PART FIVE
After a stormy three years in Paris, Thomas returned to Naples to take up the post of regent master in the Dominican convent there and to create a studium generale, in effect, a Dominican university. He continued commenting on Aristotle and completed his exposition of the epistles of St Paul, he commented on the psalms, getting halfway through the 150, and of course he continued work on the Summa theologiae, turning now to Part 3. It was in this period that he commented on the Book of Causes, a work of Arabic origin that was based on the work of the Neoplatonist Proclus. Thomas was clearly at the peak of his powers. He was forty-seven years old. And yet he was in the twilight of his life.
Josef Pieper, in The Silence of St Thomas, meditates on the event that suddenly altered Thomas’s life. A mystical experience of great intensity left him with the conviction that everything he had written was no better than straw. And he stopped writing. The last year of his life was spent in literary silence. The great Summa theologiae was to remain unfinished.
The canonization process gives us a vivid portrait of Thomas, one we would not otherwise have. There was an inquiry at Naples at which many Dominicans who had known him as a confrère at different stages of his life testified. There emerges a portrait of a man whose great intelligence and intellectual labours were the complement of his spiritual life. We learn of miraculous happenings, of the amount of prayer that formed part of his study and writing. Should we be surprised that a theologian who spent his life meditating on the Christian message exhibited it in his life? But it is the depth of his holiness that strikes us as we read these witnesses. Doubtless they were partisan, of course they wanted a member of their order recognized for his holiness, but only a cynic would think this vitiates their testimony. The Thomas who emerges from these accounts is an engaging personality. His charge against Averroes’s reading of Aristotle on mind was that the Commentator could not give a meaningful account of the statement, ‘This man thinks.’ The recollections of his friends acquaint us with the very singular man behind the thinking and writing.
Thomas was asked to attend a Council at Lyons and set off to comply with the request. He did not get far. He fell ill on the way, sought refuge with a sister but then was transferred to the Cistercian abbey at Fossanova. The abbey is still there. One can visit the room in which Thomas died. The distance from Roccasecca where he was born to Fossanova is perhaps fifty kilometres. The journey from beginning to end seems short. But something began on 7 March 1274 that continues to this day. The measured tones of Thomas continue to form part of the great philosophical conversation as friend and foe alike turn to his writings for clarity, precision and a relevance that transcends the thirteenth century.
A central mystery of the Christian faith is the incarnation, the belief that Jesus was both human and divine. From the time of Anselm at the beginning of the twelfth century, theology was regarded as faith seeking understanding). (fides quaerens intellectum). Understanding cannot of course mean coming to hold the incarnation on the basis of arguments whose premisses are known by everyone. If that were possible, the result would be philosophy, not theology. Rather, what the theologian sought was a clarification of the mystery, analogies in creatures, enlightenment from other aspects of Christian revelation.
For Thomas, as we have seen, the theologian came to his task after a previous immersion in philosophy, a philosophy which, thanks to the introduction of Aristotle, was considerably more sophisticated than that available to Christian thinkers prior to the thirteenth century. The following text from Part 3 of the Summa theologiae exhibits Thomas’s use of grammar and logic as well as metaphysics to sort out the propositions which fittingly express the mystery of the incarnation from those that do not. The terminology poses some difficulties – a ‘supposit’ is the ultimate subject of predication, the individual. In ‘Socrates is a man’, the subject points to the individual and the predicate expresses his nature. In the case of Christ, the supposit is the Second Person of the Trinity and the incarnation amounts to that person taking on human nature as well as divine. Thus Christ is one person who has two natures.
The following discussion explores the fittingness of attributing certain predicates to Christ. Brooding over the discussion is the spectre of ‘two things equal to a third are equal to one another’. Thomas manoeuvres adroitly between the Scylla and Charybdis of Christological heresies to display, so to speak, the logic of the incarnation.
Summa theologiae, Third Part, Question 16
THE THINGS THAT BELONG TO CHRIST IN HIS BEING AND BECOMING
Now we must consider consequences of the union of the two natures in Christ. First, with respect to things which belong to Christ as such; second, what belongs to him in comparison with God the Father; third, what belongs to him in comparison to us. Under the first heading, we must first take up what belongs to Christ as to his being and his becoming; then, the things that belong to him by reason of unity.
As to the first, twelve questions arise: (1) whether ‘God is man’ is true; (2) whether ‘Man is God’ is true; (3) whether Christ can be called a lordly man; (4) whether what belongs to the son of man can be predicated of the son of God, and vice versa; (5) whether what belongs to the son of man can be predicated of the divine nature and what belongs to the son of God can be predicated of human nature; (6) whether ‘The Son of God was made man’ is true; (7) whether ‘Man was made God’ is true; (8) whether ‘Christ is a creature’ is true; (9) whether ‘This man’ – pointing to Christ – ‘began to exist or always was’ is true; (10) whether ‘Christ insofar as he is a man is a creature’ is true; (11) whether ‘Christ insofar as he is a man is God’ is true; (12) whether ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is a hypostasis or person’ is true.
Article 1: Is ‘God is man’ true?
It seems that it is false.
