II. To the Principal Arguments

51. As to the first argument [n.42], I concede that Christ is something, and one can concede that he is ‘something created as he is man’, because then the predicate is qualified by the ‘as he is man’, like ‘an Ethiopian is white as to his teeth’ - and then the inference does not simply follow that ‘therefore Christ is a creature’, just as neither in the other case does it follow that ‘therefore an Ethiopian is white’; but then the further inference does not follow, that Christ is something ‘created’, but there is a fallacy of simply and in a certain respect, as with ‘Socrates is made white, therefore Socrates is made’.

52. Or it can be said that Christ is ‘something uncreated’ because the ‘something’ does not stand there for the nature alone but for what denominates the nature; and this ‘something’ can be said to be uncreated by reason of the supposit that is denominated by the nature; nor would it follow that ‘man’ would predicate of Christ the same as ‘God’ does, because ‘God’ would predicate uncreated being per se and essentially of Christ but ‘man’ would do so only denominatively.

53. To the next [n.43] I say that if opposites can be present in something according to its opposite parts, neither opposite denominates the whole by virtue of the expression, but both are false (as is plain of a shield one half of which is white and the other black, because it is false to say of the shield that it is white simply or black simply). Nor was the Philosopher in Physics 5 concerned with logic but with reality, about how something is said to move in three ways. But when some predicate is naturally in a whole through a part of the whole, namely because the predicate is precisely in the part of the whole, then from the fact that the predicate denominates the part it follows that it denominates the whole, for it denominates the whole the way it is naturally fit to denominate it (just as sight is by nature in an animal precisely as to its eyes, and so if sight is present in the animal as to the eyes it is present in the animal simply). By force of the expression, then, if ‘to be healed’ is naturally fit to be present in a man precisely or principally as to his thorax (that is, as to his heart, understanding ‘heart’ by ‘thorax’), he can be said to be a healthy animal simply because his thorax is healthy. But if, as to another part, this predicate ‘healthy’ and its opposite are both naturally fit to be present in him, then, as to the denomination of this other part, the man is not said to be a healthy animal simply, because the two opposite predicates can then be asserted of the same man at the same time.

54. So I say to the point at issue that if ‘creature’ is not naturally asserted of the whole by reason of a part (unless perhaps it is asserted by reason of the part from which the whole has its first being, or by reason of the total being of the whole), and if humanity or human nature in Christ are not the first being in Christ nor the total being of Christ, then the term ‘creature’ cannot be asserted of him by reason of his created nature, whether simply so [sc. ‘Christ is a creature’] or with a reduplication [sc. ‘Christ as a man is a creature’].

55. And if it be objected that two opposites are admitted to be true of the same thing, as of Christ that he is ‘mortal and immortal, passible and impassible’ [n.19], so Christ is Creator and creature - I say that contradictories are never admitted to be true of Christ, as neither of anything else. For although by reason of Christ’s two natures opposite affirmative properties are said of the same subject (because an affirmative is enough for there to be some cause of truth whereby the affirmation can hold of the subject), yet the negations of the affirmatives cannot be simply present in the same thing at the same time; and in this way contradictories are never true together; rather, just as Christ is passible and impassible, so it is false that he is not passible and likewise false that he is not impassible.