Question One. Whether Christ is a Creature

1. About the eleventh distinction I ask whether Christ is a creature.a

a.a [Interpolation] About the eleventh distinction, where the Master deals with the sharing of attributes as regard the person of the Son and pertaining to the result, three questions are asked: first whether Christ is a creature; second whether Christ qua man is a creature; third whether Christ began to be. Argument about the first:

2. That he is:

In Christ there is a human nature as also a divine nature, and so the properties of each nature too, according to Damascene [Orthodox Faith 48]; therefore just as he will be called Creator on account of one nature, so he will be called creature on account of the other.

3. Further, the predication ‘Christ is man’ is an essential one, according to Extrav. ‘About Heretics’ [Gregory VII Decretals 5.7.7]. I ask what essential element the predicate ‘man’ predicates, is it something created or uncreated? If something uncreated, then the predicate ‘man’ predicates formally of Christ the same thing as the predicate ‘God’ does; this is false, because then it would be formally the same thing to say ‘Christ is man’ as to say ‘Christ is God’. Therefore the predicate ‘man’ predicates something created.

4. Further, Christ is a man either created or uncreated (these are immediate opposites for any being); if he is an uncreated man then he is eternal; if he is a created man, then the conclusion is gained.

5. Further, what a lower predicate is stated of the higher predicate is also stated of, whether the higher is something essential in the same genus or something common to both genera - as that whatever fire and body are said of, creature is said of, and creature is higher in both genera.Fire is a genus under body and body a genus under creature, and creature is said of both fire and body. ⁹¹ Therefore whatever man is said of, creature is said of, for it seems that creature is superior to everything other than God. But Christ is a man, therefore he is a creature.

6. Further, Christ was conceived by reason of his body; therefore he was created by reason of his created soul. The proof of the consequence is that a whole is not denominated less by what is proper to a more perfect part than by what is proper to a less perfect part.

7. To the contrary are the authorities in Lombard’s text.

8. Again, every rational creature is a son of God by adoption, or can be; but Christ is not a son of God by adoption (from the preceding question, d.10 nn.12-14);     therefore he cannot be a creature of this sort, and if not of this sort then not of any other sort.

9. Again, if Christ is a creature and Christ is Son of God, then the Son of God is a creature. This way of arguing is a good one because when the middle term is a definite something the extreme terms must be joined together in the conclusion; therefore etc     .

10. Again, nothing created is said of Christ; the proof is that nothing in Christ is created save human nature; but human nature is not said of Christ [sc. Christ is not said to be human nature];     therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

A. The Solution of Others

1. First Solution

11. One statement is [Bonaventure] that the proposition ‘Christ is a creature’ is to be denied because there is no sharing of attributes where the property of one nature is repugnant to the other nature [cf. III d.7 n.54], as is the case here, because ‘creature’ includes the idea of a beginning of existence and so it is repugnant to the eternity that is an attribute of the Son of God.

12. On the contrary:

It is no more repugnant to the person of the Son that he is or begins to be after not being than that he is not after being or that he ceases to be, for both are repugnant to eternity; but Christ is admitted to have died, even though ‘to be dead’ states a not-being after being because it states not being alive after being alive; for ‘to be alive is what it is for living things to be’ (Aristotle On the Soul 2.4.425b13);     therefore etc     .

13. Further, mortal and immortal are as opposed as created and uncreated, and yet both of the former are said of Christ;     therefore etc     .

14. Further, it is as formally repugnant to a created nature that it be creator or eternal as it is formally repugnant to something eternal that it begin to be; therefore Christ’s being Creator will be as much denied because of repugnance to one nature as his being a creature will be denied because of repugnance to the other nature.

2. Second Solution

15. Another solution [Aquinas] is to say that there is no sharing of attributes in the case of negations, or in the case of things that state the respect of one nature to the other.

