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A few quotations on Adam's "natural" capacities culled from Heppe:
Polanus: "The original wisdom in man's soul was that excellence and perfection of knowledge, by which unimpaired man rightly knew God and God's work and himself and wisely understood all things unifold, singular, and universal, and rightly compounded or divided them and reasoned from the composites rightly and without error – in sum: knowledge, judgment, foresight not only sufficed to govern the animal life, but also ascended with them to God."
Cocceius: "The image of God was natural to man, not because it flows from the actual substance and faculties, but because it would have been unbecoming in God not to make man upright."
Rissen is careful to distinguish the senses in which the image of God is "natural" to man: "This image may be called natural to man, not as though it were an essential part of his nature, but (1) because it was created along with the nature; (2) because it was not contrary to it; (3) it was necessary to the end of created man; (4) it would have had to be propagated along with the nature."
Hottinger agrees that the "original righteousness and immortality of the first man were natural gifts, not supernatural, so far as that is natural which the first man received with his actual nature; while supernatural is what is above the intact nature and its condition." These gifts are "supernatural" only when they are considered in contrast to the corrupted nature of fallen man, but not when considered as part of the being of Adam as created.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 03:54 PM
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