Are you sure?
This action might not be possible to undo. Are you sure you want to continue?
A E F
Peace through the Truth
Rev. T. Harper, S. J.First Series.
Transcriber’s note: After some consideration, I have left this text as Fr. Harp-er wrote it. I am obliged, however, to point out that the discussion of the fate ofunbaptized infants beginning on page 12 is not as dogmatically certain as Fr. Harp-er presents it; I refer interested readers to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
,¶1261. I also note that his reference on page 18 to the delayed ensoulment of afetus is unfortunate in light of advances in scientific study, and not in accord withthe mind of the Church. (Cf.
Evangelium Vitae
, 60.
)
From the article on the Immaculate Conception
§
Thenatureandproper-ties of the state of manin Paradise. Its con-sideration reveals twostates: a. The stateof original innocence.b. A possible state of pure nature.
Towards the close of the first epoch of creation, God created man, the paragonofHisvisibleuniverse. AndHecreatedhiminasupernaturalorder. Thisactthere-fore of the Divine Omnipotence includes two things;—a possibility, and a fact. Itincludes a possibility. For God, had it so pleased Him, might have created men inthe merely natural order, and with a merely natural end of existence. The reason isobvious. For if God, on the hypothesis that He willed to create man, should havehad no choice, but must have created him as in fact He did, that state in whichAdam was constituted, could not have been called supernatural, but would havebeen necessarily natural. And why? Because it is evident that the Almighty cando, whatever does not involve a metaphysical contradiction; which in the presentcase would be to make a man, who is not a man. Therefore if God could not havecreated Adam, otherwise than He actually did create him, Adam’s condition inParadise must have been essential to his human nature.But it also includes a fact. For in reality God did not create Adam in the naturalorder, but clothed him from the beginning with His grace.
a
. The possible stateof pure nature consid-ered.
And we are thus brought in presence of two states of human life; the one, asupernatural state, in which our first parents were constituted from the first; theother, what is called a state of pure or simple nature, in which man
might
havebeen constituted, though
de facto
he never has been. It will be necessary first of all to cast a glance at this second and possible condition of human life, in orderthat we may be able to explain with greater clearness the peculiar excellence andprivileges of the primitive innocence and sanctity, to which our progenitors wereraised, and which all but infinitely exceeded the exigencies of their nature.We will suppose then for a moment, that the All-wise Father of the Universe
Man would have beenin that state physical-ly, in which he is now,when first he is born.
had resolved in His eternal counsels to out leave the human race, which He hadcreated, in this state of pure nature. The question at once arises, what sort of abeing would man have been? Would he have had the same faculties of soul andbody, which he possesses now? Would their exercise, development, power of ac-tion, have been of some other order, different from that which we experience inourselves, and perceive in others? The Church has provided us with an answer.For She has condemned the proposition of Baius,
*
which affirms, that “
God could
*
Prop. lv.; vide D. Thom. de Malo, Q. iv. ȧ ad .