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| Another Cavil Answered, I.e., the Fall Imputable to God, Because Man's Soul is a Portion of the Spiritual Essence of the Creator. The Divine Afflatus Not in Fault in the Sin of Man, But the Human Will Which Was Additional to It.
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Chapter
IX.—Another Cavil Answered, I.e., the Fall Imputable to God,
Because Man’s Soul is a Portion of the Spiritual Essence of the
Creator. The Divine Afflatus Not in Fault in the Sin of Man, But
the Human Will Which Was Additional to It.
But, you say, in what way soever the substance of the
Creator is found to be susceptible of fault, when the afflatus
of God, that is to say, the soul,2813
| 2813 Anima, for
animus. This meaning seems required throughout this passage,
where afterwards occurs the phrase immortalis anima. |
offends in man, it cannot but be that that fault of the portion is
refferible to the original whole. Now, to meet this objection, we must
explain the nature2814
of the soul. We
must at the outset hold fast the meaning of the Greek scripture, which
has afflatus, not spirit.2815
| 2815 Πνοήν, not πνεῦμα; so the
Vulgate has spiraculum, not spiritum. [Kaye (p.
247) again refers to Profr. Andrews Norton of Harvard for valuable
remarks concerning the use of the word spiritus by the ancients.
Evidences, Vol. III. p. 160, note 7.] |
Some interpreters of the Greek, without reflecting on the difference of
the words, and careless about their exact meaning, put spirit
for afflatus; they thus afford to heretics an
opportunity of tarnishing2816
the Spirit of God,
that is to say, God Himself, with default. And now comes the
question. Afflatus, observe then, is less than
spirit, although it comes from spirit; it is the spirit’s gentle
breeze,2817
but it is not the
spirit. Now a breeze is rarer than the wind; and although it proceeds
from wind, yet a breeze is not the wind. One may call a breeze the
image of the spirit. In the same manner, man is the image of God, that
is, of spirit; for God is spirit. Afflatus is
therefore the image of the spirit. Now the image is not in any case
equal to the very thing.2818
It is one thing to
be like the reality, and another thing to be the reality itself.
So, although the afflatus is the image of the spirit, it
is yet not possible to compare the image of God in such a way, that,
because the reality—that is, the spirit, or in other words, the
Divine Being—is faultless, therefore the afflatus also,
that is to say, the image, ought not by any possibility to have done
wrong. In this respect will the image be less than the reality, and the
afflatus inferior to the spirit, in that, while it
possesses beyond doubt the true lineaments of divinity, such as an
immortal soul, freedom and its own mastery over itself, foreknowledge
in a great degree,2819
reasonableness,
capacity of understanding and knowledge, it is even in these respects
an image still, and never amounts to the actual power of Deity, nor to
absolute exemption from fault,—a property which is only conceded
to God, that is, to the reality, and which is simply incompatible with
an image. An image, although it may express all the lineaments of the
reality, is yet wanting in its intrinsic power; it is destitute of
motion. In like manner, the soul, the image of the spirit, is unable to
express the simple power thereof, that is to say, its happy exemption
from sinning.2820
| 2820 Non deliquendi
felicitatem. | Were it
otherwise,2821
it would not be
soul, but spirit; not man, who received a soul, but God. Besides, to
take another view of the matter,2822
not everything
which pertains to God will be regarded as God, so that you would not
maintain that His afflatus was God, that is, exempt
from fault, because it is the breath of God. And in an act of
your own, such as blowing into a flute, you would not thereby make the
flute human, although it was your own human breath which you breathed
into it, precisely as God breathed of His own Spirit. In fact,2823
the Scripture, by expressly saying2824
that God breathed into man’s nostrils
the breath of life, and that man became thereby a living soul, not a
life-giving spirit, has distinguished that soul from the
condition of the Creator. The work must necessarily be distinct from the workman, and
it is inferior to him. The pitcher will not be the potter,
although made by the potter; nor in like manner, will the
afflatus, because made by the spirit, be on that account
the spirit. The soul has often been called by the same name as
the breath. You should also take care that no descent be made from the
breath to a still lower quality. So you have granted (you say)
the infirmity of the soul, which you denied before! Undoubtedly, when
you demand for it an equality with God, that is, a freedom from fault,
I contend that it is infirm. But when the comparison is challenged with
an angel, I am compelled to maintain that the head over all things is
the stronger of the two, to whom the angels are ministers,2825
who is destined to be the judge of
angels,2826
if he shall stand
fast in the law of God—an obedience which he refused at first.
Now this disobedience2827
| 2827 Hoc ipsum, referring
to the noluit of the preceding clause. | it was possible for
the afflatus of God to commit: it was possible, but
it was not proper. The possibility lay in its slenderness of
nature, as being the breath and not the spirit; the impropriety,
however, arose from its power of will, as being free, and not a
slave. It was furthermore assisted by the warning against
committing sin under the threat of incurring death, which was meant to
be a support for its slender nature, and a direction for its liberty of
choice. So that the soul can no longer appear to have sinned, because
it has an affinity with God, that is to say, through the
afflatus, but rather through that which was an addition to
its nature, that is, through its free-will, which was indeed given to
it by God in accordance with His purpose and reason, but recklessly
employed2828
by man according as
he chose. This, then, being the case, the entire course2829
of God’s action is purged from all
imputation to evil. For the liberty of the will will not retort its own
wrong on Him by whom it was bestowed, but on him by whom it was
improperly used. What is the evil, then, which you want to impute to
the Creator? If it is man’s sin, it will not be God’s
fault, because it is man’s doing; nor is that Being to be
regarded as the author of the sin, who turns out to be its forbidder,
nay, its condemner. If death is the evil, death will not give the
reproach of being its own author to Him who threatened it, but to him
who despised it. For by his contempt he introduced it, which
assuredly2830
would not have
appeared had man not despised it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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