This post is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Rome Examined: Examination of the Decrees of the Council of Trent. In this concise distillation of Chemnitz’s magisterial critique, we present his scriptural case against Rome’s decrees on tradition, justification, the sacraments, and papal authority—one section at a time. (Find all the excerpts here: https://wolfmueller.co/category/rome-examined/)
3:1: The Papal View Concerning Original Sin
The Variety of Papal Opinions on Original Sin Tolerated at Trent
[1] Some scholars hold original sin to be a mere privation, a loss of the original righteousness, whereas human nature has remained unharmed. Other scholastics speak of a sinful propensity to sensual desire and earthly inclination comparable to a sickness. Many do not attribute this propensity to sin to original sin. To some, original sin is merely an inherited guilt and not a depravity. According to Andrada, the council of papal theology allows the greatest freedom in this matter.
[2] After the 1542 Worms colloquy, the Roman theologian Pighius published a book on original sin. Pighius is of the following opinion: The explanations of original sin are altogether false. Augustine errs if he considers original sin to be evil desire. For there cannot be sin where there is no law; there cannot be sin without a law to transgress. What we cannot refrain from doing cannot be prohibited through a law. Therefore, inherited desire is not actually sin. But even the deprivation of original righteousness is not sin. For we are not exhorted by any law to possess the original righteousness that was conferred to Adam.
[3] Pighius states his own view thus: Neither the lack of original righteousness nor concupiscence are to be reckoned as sin, neither in adults nor in children, neither before nor after Baptism. Accordingly, original sin is not a deprivation, an error, or an impairment. It is also not an inherited condition. No more is it a sinful characteristic. For our state and nature are unimpaired and untainted. What posterity has inherited from Adam’s transgression in original sin is nothing more than punishment and guilt. It is precisely the latter that has banished us from the kingdom of heaven and subjected us to the rule of death. Through these we have become subject to eternal damnation and entangled in the utter sorrow of human existence.
[4] We thank Andrada for openly disclosing the intention of the council. This secret intention was not to condemn any scholastic or papal opinion, but rather to allow each choice in the question of original sin to remain.
[5] Therefore, all Christian people ought to always be reminded that the profane position of Pighius (to avoid using a harsher descriptor) was not disapproved or condemned at Trent, but rather, together with the rest of the profane discussions of scholasticism on original sin, remained a possible and freely averred position.
Andrada’s View of Original Sin
[6] It seems that Andrada tends toward the scholastic view. According to them, humanity was designed already in its undamaged natural condition to be in the conflict between Spirit and flesh. Only at that time, the willful wantonness of the flesh was restrained by the supernatural gift of original righteousness. But now, after the loss of the original righteousness, the flesh is like a wild horse without its bridle. In original sin, there is the smallest degree of voluntary sinning. Therefore, original sin is regarded as the smallest sin by the papal theologians. To be sure, the fathers consider it to be the greatest sin, but this is to be understood according to its universal distribution throughout all humanity!
Andrada’s view is thus: “Concupiscence, as it is now found in our corrupt human nature, was also already present in our uncorrupted natural condition. At that time, it was simply subdued and obstructed with the help of original righteousness.” Therefore, this concupiscence in and of itself should not be considered sin, if it is only kept in check. Now this happens, Andrada says, with those who are regenerate. He states that Adam indeed lost original righteousness. It was lost through him. In this case, however, there is no contradiction with a law of God. This case stands only in contradiction to the claim of natural law, according to which each person has an obligation to preserve their nature. That we have lost original righteousness should only be reckoned to us for sin to the extent that our freedom comes into consideration. Because this loss implies the least amount of willingness, it is therefore, according to Andrada, also the smallest sin.
The Lutheran Doctrine of Original Sin is Not Permitted
[10] At the council, all views concerning original sin were permitted. Here, the particularly pertinent question is thus: What has been done with the doctrine of the Augsburg Confession, which treats original sin according to the testimony of Scripture? Do the papists accept this teaching? Do they permit it? Not at all. They are as far away from it as possible. This is astounding. It is just as the poet sang, “Everything goes in Rome, except to live piously.”
3:2: The Teaching of Scripture concerning Original Sin
[1] The corruption that came with the fall into sin can in no way be grasped with our musing reason. Nor can we compute it with our clever mind. On the contrary, to come to the knowledge of this corruption, we must hold fast to the divine revelation in Holy Scripture.
[2] Therefore, this entire examination must find its boundaries and viewpoints on the ground of Holy Scripture. It is thoroughly erroneous, however, to misplace the disorder of the human heart and its resistant powers back to creation in the beginning. It is also erroneously claimed that the lack of original righteousness and the concupiscence resulting from sin are not condemned by any law of God.
