Question One Whether a Nature immediately United Hypostatically to the Word and not Having Joy Involves a Contradiction

1. About the second distinctiona I ask first whether a nature immediately united hypostatically to the Word and not having joy involves a contradiction.

a.a [Interpolation] About this second distinction, where the Master deals with the manner of the assuming of the nature, three questions are asked: first whether the human nature’s being hypostatically united to God and yet its not having joy involves a contradiction; second whether there was there some medium of congruity - and, so as to include each medium, namely intrinsic (as the soul) and extrinsic (as grace), I ask whether the Word assumed the nature primarily and immediately; third whether the incarnation preceded the organization and animation of the body. Argument on the first question:

2. That it does:

Because the nature is either of a nature to have joy or it is not.

3. In the first way it cannot not have joy. Proof:

First because this union is greater than is union through the habit of grace, for according to Augustine On the Trinity 13.19 n.24, “In things begun in time, the supreme grace is that man is joined to God in unity of person;” but it is a contradiction for a nature united through the habit of grace not to have joy; therefore much more so in the case of the former union. There is a confirmation from Augustine ibid. 13.9 n.12, where he argues through the argument a minore [cf. Peter of Spain, Tract. 5n.32]: if the natural Son of God was made son of man [by mercy], then it is more believable too that the natural son of man should be made son of God by grace; if this consequence is good, it holds a minore universally; therefore in the case of Christ, once the antecedent is posited

[sc. human nature united to God through habit of grace and not having joy is a contradiction], the consequent must necessarily be posited [sc. human nature united to God through unity of hypostasis and not having joy is a greater contradiction], and so Christ must necessarily have joy.

4. Second because, if such a nature was not necessarily in a state of joy, it could sin, and so God could be said to sin and as a result to be damned. There is a confirmation of this proof, because, according to Anselm Why God Man? 2.10, if the first man was capable of sin because he was not God, then by this second union, whereby [Christ] was God-man, he was incapable of sin; but he was not incapable of sin unless he was blessed;     therefore etc     .

5. The second member of the disjunction [n.2], namely that a nature that was not of a nature to have joy could be united to God hypostatically, involves a contradiction:

First because a nature incapable of being a person would be a person; for a nature that is united to a person in unity of supposit is a person; a nature ‘not of a nature to have joy’ is incapable of being a person.

6. And second because then there would be a sharing of characteristics, and God might be said to be stone or fire [sc. because stone and fire are things not of a nature to have joy]; indeed, the sharing then would seem more perfect than now, for since any part of a stone is stone, and any part too of God is God, it is not so in the case of man;     therefore etc     .

7. On the contrary:

During the three days of Easter the flesh was united with the Word, and yet it was not in a state of joy; and whatever the Word could preserve that was immediately united to himself, he could immediately assume to himself.

I. To the Question

8. In this question there are two articles: first, whether a nature naturally fit to be in a state of joy would be able not to be in a state of joy; and second, whether a nature not naturally fit to be in a state of joy could be assumed.

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.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

32. To the question, therefore, as to its first article [n.8] I concede that a nature naturally fit to enjoy and being assumed and not enjoying [the Word] does not involve a contradiction, and this even if it be posited that the nature can be assumed without a created habit, as the rejected opinion [n.14] posited. But if it were posited that the nature - so that it might be assumed - must necessarily have in act the habit of glory, then, because of the reason posited against the aforesaid opinion [n.15], I do not see the necessity of it.

33. As to the second article too [n.8] I concede the reason leveled against the opinion [n.25], because a created nature can depend not only with the dependence of caused on cause but with the dependence of what can have a hypostasis on the hypostasis, because a created nature does not have in itself anything whereby such dependence might be repugnant to it; and the Word can terminate this dependence, because, although there not be in it a distinct idea of hypostasis and person, yet it has in itself whatever is required for person and hypostasis in the way person terminates as perfectly as if he were not a person.

II. To the Principal Arguments

34. To the principal arguments.

To the first [n.3], when - as to the first member of the division [n.2] - argument is made about the comparison of the two unions, I reply and say that the hypostatic union is greater as to first act, because by this union the being of the person assuming is communicated to the assumed nature; and in fact even now this union includes the other union, which is union with second act and operation; but if the unions were separated, as they could be, that union would be greater which is of the nature to the Word as to term in respect of first act, but not to it in respect of second act and of beatific existence, because blessedness exists in operation more than terms for operation do. Or, to speak more properly, one can say that neither union is greater than the other because they are of different ideas - and since neither includes the other, one of them can exist without the other.

35. To Augustine’s authorities:

As to the first [n.3], I concede that supreme grace exists in this union, because the con-descending of the divine will, which was the principle of the assumption, was supremely gracious; but supreme habitual grace is not in the union by force of the union, although in fact it does now accompany the union. Hence Augustine’s authority can be expounded of the fact - because he is speaking of ‘things begun in time’ - , that the supreme grace of all exists in the union of our nature with the divine Word.

36. Reply can on the same grounds be made to the authority of Augustine On the Trinity 13.9 [n .3] when he gives the argument a minore: it is indeed true that for the Son of God to be really a son of man seems less possible than for a son of man to be able by grace to be a son of God; and therefore if the former is possible by grace, much more is the latter so. But, if a son of God is a son of man, there is no necessity that this same predicate ‘son of man’ should be said determinately of the same subject; indeed, one might perhaps deny the first proposition or combination, namely that a son of man is a son of God by grace; nor, further, is any concession made that Christ is a son of God by adoption; but what follows is that some man or other, or the same man, could be a son of God by grace, because the first combination was made with someone indeterminately [sc. ‘the Son of God is a son of man’], and not to this or that man determinately [sc. ‘the Son of God is this son of man’].

