Seventh Distinction

Question One. Whether this proposition is true, ‘God is man’

1. About the seventh distinction I ask whether this proposition is true, ‘God is man’.a

a.a [Interpolation] About this seventh distinction, where the Master explains three opinions posited above about the incarnation of Christ in its factual reality, three questions are asked: two about locutions that express the union, and one locution expressing the predestination of the union. The first is whether this proposition is true, ‘God is man’; the second is whether this proposition is true, ‘God became man’; the third is whether Christ was predestined to be the Son of God. Argument about the first.

2. That it is not:

Because in things that divide being, or in the divisions of being, the first that divide it are most diverse; but being is divided by the first division into finite and infinite; therefore finite and infinite are most diverse. Therefore if there are any other dividers of being that are so incompossible that one cannot be predicated of the other, this will be most of all the case in the issue at hand.

3. Again, the same thing is not predicated of the same thing both in the abstract and denominatively, because if this proposition, ‘man is white’, is denominatively true, yet it is not true in the abstract, ‘man is whiteness’, according to the Philosopher Topics 1.2.109a34-b12, where he destroys a problem about accident if what is assigned as accident is predicated of the whatness; but God was human-ed, according to Damascene ch.46 [“Therefore we do not say that man was deified but that God was human-ed”], and according to Cassiodorus on Romans 1.3, ‘made to him from the seed of David’ [Cassiodorus, Exposition of the Psalter, psalm 9.1, “What more marvelous than God un-confusedly human-ed for the salvation of the human race?” psalm 56, “For God - so to say - became human-ed, who also in the assumption of the flesh did not cease to be God”] ; therefore he was not man.

4. Further, if God is man, then either ‘man’ predicates a relation or it predicates something relative to God; it does not predicate a relation because ‘man’ is not said relative to the other correlative (for God is not man of something); if it predicates something relative to God, then it is said of the three persons, according to Augustine On the Trinity 5.6 n.7 [“But whatever is said relative to substance is said according to substance; so the result is that the Son is in substance equal to the Father and to the Holy Spirit;” 8 n.9, “Whatever God is said to be relative to himself is also said thrice of the individual persons... and said.. .together of the very Trinity”]; therefore the three persons will be man, which is false.

5. Further, if God is man, I ask according to the idea of what predicate is ‘man’ predicated of God?Porphyry in the Book of Predicables ch.1 lists the five predicables (into one or other of which all predications are supposed to fall) as follows: genus, species, difference, property, accident. ⁶⁶ None seems capable of being assigned: not the predication of genus or of species or of difference (because God is not in a genus or a species, nor is he a predicate of the essence of a subject); nor the predication of the property (because then God would fall into the definition of man); nor the predication of the definition (for the same reason); nor the predication of an accident (because no such thing is said of God).

6. On the contrary:

John 1.14, “The Word was made flesh,” where, according to Augustine [On the Trinity 2.6 n.11], ‘flesh’ is put for man.

I. To the Question

A. Solution

7. About this question one must see what is the cause of truth for the proposition ‘God is man’ being true, because it is not true first; for any predicate that only belongs to a universal through some supposit does not belong to it first or truly save because it is said of some inferior term; and so there must be some cause making the proposition true that is other than the universal. ‘Is man’ is only said of God through some determinate supposit, as through the Word; therefore the proposition is true because this proposition ‘the Word is man’ is true.

8. Second one must see about the truth of this cause [sc. the truth of ‘the Word is man’].

Here one needs to know that this proposition cannot naturally be made plain or known to be true; for either we can have a proper and determinate concept of the Word, and then this proposition is a true contingent but an immediate one and not known from the terms, because then the terms would have to include the evident relationship between them, so that the idea of the terms would necessarily include the union of the terms that the proposition expresses; or we do not have a proper concept of the Word but only a confused one (as was said in 1 d.3 nn.56-57, 187-188, d.27 n.78), and then this proposition ‘the Word is man’, as to the concept we have of the terms, is a contingent mediate one. Now such a contingent mediate proposition is not of a nature to be known save from some contingent immediate proposition from which it may follow; but, as was just said, the above proposition, because it is contingent, cannot be known from the terms, nor can it in any way be known naturally to be true, because a contingent immediate proposition is not truly known save by intuitive cognition of the extremes and of their union, of the sort we cannot have of the extremes of the proposition immediately antecedent to this one.

