Bellarmine quoted: opponents call rectitude natural like health; Rome calls it supernatural in itself, so fallen man differs from pure-natural man as the stripped from the naked
"Our opponents," Bellarmine says, "hold that the rectitude in which Adam was created was natural to him in this last sense, that is, as natural is opposed to supernatural. They hold it was a kind of health owed to nature and fitted to arise from nature itself when well formed, that is, uncorrupted. Men who lost that rectitude in Adam now lack some natural good, they say, as a beast would lack one if it were born blind, lame or feverish. And if original righteousness were now restored by God to some man, they would call it a supernatural gift by circumstance, not in itself, as we said of the eyes given back to the man born blind.
"We, however, hold that this rectitude, even in the lower part, was a supernatural gift, and supernatural in itself, not by circumstance, so that it neither flowed nor could flow from nature's principles. And because that gift was supernatural, as we shall prove shortly, once it was taken away human nature, left to itself, began to feel the conflict of lower part against higher that would have been natural, that is, would have followed from the condition of matter, had God not added the gift of righteousness to man.
"So man's state after Adam's fall differs from his state in a purely natural condition no more than a man stripped differs from a man naked. Take away original guilt, and human nature is no worse, and suffers no more from ignorance and weakness, than it would be and would suffer if it had been made in a purely natural condition. The corruption of nature, then, came not from the lack of some natural gift, nor from the addition of some bad quality, but solely from the loss of the supernatural gift because of Adam's sin."
Bellarmine then proves that this is the common view of the scholastic teachers, old and more recent, by citing many of their testimonies.
Latin
XI. Adversarii, inquit, censent rectitudinem illam in qua creatus est Adam fuisse illi naturalem hoc ultimo modo (nempe quatenus naturale opponitur supernaturali) nimirum quod fuerit veluti quaedam sanitas debita naturae, aptaque nasci ex ipsa natura bene constituta, id est, non corrupta: & nunc hominibus qui eam rectitudinem amiserunt in Adamo, deesse bonum aliquod naturale, quale deesse pecudi, si caeca, vel claudicans, vel febricitans nasceretur. Et nunc, si alicui homini originalis illa justitia divinitus redderetur, dicerent esse donum supernaturale per accidens, non per se, ut diximus de oculis redditis caeco nato. Nos vero existimamus rectitudinem illam, etiam partis inferioris, fuisse donum supernaturale, & quidem per se, non per accidens, ita ut neque ex principiis naturae fluxerit, neque potuerit fluere. Et quia donum illud supernaturale erat, ut statim probaturi sumus, eo remoto, natura humana sibi relicta pugnam illam experiri coepit partis inferioris cum superiore, quae naturalis futura erat, id est, ex conditione materiae sequutura, nisi Deus justitiae donum homini addidisset. Quare non magis differt status hominis post lapsum Adae, a statu ejusdem in puris naturalibus, quam differt spoliatus a nudo: neque deterior est humana natura, si culpam originalem detrahas, neque magis ignorantia & infirmitate laborat, quam esset & laboraret in puris naturalibus condita. Proinde corruptio naturae non ex alicujus doni naturalis carentia, neque ex alicujus malae qualitatis accessu, sed ex sola doni supernaturalis ob Adae peccatum amissione profluxit. Quam sententiam communem esse Doctorum Scholasticorum veterum & recentiorum, multis postea allatis eorum testimoniis probat.