1. Every affirmative proposition in remote matter is false. But this proposition, ‘God is man’, is in remote matter, because the forms signified by the subject and predicate are maximally distant. Since the proposition is affirmative, therefore, it seems to be false.
2. Moreover, the three persons have more in common than do human and divine nature. But in the mystery of the Trinity one person is not predicated of another, for we do not say that the Father is the Son, or conversely. Therefore, it seems that neither can human nature be predicated of God, as when it is said, ‘God is man.’
3. Moreover, Athanasius says that just as soul and body are one man, so God and man are one Christ. But it is false to say that the soul is the body. Therefore, it is false to say that God is man.
4. Moreover, as was said in Part 1, what is predicated of God, not relatively but absolutely, belongs to the whole Trinity and to each person. But the word ‘man’ is not relative, but absolute. Therefore, if it is predicated of God, it follows that the whole Trinity and each person is man. Which is evidently false.
ON THE CONTRARY:
In Philippians 2.6–7 it is said ‘who, though he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave and being made like unto men and appearing in the form of man…’ But he who was by nature God is God. Therefore, God is man.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that this proposition, ‘God is man’, is conceded by all Christians, but not for the same reason by all. For some accept the proposition but not according to the proper meaning of its terms. For the Manicheans say that the Word of God is man, although not true man, but a similitude, insofar as they say that the Son of God assumed an imaginary body, in order that it might be said that God is man in the way that figured bronze is called man by bearing a likeness to man. Similarly, those who maintain that in Christ soul and body were not united, did not hold that God is true man, but that he is called man figuratively, by reason of his parts. Both these views have been disproved earlier.1
Others, on the contrary, put the truth on the side of man, but denied the truth on the part of God. For they say that Christ, who is the God Man, is God not by nature but by way of participation, namely by grace, much as all holy men are said to be gods: Christ was simply more excellent than all others because of more abundant grace. So, when it is said, ‘God is man,’ the word God does not stand for the true and natural God. This is the heresy of Photinus, which was disproved above.2
Others accept the proposition with the truth of both terms, holding Christ to be true God and true man, but they do not save the truth of the predication. For they say that man is predicated of God by a kind of conjunction, whether of dignity or of authority or even of love and indwelling. This is the way Nestorius held that God is man, such that this would only mean that God is conjoined to man by such a conjunction that God dwells in man and is united to him according to love and participation of the divine authority and honour. Those who held that there were two hypostases or subjects in Christ fell into a similar error. For it is impossible to understand that one of what are distinct in hypostasis or subject can be properly predicated of the other, except by a kind of figurative way of speaking, insofar as they are conjoined in something, as if we were to say that Peter is John because they are linked in some way to one another. These opinions were also refuted above.1
Hence, supposing, according to the truth of the Catholic faith, that the true divine nature is united with true human nature, not only in person, but also in subject or hypostasis, we say that this proposition, ‘God is man,’ is both true and proper, not only because of the truth of the terms, namely because Christ is true God and true man, but also because of the truth of the predication. The word signifying a common nature concretely can stand for any of the things contained in the common nature, as the word ‘man’ can stand for any singular man. Therefore this word ‘God’, by its very mode of signifying, can stand for the person of the Son of God, as was shown in Part I.2 A word signifying the nature concretely can be truly and properly predicated of any subject of that nature, as man is truly and properly predicated of Socrates and Plato. Therefore because the person of the Son of God, for which the word ‘God’ stands, is a subject of human nature, the name ‘man’ can be truly and properly predicated of this name ‘God’, insofar as it stands for the person of the Son of God.
Ad 1. It should be said that when different forms cannot come together in one subject, it is necessary that the proposition whose subject signifies one of those forms and the predicate the other is in remote matter. But when two forms can come together in one subject, it is not remote matter, but natural or contingent, as when I say, ‘The white is musical.’ The divine and human natures, although they are maximally distant, none the less come together in one subject through the mystery of the incarnation, neither of which inheres incidentally, but both per se. Therefore, this proposition, ‘God is man,’ is in neither remote nor contingent matter, but in natural matter. And man is predicated of God, not incidentally, but per se, as of its own subject, not indeed by reason of the form signified by the term God, but by reason of the subject, which is a hypostasis of human nature.
Ad 2. It should be said that the three divine persons agree in nature, but are distinguished in subject, and therefore they are not predicated of one another. In the mystery of the incarnation, however, the natures, because they are distinct, are not predicated of one another insofar as they are signified abstractly, for the divine nature is not human nature, but because they agree in subject they are predicated of one another concretely.
Ad 3. It should be said that soul and flesh are signified abstractly, like divinity and humanity. Concretely they are called animate and carnal or corporeal, much as, in the case in point, God and man. Hence in neither case is the abstract predicated of the abstract, but only the concrete of the concrete.
Ad 4. It should be said that this word ‘man’ is predicated of God by reason of union in person, which union implies a relation. Therefore, it does not follow the rule of those words which are predicated absolutely of God from all eternity.
Article 2: Is ‘Man is God’ true?
It seems that it is false.
1. God is an incommunicable name. But Wisdom 14.21 blames idolaters because they ‘gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood’. By parity of reasoning, it seems unfitting that the name God should be predicated of man.