9. Therefore the truth of this proposition is only an immediately believed one, or one that must be made plain from something believed. And accordingly it is shown to be true in this way: for a supposit ‘subsistent in some nature as supposit’ is truly called such formally according to the nature; but it is a thing believed that this union is such that by it the Word subsists in human nature as a supposit in the nature; therefore by it the Word is formally man.

10. The major of this syllogism is proved by Damascene ch.57, “‘God’ signifies a universal of nature, so that it has in any hypostasis the order of a denominative term, as does also the term ‘man’ - for God is he who has divine nature as man is he who has human nature.”

11. The minor is proved by Augustine On the Trinity 1.13 n.28, “This assumption was such that it made God man and man God.”

12. Third one must see how this predicate ‘man’ is taken.

13. And one statement [Ps.-Hugh of St. Victor] is that it is taken for the supposit, so that the predication is by identity, by pointing to the implicature: ‘the Word is the supposit that is man’.

14. Against this:

In that case there will be a process to infinity: for this implication is on the part of the predicate and it predicates ‘man’ of something that is introduced by the subject - and then I ask whether the predicate is taken formallyScotus Metaphysics 7 q.4 n.23, “Formal predication is when the predicate is in the subject from the understanding of the subject.” ⁶⁷ or for the supposit, when the statement is made that ‘the Word is the supposit that is man’? If the predicate is taken formally the intended conclusion is gained, that the predication is formal and not only by identity; but if the predicate is only taken for the implied supposit, there will be a process to infinity, because any implicative speaking includes a proposition within it and so a predication, because such a proposition is a double proposition; either then there will be process to infinity in implication or recourse must be made to another mode of predicating.This argument is given by Bonaventure Sentences 3 d.7 a.1 q.1. The point seems to be that ‘man’ in ‘the Word is the supposit that is man’ must, according to the view here being criticized, itself be short-hand for ‘supposit that is man’ (otherwise the predication will be formal after all), so that the proposition will become ‘the Word is the supposit that is the supposit that is man’, where again the ‘man’ must be replaced by ‘the supposit that is man’, and so on ad infinitum. ⁶⁸

15. Further, the predication of a nature of a supposit is formal, not only by identity.

16. Fourth one must see what sort of predicate this predicate is with respect to the subject.

It seems that it could be posited to be the species [Henry of Ghent]: for ‘man’ is said univocally of Christ and Peter; the predicate is also said of something as to its ‘whatness’, and only said of several things that differ numerically;     therefore etc     . That the predicate is said as to whatness is plain from the Decretal On Heretics [d.6 nn.25, 73 supra].

17. I reply:

Just as it is one thing to predicate a univocal and another to predicate univocally, strictly speaking (for a univocal predicate is said to be a predicate whose per se concept is one; and in this way ‘white’ said of wood and a stone, or said denominativelyPeter of Spain Tractatus tr.2 n.21, “Denominatives are said to be all terms that, differing from something only in case, get from that name their appellation... Hence ‘grammatical’, ‘strong’, ‘white’ and the like are predicated denominatively. And therefore an accident is said to be predicated denominatively.” ⁶⁹ of anything, is a univocal predicate; predicated univocally is a predicate of which, as it is predicated, the idea is so one that this idea is included in the idea of the subject;Ibid. n.20, “But to be predicated univocally is to be predicated according to one name and one definition taken according to that name, as ‘man’ according to its name is predicated of Socrates and Plato., and the definition of it according to that name is one, as ‘mortal rational animal’, and according to this definition is it predicated of its [logical] inferiors.” ⁷⁰ and in this way a denominative predicate is not predicated univocally, that is in the way the Philosopher speaks in Categories 5.3a33-b9) - so a predicate stating the ‘what is predicated’ is one thing, and a predicate ‘predicated of a thing as to whatness’ is another (from Topics 1.5.102a31-34 [“Now genus is what is predicated in the ‘what it is’ of things that are many and differ in species; and the sort of things said to be predicated in the ‘what it is’ are whatever pertains to him who is asked to give in answer ‘what’ the thing proposed ‘is’”]), and yet not everything of any genus is predicated of anything ‘as to whatness’ but only what is predicated of its essential inferior, in whose definition it is includedIbid., “Now that is said to be predicated of something as to whatness which is appropriately given as a response to a question asked by ‘what?’ - as when the question is asked, ‘what is man?’, an appropriate response is, ‘animal’; and for this reason ‘animal’ is predicated of man as to whatness.” ⁷¹ (as in the matter at issue).a

a.a [Interpolation] Thus it could therefore be said that, since no union is like this one - because of which the predication [sc. ‘God is man’] is said to be true - there is no predicate said of a subject that is related to it.

