A. To the Arguments of the First Question

56. [To the first argument]. It is said [Aquinas, Bonaventure] to the first argument [n.2] that, although Christ’s soul was not the highest thing capable of grace, yet it was united to the person of the Word, and by this union its capacity was so enlarged that it could receive the highest grace, which it would not have received had it not been assumed.

57. Against this:

Nothing absolutely new was put into the soul’s nature by the union, because its being united to the Word states only a special dependence of it on the Word; so just as the nature remains the same as to all its absolute properties, so it remains the same as to having the same capacity, for its capacity is its nature.

58. Further, if an angel had been assumed, it would have had a greater capacity by force of the union than it now has, according to you, so that there would have been as much, or more, increase beyond the angel’s natural capacity by assumption as there is by union now increase beyond its natural capacity on the part of Christ’s soul; and accordingly the angel’s nature could receive more grace than Christ’s soul now has, and so grace would not be the highest in Christ, the opposite of which is here [n.56] maintained.

59. One can say briefly that anything capable of grace is in potential obedience to receiving any amount of grace, or to receiving any degree of any amount of grace; for with respect to this per accidens (yet fitting) accident nothing whatever that is capable of grace has of itself a reason for being determined to a certain degree of it - nor is any such degree introduced according to any alteration caused in the patient by a natural agent, but only absolutely according as the subject is capable of grace and God is able to impress on it grace.

60. The proposition then that ‘there is a proportion between perfection and perfectible’ [n.2], if it is understood as to precise proportion (namely that a more perfect perfectible is capable of a greater perfection) is false; on the contrary, the whole of the perfectible in general and in particular regards the whole of perfection in general and in particular. But this proposition about proportion has some probability as to subjects and the natural accidents they cause, because the perfection of the effect follows the perfection of the total active cause. But it has no probability as to substantial forms in matter, because then a more perfect form is sometimes received in a more imperfect perfectible subject, because the form gives a simply greater and prior perfection. But there ought not to be any objection here about matter and substantial form, because here the discussion is about subject and accident, and an objection ought to be made here only because of the accidentality of such accident, for the accident has in itself no reason to limit the subject to such and such a degree.

61. [To the second argument]. To the second [n.6] I say that the meaning is either that beyond that finite degree there could be another degree of grace which was greater; or that there is some degree in the nature of a more perfect supernatural perfection that is greater, although it is beyond the species of grace; or that some degree is absolutely superior.

62. If in the first way, I say that this is impossible, or rather that it involves a contradiction, because the grace in question is completed. And when you say that ‘if a finite degree is understood to be added to it, it is not infinite’ [n.6], I say that there will be something imcompossible involved, for an intelligible finite perfection can be repugnant to another intelligible finite perfection (as when white is understood to be added to black), each of whose components is finite and yet no such thing can be made, because things that are understood to be composite are incompossible when the understanding of them includes contradictories [sc. as in the case of black and white]. Hence in such cases it is not valid to say ‘I can understand this because it is not an infinity, therefore it can come to be’; for this statement is only understood according to a concept that is false in itself and that includes a contradiction; and though it thus be understood not to be infinite, yet it has another incompossiblity within it, because it has a repugnance within itself.

63. If the point is understood in the second way [n.61] then, on the supposition that grace is the highest perfection, it will be understood in the same way as it is when understanding some degree of grace to be higher than the highest grace in the genus of supernatural perfection, for this is to understand contradictories (just as it is contradictory to understand some color greater than the greatest white). If, however, charity is not the highest supernatural perfection but enjoyment is, then one can allow that (beyond the highest degree of charity) there can be a higher degree beyond it in kind, namely some degree of enjoying.

64. If the point is understood in the third way [n.61], it can be said that, beyond the whole genus of the most noble qualities (of which sort supernatural perfections are), the lowest degree of a higher genus, as the lowest substance, can be supposed, because the whole genus of substance surpasses the whole genus of quality; nor is it unacceptable that the substance lowest in essential perfection should surpass any accident whatever, though some accident, as it exists in supernatural and accidental perfection (that is, in being joined to a supernatural object) surpasses substance; for such a perfection is not said to be perfect save by the fact it is joined immediately to the perfect object.

65. In these last two ways [nn.63-64] there is indeed something higher than the highest grace, but it is not to the purpose.

66. [To the third argument]. To the third [n.7] I say that the soul of Christ, in whatever way one considers it, has grace in its completed term such that it cannot have a greater grace. And from this third argument [n.7] three arguments to the opposite of what it says can be constructed:

67. The first is as follows: for because grace is a certain participation in God, it is for this reason necessary that it receive a part of infinite perfection according to some determinate degree, so that it necessarily includes, as it is itself a determinate participation, a determinate degree with respect to infinite charity; otherwise one could conclude that heat and any such form was infinite because any form is a participation in something infinite.Sc. any form is a universal and can inform any number of individuals. ⁹⁴

68. Similarly on the part of the efficient cause, that this cause makes a nature from nothing that is limited.

69. Third on the part of the capacity that, though it is a capacity with respect to any degree of the form, it is not a capacity of something finite for something infinite. And when the statement is made that it increases the capacity, it is clearly false, for when two causes come together to constitute a third thing, the later and second of them does not give the prior anything pertaining to the prior’s proper causality; matter is in some way prior to form, at least as to origin, in constituting the composite, and prior in particular to an accidental form that only constitutes a per accidens being with the subject; therefore the form does not give the matter anything pertaining to the matter’s proper causality, and so it does not increase in the matter any potentiality or capacity (which is matter’s potentiality).

70. But if you say that charity in one degree increases capacity not in itself but relative to another degree - on the contrary: charity is a form of the same idea in anything whatever, and so the capacity for it is also of the same idea in anything whatever; therefore no capacity can be increased by any charity received, but the whole of it is naturally presupposed. For this reason I say that the highest and lowest capacity exist in the nature of a thing before the reception of any form; nor is the capacity increased or lessened whatever form is received, for ‘being able to have grace’ is, according to Augustine [Predestination of the Saints ch.5 n.10], present in man by nature, so that this potentiality is founded in the nature of the soul as something essential and eternal to it, so that it does not change it.

71. [To the fourth argument]. To the final argument [n.8], it is plain that its conclusion is about the highest taken in the positive sense [n.27].