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.