18. As far as concerns what is predicated, then, this is the species, because it is not of a nature to be genus or difference or property or accident. But as far as concerns the manner of the relation of the predicate in regard to the subject, the predicate does not belong to the idea of the subject, and it comes to a subject existing in complete act, and it can be absent from the subject - and to this extent, the predicate seems to have a relation in regard to the subject like the sort the predicate called ‘accident’ has.

19. And if it be objected [Godfrey of Fontaines, Richard of Middleton] that the relation of this universal [sc. ‘man’], because it is an ‘accident’, is founded in reality only in an accident - I reply that, as to the fact, it is true that this second intention ‘accident’, of which the logician speaks, is only founded in an accident that states a first intention, as the metaphysician speaks; yet it is not of the idea of this second intention that it only exist in the first intention, just as it is not of the idea of genus or species that it only be founded in the idea of substance (and perhaps already in the proposition ‘the white is wood’ the predicate is the second intention of accident, speaking logically; or if it is not so there, then at least if ‘to be wood’ could come to an actually existing white, such that it would not be predicated of the notion or essence of the subject nor would be convertible with the subject, ‘to be wood’ would seem perfectly an accident, speaking logically).

20. Fifth, what sort of predication, whether per se or per accidens, is this predication?

It seems not to be per se in the first mode, because the predicate does not fall into the definition of the subject; nor in the second mode, because the reverse does not hold (the subject does not fall into the definition of the predicate); nor generally is it in any mode of per se,See Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.4.73a34-b18. ⁷² because the relation [sc. the relation of ‘man’ to ‘God’ in ‘God is man’] does not seem necessary in any of them.

21. But this is not conclusive, because some contingent propositions can be per se, as with immediate predication in the second mode, if the proximate reason for the inherence of predicates is included in the subjects even though the inherence of the predicates is not necessary, as in the case of ‘the hot heats’ and ‘the will wills’.

22. But not even this mode of per se seems present in the issue at hand (the thing is plain in the second article [n.7]).

23. Response:

If the discussion about ‘per accidens’ is being done in the way the metaphysician speaks about it, namely that either one term is accidental to the other or both are accidental to a third (as is plain in Metaphysics 5.6.1015b16-34, 7.1017a19-22, ‘On Being and One’) - then this proposition [sc. ‘God is man’] is not per accidens, because “what exists in the true sense is not an accident of anything”, from Physics 1.3.186b4-5; hence this union is not conceded to be accidental either, because neither extreme is an accident. But this argument does not prove that the proposition is per se,Scotus Lectura 3 d.7 n.33, “Know that an accident, as the metaphysician takes it, is a thing dependent on a substance; but, as it is taken by the logician, it is an intention made by the soul and is nothing but the contingent inherence of a predicate in a subject. And although this intention of contingent inherence only exists in a real accident, yet there is no repugnance to its being found in something else.” ⁷³ speaking logically of ‘per se’.a But the subject ‘God’ here does not determinately include ‘Son’ more than ‘Father’ - so just as this proposition too, ‘the rational is animal’, is not per se, logically speaking. One could concede, then, that, logically speaking, the predicate is outside the per se notion of the subject and that, for this reason, the proposition is true not per se but per accidens, even though neither extreme is really present per accidens in the other.

a.a [Interpolation] first because the predicate is not of the per se notion of the subject, even in the concreteness of the supposit; second because in per se predications the subject supposits determinately (for if it were to supposit only indeterminately then this proposition ‘animal is man’ would be per se, because it can be verified in Peter or in Paul); third because if ‘man’ [sc. in ‘God is man’] were predicated per se of whatever is contained under the subject, then both the Holy Spirit and the Father would be ‘man’.

24. Hence this union of the extremes [sc. ‘God is man’] is conceded to be neither essential nor accidental but substantial - Damascene ch.49, “For we say the union is substantial, that is, true and not in imagination;” and so, in accord with the diversity of this union from all others, one can posit a diversity of this sort of inherence from all others.

B. A Doubt

25. But about this proposition, ‘Christ is man’, there is a doubt that it is per se, because here the subject does include the predicate, for, according to Damascene ch. 49, “Now we say that ‘Christ’ is the name of the hypostasis, not stated in a uniform way, but an existence significative of two natures;” so Christ signifies ‘an existent in human nature’, and thus it includes the predicate ‘man’, as Peter does.

