Tertia Pars
Lecture 18: The Incarnation: Nature, Person, and Assumption

Transcript
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It's kind of frightening to think of that, sudden determination. I was rereading a little bit of the, what's it called, the Ratzinger Report there, the one that's still hard, you know, and he's talking about all the, you know, flack that came up when Paul VI talked about the devil. And of course he's defending, of course, the church's teaching on the devil, but how much opposition there is to this, huh? Hmm, there's very interesting things in those interviews there. They don't think about that. Now to the fourth objection. Why not assume the whole universe, right? To the fourth it should be said that the perfection of the universe is not the perfection of one person or one suppositora, but of that which is one under, what, position or order, of which many parts are not assumable, as has been said. Now, what the erasure picture is. Once it remains that only human nature should be able to be assumed. Let's look at the second article now. Did he assume a person? I hope so. Well, you better read the question. It sounds like the story's got a story scene in there. Yeah. Did you see it in someone? Yes, in the story's, but I see. Well, I'm a good bear right now. But Thomas will play the story for a little while here. You read about St. Trisadus too, you know, playing Joan of Arc in the little plays inside the convent there, honoring the saints and so on, huh? Well, St. Thomas is playing the story. It seems that the second one goes forward thus. It seemed that the Son of God assumes a what? Assumed a person. For St. Damascene says in the third book, in Orthodox Faith, that the Son of God assumed human nature in ottomo, right? Ottomo is a Greek word for what? Yeah. And in this context, in the individual, right? That is an individual. So, Thomas is the Greek word for kat and a is the... But this is what the individual of a rational nature as a person is, is clearly the way this is the definition in the book on the two natures. Therefore, the Son of God assumed a what? Person. Moreover, Damascene says that the Son of God assumed those things in our nature that he, what? Planted, right? But he planted their what? Personality. Therefore, the Son of God assumed a what? Person. Moreover, nothing is consumed, huh? Except what is. But Innocent the third says in a certain decree, that the person of God assumed the person of a what? Man. Consumed. That's kind of a funny word. Therefore, it seems that the person of the man was before what? Yeah. They all agree with my nature of heresy. That sounds like they think I'm right. But again, this is what Augustine says in the book about faith to, what? Peter. That God assumed the nature of man, not the person. Very good there, Augustine. Quinto. Nobody can make a point like Augustine or Thomas, you know. I was reading the 13th book of wisdom there of Aristotle this morning, in the Greek there, and he's saying, you know, in the very beginning of the first chapter, she tried to say some things better than our predecessors, and other things no worse than they said them. To say it just as well as they said it, right? Well, some of these things were, okay, you said it, Augustine, and they can't say any better than that. The answer should be said that something is said to be assumed from this that it is, what? Taken to, what? To another, yeah. Once that which is assumed is necessarily pre-understood to the, what? Assuming, huh? Just as that which is moved in place is fore-understood to the motion itself. But a person is not understood beforehand in the, what? Human nature? In the human nature to the assumption, right? I don't understand how there's a person out here. Right, right. But the person more has itself as the term of the assumption as has been said above, right? So, back to my famous example here now. Purpose of the mathematician, huh? This point is the divine person there, right? Okay. And this line is going to be assumed to that person, right? And this line is going to be assumed to that person. Does it have an end point? Not until it gets there, right? It doesn't have an end point until it gets there, right? Okay. So, the line that is assumed to that point is not pre-understood. Not understood before to have an end point. And then, at the same time, you might say, that it's drawn to that point, it acquires that point as its end point. It doesn't have its own end point, other than that end point that's already there. So, the person is not fore-understood, he said, in human nature to the assumption of that. But more has itself as the term, the limit, on the end of the assuming, right? For if it were fore-understood, understood beforehand, it would be necessary either that it be corrupted, right? And thus, in vain, would it be, what? Assumed. Or it would remain after the union, right? And thus, there would be two persons, one assuming and another assumed, which is erroneous, as has been said above or shown above. Once it remains that in no way does the Son of God assume a human person. So he assumed a human nature that had no personality, but gave that human nature his own personality. How would you do that? I followed, followed with you, huh? Individual substance of a rational nature. To the first, therefore, it should be said, huh? Point back to the objection here from the text of Damascene. