b. Arguments against the First Way

36. Against the first way I give four arguments:

First, because then there would be some positive entity in human nature that was not capable of being assumed by the Word. - Proof of the consequence: for this final entity, which person adds over and above the singular, would be repugnant by contradiction to being communicated the way the nature is communicated to the supposit (as is plain, because “a person is incommunicable existence” [Richard of St. Victor On the Trinity IV chs.21-23]), and so being assumed would be repugnant by contradiction to it. The result seems unacceptable: both because, according to Damascene ch.50, “what cannot be assumed cannot be cured,” - and because every created positive entity is in obediential potentiality with respect to the divine person.

37. Second, because it would follow that the nature, which was already assumed by the Word, would lack this positive entity, which however is posited as the final and most actual and most determinate entity in such nature. And if it not seem unacceptable to concede that this person lacks it, I argue that this nature could not suffer diminishment in itself and not be given another reality than the one it has, namely personhood - or it would remain a non-person, because then it would not be a person without the reality, and in this case it does not have it; therefore it is necessary for the diminished nature to be given it again.

38. Further it follows, third, that the nature could not be diminished and be in a person, because such reality could not be a reality of nature (as was shown in the question, n.26) nor can it be contained by identity in any nature which is not the same as itself; but whatever does not contain some reality by identity while remaining the same cannot contain that reality by identity.

39. Fourth, because it would follow that intellectual nature could come to be and not be in any person; for what is prior could naturally come to be and not be under this reality (because of the fact it is not posited to be really and formally the same as it),a and in the second instant of nature - in which it is assumed by the Word - it would not be necessary for the Word to assume it; therefore the Word would be able not to assume it and so it would be left to itself and then it would not be in a person by any personhood (either created or uncreated!).

a.a [Interpolation] as actually existing, and it would not be in a person, because by the fact that this reality is not posited to be the same as the nature, and that the nature - as nature - is naturally prior to itself as it is under this reality, it could come to be and not be under this reality.