Theodicy

the sin of Adam, a new perfection which is reason, than to put a reasoning soul, by creation or otherwise, in a body wherein it is to be corrupted morally.

92. Now the soul being once under the domination of sin, and ready to commit sin in actual fact as soon as the man is fit to exercise reason, a new question arises, to wit: whether this tendency in a man who has not been regenerated by baptism suffices to damn him, even though he should never come to commit sin, as may happen, and happens often, whether he die before reaching years of discretion or he become dull of sense before he has made use of his reason. St. Gregory of Nazianzos is supposed to have denied this (Orat. de Baptismo); but St. Augustine is for the affirmative, and maintains that original sin of itself is sufficient to earn the flames of hell, although this opinion is, to say the least, very harsh. When I speak here of damnation or of hell, I mean pains, and not mere deprivation of supreme felicity; I mean poenam sensus, non damni. Gregory of Rimini, General of the Augustinians, with a few others followed St. Augustine in opposition to the accepted opinion of the Schools of his time, and for that reason he was called the torturer of children, tortor infantum. The Schoolmen, instead of sending them into the flames of hell, have assigned to them a special Limbo, where they do not suffer, and are only punished by privation of the beatific vision. The Revelations of St. Birgitta (as they are called), much esteemed in Rome, also uphold this dogma. Salmeron and Molina, and before them Ambrose Catharin and [174] others, grant them a certain natural bliss; and Cardinal Sfondrati, a man of learning and piety, who approves this, latterly went so far as to prefer in a sense their state, which is the state of happy innocence, to that of a sinner saved, as we may see in his Nodus Praedestinationis Solutus. That, however, seems to go too far. Certainly a soul truly enlightened would not wish to sin, even though it could by this means obtain all imaginable pleasures. But the case of choosing between sin and true bliss is simply chimerical, and it is better to obtain bliss (even after repentance) than to be deprived of it for ever.