HKB
FALL OF MAN: and the fact of a moral corruption connatural with the human race was again recognized. In the assertion of ORIGINAL SIN the Greek Mythology rose and set.
But not only was the fact acknowledged of a law in the nature of man resisting the law of God; (and whatever is placed in active and direct oppugnancy to the good is, ipso facto, positive evil;) it was likewise an acknowledged MYSTERY, and one which by the nature of the subject must ever remain such--a problem, of which any other solution, than the statement of the Fact itself, was demonstrably impossible. That it is so, the least reflection will suffice to convince every man, who has previously satisfied himself that he is a responsible being. It follows necessarily from the postulate of a responsible Will. Refuse to grant this, and I have not a word to say. Concede this and you concede all. For this is the essential attribute of a Will, and contained in the very idea, that whatever determines the Will acquires this power from a previous determination of the Will itself. The Will is ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer a Will under the law of perfect freedom, but a nature under the mechanism of cause and effect. And if by an act, to which it had determined itself, it has subjected itself to the determination of nature (in the language of St. Paul, to the law of the flesh), it receives a nature into itself, and so far it becomes a nature: and this is a corruption of the Will and a corrupt nature. It is also a Fall of Man, inasmuch as his Will is the condition of his personality; the ground and condition of the attribute which constitutes him man. And the ground work of personal Being is a capacity of acknowledging the Moral Law (the Law of the Spirit, the Law of Freedom, the Divine Will) as that which should, of itself, suffice to determine the Will to a free obedience of the law, the law working therein by its own exceeding lawfulness.[118] This, and this alone, is positive Good; good in itself, and independent of all relations. Whatever resists, and, as a positive force, opposes this in the Will is therefore evil. But an evil in the Will is an evil Will; and as all moral evil (that is, all evil that is evil without reference to its contingent physical consequences) is of the Will, this evil Will must have its source in the Will. And thus we might go back from act to act, from evil to evil, ad infinitum, without advancing a step.
We call an individual a bad man, not because an action is contrary to the law, but because it has led us to conclude from it some Principle opposed to the law, some private maxim, or by-law in the Will contrary to the universal law of right reason in the conscience, as the ground of the action. But this evil principle again must be grounded in some other principle which has been made determinant of the Will by the Will's own self-determination. For if not, it must have its ground in some necessity of nature, in some instinct or propensity imposed, not acquired, another's work not our own. Consequently, neither act nor principle could be imputed; and relatively to the agent, not original, not sin.