Original Justice

Original justice is the state in which God created the first man: the entire uprightness of being, perfectly adjusted to God, to himself and to the world. The word justice here means this harmony, this adjustment of man to his Creator: “God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices.” Ecclesiastes 7:29 It rested on two gifts that human nature could not give itself.

The grace that united him to God

The first is sanctifying grace, which united man to God in his friendship. It is a supernatural gift: the word designates what surpasses every created nature and belongs to the proper life of God. Created in the image of God, man received through this grace to bear also his likeness, sharing in the very life of his Creator: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26

The preternatural gifts

The second is a set of gifts called preternatural. The word means beyond nature: these gifts raised human nature above its own powers, in the body and in the faculties. Tradition counts four. Integrity, the full submission of the passions to reason, of which Scripture gives the sign when it shows the man and the woman without trouble or shame: “They were both naked, and were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:25 Immortality, exemption from death. Impassibility, exemption from suffering. And an infused knowledge, received without having to learn it. Scripture refers this state to the design of God and death to the fault: “God created man for incorruptibility, and made him an image of his own nature; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” Wisdom 2:23-24

Lost by the fault of the origins

This state was an entirely gratuitous favor, which nature could not claim. By turning away from God, Adam lost it for himself and for all his descendants: “By one man sin entered the world, and by sin death, and death passed upon all men.” Romans 5:12 This loss is original sin, in which every man now comes into the world.

Restored in Christ

Christ restores to man the essential: by baptism, sanctifying grace is given back to the soul and God's friendship regained. The preternatural gifts do not return in this life; the full harmony will be restored only at the resurrection, when the body itself rises incorruptible: “Sown corruptible, it rises incorruptible.” 1 Corinthians 15:42