26. It is said [William of Ware] that this is per accidens on account of an implication in the subject, which implication is per accidens; for Christ implies about the Word that he is man, because Christ is the Word-man or ‘the Word who is man’, because a ‘who is’ falls as a middle between the demanding and the demanded terms,Peter Helias, Commentary on Priscian 18, “Where the grammarians say that diction regiments diction, there Priscian says that diction demands diction; and what others call ‘regimen’ he calls ‘demand’, using a more explicit locution.” Cf. Scotus 1 d.21 n.16. ⁷⁴ according to Priscian [Grammatical Foundations, 18.1 n.6, “When it is said ‘Achilles son of Peleus slew in fight many Trojans’, the participle of the substantive verb, ‘being’ [ens], is understood (which is not now in use among us [sc. ‘ens’ is now used as a noun and not as the participle of the verb ‘esse’]), and in its place [sc. in place of ‘Achilles, being son of Peleus,.’] we can say or understand ‘who is or who was the son of Peleus’. In like manner.. .‘a friend agreeable to me is coming’, that is, ‘a friend who is agreeable to me.’; the ‘who is’ is understood. And these constructions, indeed, which the nature of the words demands, vary in this way in their cases, to which we may join pronouns or participles in the same cases.”].

27. But this statement of Priscian is not the purpose, because a substantive does not demand its adjective to be at the same time through an intermediate implication, nor conversely, but substantive and adjective are together construed intransitively. And so, although an intermediate implication occurs in the phrase ‘the cappa of Socrates’ [sc. ‘the cappa that is of Socrates’], yet it does not occur in the phrase ‘white man’, otherwise determining any extreme by any accident or adjective added to it would be impossible, and there would be a process to infinity.Tr. That is, if ‘white man’ should be construed as ‘a man who is white’ and if ‘white’ should be construed as ‘a white who is a man’, then ‘a white man’ becomes ‘a man who is a white who is a man’; and since ‘white’ appears here again and so must be construed in the same way as before, the sentence becomes ‘a man who is a white who is a man, who is a man’, and so on ad infinitum. ⁷⁵ Therefore one may say that such an implication is not introduced by this name ‘Christ’, and that there is no need, because of it, to posit that the proposition [sc. ‘Christ is man’] is true per se; however, since, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.29.1024b26-28 ‘an account false in itself is true of nothing’, then also, by similarity, a concept that is not in itself per se one is not asserted per se of anything one, nor is anything asserted per se of it. So this proposition ‘Christ is man’ can be conceded to be not altogether per accidens, for the subject includes the predicate, nor altogether per se, for the subject does not have a concept altogether per se one. And the like would be said of this proposition, ‘a white man is colored’.

II. To the Principal Arguments

28. To the arguments.

As to the first [n.2], I concede the greater diversity but not the greater repugnance; for those thing are said to be more diverse that agree less in the same thing, but they are not for this reason more repugnant (just as white and black agree in more things than white and man do, and yet white and black are more repugnant than white and man); and in this way a greater diversity in the extremes is not a cause of their being false but the repugnance is, or the incompossibility of things that formally have any of the four oppositions [Categories 10.11b17-23; Peter of Spain Tractate 3 n.29, “Now one thing is said to be opposed to another in four ways: for some opposites are opposite by relation, as father and son, double and half, master and slave; others are opposite by privation, as privation and possession, or sight and blindness, or hearing and deafness; others are contraries, as white and black; others are opposite by contradiction, as affirmation and negation (as ‘sits’ and ‘does not sit’).”].

29. To the second [n.3] I say that ‘to be human-ed’ is the proper denominative not of this term ‘man’ but of the term ‘becoming man’ - and universally, this sort of denominative, which signifies a form in its becoming, is said of the same thing that the form itself is said of, and yet denominatively or with the like denomination; for ‘white’ and ‘becomes white’ are the same, and ‘man’ and ‘becomes man’ are the same; but the proper denominative of man is the term ‘human’ (and this term is not said of God). And this has to be understood in the way that from subjects denominating supposits further denominatives can be taken; and this is not because they in-form them, the way concrete accidents are denominated [sc. as man is called white because he has the form of whiteness], but because of possessing or being related to something else extrinsic to such a substance.

30. To the third [n.4] I say that Augustine is speaking only of those things relatively said that predicate an intrinsic extreme.

