PURE NATURE. – A theological expression used at least since the 16th century to signify the hypothetical state in which God could have created and left man, had He not elevated him from the beginning, as He actually did, to the supernatural order (cf.).
Theologians commonly distinguish five states or conditions of human nature: 1) The state of pure nature, i.e., of nature in its own order, with its essential faculties, its properties and capacities, and its end proportionate to them. 2) The state of integral nature, i.e., of human nature enriched with preternatural gifts (e.g., infused knowledge or bodily immortality), which perfect it within its own order. 3) The merely supernatural state, when nature is ordered to the supernatural end (eternal life = beatific vision) and is enriched with the means proportionate to that end (grace). 4) The state of innocence or original justice, which includes both the preternatural and supernatural gifts of the 2nd and 3rd states. 5) The state of fallen nature, which is that determined by original sin (cf.) and may be considered either before or after Redemption.
Of these states, only the 4th and 5th are historically real, while the others, especially the 1st, are hypothetical. Nevertheless, the state of pure nature is regarded by theologians as a necessary hypothesis to demonstrate the gratuity of the supernatural order. For if that state were not possible, one would logically affirm the necessity of man’s elevation to the supernatural order, which would no longer be gratuitous. Such a conclusion is in full contrast with the sense of Revelation and the teaching of the Church.
Therefore, the possibility of pure nature is not merely a working hypothesis or a postulate of a theological system, but a precise requirement of the dogma of the perfect gratuity of the supernatural order, to which man has no right but only an obediential potency, in the sense that his elevation to that order is a gift and work of God.
The Church has clearly manifested its thought on this matter on several occasions: in the beautiful *Auctorem fidei* of Pius VI against the Jansenist Synod of Pistoia (Denz.-U., 1516), in the encyclical *Pascendi* of Pius X against the modernists (Denz.-U., 2103), and recently in the encyclical *Humani generis* of Pius XII, who among the aberrations notes that of those who “corrupt the gratuity of the supernatural order,” because in this way they deny that God could create men without destining them to the beatific vision.
Historically, the question of pure nature is quite complex, for it is linked to the other delicate question of the natural and the supernatural orders and their mutual relationship. Those who tend to eliminate or mitigate the distinction between the two orders (the Augustinian-Scotist current, defended by Noris, Berti in the 18th century, and in our own day by de Lubac) are opposed to the concept of pure nature, reducing it to a 16th-century Scholastic construct as a weapon against Baianism and gradually accepted under humanistic influence on theology. In reality, even if the expression “pure nature” began with Cajetan, its content is much older. Boyer (*Morale et surnaturel*, in *Gregorianum*, 29 [1948], pp. 540-541) finds it already in St. Augustine; but it is more clearly discernible in St. Thomas (In II Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3; Quodlib., 1, a. 8; *De malo*, q. 4, a. 1, ad 14; q. 5, a. 1, ad 15). His doctrine on the double end (one natural and the other supernatural: *Sum. Theol.*, I, q. 62, a. 1; *De Verit.*, q. 14, a. 2 and q. 27, a. 2 and elsewhere), on the capacity to love God without grace (*Sum. Theol.*, I, q. 62, a. 1, ad 14; q. 15, a. 2), and on the condition of children dying without baptism (II Sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 2) easily leads back to the same concept. While admitting a natural desire to see God (cf.), he firmly maintains the principle of a distinction between nature and the supernatural (*De malo*, q. 5, a. 2; *Sum. Theol.*, I, q. 62, a. 1, ad 14; q. 15, a. 2 and elsewhere).
It is true, however, that St. Thomas’s thought found a more explicit and precise formulation in later Scholastics, from Cajetan onward. It is equally true that the error of Baius contributed to developing and perfecting the doctrine of pure nature, adopted and deepened not only by Thomists but also by Molina, Bellarmine, and Suárez, who insisted so strongly on the gratuity of grace and the supernatural order as to exclude from human nature any exigency, not only juridical but also ontological. This position is definitive and was not shaken by the attempt of 18th-century Augustinians (Noris, Berti), who argued that while God, by His absolute power, could have created man in the state of pure nature, according to His ordained power (harmony of the divine attributes) He could not but elevate him to the supernatural order. With the return to such attempts, there is inevitably the danger of sliding back into Baius’s position.
Finally, it is necessary to recall the disputes from the 16th century onward concerning the relationship between the hypothetical state of pure nature and nature after sin: some theologians tend to equate the two states (the optimistic current followed especially by the Molinists); others, instead, emphasize the inferiority of the present state of nature wounded by original sin compared to the state of pure nature (a moderate pessimistic current, which harks back to the Augustinian formula: “man stripped of the supernatural, wounded in his natural endowments”). According to sounder theology, it must be held that fallen nature is in a worse state than that of pure nature; for man, after original sin, is in a state of privation, whereas in pure nature there would have been only an absence of the supernatural. Now privation creates a discomfort that is not felt in simple absence: it is the case of one who is born poor and of one who becomes so. Nevertheless, in the state of pure nature there would have been the psychological tension between body and soul, and it is unknown what means Divine Providence would have provided to man to render life less harsh (cf. NATURAL DESIRE FOR GOD; ORIGINAL SIN; SUPERNATURAL, ORDER).