A. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

9. And a negative answer is given [by Henry of Ghent] to both articles.

1. An Assumed Nature Naturally Fit to have Joy cannot not have Joy

a. Exposition of the Opinion

10. The reason posited for the first article is of the following sort: the completion of enjoyment is found in the enjoyable object’s being present to the intellect and moving the intellect to an act of seeing, and in its being thereby present to the will and attracting the will to enjoy necessarily the presence of the end; but the intellect is necessarily moved by this [hypostatic] union; therefore the enjoyment of the will too follows necessarily on the movement of the intellect.

11. Proof of the minor: if the eye could, on the presence of light in itself, see the light existing in itself, then necessarily the light would be present as moving the eye to an act of seeing; but the intellect can see something present in itself; therefore since, by this [hypostatic] union, the uncreated light is present to the intellect, then necessarily it will be present to the intellect as moving it to an act of seeing. There is confirmation from Augustine, On the Trinity 13.9 n.12, where he argues a minore about the double union [n.3].“For if the Son of God by nature has been made son of man, how much more credible it is that the sons of man by nature should become sons of God by grace...; and it is a greater thing to be united to God in person than in grace.” ³⁰

12. Further, powers are founded in the essence of the soul and not conversely;     therefore the order whereby what is in the essence overflows into the powers is more essential than the reverse; but blessedness cannot be in the powers without necessarily overflowing into the essence, so it cannot be in the essence without overflowing into the powers; the essence of the soul, by this special falling into it [sc. of union with the person of the Word], is beatified as much as it can be beatified, because it is made one with God; therefore etc     .

13. There is a confirmation in that blessedness is in the essence primarily before it is in the powers; for blessedness exists in what is supreme in a nature capable of blessedness, and the essence has more the idea of being supreme with respect to the powers than the reverse; but blessedness cannot be posited in the essence unless there is a certain falling of the enjoyable object into the essence; now the falling in that exists in [hypostatic] union is supreme, and by it is nature supremely elevated.

14. A way to make the first argument [n.10] clear is as follows, that sometimes an intellectual habit is necessary for the representation of the object (as in the case of angels), and that sometimes the habit only facilitates the power so that the object may work on it more easily (as in our own case); a habit of glory is not posited in the [hypostatic] union for the first reason, because God is not present to it as enjoyable object by anything that formally informs the nature, but he only represents himself voluntarily as enjoyable object to a power able immediately to enjoy him; therefore if the habit in question is required for the sake of easiness, or for the sake of some elevation of the power so that it can be moved easily by such object, then even without such a habit it can absolutely be moved by the object, because the power of an assumed nature is supremely inclined and elevated and proportioned to the enjoyable object; for because the power of an assumed nature is elevated by the [hypostatic] union to the being of supernatural nature, therefore is the power itself sufficiently elevated so as to be able to enjoy; so this union with the Word supplies, as far as enjoyment is concerned, whatever the habit of glory could do in the other cases.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

15. Against this opinion.

And first I argue against the conclusion in itself as follows:

A prior, by reason of being a prior, can exist in the absence of a posterior without contradiction (and this when there is no necessary connection between them), otherwise the priority of the one to the other would not be preserved (the point is plain from the definition of prior, Metaphysics 5.11.1019a2-4); but a nature capable of being a person can be a person naturally before it acts, and this when it is a person in itself, for operation belongs to a pre-existing supposit and, in the case of an intellectual nature, operation belongs to a person; therefore when it is a person in something else, it is a person in that something else naturally before it acts. - The proof of this last consequence is that in the same instant of nature in which a nature, if left to itself, it would be a person in itself, it would in that same instant of nature be a person in the person assuming it; therefore there is no contradiction in this nature’s being a person in a divine person and yet not having the operation of enjoyment.

