Question Two. Whether Christ as he is man is a Creature

41. The second question is whether Christ as he is man is a creature.

42. That he is:

Because he is something as he is man [cf. d.6 n.25]; not something uncreated because then ‘man’ would predicate of Christ the same as ‘God’ does, which is false; therefore it predicates something created; therefore Christ [sc. as man] is a creature.

43. Further, Aristotle in Physics 5.1.225a23-26 says, ‘What belongs to a whole according to a part is said of the whole, as that man is healed because his thorax is healed’; therefore since ‘being a creature’ agrees with human nature it will be said of Christ, and especially when with a determination to the nature; so of Christ simply it will be said that he is ‘creature’ as he is ‘man’, just as it is true simply to say ‘the man is healed as to his thorax’.

44. To the contrary:

If Christ ‘as he is man’ is a creature then he is a creature as he is ‘this man’, for he is not another man than ‘this man’; but if he is a creature ‘as he is this man’ then ‘this man’ is a creature. Proof of the consequence: a predicate can be asserted absolutely of that which is consequent to a reduplication, as with ‘if a man as he is colored is seen, then a colored is seen’. Therefore, if Christ ‘as he is this man’ is a creature, then truly this man is a creature. The consequent is false for, according to Damascene ch.50, “This child created the stars;” therefore he is Creator and so not a creature.

45. Further, if Christ ‘as he is man’ is a creature, then he is simply a creature. The consequent is false (from the preceding question [nn.29-30, 36]). Proof of the consequence: that which is asserted of a supposit with reduplication of the species is asserted of the same supposit simply, as with ‘if Peter exists as he is man, then Peter exists simply’; and so it is in the case at hand;     therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

46. I reply:

When an affirmative proposition is false because of repugnance between the terms, then whatever reduplication or determination is added that does not take away the repugnance, it does not take away the falsity of the proposition. Now reduplication properly taken does not diminish either extreme, because it is the determination of one extreme to the other, and therefore it does not make true any false proposition that was false without the reduplication. However, if to one of the extremes, as to the predicate, there is added something that so qualifies or specifies it that the qualified extreme is not repugnant to the other extreme the way the unqualified extreme was repugnant to it before, then a proposition with such a qualifying determination - and not without it - can be true. So although ‘white’ is repugnant simply to an Ethiopian, and although therefore the proposition ‘an Ethiopian is white’ is false and ‘an Ethiopian as he is a man is white’ is false, yet when the addition of ‘as to his teeth’ is added to the predicate, whereby the predicate is qualified and its repugnance to the subject is removed, then the proposition is true that nevertheless was false without the addition.

47. As to the proposition in question: if ‘as he is man’ is taken in a properly reduplicative way, so that the qualification limits neither extreme, then the proposition ‘Christ as he is man is a creature’ is no more true than the proposition ‘Christ is a creature’; for in both cases the same reason for falsity remains, that the human nature in Christ is neither the first total being nor the first partial being of Christ, which however it would have to be if Christ were a creature in the broad sense of the term; nor is Christ’s human nature caused only by the first efficient cause and from totally nothing, taking ‘creature’ in the first way [n.21]. But if the determination ‘as he is man’ is added to one extreme, namely the predicate, so as to qualify the predicate in respect of the subject, then repugnance to the subject is removed from the now qualified predicate, which repugnance to the subject was present in the predicate taken simply.

48. So as to the proposition in question [n.41], when one takes the ‘as he is...’ as properly a mark of reduplication or of inherence of the predicate in the subject, the proposition is false; but when one takes it as it specifies or qualifies the predicate, then it indicates creation in a certain respect. And in this sense ‘Christ is a created man’ or ‘Christ is a creature as he is man’ can be thus conceded, but the phrase is improper and needs expounding by ‘Christ as to his humanity is a creature’. An example of this is plain in the example of an Ethiopian in relation to whiteness; for just as ‘an Ethiopian is white’ is false so also ‘an Ethiopian as he has teeth is white’ is false, if this second proposition is properly reduplicative. But the proposition ‘an Ethiopian is white as to his teeth’ is true, and is so according as he has teeth, provided the ‘according as’ qualifies the predicate. However in this way the expression is not proper, for syncategorematic expressions are not determinations of the predicate.

49. Further, there are two additional reasons to prove that Christ is not a creature.

The first is as follows. When some denominative is such that, by its formal idea, it denominates equally the whole as the part, then although sometimes, because of an extrinsic impediment, it might not denominate the whole supposit, yet it does not, by reason of denominating the part, thereby denominate the whole absolutely, for it would be denominating both (as far as concerns the per se idea of its form) even if there was some concurrent impediment on the part of the subject or matter. An example about whiteness with respect to a surface one of whose parts is actually black; for whiteness naturally denominates, as far as concerns itself, the whole surface, but it cannot denominate the black part, because black and white are mutually incompossible, even though the whiteness would have, on its own account, regard to every part; and so, while it denominates a part, the whole should not be called white. The denomination ‘creature’ is, as far as concerns itself, said equally of the supposit and of the nature, and said more of the supposit, it seems, because ‘nature’ is not created save because ‘this nature’ or ‘this supposit’ is created, for nature does not exist save in a supposit or an individual singular. So, in the proposition in question, in as much as the idea of creature is repugnant to the supposit of Christ, because the supposit is eternal, his human nature should not be taken as a reason to call that supposit a creature absolutely.