31. However alternatively it could also be said that this predicate [sc. ‘man’], although it does not predicate a relative, yet does imply a relation of union with the Word, for this predicate is truly predicated of God because of the union of the nature with the word - which union is a relation.

32. As to the other [n.5], it is plain that this predicate participates something of the idea of a species and something of the idea of an accident in relation to the subject, because this nature comes to the Word actually existing perfectly in himself.

Question Two. Whether God was Made Man

33. Second I ask whether God was made man.

34. That he was not:

Because then God would be made. The consequent is false; therefore the antecedent is too. Proof of the consequence: this inference holds, ‘Socrates was made man, therefore he was made’, because ‘man’ does not destroy in the proposition the predicate ‘to be made’ (the way ‘dead’ does with respect to man when one says, ‘he is a dead man, therefore he is a man’); therefore the inference holds everywhere.

35. Further, if God was made man, then he was changed to humanity. The consequence is universally plain in everything: ‘he was made white, therefore he was changed to whiteness’, and so of other cases.

36. Further, if God was made man then God was made God. The proof of the consequence is that there is, because of the union of the natures, a sharing of characteristics, and so, just as he who kills the man kills God, so if God is made man he is made God.

37. On the contrary:

The Nicene Creed says, “He was made man.”

38. Again, in the Gospel of John 1.14, “The Word was made flesh;” ‘flesh’ is put there for man [n.6].

39. Again, Augustine On the Trinity 1.13 n.28, “The union was such that it made God man and man God.”

I. To the Question

40. There are distinctions to the proposition ‘God was made man’, because the making can be referred either to the composition or to one or other extreme, and this in two ways, namely either in itself or in order to one or other extreme. And these distinctions, whether in one sense or the other, are diffusively treated of [Bonaventure, Aquinas, Richard of Middleton, et al.].

41. But, avoiding such prolixity, one can say that the proposition is simply true.

42. The clarification is as follows: when the making is predicated by way of added second element, it states making simply; when it is predicated by way of added third element, it states making in a certain respect, namely the respect specified by the third term; the same is also true of ‘is’ when it is predicated as second or as third element.Tr. Scotus is following the analysis of propositions found in Aristotle On Interpretation 2-3 and 10.19b19-25 (also William of Sherwood Syncategorematic Words), where a proposition is analyzed either as consisting of two elements, noun and verb, or as three, two terms and a copula. In the case of ‘is’ an example of the first analysis would be ‘Socrates is (or exists)’, and an example of the second would be ‘Socrates is wise’. In the case of ‘made’ an example of the first analysis would be ‘Socrates was-made (or became)’, and an example of the second would be ‘Socrates was-made (or became) wise’. In this second analysis the ‘is’ or ‘was-made’ or ‘became’ is added as a third element and is specified by the third term, namely ‘wise’, which says what the subject is or was made to be. Of course one can, if one wishes, analyze ‘Socrates is (or exists)’ in the second way, namely as ‘Socrates is existent or is an existent’; one can also analyze ‘Socrates is wise’ in the first way, namely as ‘Socrates wise-izes’. Indeed disputes and developments in the history of logic turn on this interesting fact. Nevertheless, for Scotus’ present purposes, the point about the varying uses of ‘is’ or ‘made’ remains. ⁷⁶

43. So, just as ‘being made’ is truly stated of a subject in accord with the subject’s receiving existence simply after non-existence simply from some maker, so is ‘being made a’ truly said of it because it is a after it was not a through the action of some agent.

44. And this latter point is proved by the fact that passive making formally includes only a relation to the maker and an order of the thing made to a preceding nonexistence (and these go together in the case of creatures); when these two do, then, come together, the idea of making is secured, whether making simply [sc. making to be] or making such and such [sc. making to be a], if such a supposit [sc. some supposit that is not a] naturally precedes the form; but God is man by the action of some maker, and he was not always man; therefore he was made man.

45. The proof of the minor [sc. ‘God is man... and he was not always man’] is that it is plain from the preceding question [supra n.9] that God is man and that he was not always man, because he was not always subsisting in human nature as a supposit in that nature. And the proof that he is man through the action of some maker is that, when certain things are necessarily concomitant to each other, then, if one of them is made by the action of another, so are the rest; ‘human nature being united in person to the Word’ and ‘the Word being man’ are necessarily concomitant to each other; but human nature was thus united to the Word, namely by the Trinity’s making, because the Trinity was the agent in respect of this union; and it is plain that the Trinity was the maker, because the Trinity caused the effect in the creature; therefore the Trinity made the Word to be man.