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the Son of God assumed human nature in the indivisible, right? In the individual. Which is not other from the, what? Which is the person of the Son of God, right? Once it does not follow, the person is, what? Assumed. That's one way of answering it, right? Like they assume that line in the indivisible point, right? Okay. You might also say that the human nature he assumed was not universal human nature, right? But individually, but not with his personality. But anyway, that's the way Thomas solves it here. And the second objection, again taken from what, Dan is saying, that to the second it should be said that to the nature assumed that was not lacking its own personality on account of the defect of something that pertained to the perfection of human nature, but an account of the addition of something that was above human nature, which is this union to the, what, divine person. So he didn't, as a word, take away something, being that human nature that he assumed defective, right? But he, what, gave it a higher personality than he would have on his own. Now, this third word, the third objection, and consumption, right? To the third, it should be said that consumption there does not imply the destruction of something that was before, but the impeding of that which otherwise would be able to be. For if that human nature were not assumed by divine person, human nature would have its own personality, right? Just like I said that that line, if you didn't draw it to that point, and left it to itself, or if you stopped, it would have, what? Its own in point, right? And to that extent, the person is, what, said to consume the person, right? Although improperly, because the divine person, by its, what, union, impeded, lest human nature have its own, what? Yeah. Reason. Its own personality, right? Just as, by, what, to write that line to the pre-existing point, right? We, what, didn't let the line have its own point, huh? Swallowed up to the existing point, huh? It's a victory, which emphasizes the independence. Yeah. And what, what he says is, with the assumption of human nature by the divine word, it doesn't have the independence that the others have, because it depends on the divine person. And nature's able to do that. But anyways, it, it, it, it, it corresponds with the same, it added something, it didn't take something away, it added something to both. And in that way, it's also left the other definition. It added dependence on the divine person, and the rest of us don't have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, to the article before I break here. Whether the divine person assumed a man, right? No. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that the divine person assumed a man. He's going to take the opposite side all day, huh? For it said in Psalm 64, blessed the one whom you chose and what? Assumed. Which the gloss expounds in regard to, what? Christ himself. And Augustine says in the book on Christian agony, right? What? Struggle. Struggle, yeah. The Son of God assumed man, so that in that he might undergo human things. Moreover, this name man signifies human nature. But the Son of Man assumed human nature, therefore he assumed, what? A man, huh? Moreover, the Son of God is man, but he is not the man whom he did not assume, because thus he would be for equal reason Peter or any other man. Therefore, he is the man whom he assumed, huh? Was he a man before he assumed it? Against this is the authority of Felix the Pope and martyr, huh? Which is introduced in the Son of Ephesus. That's the one in the four, I guess, huh? Or the one in the books, hey, I'm out of the four for councils as much as the four Gospels, huh? So, we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, because he is the eternal Son of God in the Word, and not a man, what? Assumed by God, that he'd be someone other than, what? Him, right? Nor does the Son of God assume a man, huh? That he would be other beside him, right? Now, Thomas says, As I answered, it should be said, and as has been said above, that which is assumed is not the end or limit of the assumption, but is foreunderstood to the assumption. But it has been said that the individual in whom is assumed human nature is nothing other than the defined person, which is the term of the assumption. But this name, man, signifies human nature, insofar as it is, what? Apt to be in its, what? Supposito. Because, as Augusta, or as Danicene says, just as this name, God, Deus, signifies he who has the, what? Divine nature. So, this name, man, signifies the one who has human nature. And therefore, it is not propriae, properly said that the Son of God assumed a man, right? Supposing, as the truth of the thing has itself, that in Christ there is only one, what? Suppositum and one hypostasis, huh? I guess those two words, suppositum and hypostasis, are ethnologically similar, right? But according to those who place in Christ two hypostasis, or two supposita, suitably and properly it is able to be said that the Son of God assumed a man. Whence the first opinion, which is placed in the sixth distinction of the third book of the sentences, concedes man to be assumed. But that opinion is erroneous. This has been said above. I agree, I'm going to be back to the stories of that, huh? To do with persons, right? Now, what about that first one here? The first, therefore, should be said that speech of this sort, right, should not be extended, right? As it were proper, but they should piously be, what? Expounded, huh? Wherever they are posited by the holy, what? Doctors, huh? That we say he assumed man because he assumed his, what? His nature. And because the assumption is terminated to this, that the Son of God be man, right? So you could say, through this assumption he became, what? Man, right? That's okay, right? And he assumed human nature. But that's the best way of expressing that is like that, rather than saying he assumed what? Yeah. Because if you understand him as already man, you already have a person there, right? Other than the person of the word. That's what he says in the reply to the second objection here, right? The second should be said that this name man signifies human nature in the concrete, insofar as it is in some, what? Suppositum, or hypostasis. And therefore, just as we are not able to say that he assumed a, what? Yeah. So when, we're not able to say that man was, what? Assumed. And to the third objection, it should be said that the Son of God is not the man whom he assumed, but he's the man whose nature he assumed. You got that? That's not too tricky, is it, the words there? Going back, you know, to these two great mysteries of the faith, kind of struck this morning, I was thinking about the sacraments again. And what are the two chief sacraments? Yeah, baptism and Eucharist. And baptism is kind of the foundation of everything, right? Most necessary, you might say. And Eucharist is the end of the goal of all the