Chapter 198 — That Adam’s merit did not avail his posterity for reparation

Although the sin of the first parent infected the whole of human nature, neither his repentance nor any merit of his was able to restore nature in its entirety. Adam’s repentance (or any other merit of his) was clearly the act of an individual person. But no act of any individual can affect the entire nature of the species. Causes that can affect a whole species are equivocal causes, not univocal: the sun is a cause of generation in the whole human species, but a particular man cannot be the cause of generation for the whole human species, but is a cause of the generation of a particular man. Hence the individual merit of Adam, or of any other mere man, could not suffice to re-establish the whole of nature. The fact that all nature was corrupted by a single act of the first man followed only indirectly, inasmuch as once the state of innocence had been removed in him, it could not be conveyed through him to others.

Even though Adam were to recover grace through penance, he could not return to that pristine innocence to which God had granted the gift of original justice. At the same time, it is clear that the state of original justice was a special gift of grace. Grace, however, is not acquired by merits, but is freely given by God. As, therefore, the first man had original justice not by merit but by a divine gift, much less could he merit it by repentence after his sin, nor by doing any other work.

The Incarnation