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.