The Radical Fault of the New Orthodoxy [pp. 353-367]

360 THE RADZCAL FAULT OF THE NEW ORTHODOXY. LDec.,
tion, or a principle from which actual sins which are imputed to
each one for guilt and condemnation unavoidably proceed, let us
analyze this notion and test its credibility.
The nature which God gave to Adam and Eve is supposed to
have been radically changed and depraved by their sin, and this
corrupted nature to be transmitted by generation to all their
posterity, perhaps even still more degraded and vitiated by the
sins of intermediate ancestors and parents, more or less, in distinct races and families. According to this theory, if the human
essence has been substantially changed, or has been stripped of
its properties and attributes, man is no longer man but a mere
anthropoid. He has dropped out of the moral order. If he has
only suffered a moral paralysis, then, in respect to moral acts, he
is like a paralytic in respect to physical acts. It is impossible
for him to keep that law which is a just one for a rational creature in his normal state, and therefore his transgressions and
omissions cannot be imputed to him as formal sins, no matter
what evil consequences may follow. It may be necessary to restrain him by coercion and pains, as a noxious wild beast, but he
is no more deserving of moral disapprobation than is a man in
delirium who kills himself or others. It is no escape from this
consequence to call his inability to good and irresistible propension to evil moral and not physical. It is natural, affecting both
the intellect and the will. Mind and will are determined by a
bias, which is a law effectually depriving him of the equilibrium
which is necessary to freedom. Voluntary acts are not always
free, and are free only when there is a self-determining power inll
the will. It is a wilful act which a lunatic commits when ihe
swallows poison or sets a house on fire, but not a free act involving moral responsibility. The theory of total, native depravity, therefore, upsets the whole moral order.
The theory of a partial depravity, of an injury to nature, by
which the natural understanding, natural will, and natural passions have become abnormally obscured, weakened, and inclined
to inordinate gratifications, is more tolerable. It is, in fact, sustained by some Catholic the)ologians. A lessening and weakening of the higher faculties of human nature, and an increase of
the lower propensities, do not imply loss of physical and moral
ability to abstain from acts morally evil, and to perform morally
good acts. They imply infirmity and difficulty only, such as
beset a person who has a delicate constitution, as compared on
the one hand with one in robust health, and on the other with
a paralytic. Depravity is, however, a bad word. For this in