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Righteousness THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 38 Rimmon for him, it can not be regarded as a mere accident, it must be something that originally and necessarily belongs to man. The Formula of Concord, therefore, in accordance with the view of the Reformers, designated original righteousness not simply as "concreate righteousness," but as the essential fact of having been created in the image of God. Thus the Lutheran Church, as well as the Reformed, ad vanced a step beyond Augustine. Scholasticism had left a number of questions unsettled, such as whether original righteousness was a " grace making accept able " (Thomas Aquinas) or a "grace given to those acceptable" like the charismatn (Duns Scotus). The Council of Trent avoided pronouncing on this point, and affirmed that Adam, "when he had trans gressed God's commandment in Paradise, immedi ately lost the holiness and righteousness in which he had been placed," with the apparent intention of excluding not scholastic deductions but the doctrine of the Reformers. Bellarmine developed the Roman Catholic doctrine in this opposition clearly and adroitly. The Lutherans, according to him, agree with the Pelagians because they deprive the first man of supernatural gifts, adding the further error that after the fall man lacks "a natural attribute" -free will. In contrast to this doctrine, according to him, the Roman Catholic Church distinguishes between "image" and "likeness." The former refers to nature, the latter to the supernatural, and denotes some "ornaments of wisdom and righteous ness" which man received in creation but lacks now. As man came forth from the creator's hand, he consisted of flesh and spirit, and stood related both to the animals and to the angels. On the latter side he had intelli,-ence and will; on the former, senses and appetites. A conflict arose, and from the conflict "a terrible difficulty in doing well." This was the "disease of nature" which inheres in matter, hence God added the gift of original right eousness. It was this perfection of the divine image, and not the image itself, which man lost at the fall. Among later Protestant theologians, the rational ists did not essentially change the doctrine concern ing the first state. Since the time of Schleiermacher a certain necessity of original nature ;. Later has been attached to sin. Schleier Protestant macher expressly states that an incapac Views. ity for good works was in human nature before the fall, located in the flesh, that is, "the totality of the lower faculties of the soul," and that consequently the sin which was transmitted to his descendants was originally in the first man. Sin, according to him, is not the first actual condition; with the awakening of the con sciousness of God it was preceded by a state of per fection which was not without consequences per ceptible even after the fall. Subsequently, however, a time was bound to come in which sensuousness in creased in some direction. Lipsius transformed the "state of original perfection" as taught by Schleiermacher into the "primitive form of ethical religion," that is, into the immediate, but uncon scious and only relative, communion with God which from the consciousness of its opposite ap pears as a lost paradise. Rothe considers man the union of two elements of opposite qualities, bound
to strive after the right proportion between his ego and his material nature, thus transposing man's likens to the image of God into the future. Biedermann sees the basis of sin in the sensual nature of man, which was created by God intentionally in order to realise and develop his redeeming grace in the history of salvation. Ritschl agrees with Biedermann so far as to hold that the doctrine of the first state should be replaced by that of the destiny of man.
All these views correctly presuppose the identity of the present substance of man with the original substance, but they err in identifying man's present condition with his original condition. It is an improbable assumption that anything lost by sin must be "superadded" unless the condition is considered something " superadded " to the substance. A substance must have its corresponding
g. Conclu- state or condition, it must have attri- sion. butes; but the question is whetherman's present condition corresponds to the human substance. Lutheran theologians teach that the human essence does not now possess that condition which it requires,; that man's actual con dition is not merely in a state of imperfect develop ment, it is opposed to the essence. The next ques tion is, whether man began with a state of absolute moral perfection. Against this view, Julius Milner properly brings the objection that it excludes the possibility of the fall. But neither Luther, the other Reformers, nor the Lutheran confessions teach a state of absolute moral perfection. It should be asked rather, whether man might have begun with goodness, and this question must be answered in the affirmative; for it is the conviction of every justified person that the moral condition must be good before any good action can be done. The moral condition must in the first man lie at the basis of his conduct, and can exist only as an effect wrought by God in the same way as in the justified and regen erate. In this respect there is no difference between the primitive state of innocence and the restoration of innocence in justification. The difference between the first state and that of the redeemed lies rather in the fact that the latter has reached the point where the first man should have stood after his temptation; but the moral quality imparted by God has nothing to do with this. The assumption of an original in difference presupposes a will without content or aim and at the same time a preponderating capacity for goodness; thus there would be a capacity which in its quality would be superior to the will; such an instinctive desire for goodness, overpowering the will, would make sinning impossible. Moreover, indifference annuls freedom; for indifference is not freedom, but constraint of will; freedom is rather the capacity for unhampered normal self-activity. Man's original condition was not without positive in clination to goodness. His will had this disposition; but while it was in harmony with God's will, it might sin, and in the possibility of sinning consisted its freedom. It was man's duty to preserve his rectitude by voluntary choice, thus confirming God's work. (H. T. CxxttERt.)BiBLIOGYAFRY: The pertinent literature is quite fully given under Ittws of GOD. The earlier discussions are well