2. Moreover, whatever is predicated of the predicate is predicated of the subject. But ‘God is Father’ is true, and also ‘God is the Trinity.’ Therefore, if ‘Man is God’ is true, ‘Man is the Father’ and ‘Man is the Trinity’ are true. Since these are evidently false, so is the first.
3. Moreover, in Psalm 80.10 it is said, ‘No new god shall be among thee.’ But man is new, for Christ was not always man. Therefore ‘Man is God’ is false.
ON THE CONTRARY:
It is said in Romans 9.5, ‘From whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever, amen.’ But Christ according to the flesh is man. Therefore, ‘Man is God’ is true.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that, assuming the truth of both natures, namely of the divine and human, and a union in person and hypostasis, ‘Man is God’ is true and proper, just as ‘God is man’ is. For the term ‘man’ can stand for any hypostasis of human nature, and so it can stand for the person of the Son, which we say is a hypostasis of human nature. For it is manifest that the term God is truly and properly predicated of the person of the son of God, as was shown in Part I.1 It follows that ‘Man is God’ is true.
Ad 1. It should be said that idolaters attribute the name of the divinity to stones and wood considered in their own nature, because they thought there was something numinous in them. But we do not attribute the name of divinity to man according to human nature, but according to an eternal subject, which by union is also a subject of human nature, as has been said.
Ad 2. It should be said that the word ‘Father’ is predicated of the word ‘God’ insofar as the word ‘God’ stands for the person of the Father. But it is not predicated of the person of the Son, because the person of the Son is not the person of the Father. Consequently, it is not necessary that the word ‘Father’ be predicated of the word ‘man’, of which the word ‘God’ is predicated, insofar as ‘man’ stands for the person of the Son.
Ad 3. It should be said that although human nature in Christ is something new, the subject of human nature is not new but eternal. And because the word ‘God’ is not predicated of man by reason of human nature, but by reason of the subject, it does not follow that we say something new of God. That would follow if we held that ‘man’ stands for the created subject, as those must say who hold that there are two subjects in Christ.
Article 3: Is Christ a ‘lordly man’?
It seems that he is.
1. Augustine, in Eighty-three Questions 36, says they should be warned who expect the goods that were in the lordly man. But he is speaking of Christ. Therefore, it seems that Christ is the lordly man.
2. Moreover, as dominion belongs to Christ by reason of his divine nature, so humanity pertains to human nature. But God is said to be ‘humaned’, as is clear from Damascene in On Orthodox Faith 3.6, where he says that ‘humanation’ shows what is joined to man. By parity of reasoning, it can be said demonstratively that this man is lordly.
3. Moreover, as ‘lordly’ is said denominatively from lord, so ‘divine’ is said denominatively from God. But Dionysius calls Christ the most divine Jesus. Therefore, by parity of reasoning, Christ can be called the lordly man.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Augustine says in the Retractions 1.19, ‘I do not see that the man Jesus Christ is rightly called lordly, although he is indeed the lord.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that, as was remarked above, when Christ Jesus is called man the eternal subject, which is the person of the Son of God, is designated because there is one subject of both natures. ‘God’ and ‘lord’ are predicated essentially of the person of the Son of God and therefore ought not to be predicated denominatively because this derogates from the truth of union. Hence, if ‘lordly’ is said denominatively from lord, it cannot be truly and properly said that that man is lordly, but rather that he is lord.
If when Christ Jesus is called man a created subject were designated, as it is by those who hold there are two subjects in Christ, that man could be called lordly insofar as he is assumed by participation in the divine honour, as the Nestorians held.
In this way human nature is not called essentially God, but deified, not by being converted into the divine nature, but by conjunction with the divine nature in one subject, as is clear from Damascene.
Ad 1. It should be said that Augustine is taking back those and similar words in the Retractions. Hence, after the cited words he adds, ‘I have said this everywhere, namely, that Christ Jesus is the lordly man and I wish I had not. Afterwards I saw that this should not be said and could not be defended by any argument,’ because someone could say that a man is called lordly by reason of human nature which the word ‘man’ signifies, not by reason of the subject.
Ad 2. It should be said that the one subject of the divine and human nature was indeed first of the divine nature, namely from eternity, and afterwards in time because of the incarnation made the subject of human nature. That is why it is called ‘humanatum’, not because it assumed a man, but because it assumed human nature. But it cannot be said conversely that the subject of human nature assumed the divine nature, so man cannot be called deified man or lord.
Ad 3. It should be said that the word ‘divine’ is customarily predicated of those things of which the word ‘God’ is predicated essentially. For we say that the divine essence is God, by reason of identity; and that the essence is of God or divine, because of the different mode of signifying; and the divine word, since the word is God. Similarly we say the divine person, like the person of Plato, because of a different mode of signifying. But lordly is not said of those of whom lord is predicated, because we are not accustomed to say that some man who is a lord is lordly. But whatever pertains to the lord we called lordly, as the lordly will or lordly hand or lordly possession. Therefore this man Christ, who is lord, cannot be called lordly, but his flesh can be called lordly flesh, and his passion can be called the lordly passion.
Article 4: Can what belongs to human nature be said of God?
It seems that it cannot.