50. Besides, when a form is naturally said of a part and not of the whole uniformly, then, if it is said of the whole by reason of the part alone, it is said by way of synecdoche, or figuratively or improperly, because it would be simply false if the figure of speech did not excuse it. Now the human nature in Christ is a sort of part of Christ, not an integral or essential part, but a requisite part, for without it Christ would not be ‘Christ’ according to Damascene ch.49. And the term ‘creature’ denominates, as far as concerns itself, the nature and supposit equally, so it is never true to say ‘Christ is a creature (by virtue of the expression) because human nature is a creature’ but, if it is true, it is so by synecdoche - just as these others are true by synecdoche, ‘Christ descended to hell’ and ‘Christ lay in the tomb’, the first of which belonged to him only through his soul and the second through his body. “But an argument that proceeds from figurative locutions does not proceed correctly,” according to the Master in the text, for according to him “the proposition ‘Christ is a creature’, whether taken simply or with addition, is a figurative or tropical locution” [Sent. 3 d.11 ch.1 n.4].a

a.a [Interpolated text]: I say that ‘death’ can denominate the whole simply if it denominates the human nature, because neither death nor life naturally denominate both the supposit and the nature by a proper reason of denomination. For however much it is the whole that first lives and first dies, yet neither supposit nor nature is formally of a nature to live or die separately, but only the whole is through the formal part that makes the whole the whole that it is - just as the whole is said to act by reason of its form, so in this case for like reason. But it is not so with the denomination ‘creature’, as was said above [nn.49-50].

II. To the Principal Arguments

51. As to the first argument [n.42], I concede that Christ is something, and one can concede that he is ‘something created as he is man’, because then the predicate is qualified by the ‘as he is man’, like ‘an Ethiopian is white as to his teeth’ - and then the inference does not simply follow that ‘therefore Christ is a creature’, just as neither in the other case does it follow that ‘therefore an Ethiopian is white’; but then the further inference does not follow, that Christ is something ‘created’, but there is a fallacy of simply and in a certain respect, as with ‘Socrates is made white, therefore Socrates is made’.

52. Or it can be said that Christ is ‘something uncreated’ because the ‘something’ does not stand there for the nature alone but for what denominates the nature; and this ‘something’ can be said to be uncreated by reason of the supposit that is denominated by the nature; nor would it follow that ‘man’ would predicate of Christ the same as ‘God’ does, because ‘God’ would predicate uncreated being per se and essentially of Christ but ‘man’ would do so only denominatively.

53. To the next [n.43] I say that if opposites can be present in something according to its opposite parts, neither opposite denominates the whole by virtue of the expression, but both are false (as is plain of a shield one half of which is white and the other black, because it is false to say of the shield that it is white simply or black simply). Nor was the Philosopher in Physics 5 concerned with logic but with reality, about how something is said to move in three ways. But when some predicate is naturally in a whole through a part of the whole, namely because the predicate is precisely in the part of the whole, then from the fact that the predicate denominates the part it follows that it denominates the whole, for it denominates the whole the way it is naturally fit to denominate it (just as sight is by nature in an animal precisely as to its eyes, and so if sight is present in the animal as to the eyes it is present in the animal simply). By force of the expression, then, if ‘to be healed’ is naturally fit to be present in a man precisely or principally as to his thorax (that is, as to his heart, understanding ‘heart’ by ‘thorax’), he can be said to be a healthy animal simply because his thorax is healthy. But if, as to another part, this predicate ‘healthy’ and its opposite are both naturally fit to be present in him, then, as to the denomination of this other part, the man is not said to be a healthy animal simply, because the two opposite predicates can then be asserted of the same man at the same time.

54. So I say to the point at issue that if ‘creature’ is not naturally asserted of the whole by reason of a part (unless perhaps it is asserted by reason of the part from which the whole has its first being, or by reason of the total being of the whole), and if humanity or human nature in Christ are not the first being in Christ nor the total being of Christ, then the term ‘creature’ cannot be asserted of him by reason of his created nature, whether simply so [sc. ‘Christ is a creature’] or with a reduplication [sc. ‘Christ as a man is a creature’].

55. And if it be objected that two opposites are admitted to be true of the same thing, as of Christ that he is ‘mortal and immortal, passible and impassible’ [n.19], so Christ is Creator and creature - I say that contradictories are never admitted to be true of Christ, as neither of anything else. For although by reason of Christ’s two natures opposite affirmative properties are said of the same subject (because an affirmative is enough for there to be some cause of truth whereby the affirmation can hold of the subject), yet the negations of the affirmatives cannot be simply present in the same thing at the same time; and in this way contradictories are never true together; rather, just as Christ is passible and impassible, so it is false that he is not passible and likewise false that he is not impassible.