The first point is plain, for otherwise contradictories would be said absolutely of Christ; for any negation belongs to one of the natures when the opposite affirmation naturally inheres in it by reason of the other nature, as with ‘the divine nature is eternal’ and ‘the human nature is non-eternal’. But if, for this reason, Christ were said to be non-eternal, then he would be said to be eternal and non-eternal. Negations, therefore, that inhere by reason of one of the natures (because they inhere in a certain respect, namely with a disjoining determination) do not denominate simply what they are said of.

Likewise the second point, about things stating the respect of one nature to the other, is clear: for it does not follow that if the human nature is assumed then the divine nature is assumed, because ‘creature’ not only includes negation, namely non-being before being, but also the respect of one nature to the other, namely to the one from which it receives being; therefore these will not be said of the whole.

16. On the contrary:

As ‘creature’ states the respect of one nature to the other, as of the human nature to the divine nature, so it seems that ‘Creator’ does so conversely, namely that it states a respect of the divine nature to the human; therefore if things that state a respect are not said of the whole, Christ will not be Creator. A negation too can be found that would be introduced by the name ‘Creator’, as ‘not to receive from another’, just as in the name ‘creature’ is introduced ‘receiving from another’ or ‘not existing of itself’; therefore, just as Christ is not called ‘creature’ because of the negation included, so he will, for the same reason, not be called ‘Creator’.

17. Further, ‘Christ is less than the Father’ is conceded absolutely and is stated in John 14.28 - yet it states a respect of one nature to the other, because Christ is not less than the Father save in his human nature.

2. Third Solution

18. Another solution [William de la Mare] is that the proposition is simply to be conceded provided it is properly understood; it was, however, commonly denied by the saints because of the heresies of those heretics who said that Christ was a pure creature, and the saints did not want to share with them in their words.

19. And that it can be conceded by virtue of the words is proved from Damascene [ch.48], who says that “Christ is created and uncreated, passible and impassible,” and again the same Damascene concedes [ch.91] that he can be called ‘creature’. There is proof also from Augustine On the Sermon on the Mount [Sermon 186], “he who was Creator wanted to be a creature;” and from Jerome On Ephesians 2.10, ‘We are his handiwork’, who says, “Many are fearful lest they be compelled to say Christ is a creature; we proclaim that there is no danger in saying Christ is a creature.”

B. Scotus’ own Solution

1. First Reason

20. Those who do not like this opinion [n.18] would say that it is false for this reason, that ‘to be created’ states a certain ‘coming to be’ such that, over and above ‘coming to be’, it adds something both as regards respect to an efficient cause that ‘coming to be’ asserts, and as regards respect to the preceding opposite that it asserts. On the first point, ‘coming to be’ has a respect to efficient cause in general but ‘to be created’ has a respect properly to the first efficient cause as immediate producer (so that nothing is properly said to be created save what is directly brought into being by the first efficient cause alone). On the second point, ‘coming to be’ gives one to understand any preceding opposite whatever, whether positive or privative; but ‘to be created’, when properly taken, adds that the immediately preceding opposite is the contradictory (namely negation that is not in any subject, and so is neither privation nor even the contrary [Peter of Spain, Tractatus 3.29]).

21. Taken in this way, namely when ‘to be created’ is taken strictly, that thing is said strictly to be a creature which receives being immediately from the first efficient cause, and does so after complete non-being or after pure nothing. And in this way there is no doubt that Christ is not a creature, because even the human nature in Christ is not a creature in this way; for it was not immediately brought into being by the first efficient cause alone but also by his mother Mary, who had some causality with respect to it; nor was it brought into being after the contradictory opposite, which is complete non-being or pure nothing, but after the privative opposite, namely because the matter of the body was changed from the form of blood to the form of an animated organic body. For only angels and the intellective soul and grace and things of that kind, which are produced by the first efficient cause from nothing, are said to be created in this way.

22. ‘To be created’ is taken more generally in another way insofar as it states a relation to the first efficient cause but not to it as immediate producer (namely with exclusion of all second causes). And when ‘to be created’ is taken generally in this way ‘creature’ is asserted generally of everything other than God, with the exception of Christ; for everything other than the first efficient cause receives being and is said to be created - and although they are the effects of other causes, yet they are not said to be the creatures of other causes, for creature taken in the strict way does not state a relation to a second cause; also they receive their first being after non-being, whether the non-being is nothing or in some subject.

