132 THEOLOGICAL DvIPLICATIONS 



The story of Eden, when stripped of its non-spiritual 

 aspects, certainly retains the spiritual teaching that 

 man was originally placed under some kind of pro- 

 bationary covenant, under which he was afforded the 

 opportunity and means of subjecting his animal pro- 

 pensities and of escaping the consequences of his 

 \ natural mortality. In brief, his primitive state was 

 \ one of supernatural privileges and possibilities, secured 

 ^ by divine but conditional guarantees? TTiese impli- 

 cations constitute important data for putting the 

 ^ , catholic doctrine to the test of scriptural induction. 



H But they cannot be regarded as sufficient by them- 



selves. Certainly they did not enable the Israelites 

 before the publication of the Gospel to deduce from 

 them the determinate doctrine which we are consider- 

 ing.^ 



As Dr. J. A. Moehler says in his valuable treatise 

 on Symbolism,"^ In determining man's original state, 

 "we must especially direct our view to the renewal of 

 the fallen creature in Christ Jesus; because, as regen- 

 eration consists in the re-establishment of our primeval 

 condition, . . . the insight into what Christ hath given 



and fall. As Tennant shows, the Christian doctrine on this subject 

 gains no clear expression prior to St. Paul's exposition of it; and St. 

 Paul wrote in the light of Christian redemption and by divine in- 

 spiration. 



1 This is Tennant's contention. See Sources, pp. 90-96. 



2 Bk. I. § I. This work was written by a German Roman Cath- 

 olic of unusual breadth of view. There exists no better aid for 

 studying the differences between catholic and sixteenth-century 

 protestant theology on anthropological subjects. Abundant ref- 

 erences are given. 