46. And if the objection is made [Bonaventure] that making requires change, and change of that in which it is and of that about which it is said, because change is not of the end term - I reply that a natural maker presupposes an affected passive thing that it changes, because a passive thing that is first in potency to a term is made actually to be that term by the action of the maker, and what passes from potency to act changes. But, in the case of this union, the supernatural agent does not presuppose that the Word is, as it were, potential for this term, nor did the supernatural agent introduce the term as an act or form of the Word through inherence, but united the term to the Word without inherence; so there was no passage there from potency to act. The idea of making, therefore, is preserved on both sides, because something on both sides is, by the action of the maker, such as it before was not and thus becomes such. So it is accidental that what becomes such undergoes change, save when what is said to be such is the form of that which becomes such, to which form it was before in potency; and thus does it commonly happen in passive makings, where natural agents are at work and make certain things to be of the sort actually which they potentially were before.

47. But if it is objected that ‘there was at least some passive undergoing here after there was active making, because to any making that is a process there corresponds a proper passive undergoing; therefore this undergoing was in something; but not in the human nature because, as it seems, human nature was the term of the passive making; therefore it was in the Word, which seems unacceptable’ - I reply that here there was one, active, real making by the whole Trinity, to which there corresponded a real passive making, namely that whereby God was made man and which was the passive union of human nature to the Word, and this passive uniting was in the human nature and the term of it was the Word; there was, as to manner of speaking, another passive making, concomitant with the active, real making, namely that whereby the Word was made man, and of this making human nature seems, as to manner of speaking, to have been the term; but there was not a different real term in this case and in that, because there was no other real passive making; for by the same making, as well active as passive, was the Word united thus to human nature. I say, therefore, that the passive undergoing correspondent to the acting was in the human nature united, and the human nature was the subject, not the term, of the passive making, even though it is signified as being the term in the proposition, ‘the Word was made man’.

48. And in this way might one reply to the preceding objection about change [n.46], namely that the change that there was here was in the human nature, not in the Word, so that there was not here a making without any change, nor yet was there need for change to have been in anything said to be made such, but only in that because of whose making or undergoing something is said to be made such - which here was the human nature alone.

49. From all this it is plain that the proposition ‘man was made God’ is simply true, because man, by the action of making, is God and before was not God.

50. And as for what some say [Bonaventure], that ‘to be made’ denotes a change in that of which it is said and a preceding of it with respect to the term of the making - it is plain from what was already said [nn.46-48] that the first [sc. ‘to be made’ denotes a change] is not necessary, nor the second [sc. ‘to be made’ denotes a preceding...], because this would only be the case insofar as ‘to be made’ implies a beginning in some way. But this beginning, when an added third element is predicated [n.42], does not denote that the subject precedes the predicate; for it is true to say of a now created soul that this soul now begins to animate the body, and yet it did not exist before it was animating the body; so too, when the predication is made by way of added second element, it is true to say that it begins to be (and thus does it begin to be day, that is, ‘time begins to be day’ and nothing other than day, and yet the time did not exist first and afterwards begin to be day); so also neither is it necessary, in order for this proposition, ‘man was made God’, to be true, that man preceded - just as neither for the truth of the proposition, ‘human nature was united to the Word’, which implies the proposition, ‘human nature was made subsistent in the nature of the Word’, is it necessary that human nature was pre-existent in the Word before it was subsistent in the Word.

51. But if you ask which of these propositions is more proper, ‘man was made God’ or ‘God was made man’, and you argue that ‘man was made God’ is, because the truth of all these propositions is founded on the fact that ‘human nature was united to the Word’ (for the real undergoing that there was there was in the human nature, and the term was the Word), and because to this fact the proposition ‘man was made God’ seems closer because it more immediately expresses passive making - I reply that, in this matter, the proposition ‘human nature was united in person to the Word’ is first, but from this follows immediately that the Word is man. The reason for this is that the Word, by virtue of the union, is subsistent in human nature, and from this follows, by conversion, that man is God. And the same holds of ‘is made’. Therefore ‘God was made man’ is not truer than this one, ‘man was made God’, nor is it more remote from the previous one [sc. ‘human nature was united in person to the Word’], on account of which both of them are true - both are proper, however.Tr. Scotus here goes against the opinions of Bonaventure (Sentences 3 d.7 a.1 q.3) and Aquinas (ST IIIa q.16 a.6 ad 4), who think ‘man was made God’ is improper or false, though Scotus interestingly directs his remarks to the view that ‘man was made God’ is truer or more proper. ⁷⁷

II. To the Principal Arguments

52. To the arguments.

To the first [n.34] I say the inference ‘Socrates was made man, therefore he was made’ does not hold of Socrates due to his form, just as it does not hold thus of the matter at hand either; but it holds of Socrates only due to his matter, because ‘Socrates is a man’ states the being first and simply of Socrates; in the matter at hand it is not so.

