II. To the Arguments

12. To the first argument [n.2]: he who says the whole statement says that part of it materially, but he does not say the part, that is, does not assert it. For between this part (which cannot be asserted by the blessed, and especially not by Christ), namely, “If I say that I do not know him,” and the other part, “I will be like you etc.” there is a necessary consequence; and so if he could have asserted the first, he could have lied. However, he can be making the statement in a manner of speaking, so that, as speaker, he speaks each categorical part [sc. ‘I do not know him’, and ‘I am like you, a liar’], but yet he does not assert it, nor can he assert it, unless his intellect is capable of being deceived or his will capable of being damned or depraved (for if he lets it seem that words willingly spoken are in conflict with what is meant, he sins); for neither of these capabilities is in the perfectly blessed, because both are cases of imperfection (one of moral imperfection and the other of intellectual imperfection).

13. To the second [n.3] I say that the nature Christ assumed was of itself capable of sin and able to sin, because it was not by force of the union in a state of bliss, and it had free choice, and thus it could be turned either way; but it was confirmed in blessedness from the first instant such that it was incapable of sin, just as the other blessed are incapable of sin.

14. To the last argument [n.4] I say that by virtue of the expression the major is false, because it indicates that a categorical proposition follows a conditional one, and the conditional is necessary but the categorical consequent to it is contingent, and a contingent proposition does not follow necessarily; the conditional antecedent in the whole conditional proposition is necessary, because the antecedent includes the consequent (for the ‘to will’ in respect of the ‘to sin’ includes ‘able to’, for ‘to will’ is not only being able to do but doing it) - but the consequent is contingent, for it belongs to some nature and not to others.

15. If however the major [n.4] should in some way be true, one must expound it so that the antecedent of the whole conditional possesses some determination without which the consequent does not follow from it. And the determination must be this: ‘what someone can do if he wills, and he can and should will it, he can do simply’; for without this condition (namely, if he should not or cannot will it) the proposition will not be true save by supposing something impossible; and what is possible simply of itself but impossible by supposition is impossible simply.

16. Now the minor, ‘Christ was able to sin’, is false in this way, because as is not able to sin so neither is he able to want to sin.

17. It can in another way be said that a proposition that is conditional by an ‘if’, that is, by a condition, can determine a possible or an impossible result; if an impossible one, nothing follows, as in this case. See on this matter ‘Whether God is one’ in the argument ‘everything that it would be better if it existed must be posited’, 1 d.2 nn.189-190.