2. A Nature not Naturally Fit for Enjoyment cannot be Assumed

a. Exposition of the Opinion

24. As to the second principal article [n.8] a negative answer is given for the following reason, that as God is disposed toward any creature in his general descent into it as regard the being and operation of it, so does he seem to be disposed toward this nature [assumed by the Word] in his special descent into it as to this operation of it and this being of it; but in the first way he cannot descend into anything as to its being unless he also descends into it as to its operation, according to the Philosopher Meteorology 4.12.390a10-13, because each thing is of the sort it is when it can act, and is not of the sort when it cannot act;     therefore God cannot descend in the same way into this nature with a special descent as to its being unless he can also descend into it as to its special operation. Its special operation with respect to a supernatural object is the operation of seeing and enjoying, which in no way belongs to a nature not naturally fit to enjoy (as to an irrational nature); therefore etc     .

b. Rejection of the Opinion

25. Against this opinion:

An intellectual nature is assumable because it does not have in itself a positive entity that is repugnant to this special dependence on the Word, or repugnant to its being communicated to the Word in the way a nature is communicated to a supposit. But whatever is thus communicable is assumable, and what does not have that whereby such communication may be repugnant to it does not have that whereby depending on and being assumed by the Word may be repugnant to it; but a non-intellectual nature does not have a more perfect idea of supposit than an intellectual nature has; therefore neither does a non-intellectual nature have any positive entity whereby a depending with the aforesaid dependence may be repugnant to it; therefore too if on its own part it is assumable, the Word could, it seems, be the term of this dependence of it, because the Word is independent in idea of supposit and so the Word can be the term of the hypostatic dependence of it.

26. It might be said here that if the nature of stone could depend hypostatically, yet it could not depend on a person as on the term, because a person is only the term of the dependence of a nature that can be a person.

27. I first exclude this statement, because created natures are of different ideas, and so their dependences on a foundation, qua dependences, can be distinct and in some way of different ideas, and yet the term is the same and is the object of these dependences according to the same idea on its part. In like manner, if an angelic nature were assumed, it would be of a different idea from human nature, and thus the dependence of the former would be different from the dependence of the latter, and yet both could depend on the same term as on the person of the Word.

28. If it be said that it is because both of these natures are able to be persons that they have something common on which they can depend, and that it is because of this common something that they can be united to a person, but not so a nature unable to be a person - on the contrary: if the Word were an independent hypostasis and not a person, it could be the term of the dependence of another thing; therefore since nothing that per se makes for the idea of being the term of dependence of another thing is taken away from the Word by the fact that the Word is a person, the Word will still be able to be the term.

29. Nor yet does it follow that the assumed nature of a stone would be a person, because ‘to be a person’ states not only ‘to be united’ but ‘to be so united that the mode of the union has a relation to the foundation united’ (whether the manner is intrinsic to the union or is disposed toward it as matter). For a relation could well be posited that would from the foundation, though causally, have some intrinsic mode, because although the superadded mode would not be intrinsic to the relation by the fact of its being ‘capable of being a person’, yet this mode is necessarily connoted by the way union is signified by the term ‘being made a person’; now the mode is this, that the foundation would be of a nature to be a person in itself if it were not assumed by another. Although therefore human nature and the nature of a stone agree in idea of dependence on a hypostasis, yet because they do not agree in idea of the sort of mode of dependence, for this reason they cannot both be a person.

30. Some however say that this is because of a distinction of hypostasis and person in the Word, that something can be united to the Word in idea of hypostasis (as a stone) but not in idea of person.

31. On the contrary: as was said in 1 d.8 nn.107-108, 135, there is in God no order of any realities where one reality might contract another, because then he would not be perfectly simple (and this is the reason that God is not in a genus); therefore there is in him no reality by which he is a determinable hypostasis different from the reality by which he is a person - rather, absolutely no reality is different according to a distinction on the part of the reality by which he might be hypostasis and person. But every real union is to a real term and in the respect in which it is real; there cannot therefore be a real union with the hypostasis and not with the person, since there is no real distinction there. And therefore I do not say that the irrational nature is not a person and our nature is a person because of any distinction of hypostasis and person in the term of the dependence; but I say it because of real distinction in the relations, whether formally through the modes that they have from their foundations or at least concomitantly through their foundations.