1. It is impossible that opposites be predicated of the same thing. But the things that belong to human nature are contrary to what is proper to God, for God is uncreated, immutable and eternal, whereas human nature is created, temporal and mutable. Therefore, the things that belong to human nature cannot be said of God.
2. Moreover, to attribute to God what pertains to defect seems to derogate from the divine honour and to be blasphemous. But what belongs to human nature involves defect, as to die, to suffer, and the like. Therefore it seems that what belongs to human nature can in no way be said of God.
3. Moreover, to be assumed belongs to human nature. Therefore, it does not belong to God. Therefore the things of human nature cannot be said of God.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Damascene says in On Orthodox Faith 3.4 that God takes on what is peculiar to flesh, that is, its properties, since God is called suffering, and the God of glory was crucified.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that there is a difference on this question between Nestorians and Catholics. For the Nestorians want to distinguish the words said of Christ in such a way that those that pertain to human nature are not said of God, nor are those which pertain to divine nature said of man. Hence Nestorius said if anyone tries to attribute to the Word of God any sufferings, let him be anathema. But of any names that can pertain to both natures, they predicate what belongs to both natures, like the name ‘Christ’ or ‘lord’. Hence they conceded that Christ was born of a virgin and was eternal, but not that God was born of a virgin or that man was eternal.
But Catholics held that such things said of Christ, whether according to the divine or human nature, can be said of both God and man. Hence Cyril said, if anyone divides between two persons or substances, that is, hypostases, what is said in the Gospels and Apostolic writings or what is said of Christ by the saints, or by Christ of himself, and thinks that some of these should be applied to the man, others reserved for the Word alone, let him be anathema. The reason is this: since there is the same subject of both natures, the name of each nature stands for the subject. Therefore, whether he is called man or God it is the hypostasis of the divine and human nature that is meant, and the things of human nature can be said of God.
But note that in a proposition in which something is predicated of something else, we pay attention not only to that of which the predicate is said, but also to that which is predicated of it. Therefore, although the things that are predicated of Christ are not divided, they are distinguished with respect to that according to which both are predicated. For those things which are of the divine nature, are predicated of Christ according to the divine nature, and those things which are of human nature are predicated of him according to human nature. Hence Augustine says in On the Trinity 1.11, we distinguish what in Scripture sounds to be according to the form of God from that which is according to the form of the servant. And later: what on account of the one and what on account of the other the prudent, diligent and pious reader understands.
Ad 1. It should be said that it is impossible for opposites to be predicated of the same thing in the same sense, but nothing prevents this being done according to different senses. And in this way, opposites are predicated of Christ, not according to the same, but according to different, natures.
Ad 2. It should be said that if things pertaining to defect are attributed to God according to the divine nature, it would be blasphemy, as amounting to the diminution of his divine honour, but it does no injury to God if they are attributed to him according to the assumed nature. Hence in some sermon at the Council of Ephesus it was said: ‘God does not think what is an occasion for man’s salvation an injury, for none of the deprivations which he chose on our behalf does an injury to that nature which cannot be the subject of injury; he does what is proper to inferiors in order to save our nature. Therefore such deprivations and lowly things do not injure the divine nature, but effect the salvation of men. How can you say that the things which are the cause of our salvation were an occasion of injury to God?’
Ad 3. It should be said that to be assumed belongs to human nature not by reason of the subject, but by reason of itself. Therefore it does not belong to God.
Article 5: Can what is of human nature be said of the divine nature?
It seems that it can.
1. Things which pertain to human nature are predicated of the Son of God and of God. But God is his own nature. Therefore, those things which are of human nature can be predicated of the divine nature.
2. Moreover, flesh pertains to human nature. But, as Damascene says in On Orthodox Faith 3.6, we say that the nature of the Word is incarnate, following the blessed Athanasius and Cyril. Therefore, by parity of reasoning, it seems that the things of human nature can be said of the divine nature.
3. Moreover, those things which are of the divine nature belong to human nature in Christ, such as to know the future and to have salvific power. Therefore, it seems that, by parity of reasoning, the things of human nature can be said of the divine nature.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Damascene says in On Orthodox Faith 3.4, speaking of the deity, that we do not say of it what is peculiar to humanity, that is, its properties, for we do not call the deity passible or creatable. But the deity is the divine nature. Therefore, those things which are of human nature cannot be said of the divine nature.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that what belongs properly to one thing cannot be predicated of another unless it is the same as the first, as risible does not belong to anything but man. But in the mystery of the incarnation, the divine nature is not the same as the human nature, although there is the same hypostasis of both natures. Therefore, what is of the one nature cannot be predicated of the other insofar as they are abstractly signified. For concrete terms stand for the hypostasis of the nature. Therefore the things that belong to each nature can be indifferently predicated of concrete names whether the word of which they are said makes us understand both natures, like the name ‘Christ’ in which is understood the anointing divinity and the anointed humanity; or divine nature alone, like the name ‘God’ or ‘Son of God’; or human nature alone, like ‘man’ or ‘Jesus’. Hence Pope Leo says in his Letter to the Palestinians, ‘It makes no difference from which substance Christ is named, since the unity of person inseparably remains; the same is both wholly the son of man because of the flesh and wholly the Son of God because of the one divinity with the Father.’