53. To the second [n.35] the answer is plain from the solution to the question [n.46], because the claim ‘everything that is made to be of a certain sort must be changed in order to be of that sort’ does not hold, but only happens to be the case about things that were in potency beforehand to that as to which, by receiving the form, they are being made to be - and the Word is not made man in this way but only by personal union. However if some change were wanted, it could be posited to be in the human nature - not that the human nature was existing before it was united, but the change is between opposite terms, one of which terms precedes the other in duration.

54. To the third [n.36] I say that things that express the union of the nature to the person are excepted from the rule about the sharing of characteristics.The rule is thus expressed by Damascene ch. 49, “The Word appropriates human things to himself (for to him belongs what belongs to his sacred flesh), and bestows on the flesh, by way of giving back, his own properties, because of the interpenetration of the parts with each other and because of union in hypostasis.” He excepts things expressing the union from this rule as do other doctors generally, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Aquinas. ⁷⁸ And the reason is that the sharing of the aforesaid characteristics happens because of the union, and so it presupposes the union; the sharing does not happen then as regard things that express the union. And therefore God is not made, although he is made man.a

a.a [Interpolation] because these things express the union; and these things and the example given [n.36, he who kills the man kills God] are not alike.

Question Three. Whether Christ was Predestined to be Son of God

55. Third I ask whether Christ was predestined to be Son of God.

56. That he was not:

Because he was not predestined to be Son of God in respect of his being Son of God, since predestination did not precede the existence of the Son of God, for predestination states a preceding to that which is predestined; nor was he predestined in respect of his being man, because a thing predestined to be of some sort in some respect is of that sort in that respect - therefore if he was predestined to be Son of God in respect of his being man, then the Son of God is Son of God in respect of his being man, which is false.

57. On the contrary:

Romans 1.3-4, “He was made of the seed of David, who was predestined to be Son of God in power.”

I. To the Question

58. I reply.

Since ‘predestination’ is principally a pre-ordering of someone to glory and to other things in their order to glory, and because glory for this human nature in Christ, and the union of it with the Word in order to glory, were pre-ordered, since a glory as great as has now been conferred on it should not have been conferred on it if it were not united to the Word - therefore, just as the merits, without which someone would not be ordered fittingly to a glory as great as he would be ordered to with them, fall under predestination, so this union, which is ordered fittingly to so great a glory, though not by way of merit, fell under predestination; and thus, just as this nature’s being united to the Word was predestined, so the Word’s being man and this man’s being the Word were predestined. -The inferences are proved by way of likeness, as was said about passive making [nn.44-48].

59. And if you say [Godfrey of Fontaines, Aquinas] that ‘predestination regards first the person, and so it is necessary to find first here some person to whom first God predestined glory and the union in its order to glory; but he did not predestine this union to any divine person (plainly not to the person of the Word as of the Word; and not to that person as human nature, because in this sense the union is included)’ - I reply: the proposition that ‘predestination regards the person alone’ can be denied; for just as God can love any good other than himself (not merely the supposit but the nature), so also can he pre-choose or pre-order for something other than himself a good fitting to that other, and thus he can pre-choose glory and a union in order to glory for the nature and not only for the person. However it is true that, in all other cases besides this one, predestination regards the person, because in no other case has God pre-ordered a good for the nature save by pre-ordering a good for the person, because a nature for which a good can thus be pre-ordered exists only in a created person. It is not so in the issue at hand.

II. Doubts and their Solution

A. First Doubt

60. But here there are two doubts. The first is whether this predestination [of Christ] necessarily requires a preceding fall of human nature, which the many authorities seem to mean that say the Son of God would never have been incarnate if man had not fallen.