37. As to the argument [n.4] proving that ‘Christ or any assumed nature is incapable of sin, otherwise God could be said to be capable of sin or of being damned or of being a devil etc.’ (which seem horrendous), I reply: just as he who has the light of glory and consummate charity cannot sin, not because these are formally repugnant to sin (as neither is first act repugnant to the opposite of a contingently causable second act), but because God, by his ordained power, cannot not cooperate with the second acts of vision and enjoyment, which acts are repugnant to sin - so God, by his ordained power, cannot not give to a hypostatically united nature supreme charity and, further, supreme enjoyment, which exclude sin; and by this union the assumed nature is incapable of sin, not formally, but virtually by way of disposition, a disposition that, in respect of God as agent, is remote but necessary - as necessary as is it is necessary that someone blessed does not sin.

38. As to the second proof, from Anselm [n.4], I say that the second man [Christ] - because he is God - was, by congruity, filled with supreme grace, whereby he was incapable of sin; and it was not appropriate for the first man [Adam] to be filled with as much grace, because he was not God. So it is not by force of this union that Anselm posits [in Christ] an inability to sin, but only by congruity, because fullness of grace was the accompaniment of the union.

39. When, against the second member [n.2], argument is made about a nonintellectual nature, the response to the first point [n.5], as to how a non-intellectual nature could be said to be united in hypostasis or substance and yet not be a person, is plain because of the difference between the dependence that is called union in hypostasis or in substance and the dependence that is called union in person [n.31].

40. As to the other point [n.6], which is about the sharing of characteristics, some deny the consequence; but since the idea of this sharing is that the supposit receives, in the concrete, the predication of the nature in which it subsists, then even if the supposit were to subsist in the nature of a stone, there seems no reason for stone not to be predicated of it, by saying ‘God is a stone’ just as now one says ‘God is a man’, and both these would be equally true. - But when the further inference is drawn that ‘the sharing then is more perfect, namely because any part of a stone is stone etc.’ [n.6], I say that although a part of a stone receives the predication of stone in general as being a homogeneous or subjective part of the whole, yet it does not receive the predication of that of which it is an integral part, just as no integral whole is predicated of an integral part (as we do not say that a wall is a house); for in this case the Word would not be stone in general but ‘this particular whole stone’; and because no part of the stone would be ‘this stone’, so no part of the stone would be predicated of him.

III. To the Arguments of Henry of Ghent

A. As to the First Article

41. To the arguments for the opinion.

As to the first [n.10], it is plain that it fails in many ways, both because the object does not necessarily move the created intellect, and because - even if it did - the will would not necessarily enjoy, and especially if the will not necessarily have the supernatural habit wherewith to enjoy.

42. To the other argument [n.12], about essence and powers, I say that a creature cannot be beatified in itself, because it is not the infinite good; but it is beatified in the infinite good as in the object that is attained by the operations of its powers, and not in the way that such good is the perfecter of the creature’s essence as to first act; for the following reason, therefore, does the beatitude of the power redound to the essence, that beatitude, when it is in the power, is in the essence as it is of a nature to be in the essence, because the redounding is there mediately and not formally, as if there were there a beatitude different from the one in the powers. Therefore I say that the essence cannot be beatified as it is distinct from the powers, and consequently neither can its beatitude redound to the powers as it is distinct from the powers.

43. And when the reason is confirmed on the ground that beatitude is in the essence first [n.13], the opposite of this was proved in 2 d.26 nn.15-23. - And when you prove that beatitude is something supreme in the soul [n.13], I say that if it is altogether the same as the powers themselves then there is no order of supremacy in the thing; but if beatitude [in the soul] is in some way the foundation of the powers, then although it is supreme by reason of first act, yet it is not of a nature to have a supreme second act, nor consequently of a nature to attain a supreme extrinsic object save by mediation of the power, because the supreme object is only attained by operation of the power. Beatitude then, it is true, is in what is supreme as it is of a nature to be in it; but it is not of a nature to be in the essence save by mediation of the power.

44. And if you argue that beatitude falls into the essence and therefore into the powers, and so it is in the powers by mediation of the essence, I reply and say that this is true as to first act, as to giving being to the powers; for whatever is in the assumed human nature depends in some way on the being of the Word, but there is no need that, in order to give supernatural operation, [beatitude] fall into the power by mediation of the essence.

B. As to the Second Article

45. Hereby is clear the answer to the argument [n.24] adduced for the second article, that just as there is truly a special in-falling as to being, whereby namely the being of the Word is communicated to the created nature, so there is necessarily a special infalling whereby namely the Word could operate as to the operations of that nature (in the way that, as the Word could be said to be fire if he had assumed the nature of fire, so he could be said to heat with the heat of fire); but there is no need that there be an in-falling as to operations repugnant to that nature, as are the beatific operations, such as to understand and to will [sc. the beatific object], in the way that God, by a general infalling, falls into any creature as to the being and operation fitting to that creature but not to any operation not fitting to it or exceeding it.

IV. Conclusion

46. From this question it is apparent that there is no intermediary necessary in the assumption of human nature by the Word; to wit, neither does a soul ‘of a nature to have joy’ intervene between the flesh and the Word (because, from the second article [n.25], a non-intellectual nature could be immediately assumed), nor does grace immediately intervene between the Word and a nature ‘of a nature to have joy’, because a nature could be assumed without its being the case that it would have the habit of grace.