PURE NATURE. - A theological expression used at least from the 16th century onward, to signify the hypothetical state in which God could have created and left man, had He not from the beginning elevated him, as He really did, to the supernatural order (v.).
Theologians customarily distinguish five states or conditions of human nature: 1) The state of pure nature, that is, of nature in its own order, with its essential faculties, with its properties and capacities and with the end proportionate to them. 2) The state of integral nature, that is, of human nature enriched with preternatural gifts (for example, infused knowledge or bodily immortality), which perfect it within its own order. 3) The state simply supernatural, when nature is ordered to a supernatural end (eternal life = beatific vision) and is enriched with the means proportionate to that end (Grace). 4) The state of innocence or of original justice, which comprises together the preternatural and supernatural gifts of the 2nd and 3rd states. 5) The state of fallen nature, which is that determined by original sin (v.) and can be considered before or after the Redemption.
Of these states only the 4th and the 5th are historically real, while the others, especially the 1st, are hypothetical. Nevertheless, that of pure nature is held by theologians to be a necessary hypothesis for demonstrating the gratuitousness of the supernatural order. If indeed that state were not possible, one would logically come to affirm the necessity of man's elevation to the supernatural order, which therefore would no longer be gratuitous. Such a conclusion is in full contrast with the sense of Revelation and of the magisterium of the Church.
Therefore the possibility of pure nature is not merely a working hypothesis or a postulate of a theological system, but is a precise exigency of the dogma of the perfect gratuitousness 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 subject several times: in the bull 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 points out that of those who «gratuitatem ordinis supernaturalis corrumpunt» because in this way they come to deny that God can create men without destining them to the beatific vision.
Historically the question of pure nature is rather complex, because it is linked to the other, quite delicate one of the natural order and the supernatural order and of their mutual relationship. Those who tend to eliminate or to mitigate the discrimination between the one and the other order (the Augustinian-Scotist current, of which Noris, Berti in the 18th century and in our own days de Lubac make themselves defenders) are averse to the concept of pure nature, reducing it to a Scholastic superstructure of the 16th century as a weapon of defense against Baianism and accredited gradually through a humanistic influence on theology. But in reality, even if the expression "pure nature" began with Cajetan, its content is much more ancient. Boyer (Morale et surnaturel, in Gregorianum, 29 [1948], pp. 540-541) finds it already in St. Augustine; but more clearly it is discerned in St. Thomas (In II Sent., 4, 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); to the same concept his doctrine is easily referred concerning the twofold end (one natural and the other supernatural: Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 62, a. 1; De Verit., q. 14, a. 2 and q. 27, a. 2 and elsewhere), concerning the capacity to love God without Grace (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 109, a. 3), concerning the condition of children who die without Baptism (II Sent. 1, 33, q. 2, a. 2). Even while admitting a natural desire to see God (v.), he maintains firm the principle of a discrimination between nature and the supernatural (De malo, q. 5, a. 2; Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 109, a. 3; q. 114, a. 2 and elsewhere).
It is true, however, that the thought of St. Thomas found a more explicit and precise formulation in the later Scholastics, from Cajetan onward. It is likewise true that the error of Baius contributed to developing and perfecting the doctrine on pure nature, adopted and deepened not only by the Thomists, but also by Molina, Bellarmine and Suárez, who insisted so much on the gratuitousness of Grace and of the supernatural order as to exclude from human nature every exigency not only juridical, but also ontological. This position is definitive, and the attempt of the Augustinians of the 18th century (Noris, Berti) did not succeed in weakening it; they maintained that, if by virtue of His absolute power God could create man in the state of pure nature, according to His ordained power (harmony of the various divine attributes) He could not fail to elevate him to the supernatural order. With the return to these attempts there is fatally the danger of sliding toward the position of Baius.
Finally it is necessary to recall the disputes carried on from the 16th century onward concerning the relationship between the hypothetical pure nature and nature after sin: some theologians tend to equate the one and the other state (the optimistic current followed especially by the Molinists); others instead accentuate the inferiority of the present state of nature wounded by original sin with respect to the state of pure nature (the moderate pessimistic current, which links itself to the Augustinian formula: «homo expoliatus supernaturalibus, vulneratus in naturalibus»). According to the soundest theology one must hold that fallen nature finds itself in a worse state than that of pure nature; for man after original sin lies in a state of privation, whereas in pure nature there would have been only an absence of the supernatural. Now privation creates a discomfort which 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 conflict between body and soul, and it is not known what means Divine Providence would have provided for man to render his life less harsh (v. NATURAL DESIRE FOR GOD; ORIGINAL SIN; SUPERNATURAL, ORDER).
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