23. Now the first being of something can be understood in two ways: First, that by which the whole is said to be first a being, that is adequately, as humanity is said to be the first being of an animated organic body - and this whole being, which arises from the union of the parts, is the adequate being of the whole.

24. Second, the first being of something can be said to be the being of some first part in the whole, as that, if the organic body preceded animation in time, the first being of a man in this way would be the being of the organic body.

25. Any creature, therefore, receives, in either of these two ways, its first being after the non-being, total or partial, of the first part; and therefore, if the organic body were inanimate from eternity and animated in time, the whole man would be called a creature even though he did not receive all his partial being after non-being but rather his total first being.

26. Now Christ in no way received his first being after non-being, because he did not thus receive his first total being, which would be the resultant of his divine and human nature - for nothing is such according to Damascene ch.49, since then those two natures would exist in confused state there but, just as the two natures are distinct, so the beings are two - nor did Christ thus receive his first partial being, namely the being of the Word (which is presupposed to the being of the human nature as subject to accident), for the being of the Word is eternal. So in Christ’s case the relation that ‘creature’ necessarily states to a preceding opposite is lacking, namely the relation that being follows non-being -whether partial being, if there is no total being, or the total being of that which is created. Such is not the case in the matter at hand.

27. Against this reasoning [n.26] the following is objected:

Whatever is the term of some change can be the term of creation; the human nature in Christ, which was the term of his generation, can be the term of change taken generally, and so it can be the term of creation taken generally. Therefore Christ is a creature in the way that he has human nature, for creation does not seem to have regard to the firstness of his being as its term more than any other change has to its term, for creation can have for term whatever any other change can have for its term.

28. Besides, Christ was truly said to be dead, and ‘being dead’ truly states privation of being and privation of first being - and what the one opposite posits as first being is, it seems, not more than what the other opposite posits as privation of first being.

29. To the first objection [n.27] I concede that human nature can be -and was - the term of creation taken generally, and the nature is truly called a creature; but yet not for this reason is Christ called a creature, because the first being of this nature is not the first being of Christ; and so the first being of this nature follows the first partial being of Christ, for it follows the being of the Word, and Christ cannot have any other first being.

30. And when the objection says [n.27] that this change, namely creation, no more posits that the first being of the term was acquired than any other change does, I reply that this is false, because the specification ‘creation’ adds further the other changes that ‘creation’ states - for just as something would not be called a creature if it were only from a second cause (for ‘being created’ states a relation to the first efficient cause), although it would be called ‘generated’ with respect to that second cause, so in like manner, although something could be called ‘generated’ if some being simply (and not the first being of a generated thing) were acquired by it through generation, yet it is not said to be created unless its first being follows after non-being. And thus this inference does not hold: “Christ was generated in the sense that the predicate ‘generated’ belongs to him by reason of his human nature, so he is also created,” just as it does not hold in other cases as “fire is generated, therefore it is a creature generally speaking” - or it only holds by reason of matter, for the being of fire simply, which is the term of the generation of fire, is the first being of what is said to be generated.

31. To the second objection [n.29] I say that ‘dead’ does not deprive Christ of his first being but of his being simply, which is his being alive; for the generation of a substance is its acquisition of being simply but not necessarily its acquisition of its first being. Hence it is true to concede that Christ was dead just as it is true to concede that he was generated in time; but it is not true to concede that he was annihilated, for just as Christ is not said to be created so he is not said to be annihilated (for what the opposite of creation states is annihilation of first being).

