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