Ad 1. It should be said that in divine things the person and nature are really the same, and by reason of this identity the divine nature is predicated of the Son of God. But the mode of signifying is not the same. Therefore some things are said of the Son of God which are not said of the divine nature, as we say that the Son of God is begotten, but we do not say that the divine nature is begotten, as was shown in Part I.1 Similarly, in the mystery of the incarnation we say that the Son of God suffered, but we do not say this of the divine nature.
Ad 2. It should be said that the incarnation implies the union with flesh rather than the property of the flesh. The two natures in Christ are united in one person, by reason of which union the divine nature is said to be incarnate and the human nature deified, as was said earlier.
Ad 3. It should be said that the things of divine nature are said of human nature, not as they belong essentially to the divine nature, but insofar as they are derived to human nature by participation. Hence the things that cannot be participated in by human nature, such as to be uncreated or omnipotent, are in no way said of human nature. But the divine nature receives nothing by way of participation from human nature. Therefore, those things which are of human nature can in no wise be said of the divine.
Article 6: Is ‘God was made man’ true?
It seems to be false.
1. Since man signifies substance, to become a man is to come to be simply speaking. But ‘God came to be simply speaking’ is false. Therefore ‘God was made man’ is false.
2. Moreover, to become man is to be changed. But God cannot be the subject of change, according to Malachi 3.6: ‘For I am the Lord and I change not.’ Therefore, ‘God became man’ seems to be false.
3. Moreover, ‘man’, as said of Christ, stands for the person of the Son of God. But ‘God is made the person of the Son of God’ is false. Therefore, ‘God was made man’ is false.
ON THE CONTRARY:
There is what is said in John 1.14: ‘And the Word was made flesh.’ And, as Athanasius says in the Letter to Epictetus, ‘When it is said, ”the Word was made flesh”, it is the same as saying, “he was made man”.’
RESPONSE:
It should be replied that anything can be said to have become that which begins to be newly predicated of it. But to be man is newly predicated of God, as has been said, in that to be man does not belong to God from all eternity, but in time through the assumption of human nature. Therefore, ‘God was made man’ is true. But it is differently understood by different people, much as is ‘God is man,’ as was said above.
Ad 1. It should be said that to become man is to come to be absolutely in all those things in which human nature begins to be in a newly created subject. But God is said to be made man because human nature begins to be in the subject of divine nature which pre-existed it from eternity. Therefore, for God to become man is not for God to come to be absolutely.
Ad 2. It should be said that, as has been mentioned, to become implies that something is newly predicated of another. Hence whenever something is newly predicated of another with a change in it of which we have spoken, then to become is to be changed. And this belongs to everything which is said absolutely, for whiteness or extension cannot newly come to something unless it is newly changed to whiteness or extension. But things said relatively can be newly predicated of something without any change, as a man comes newly to be on the right without any change on his part because of the motion of that which comes to be on his left. In such things it is not necessary that whatever is said to come to be is changed, because this can happen through the change of something else. And in this way we say to God, ‘O Lord, thou hast been made a refuge for us.’ (Psalm 89.1) To be man belongs to God by reason of the union, which is a kind of relation. Therefore to be man is newly predicated of God without any change on his part, but by a change of human nature, which is assumed by the divine person. Therefore, when it is said, ‘God was made man,’ no change on the part of God is understood, but solely on the part of human nature.
Ad 3. It should be said that man stands for the person of the Son of God, not sans phrase, but as it subsists in human nature. And although ‘God was made the person of the Son’ is false, ‘God was made man’ is true, because it is united with human nature.
Article 7: Is ‘Man was made God’ true?
It seems to be true.
1. Romans 1.2–3 says, ‘which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son who was to be born to him according to the flesh of the offspring of David’. But Christ as man is from the seed of David according to the flesh. Therefore, man was made the Son of God.
2. Augustine says in On the Trinity that such was the taking up that made God man and man God. By reason of that assumption this is true, ‘God became man.’ Similarly this is true, ‘Man was made God.’
3. Moreover, Gregory Nazianus says in the Letter to Chelidonium, ‘God indeed was humanized, and man deified, or however otherwise we might name it.’ But God is said to be humanized because he was made man. Therefore, man is said to be deified because he was made God, and ‘Man was made God’ is true.
4. Moreover, when it is said that ‘God was made man’, the subject of the making or union is not God, but human nature, which the word man signifies. But that to which the making is attributed seems to be the subject of the making. Therefore ‘Man is made God’ is truer than ‘God was made man.’
ON THE CONTRARY:
Damascene says that we do not say that man was deified but that God was humanized. It is the same thing to become God as to be deified. Therefore, ‘Man was made God’ is false.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that this proposition, ‘Man was made God’, can be understood in three ways. In one way, such that the participle ‘made’ absolutely determines either the subject or the predicate, and in this sense it is false, because neither the man of which it is predicated was made nor was God made, as will be said below. And in the same sense ‘God was made man’ is false. But this is not the sense in which we are examining these propositions here.