2. Second Reason

Another argument posed to the question is of the following sort is: Just as a denomination that naturally denominates many things in general (as ‘whole’ and ‘part’, ‘accident’ and ‘substance’) does not denominate a whole through a part nor a subject through an accident (as the term ‘one’, which is naturally said of subject and accident, does not formally denominate the subject through the accident, for Socrates is not said to be ‘one’ by the unity of whiteness, so that if whiteness were one and Socrates were many, it would be simply true to say that Socrates was many and false to say that Socrates was one) - so, although ‘this thing that is a creature’ is naturally said in general both of the supposit and of the nature in beings, yet it will not denominate the supposit by reason of the nature unless it belongs to the supposit with a proper denomination. Now it does not in any way belong to the supposit of Christ that ‘creature’ could denominate him with a proper denomination, because the supposit of the Word is not a creature, for he is Creator; nor can it in any way denominate him save as it denominates the human nature, and it cannot denominate the supposit through the nature;     therefore etc     .

33. And hereby it is plain that Christ is said to be generated in time but not said to be a creature, because ‘generated’ there only naturally denominates the nature, and only according to the nature does it naturally denominate the supposit. But ‘creature’ naturally denominates, with proper denomination, both nature and supposit, and neither of these gives a reason for a denomination with respect to the other.Sc. neither does a created nature give a reason to denominate the supposit as created, nor does an uncreated supposit give a reason to denominate the nature as uncreated. ⁹²

II. To the Arguments

34. To the arguments.

To the first [n.2] I say that that which naturally denominates a supposit by reason of nature can be said of that supposit, as ‘to live’ and ‘to understand’ and ‘to eat’ and other such things; but ‘creature’ is not such a denominative. An example: a man is said to be ‘curly’ as to his head, but he is not said to be ‘triangular’ or ‘round’ as to his head, for the first denominative naturally applies to the head it is found in, but not the second; so ‘to be Creator’ naturally denominates by reason of nature but ‘creature’ does not.

35. In another way it can be said, according to the reason posited for the question [n.2], that ‘creation’ does not state something repugnant to the nature or to this supposit as ‘creature’ does; for ‘to create’ is to give something being after non-being by way of first causality - and this is not repugnant to Christ; but ‘to be created’ is to receive first being after non-being from the first efficient cause, and this is repugnant to Christ.

36. To the next argument I concede that ‘man’ predicates something of Christ, and that that something is created and a creature, so that ‘creature’ is said of the nature; but that it is therefore said of Christ does not follow; for if the middle term in the major is taken in the abstract and is said of Christ in the minor in the concrete, there will be four terms in the syllogism.

37. To the next [n.4] I say that Christ is a created man in the sense that ‘created’ here is qualified by ‘man’ to say ‘created man’, and so the inference ‘therefore he is a creature’ does not hold, but there is a fallacy of simply and in a certain respect (as in the case of ‘Socrates is made white, therefore Socrates is made’).

38. In another way it can be said that the division [sc. into ‘being created’ and ‘being uncreated’] is insufficient, because, although anything ‘one’ is sufficiently divided in itself by both terms, yet something that involves two things in itself, namely nature and supposit, is not thus sufficiently divided, because one of the terms belongs to it by reason of nature and the other is repugnant to it by reason of supposit.

39. To the next argument [n.5] I say that any property in the abstract that belongs to any genus has ‘creature’ as a higher denomination, just as does also ‘to be an effect’; but not every concrete thing of any genus has ‘created’ as a higher nature, but only that concrete thing whose first being is the being of that denomination, that is, whose first being is created; but the first being of Christ (whether his first total being or his first partial being) is not created. The case is like ‘to be a creature’, which is not a superior denomination of ‘to be white’ such that, for this reason, Socrates should be called ‘creature’ because whiteness is a creature, but he is a creature for another prior reason; hence, although ‘creature’ is said of whiteness it is not said of white if white is not the first being of that of which it is said.

40. To the next [n.6], it is plain that Christ is called ‘generated’ and ‘conceived’ because these terms naturally denote the whole by reason of the nature, so that, in their case, nature is the ‘that by which’ with respect to the whole; but it is not so in the case of the predicate ‘to be a creature’, for this would need to be said of the supposit by a denomination proper to the supposit and other than the denomination by which it is said of the nature; or it would at least need to belong to the supposit by reason of the first being of the supposit.