61. It can, without prejudice, be said that, since the predestination of anyone to glory naturally precedes, on the part of the object, foreknowledge of the sin or damnation of anyone (according to the final opinion stated in 1 d.41 nn.40-42 [i.e. Scotus’ own opinion]), much more is this true of the predestination of the soul that was predestined to the highest glory; for universally, he who wills in an ordered way seems to will what is closer to the end first, and so, just as God wills glory for someone before he wills grace, thus too, among the predestined (to whom he wills glory), he seems to will in an ordered way glory first for him whom he wills to be closest to the end, and so to will it first for this soul [of Christ].a

a.a [Interpolation] he first wills glory for this soul before he wills glory for any other soul, and he first wills grace and glory for any other soul before he foresees in it the opposites of these habits; therefore, from the beginning, he first wills glory for the soul of Christ before he foresees that Adam will fall.

62. All the authorities [n.60] can be expounded as follows, namely that Christ would not have come as redeemer if man had not fallen - nor perhaps have come as capable of suffering, because neither was there any necessity that that soul - glorious from the beginning, for which God pre-chose not only the highest glory but also a glory coeval with the soul - would have been united to a body capable of suffering; but neither would redemption have had to be made if man had not sinned.

63. But not for this redemption alone does God seem to have predestined this soul for so great glory, since the redemption or glory of a soul needing to be redeemed is not as great a good as the glory of the soul of Christ.

64. Nor is it likely that so supreme a good among beings was only occasioned because of a merely lesser good.

65. Nor is it likely that God preordained Adam to so great a good before he preordained Christ, which however would follow.

66. Indeed, what is more absurd, it would also follow further that God, when preordaining Adam to glory, would have foreseen that Adam would fall into sin before he would have predestined Christ to glory - supposing the predestination of Christ’s soul was only for the redemption of others.a

a.a [Interpolation] because redemption would not have happened if the fall and fault had not preceded.

67. One can therefore say that God, prior to foreseeing anything about sinner or sin or punishment, pre-chose for his heavenly court all those whom he wished to have there - angels and men - in definite and determinate degrees; and no one was predestined merely because another was foreseen as going to fall, so that thus no one would have to rejoice in the fall of someone else.

B. Second Doubt

68. The second doubt concerns whether the union of this nature with the Word was foreseen first or whether its order to glory was.

69. One can say that since in the action of an artificer the process of execution of the work is opposite to the order of intention, and since God in the order of execution united human nature to himself first in nature before conferring on it supreme grace and glory, then the opposite can be posited in his intention, so that God first wills some non-supreme [sc. non-angelic] nature to have supreme glory, showing that he need not confer glory according to the order of natures, and then secondly, as it were, he willed that that nature exist in the person of the Word (so that the angel would thus not be placed beneath man).

III. To the Principal Argument

70. As to the argument [n.56] one can concede that, in respect of his being man, he was predestined to be Son of God to the extent the ‘in respect of’ states the formal idea according to which the extreme term is taken determinately in itself; for the man is formally God, and his predestination to be God preceded the man, that is, the person as existing in human nature; thus is the man made God. But if the ‘in respect of’ be taken properly as a mark of reduplication [cf. d.6 n.61 footnote], namely such that it states the cause of the inherence of the predicate in the subject, then in this way he is not God in respect of his being man, because he is not God by humanity.

71. One can, in another way, distinguish the major [n.56] when it says ‘he was predestined to be God in respect of his being God’, namely that the ‘in respect of’ can determine the act of predestination in the sense of ‘he is God in respect of the fact he was predestined’, or that it can determine the term of predestination thus, ‘he is God in respect of the fact he is God’. In the first way the major is false and the minor true [sc. that predestination precedes what is predestined]; in the second way the major is true and the minor false.

72. One can, in a third way, say, and perhaps more really, that neither in respect of his being man nor in respect of his being God was he predestined to be Son of God, because the phrase ‘to be predestined to be Son of God’ includes two things, one of which requires in the term something temporal (namely the ‘to be predestined’), and the other of which requires the term to be eternal (namely the ‘to be Son of God’). But, as it is, there is no thing the same that is the reason for both of them in the term; for although in the term two things come together, one temporal (which can be the term of the predestination) and the other eternal (because of which ‘to be Son of God’ may belong to the term), yet no one nature is the reason for both of these belonging to the term. But if something else were allowed to be the ‘in respect of’ as to the whole predicate, then a cause in respect of both in the predicate would be being indicated; and therefore properly - logically speaking - neither in respect of his being man nor in respect of his being God or Son of God is he predestined to be God or Son of God.