In a second way it can be understood such that ‘made’ determines the composition, so that the sense is ‘Man was made God,’ that is, it was brought about that man is God. And in this sense it is true and both ‘Man was made God’ and ‘God was made man’ are true. But this is not the proper sense of these locutions, unless perhaps it is understood that ‘man’ does not have personal, but simple, supposition. For although this man was not made God, because this subject, the person of the Son of God, was God from eternity, but man, universally speaking, was not always God.
In a third way it is understood properly insofar as the participle ‘made’ expresses a becoming of man with respect to God as the term of the making. And in this sense, supposing that in Christ there is the same person and hypostasis and subject of God and man, as was shown above, this proposition is false. Because when it is said ‘Man is made God’, the word man has personal supposition; for God is not verified of man by reason of human nature, but by reason of his subject. But the subject of human nature of which it is true that it is God, is the same as the hypostasis or person of the Son of God, which was always God. Hence it cannot be said that this man began to be God or that he becomes God or that he was made God.
But if the person or hypostasis of God and man differ, such that to be God would be predicated of man, and conversely by some conjunction of subjects, either of personal dignity or affection or indwelling, as the Nestorians said, then by parity of reasoning it could be said that man was made God, that is, was conjoined to God, just as that God was made man, that is, was conjoined to man.
Ad 1. It should be said that in those words of the Apostle the relative ‘who’ which refers to the person of the Son ought not to be understood on the part of the predicate, as if something existing of the seed of David according to the flesh was made the Son of God, in which sense the objection is phrased. It ought to be understood on the part of the subject, such that the sense is that the Son of God was made for this – that is, for the honour of the Father, as the Gloss explains – existing from the seed of David, as if he should say, the Son of God having flesh from the seed of David for the honour of God.
Ad 2. It should be said that the word of Augustine should be understood in the sense that from the very assumption of the incarnation it was brought about that man would be God and God would be man. In this sense both locutions are true, as has been said.
Ad 3. The answer is similar, for to be deified is the same as to become God.
Ad 4. It should be said that the term placed as subject is taken materially, that is, for the subject, whereas the predicate term is taken formally, that is, for the nature signified. Therefore, when it is said that ‘Man was made God’ the becoming is not attributed to the human nature, but to the subject of human nature, which is God from all eternity, and therefore it does not belong to it to become God. But when it is said, ‘God was made man,’ the making is understood to terminate in human nature itself. Therefore, properly speaking, this is true, ‘God was made man,’ and this is false, ‘Man was made God.’ Just as if Socrates before was man and afterwards became white, this is true, pointing at Socrates, ‘Today this man was made white.’ But this is false, ‘This white today became man.’ However if some name signifying human nature abstractly were put in the place of the subject, in this way it could be signified as the subject of the making, for example, if it were said that human nature was made the Son of God.
Article 8: Is ‘Christ is a creature’ true?
It seems that it is.
1. Pope Leo says, ‘By a new and unheard-of convention, God who is and was became a creature.’ But it can be predicated of Christ that he was made the Son of God through the incarnation. Therefore, ‘Christ is a creature’ is true.
2. Moreover, the properties of both natures can be predicated of the hypostasis common to both natures, by whatever name it is signified, as was said above. But it is a property of human nature to be a creature, as it is a property of divine nature to be creator. Therefore both can be said of Christ, namely that he is a creature and that he is uncreated and creator.
3. Moreover, the soul not the body is the principal part of man. But Christ by reason of the body which he took from the virgin is said, simply speaking, to have been born of the virgin. Therefore, by reason of the soul which is created by God, it ought simply to be said that Christ is a creature.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Ambrose says in On Faith 1.16, ‘Christ was not made by edict, was he? Or created on command?’ As if he should say, no. Hence he asks how can a creature be in God. But the God of nature is simple, not conjoined. Therefore it is not to be conceded that Christ is a creature.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that, as Jerome remarks, from words spoken carelessly, heresy results. Hence we should not have even words in common with heretics lest we seem to approve their error. The Arian heretics said that Christ was a creature and less than the Father, not only by reason of human nature but also by reason of the divine person. Therefore, it ought not to be said absolutely that Christ is a creature or less than the Father, but with an addition, namely according to human nature. Those things which cannot be thought to belong to a divine person in himself can be said absolutely of Christ by reason of human nature, as we say simply that Christ suffered, died and was buried. Just as in bodily and human things, things of which it can be doubted whether they belong to the whole or to a part, if they are in some part, we do not attribute to the whole simply, that is, without addition, for we do not say that an Ethiopian is white, but that he is white as to his teeth. But we say without addition that he is grey because this can only belong to him because of his hair.
Ad 1. It should be said that sometimes the holy doctors for the sake of brevity omit the addition and use the name of the creature of Christ. But this is understood in what they say.
Ad 2. It should be said that all the properties of human nature, like those of the divine, can in some wise be said of Christ. Hence Damascene says that Christ, who is called God and man, is both creatable and uncreatable, and divisible and indivisible. But when there is doubt as to the nature of which they are said, they are not to be said without qualification. Hence afterwards he adds that one hypostasis, namely of Christ, is uncreated as to deity, and created as to humanity. Just so conversely it ought not to be said without qualification that Christ is incorporeal or impassible, for we should avoid the error of the Manicheans who held that Christ did not have a true body nor did he truly suffer, but it should be said with the qualification that Christ as to deity is incorporeal and impassible.
