Behind Roman Catholic and Reformed debates over soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation, lie conflicting views of man’s pre-fall nature. The donum superadditum, or “superadded gift,” is the Roman Catholic doctrine that when Adam was created, he had to be given a special, supernatural grace just to harmonize his spiritual and bodily natures. The Reformed theologians rejected this idea, believing it implied a degrading view of man’s original, unfallen nature, and taught instead that man’s original righteousness, while created by God, was not alien but integral to his natural state. But aside from its implications for the doctrine of salvation, what might be the political and social ramifications of these divergent anthropologies? This paper will examine early modern Reformed and Roman Catholic views of the image of God and the donum superadditum, attending to the ways in which these competing visions imply different notions of the naturalness of political society.

George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history.

Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.org