16. Further, I make the argument for the position in question [n.10] lead to the opposite side:

First because no nature necessarily enjoys an object unless it is necessarily affected by the object as present; but this [assumed] soul is not necessarily affected by the object, both because it is not so affected by it as to act of understanding, because the object necessarily affects no intellect but the divine intellect (for the object causes nothing outside itself save voluntarily and contingently), and because it is not so affected by it as to act of enjoyment, for the will in its pure natural condition does not necessarily enjoy the end (as was shown in 1 d.1 nn.143-146) - so this soul will not enjoy the end necessarily unless something is superadded to its nature whereby a necessity for enjoying may exist. But nothing superadded is here posited formally in the will by this [hypostatic] union, but all that is posited is a certain dependence on the Word;     therefore etc     .

17. Further, the denial here of the necessity for a habit [n.14] is refuted by the fact that, as was touched on in 1 d.17 nn.121, 129, 133-134, 144, 152-153, 160-164, the most powerful reason for positing [a habit of] created charity is for the act of loving God to be in the power of the will; for no agent has an act in its own power unless the whole of what is necessarily required on its part for such an act is in its power; but a created will does not have in its power, from purely natural resources, the act of meritoriously loving the uncreated good such that this act may be accepted by God; and so there is need for the created will to have the something else that is required for acting so that it can thereby meritoriously love God. Enjoyment exceeds the nature of the human will much more than a meritorious act does, because enjoyment is a supernatural act or form while a meritorious act is not; therefore enjoyment will only be in the power of the human will if the will has some supernatural form which it can use for eliciting this act. But the human will assumed by the Word is a will of a human nature univocally the same as ours; therefore it cannot enjoy without [a habit of] charity.

18. And if it be objected that ‘whatever God can do by an intermediate efficient cause, he can do directly by himself; but this habit, which is posited in respect of enjoyment [n.17], is only an efficient cause, because it is not any other cause (as is plain by running through the causes [Physics 2.3.194b23-5a3, Metaphysics 5.2.1013a24-b16]); therefore God can cause enjoyment in the soul without any intermediate cause whatever’, - I concede the conclusion, as will be stated in 3 d.13 n.91, namely that enjoyment can be caused in the soul immediately by God; but in that case the will does not have the idea of active cause with respect to enjoyment, because it does not have of itself whereby it may act, and so this soul would not be said to enjoy formally, or by an eliciting of enjoyment, the way other souls are said to enjoy - which seems unacceptable.

19. Similarly the conclusion just stated [n.18] would not save the necessity of the enjoyment; for if there were a necessity, then, since the will is only disposed passively with respect to the enjoyment, and this with a potential of contradiction toward it [sc. the will is passive either to enjoying or to not enjoying], and no necessity is taken on the part of what is in a potential of contradiction to something [sc. that which can be or not be is not necessarily one or the other], the necessity of this enjoyment would have to be attributed to God; but God does not necessarily cause this enjoyment, just as he does not necessarily cause anything outside himself;     therefore etc     .

20. And if you say that, on the contrary, when an affect in the intellect is presupposed it necessarily causes enjoyment [in the will] as a concomitant - this was rejected in 1 d.2 n.139, for since intellection (or vision) and enjoyment are two absolutes, there is no contradiction in the prior being caused without the posterior.

21. Further, if it be conceded that the soul of Christ can be thus disposed toward enjoyment without a habit just as can some other soul without a habit, then it would seem altogether superfluous to posit infused virtues in Christ (and yet these virtues are posited by everyone, infra d.13 nn.3, 15-18, 53-54, 87, d.14 nn.30, 108, 110, 126) - which seems unacceptable.

22. Further, from the force of the [hypostatic] union the Word alone is present to the assumed soul, and this as to personal being; therefore if from such presence or union there is the same presence in the idea of the affecting object, the consequence is that from the force of the union the Word alone and not the whole Trinity affects the created intellect - which is false, because the works of the Trinity when operating externally are undivided.

23. And if you say that the idea of seeing three persons is the same as the idea of seeing one person, and that he who sees one necessarily sees them all - it was shown in 1 d.2 nn.31-33, 42-43 that he who enjoys one does not necessarily enjoy them all, and that he who sees one does not necessarily see them all.

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.