Ad 3. It should be said that there can be no doubt that being born of the virgin belongs to the person of the Son of God, as it can be of creation. Therefore, the reason is not the same in both cases.
Article 9: Did ‘This man’ – indicating Christ – ‘come to be’?
The answer seems to be yes.
1. Augustine says in his commentary on John that before the world existed, not only did we not exist but neither did that mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. But that which did not always exist, begins to be. Therefore this man – pointing to Christ – began to be.
2. Moreover, Christ began to be man. But to be a man is to be simply speaking. Therefore he began to be simply speaking.
3. Moreover, man implies a subject of human nature. But Christ was not always a subject of human nature. Therefore, that man began to exist.
ON THE CONTRARY:
There is what is said in Hebrews 13.8, ‘Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today, yes, and for ever.’
RESPONSE:
It should be replied that we ought not to say that this man, indicating Christ, began to be without some qualification. And this for two reasons. First, because the locution is simply false according to the teaching of the Catholic faith whereby we posit in Christ one subject and one hypostasis, just as one person. Given that, when it is said ‘this man’ (indicating Christ), an eternal subject is designated, and it is repugnant to say that his eternity began to be. Hence ‘This man began to be’ is false. Nor does it count that beginning to be belongs to human nature, which is signified by the word ‘man’, because the term in the subject position is not taken formally for the nature, but rather materially for the subject, as has been said.
Second, because, even if it were true, it ought not to be used without qualification in order to avoid the heresy of Arius who, just as he attributed to the Son of God that he was a creature and less than the Father, so he attributed to him that he began to be, saying that there was a time when he was not.
Ad 1. It should be said that this authority must be understood with a qualification, as if we were to say that the man Christ Jesus was not before the world existed – according to his humanity.
Ad 2. It should be said that with this verb ‘began’ the argument from lower to higher does not follow, for it does not follow from ‘This began to be white’ that it began to be coloured. And this because to begin implies to be now and not before, but it does not follow from ‘This was not white before’ that therefore it was not coloured. But to be simply speaking is higher than to be a man. Hence it does not follow from ‘Christ began to be man’ that therefore he began to be.
Ad 3. It should be said that the word ‘man’ insofar as it is taken for Christ, although it signifies human nature, which begins to be, stands for the eternal subject which does not begin to be. Therefore, insofar as it is in the subject position, it is taken for the subject, and insofar as it is in the predicate position it refers to the nature. That is why this is false: ‘The man Christ began to be’ and this is true: ‘Christ began to be man.’
Article 10: Is ‘Christ insofar as he is man is a creature or began to be’ true?
This seems false.
1. Nothing in Christ is created except human nature. But ‘Christ, as man, is human nature’ is false. Therefore this too is false: ‘Christ, as man, is a creature.’
2. Moreover, the predicate is rather predicated of the term in the reduplicative position than of the subject of the proposition itself, just as, if it is said, ‘Body, insofar as it is coloured, is visible,’ it follows that the coloured is visible. But the following ought not to be absolutely conceded: ‘The man Christ is a creature.’ Therefore, neither should this be: ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is a creature.’
3. Moreover, whatever is predicated of whatever man insofar as he is a man is predicated of him as such and simply, for ‘as such’ is the same as ‘insofar as it is’, as is said in Metaphysics 5. But this is false: ‘Christ as such and simply is a creature.’ Therefore this is also false: ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is a creature.’
ON THE CONTRARY:
Everything that is is either the creator or a creature. But this is false: ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is creator.’ Therefore this is true: ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is a creature.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that when we say, ‘Christ insofar as he is man’, the word ‘man’ can be taken in reduplication either by reason of the subject or by reason of the nature. If it is taken again by reason of the subject, since the subject of human nature in Christ is eternal and uncreated, this will be false: ‘Christ, insofar as he is a man, is a creature.’ But if it is taken again by reason of human nature, then it is true, because by reason of human nature, or according to human nature, it belongs to him to be created, as was said above.
But it should be known that a name so taken again in reduplication is more properly understood as the nature than as the subject, for it is taken again with the force of a predicate which is understood formally: it is the same to say ‘Christ as man’ as to say ‘Christ insofar as he is man’. Hence this is rather to be conceded than denied: ‘Christ, as man, is a creature.’ But if something were added that referred to the subject, the proposition is rather to be denied than conceded, for example if it should be said: ‘Christ, as this man, is a creature.’
Ad 1. It should be said that although Christ is not human nature, he is someone having human nature. But the word ‘creature’ is fashioned to be predicated not only of the abstract, but also of the concrete, for we say that humanity is a creature and that man is a creature.
Ad 2. It should be said that ‘man’ insofar as it is in the subject position looks rather to the suppositum, but insofar as something is added as reduplication it looks rather to the nature, as has been said. And because the nature is created, and the subject uncreated, therefore, although this ought not to be conceded simply, ‘This man is a creature,’ this can be conceded, ‘Christ, as man, is a creature.’