Humanity was created according to God’s image. This image was in agreement with the normative righteousness in God. This means that in the entire spirit, in the entire heart, in the entire will, in all the members of the body and all the forces of the soul, the powers were completely unimpaired and completely perfect; they were perfectly fitted to recognize God, to love God, and also to love the neighbor, according to love’s double commandment. On the morning of creation, human nature was completely pure and holy. It corresponded to the last commandment: “You shall not covet.” Thus was the image of God in humanity. That it was so is evident from the restoration of this image which the Holy Spirit begins in us in this life (Romans 12; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). The Law in the first and last commandments demands this likeness [to the image of God] from all humanity. That to which Scripture attests the experience of humanity’s children also teaches: their will is completely turned away from God and resists him completely; their heart is full of wayward concupiscence; their powers are disordered and what concerns spiritual matters is completely perverted and corrupt.
[3] Now, in order to understand the benefit of Christ in its greatness, we must first recognize our sickness. Therefore, Scripture impresses upon our heart with many testimonies and in many different ways the deeply sad corruption of our nature.
[4] First, Holy Scripture describes for us the perfection of humanity before the fall into sin (Gen 1:26-27).
[5] Second, it shows us our corruption before conversion (cf. e.g. Ephesians 2:1–5). Scripture distinguishes between both of these: To commit sin (1 John 2:4), or to walk in sin (Ephesians 2:3), and to have sin (1 John 1:8), which refers to the indwelling sin (Romans 7:21; Hebrews 12:1).
[6] Third, when Scripture speaks of how humanity is being restored by the Spirit of renewal, it is in such a way that the true condition of corruption is expressed (see Romans 12; Ephesians 4; Colossians 3, etc.).
[7] Fourth, how great the corruption of human nature has become through sin Scripture shows in the remnants of original sin even among the regenerate in this life. See Romans 7:23: “I see another law in my members which resists the law in my mind and brings me into captivity in the law of sin which is in my members.”
[8] Fifth, when Scripture describes the horrible corruption of humanity, which is forsaken by the Spirit of God, it gives at the same time a depiction of original sin. Thus Genesis 6:3, 8:21; Romans 3:10–18; Ephesians 2:3; and elsewhere.
[9] Sixth, Scripture describes this evil while it affirms it: The thoughts of the human heart are always evil (Genesis 6:3, 8:21), and at the same time as it denies its opposite: The natural person does not receive anything from the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14).
[10] Seventh, when original sin is depicted, it appears as a tyranny of the devil (Ephesians 2:2).
[11] Eighth, the mind of our human nature is named the seat of original sin, along with its will, its heart, indeed the entire old man with all its lusts and desires.
[13] Thus, Andrada is in error when he claims Scripture teaches that original sin exists without explaining what exactly it is.
3:3: The Arguments of the Opponents
[1] Here Andrada especially seeks to assert his acumen and eloquence as he defends the Jesuits’s declaration that only that which happens knowingly and willingly has the character of sin.
Andrada references a subtle comment of Augustine who once maintained against the Manichaeans that “knowingly and willingly” also applies to original sin because all people originally had their will in Adam. But no perceptive reader will be convinced by this, no matter how much Andrada may try to twist it. For this explanation works well for actual sins. However, it can only be applied to original sin forcibly and in an extremely labored manner.
Therefore, I shall respond to Andrada with nothing further other than that which Augustine says (Against Julian, bk. 3, ch.5): “You are mistaken if you think that children are without sin because they have no will, without which there can be no discussion of sin. For this expression is indeed appropriate for each one’s own sin, but it is not suitable for contagion of original sin, which, after all, commenced even in the evil will of the first human.”[1]
[2] Andrada wishes not to see the corruption of human nature set forth in such a way that nothing pious or good is to be recognized in it. But confer the verdict of God in Genesis 6:5 (not to mention Job 14:4 and Romans 7:18) that the intent and thoughts of the human heart are only evil continually.
[3] This is weakened in the Vulgate, however. The intent and thoughts of the human heart upon which God passes judgment are taken to only mean sensual desires and not reason. Where God says, “It was only evil,” the Vulgate reads, “inclined to evil.” Andrada knows Hebrew well enough to understand this, but he fears the anathema of the Council of Trent. This is why he does not correct the translation from the source, but rather the other way around: He clouds the source with a bad translation.
[1] “There is no basis for your judgment that ‘There cannot be offense in infants, because there can be no offense without will, which they do not possess.’ This assertion may be correctly made about a personal sin, but not about the contagion by way of origin of the first sin. If there were no such sin, then infants, bound by no evil, would suffer nothing evil in body or in soul under the great power of the just God. Yet, this evil itself took its rise from the evil will of the first man; so that there is no other origin of sin but an evil will. If you understand the meaning of these things, you will simply and truthfully confess the grace of Christ in regard to infants, and you will not be forced to the ungodly and absurd assertions either that infants ought not to be baptized, which you may very well be driven to say at some later time, or that so great a sacrament is mockery in them, with the result that they are baptized in the Saviour, but not saved; are redeemed by the Deliverer, but not delivered; are bathed by the laver of regeneration, but not washed; are exorcized and exsufflated, but not freed from the power of darkness; their price is the blood which was shed for the forgiveness of sins, but they are not cleansed by the forgiveness of any sins” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book III, Chapter 5, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Vol. 35, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 116, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/116/mode/1up
