26 THOMISTIC EVOLUTION CATHOLIC THEOLOGY & EVOLUTION

here are many scholars today, God gave our first parents who were in both Catholic and Protestant, the state of original justice the sanctifying Twho think that the doctrine of grace that justified them and made them original sin should be jettisoned in light righteous. Our human parents were friends of of modern science. God. God’s supernatural gift of sanctifying grace, In this essay, I respond to these theologians by according to St. Thomas, was also accompanied arguing that the doctrine of original sin is an inte- by three other gifts, called the preternatural gifts, gral part of divine revelation that not only emerg- that were given to our first parents to perfect them es from our understanding that God is good but by remedying their natural weaknesses. also explains our lived experience The Historicity of human brokenness. of Adam and Eve / Part II: Moreover, it is a doctrine that is not The Doctrine of Original Sin incompati- ble with an Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. evolutionary account of the human species. First, human beings by their very nature as What is the doctrine of original sin? It is an creatures made of spirit and matter are inher- explanation from divine revelation of the lived ently corruptible. In other words, because we are experience of our brokenness. As my students made of two things, spirit and matter, we natu- at Providence College will quickly acknowledge, rally are prone to their separation. There is noth- human beings are broken. We do things that we ing inherent to spirit and to matter that would know will hurt us in the long run, and we do keep them together forever. This separation of not do things that we know will make us happy, spirit and matter is called death. The gift of im- again in the long run. They echo the Apostle mortality was given to the human beings in the Paul, who declared: “I do not understand my own state of original justice to overcome this inherent actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the corruptibility so that they would live forever. very thing I hate” (Rom 7:15). Why is this? Second, human beings by their very nature are According to the Catechism of the Catholic prone to interior disarray because what we are Church, our God who is goodness Himself created inclined to know, what we are inclined to choose, everything good. He created all things flawless and what we are inclined to desire often do not so that they would reflect His infinite wisdom and coincide. The gift of integrity was given to our goodness (see CCC, no. 339). For the same reason, our first parents to overcome this interior disorder so original parents were not only created good, they that they would be more apt to act well in grace were also established in friendship with their Cre- to attain their holiness. This preternatural gift ator and in harmony within themselves and with orders persons so that their reason is subject to each other and with creation around them. (see God, their desires are subject to their reason, and CCC, no. 374). Theologians call this original state of their bodies are subject to their souls. harmony, the state of original justice. It is a state Third, we human beings are by our very nature of original goodness that was given to our first inherently limited in our knowledge because we parents by a God who is good. know things through contingent realities and we learn about them in a gradual fashion. In St. Thom- as’s view, the gift of infused knowledge was given other words, they became subject to the interior to our first parents to remedy this weakness. struggle that is the source of our brokenness. Finally, because they had the gifts of immor- Significantly, the Catholic Church teaches, as tality, of integrity, and of infused knowledge, the St. Thomas Aquinas explained, that God intended original human beings, according our first parents to give their to St. Thomas, were also impass- descendants the blessings of able. In other words, they were original justice. When they lost not able to experience bodily or the gifts, however, they could spiritual suffering. not give them to their posterity. Building upon this Thomistic Thus, the Council of Trent (1546) theological account, I have else- teaches that original sin is trans- where proposed that it would mitted by propagation and not also have been fitting for God imitation. to have given the first human Now, some may read this beings several gifts that I call statement by the Council the preteradaptive gifts. These of Trent—that original sin is would have been given as soon transmitted by propagation and as the original humans evolved, not by imitation—as a claim to perfect them not only as that original sin is transmitted persons made of body and soul biologically. However, the con- but also as persons who evolved sequences of original sin are pri- from non-personal primate vations in the soul of the human ancestors.1 being. Because of the original sin, his soul lacks These preteradaptive gifts include the grace and the preternatural gifts. Thus, when the strength to counter the evolved adaptations Council of Trent teaches that the consequences we inherited from our primate ancestors, i.e., to of the original sin are transmitted by propagation infidelity, to violence, and to biased and false and not by imitation, we should understand this knowledge. These gifts would have given the as a metaphysical and not a biological claim. As first human beings the capacity to love faithfully, an immaterial spirit, our soul and its properties to maintain peace, and to know the truth. are not determined by our genes. Instead, when And yet, we are broken! We are inclined to ac- God creates our souls when we are conceived, He tions and to inactions that hinder us from attain- creates them without the graces and gifts that we ing the happiness that God had intended to give should have inherited from our original parents. us from the very beginning. Why is this? In conclusion, the doctrine of original sin According to the Catechism, our existential bro- explains why we are broken without attributing kenness can be explained by positing a historical that brokenness to God’s creative will. It is also event in the distant past when our first parents the grounds for our salvation because “after his rejected God and all of His gifts. The Bible fall, man was not abandoned by God” (see CCC, reveals that the original human beings were put no. 410). Thus, it should not be surprising that to a test, a test that they failed through an act of the Catechism concludes: “The Church, which disobedience. This was the original sin. has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we When our first parents disobeyed God in the cannot tamper with the revelation of original original sin, they rejected Him and with Him, all sin without undermining the mystery of Christ” of His supernatural gifts. Without the preternat- (CCC, no. 389). T E J ural and the preteradaptive gifts, these fallen notes » human beings thereafter became subject to death, to suffering, to error-filled knowledge, to FIND THIS (AND MORE) ON THE WEB: weakness of will, and to disordered desire. In http:// www.thomisticevolution.org / disputed-questions / the-historicity-of-adam-and-eve-part-ii-the-doctrine- - Fittingness Argu Theological “A O.P., Austriaco, Nicanor of-original-sin / 1 ment for the Historicity of the Fall of Homo Sapiens,” Nova Sapiens,” Homo of the Fall of the Historicity ment for in press. , et vetera