Ad 3. It should be said that any man who is the subject of human nature alone, has existence only according to human nature. And, therefore, of any such subject it follows: ‘If as a man he is a creature, he is a creature simply.’ But Christ is not only a subject of human nature, but also of divine nature, thanks to which he has uncreated existence. Therefore it does not follow that, if as man he is a creature, he is simply a creature.
Article 11: Is ’Christ insofar as he is man is God’ true?
It seems that it is.
1. For Christ is God by the grace of union. But Christ, as man, has the grace of union. Therefore, Christ, as man, is God.
2. Moreover, to forgive sins is proper to God, according to Isaiah 43.25, ‘I am he that blots out thy iniquities for my own sake: and I will not remember your sins,’ and according to Matthew 9.6, ‘But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins…’ Therefore, Christ, as man, is God.
3. Moreover, Christ is not universal man, but this particular man. But Christ, insofar as he is this man, is God, because in this man the eternal subject is designated which by nature is God. Therefore Christ, as man, is God.
ON THE CONTRARY:
What belongs to Christ as man belongs to any man. Therefore if Christ, as man, is God, it would follow that every man is God, which is patently false.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that the word ‘man’, put in reduplication, can be taken in two ways. In one way, with respect to nature, and thus it is not true that, as man, he is God, because human nature is distinct from the divine by a distinction of nature. In another way, it can be taken by reason of the subject, and then, since the subject of human nature in Christ is the person of the Son of God, to which it belongs as such to be God, it is true that Christ, as man, is God. However, because a term put in reduplication is more properly taken for nature than for the subject, as has been said above, therefore it is rather to be denied than affirmed that Christ, as man, is God.
Ad 1. It should be said that it does not belong to a thing to be moved to something and to be it in the same sense, for to be moved belongs to something by reason of matter or subject, but actually to be by reason of form. And similarly it does not belong to Christ to be ordered to this that he is God by the grace of union and to be God in the same sense. But it belongs to him first according to human nature, and secondly according to divine nature. Therefore this is true, ‘Christ as man has the grace of union,’ but not this, ‘Christ, as man, is God.’
Ad 2. It should be said that the son of man has on earth the power to forgive sins, not by virtue of human nature, but by the divine, in which divine nature consists the power of forgiving sins by authority; but in human nature it consists instrumentally and ministerially. Hence Chrysostom, on Matthew, explaining this, says that he significantly spoke of forgiving sins on earth in order that he might show that the power of divinity is united to human nature by an indivisible union. Because, although he was made man, he remains the Word of God.
Ad 3. It should be said that when we say ‘this man’ the demonstrative pronoun pulls the word man towards the subject, and therefore this is true: ‘Christ, as this man, is God’ rather than this, ‘Christ, as man, is God.’
Article 12: Is ‘Christ insofar as he is man is a person’ true?
It seems to be.
1. That which belongs to any man, belongs to Christ insofar as he is a man, for he is like other men, according to Philippians 2.7, ‘being made like other men’. But every man is a person. Therefore Christ, as man, is a person.
2. Moreover, Christ, as man, is a substance of a rational nature and not a universal substance. Therefore, an individual substance. But a person is nothing other than an individual substance of a rational nature, as Boethius says in On the Two Natures. Therefore Christ, as man, is a person.
3. Moreover, Christ, as man, is a being of human nature, and a subject and hypostasis of that nature. But every hypostasis and subject and thing of human nature is a person. Therefore, Christ, as man, is a person.
ON THE CONTRARY:
Christ as man is not an eternal person. Therefore, if, as man, he is a person, it would follow that there are two persons in Christ, one temporal and the other eternal. Which is erroneous, as was said above.
RESPONSE:
It should be said, as was argued above, that this word ‘man’, in the reduplicative position, can be taken either for the subject or for the nature.
Therefore, when it is said that Christ, as man, is a person, if it is taken for the subject, it is manifest that Christ, as man, is a person, because the subject of human nature is nothing other than the person of the Son of God.
But if it is taken for the nature, then it can be understood in two ways. In one way, that to exist in human nature belongs in each person. And in this way too it is true that everything that subsists in human nature is a person. In another way, it can be understood as meaning that Christ’s proper personality is due to human nature and caused by the principles of human nature. And thus Christ, as man, is not a person, because human nature is not as such existing apart from the divine nature, which requires the notion of person.
Ad 1. It should be said that it belongs to every man to be a person insofar as everything subsisting in human nature is a person. But it is proper to the man Christ that the person subsisting in his human nature is not caused by the principles of human nature, but is eternal. Therefore, in one way he is a person as man, in another way he is not, as has been said.
Ad 2. It should be said that individual substance as put in the definition of person implies a complete substance subsisting of itself separately from others. Otherwise the hand of a man could be called a person since it is a kind of individual substance, but because it is an individual substance existing in another, it cannot be called a person. For the same reason neither can human nature in Christ which, however, can be called something individual or singular.
Ad 3. It should be said that, just as person signifies something complete and subsisting of itself in a rational nature, so hypostasis, subject and thing of nature in general signify substances subsisting of themselves. Hence, just as human nature is not as such apart from the person of the Son, so too it is not of itself hypostasis or subject or thing of nature. Therefore, in the sense in which this is denied, ‘Christ, as man, is a person,’ all the others must be denied.