933.5. 1 Cor. 7:14: For
the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving
wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be
unclean, but as it is they are holy. From these words, the children of the
faithful are holy. Therefore at least they do not have original sin.
I distinguish the antecedent.
The children of the faithful (not baptized) are holy extrinsically, conceded;
intrinsically, denied.
The authors dispute about the
meaning of the word “consecrated” mentioned here. But this much at least is
certain, that those children are not said to be holy, in the sense that they do
not have original sin, since otherwise an unbelieving spouse would be freed
from original sin by the believing spouse. That being the case, the text is
beside the point. Moreover, this can more suitably be understood about a
certain external holiness, which is thought to be derived from the
believing spouse to the unbeliever and from the parents who are in some sense
holy to their children. Moreover this can be thought to be a certain kind of
remote preparation for them for internal holiness.
Objector insists. Baptized
parents do not have original sin. Therefore at least their children lack
original sin.
I distinguish the consequence.
If the other of grace depends intrinsically on generation, conceded;
otherwise, denied.
Since grace is spiritual and
supernatural, but generation is a purely organic and natural action, it does
not depend on this intrinsically for its existence and operation, but only
extrinsically as a pure condition of the transmission of the nature, so that
the parents do not generate as holy or as sinners, but only as having human
nature (4 CG 52).
The parents just produce a man in
the natural order, who as such comes from Adam on whom alone he depends
in receiving grace or sin because of a special decree of God. In Fact Adam the
sinner had no part in his condition. Therefore he would not later transmit to
his descendants the grace he had recuperated or any new sins committed by him.
Likewise since his sin was both his personal sin, as having been
committed by his own personal act, and general or pertaining in some way
to all of his descendants, it was forgiven to Adam as his own personal sin, but
not as a general sin, and therefore transmitted to his children. (Joseph F. Sagüés,
Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep The Faith,
Inc., 2016], 2B:539-40)
