The Catholic Perspective
From the Catholic perspective[1]
this loss of original holiness is the loss of sanctifying grace and the
preternatural gifts. The wounding of our nature was caused by the loss of the
preternatural gifts of impossibility, immortality, and freedom from
concupiscence, which led to suffering, death, and concupiscence. We are in a
state of nature which is not graced in this manner. Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals
of Catholic Dogma, explains this beautifully:“The condition of original sin
signifies the want of a supernatural advantage to which the creature has no
claim. God is not obliged to create the soul with the adornment of sanctifying
grace.”[2]
In fact, if the language of
guilt was not used at all, it would not be unjust for God to withhold a
privilege which he originally gave to humanity purely from his gratuitous
nature. We simply suffer the loss of a potential privilege which was squandered
by Adam, the representative of the human race.
In addition to the wounding
of the body, Aquinas enumerates four wounds of the soul due to this loss[3]:
1)
ignorance,
that is, difficulty of knowing the truth
2)
malice, that
is the weakening of the power of the will
3)
weakness,
that is, the recoiling before difficulties in the struggle for the good
4)
desire
(concupiscentia) in the narrower sense, that is, the desire for satisfaction of
the sense against the judgment of reason.
As a result of our condition
we tend to turn away from God and turn towards the creature. Because of this we are perceiving lesser
goods to be greater than they actually are and so move further and further from
the supreme good, God, whom is our proper end. The greater discrepancy between
what we perceive as the good and what actually is good, the greater we become
depraved. In this our passions become directed towards less godly ends, and our
affections grow towards those things which are more perverse.
In the Thomistic view a man
with original holiness is to a man without it is as a man who is fully clothed
to the man who is naked. This is to be “preferred, as the single act of Adam,
which occurred once only, could, neither in his own nature nor in the nature of
his posterity, effect an evil habit and with it, a weakening of the natural
powers.”[4]
It is important to note that
the Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent states: “...though
free will, weakened as it was in its powers and downward bent, was by no means
extinguished in them.”[5]
Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of this
deprivation of original holiness but qualifies that “...human nature has not
been totally corrupted.”[6]
The language of deprivation is not used to indicate that we are less than
human, nor that we are as depraved as we possibly can be, but that we are in a
state of nature, consisting only of those things which are proper to it without
the adornment of sanctifying grace. However, we are never in a mere state of
nature since even though we are not adorned with sanctifying grace we
nevertheless experience the prevenient grace of God leading us towards Himself.
The Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent states that
“...the beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing
grace of God through Jesus Christ... without any merits on their part... [and]
...be disposed through His quickening and helping grace...”[7]
The Wesleyan Perspective
In his sermon Working out our own Salvation Wesley
states the same perspective concerning prevenient grace: “For allowing that all
the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is
no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has
quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God”[8]
It is difficult to speak of
the nature of original sin without the mention of prevenient grace particularly
because Wesley basically brings us to the same image of man just described in
the Catholic position by appealing to prevenient grace. When Wesley speaks of
the natural man who is totally depraved, he is speaking of a mere logical
abstraction. He first tells us what we are apart from prevenient grace and then
proceeds to tell us that no man is in this state of mere nature and therefore
we are in a different state as the result of grace, a universal effect of the
atonement of Christ.
In order to show Wesley’s
insistence upon the doctrine of total depravity, I endeavor to show that his
starting position concerning natural free will was in agreement with Calvinism.
Generally the Thirty-Nine Articles were understood as having been highly
influenced by Calvinism but Wesley often interpreted them in an Arminan manner
such as the case with Article XVII on
Predestination and Election. It would be fair to expect that Wesley would adopt
the Arminian position which follows the Catholic emphasis upon deprivation
concerning original sin, rather he upheld the Reformed position concerning
depravity. The Thirty-Nine Articles Religion states that “...man is very far
gone from original righteousness”, which Wesley retained in the Twenty-Five
Articles of Methodism.[9]
In the Methodist Conference
in 1745 Wesley stated that he and his preachers had come “to the very edge of
Calvinism” in certain respects. That is “in denying all natural free-will, and
all power antecedent to grace.”[10]
Likewise, in his What is an Arminian?
Answered by a Lover of Free Grace Wesley claims that his view of original
sin is in conformity with Calvinism: “…In this respect, there is not a hair’s
breadth difference between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield.”[11]
Although Wesley maintained
that by nature all men are totally depraved and incapable of any motion
towards God, by grace, the free will of man in some measure is
supernaturally restored. In his Predestination
Calmly Considered Wesley states: “But I do not carry free-will so far: (I
mean, not in moral things:) Natural free-will, in the present state of mankind,
I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will
supernaturally restored to every man, together with the supernatural light
which 'enlightens every man that comes into the world'.”[12]
In his Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review Wesley
asserts that “every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.”[13]
Since Wesley's view of
prevenient grace brings us to the very edge of what we saw in the Catholic
perspective I do not find it necessary to elucidate precisely what he meant by
total depravity. Suffice it to state that of the natural, political, and moral
image of man, Wesley notes in his sermon The New Birth that the imago
dei is “...chiefly in his moral image; which, according to the Apostle, is
'righteousness and true holiness.”[14]
And that while he maintained that the moral image was totally lost, he only
maintained that the natural and political image were lost only in part.[15]
So even while speaking of the logical abstraction he did not conceive of total
depravity to mean that we are as depraved as we possibly can be, but that the
effect of sin extends to every aspect of human life.
In all reality he could have
simply avoided the entire logical abstraction and simply adopted the Catholic
view.
[1] It should be noted that I explicitly
identify that what follows is understood from a Catholic perspective since
Wesley's view of the consequences of original sin differ from that of
Catholicism.
[2] Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 112.
[3] Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 113.
[4] Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 113.
[5] Schroeder, The Canons and Decrees of the
Council of Trent, 30.
[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405
[7] Schroeder, The Canons and Decrees of the
Council of Trent, 31. [bracket mine]
[8] Jackson, Wesley's Works 6:512
[9] Leith, Creeds
of the Churches, 269
[10] Jackson, Wesley's Works 8:285
[12] Jackson,
Wesley's Works 10:229-30
[14] Jackson,
Wesley's Works 6:66
[15] This is agreeable to human experience
otherwise we ought to expect reality to look more like Dante's journey through
the Inferno in his Divine Comedy with total isolation and anarchy.
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