from sin and leads to sin; but it is not itself a sin. The Subtle Doctor gives us this detailed analysis of concupiscence: concupiscence may be taken to mean an actual stirring of the sentient appetite, or a habitual condition of the same, or merely a dormant instinctive proneness. None of these is formally a sin, because sin is not found in sentient nature as such. $22$

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