sacraments, and so on. And sometimes they talk about baptism and Eucharist being the chief sacraments. They'll point to the blood and the water coming from the side of Christ, and all the sacraments get their strength from the passion of our Lord. But in the blood and the water flowing from the side, right, you have, kind of standing out, something that symbolizes baptism and Eucharist. Now it's interesting that in baptism, which of these two mysteries is emphasized there? The Trinity of the Incarnation. So you're baptized in the name of the Trinity, right? The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But in the Eucharist, you say, this is my body, you don't say, this is my blood, but this is the cup of my blood, right? So you're specifically referring to the human nature of Christ and therefore to the what? Incarnation. So it's kind of interesting, huh? You see that the two chief mysteries of the faith, the Incarnation and the Trinity, are also standing out in the two chief, what? The sacraments. That's kind of interesting, huh? When I was down there in Kansas, I was looking at the favorite question on his disputate, huh? The De Potencia. And in the last questions there, he takes up the Trinity, huh? And so, in the question eight there, he asks, first of all, whether there are real relations in God, huh? And then the second article he asks whether the relations are the very substance of God. And he gets to the third article and he says, do the relations constitute and distinguish the persons? Of course, the answer is yes, right? Okay? But then Thomas brings out a very important distinction, huh? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you say that fatherhood constitutes the father, right, and distinguishes the father from the son and so on, is it all you have to say? Well, Thomas says that the fatherhood constitutes the father insofar as it is the divine nature. Not simply as a relation, right, but as it is the what? Divine nature, right? Of course, the article right before that, as I mentioned, right, is whether these relations are the divine substance. Now, remember that in our treatise here. But there it's kind of, they're put together in a very close juxtaposition there, and the question is disputate. So once you realize that the fatherhood, right, is the same thing as the divine nature, right, then you can say that it constitutes the father insofar as it is what? Divine nature. But insofar as it's a relation, it distinguishes the father from the son. It doesn't distinguish the father from the son insofar as it's the same thing as a divine substance. Because the divine substance is common to, common ray, as Thomas says, to the father, the son, the Holy Spirit. But you can't have a, what, person who's an individual substance, right, be constituted in its very personhood by a relation alone, right? So it's only the relation of fatherhood insofar as it is a divine substance that constitutes the father. It's very subtle in Thomas' part, right? And I mentioned this beautiful text in the sentence, you know, where Thomas says, because the relation and the substance are the same thing, right? Some words signify the divine substance as a divine substance. Some signify the relation as a relation. You have these mixed things, right? But something can signify both in some way, huh? Okay? I was reminded by an earlier thing in the impotency of we saw in the Trinities of the Trinity, too, that what is this power that the father has to generate the son? What is that power? Now, you want to lead up as Augustine would do and Aristotle, I suppose, if you know about these things. But Thomas says it. You lead up to this thing with objections on both sides, right? And you could say, well, if the power of generating the son were the divine nature, right? Well, since the divine nature belongs equally to the son and the Holy Spirit, the son and the Holy Spirit would have the power of generating a son, right? So, it seems it can't be the divine nature, huh? Okay? But then if you say that the relation, like fatherhood, right? That it's through his fatherhood that he generates the son, right? That his fatherhood is ability, his power to generate the son. Well, then, going back to what we learned in philosophy, that every agent makes what is like itself, every per se agent, huh? So, dogs generate dogs and cats generate cats, right? And even the artist, right? You say, well, okay, the carpenter, you see, he doesn't generate a man. No. But he generates a house in conformity with the idea he has of what kind of house it should be, huh? So, he makes it like the form through which he acts, right? As Karl Marx says, right? And he first makes the house in his head, in a sense, before he makes it in wood and in brick and so on, right? So, he's apparating through the form in his mind, huh? The carpenter. And he's making something like the form by which he apparates. So, if the father generated the son, if the power by which he generated the son was his own fatherhood, what would he have made? Another father! And that can't be! You see? So, would you say he generated the son by the divine nature, in case then the son and the Holy Spirit have the same power, get into trouble, right? If you say he generated by being through his fatherhood, then you'd be, what? Yeah. So, the truth must lie between these two extremes, huh? And so, what does Thomas finally come down on? Well, the power to generate is the divine nature as it's found in the father. And the father will disappear, right? He can generate another one, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, but in substance, huh? And yet, only he has the active power, so to speak, of generating, right? The son has that power, maybe, to be generated, but not to generate, right? And something like that in this other article I was talking about, he's saying, are the divine persons constituted and distinguished by the relations? And Thomas says, yes, but he distinguishes, right? So, come back to that now. You can say, fatherhood, right, in some way constitutes the person of the father, right? And distinguishes that person from the son, and so on. But, simply as fatherhood, it distinguishes him from the, what? Son. Just as that relation distinguishes him from the correlative, but not simply as, what? Fatherhood doesn't constitute the father, right? But it constitutes the father insofar as it is the divine, what? Substance, yeah? By nature, yeah? That's kind of marvelous, to see that, right? I was thinking of how I was understanding this famous distinction Thomas makes, huh? But let me approach it a little bit, here. Suppose, huh? Suppose I use A to prove B. Okay? And then, I use B to prove C, right? I could say that A made known well, B, first of all, right? And B made known what? C, C, okay. Now I get to know or some of that's it. Did A make known C? Yeah, okay? A made known C, but not, you see, to itself, right? but through B, okay? Did B make known C through A? I was going to say yes. Yeah. But notice, there's obviously two different senses here, right? C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C Okay. When you say A made known C through B, B is kind of a what? Instrument of A, right? Okay. When you say B made known C through A, what would that mean? Necessary reposition. Yeah. Notice, to make known something else, you have to be known yourself, right? Okay. So A would have to be known to make known B, right? And B would have to be known to make known C. So B has the power to make known C only insofar as B is itself what? Well, let's take it step by step. Only insofar as B itself is known, right? But B is known only through A, right? So B has the power to make known C through A. Okay. You see there? But it's a different sense here, isn't it? Now, let's talk about my soul and my body here. God made my soul through himself, right? He didn't make my soul through any creature. It's an immediate thing. Even Aristotle knew that, as he says in the book of Generation Animals, right? The human soul doesn't come from parents. Did God do that with my body? No. God made my body through my what? Parents, huh? Okay. But now you say the reverse. And say, my parents made my body through God. Yeah. In other words, the power that my parents had to produce my body, he got that power through what? God, right? So in that sense, you could say, my parents produced my body through God. But in another sense, you could say, God made my body through my what? Parents, yeah. An example that Thomas often uses to illustrate this is the king and the bailiff, right? Okay. And the king acts upon the citizens through the bailiff, right? But the bailiff gets the power to coerce the citizens, yeah. So the bailiff acts through the king, yeah. Okay. Christ forgives my sins through the priest that hears my confession. So which sense is that? The third. Yeah. So you can say, Christ forgives my sins through the priest that hears my confession. Okay. But the priest who hears my confession forgives my sins through what? Yeah. Meaning through the power of Christ, right? You know, receive the Holy Spirit, he says, right? Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, right? That's a very interesting distinction that Thomas, what, points out, you know? Two different senses there of through, right? And of course, you can see it kind of very simply, that first example I gave, though. It's easier than the one from the parents or the priest and so on, right? Take a little break now or before you go on to the... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're up to Article 4. To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that the Son of God ought to have assumed human nature abstracted from all individuals. For the assumption of human nature was done for the common salvation of all men. Whence it is said, 1 Timothy chapter 4, about Christ, that he is the Savior of all men, and most of all, of all the, what, faithful. But nature, as its found individuals, recedes from its, what, commonness, huh? Therefore the Son of God ought to have assumed, what, human nature, as it was abstracted from all individuals, huh? How is that even possible? Okay. Moreover, in all things, what is most noble should be attributed to God. But in each genus, that which is per se is most, what, potent, huh? Of course, Aristotle, in the fifth book of Wisdom, right, he takes up the word perfect, right? And then afterwards he takes up certain words that signify some condition of the perfect, and per se is, what, one of the three, huh? Therefore the Son of God ought to assume, per se, hominem, huh? Man himself to himself, as Plato would say, huh? Kathoto. Which, according to the Platonists, is human nature separated from the, what, individuals. The Son of Man, therefore, ought to assume this, huh? Moreover, human nature should not be assumed by the Son of God, as it signifies in the concrete, or as it signified, as it is signified in the concrete, through this name, man, huh? But thus it is signified insofar as it is in singular, huh, individuals. Therefore the Son of God ought to assume human nature insofar as it is separated from, what, individuals, huh? I suppose that a person thinks of him assuming human nature without human, what, personality. You might think this is the human nature that is common to, what, all of us, right? But against this is what Damascene says in the third book, huh? That the Word of God, huh, the incarnate Word of God, neither, what, assumed that nature which is considered in naked, what, contemplation, right? Okay. You see the word naked a lot in Albert the Great, too, huh? Meaning that universal is, what, not clothed in anything singular, right? It's removed from that, right? For this is not incarnation, but deception, and the fiction, make-believe of incarnation, right? But human nature insofar as it is separated or abstracted from singular is thought in the nude, right? In the naked contemplation. Because by itself it does not, what, subsist. As the same, as Damascene says there. The same Damascene says. Therefore the Son of God does not assume human nature according as it is separated from singular. Okay. Now Thomas is, well, positioned to talk about this being a student of Aristotle. I answer it should be said that the nature of man, or of any other sensible thing, apart from the being that it has in singular, some individuals, is able to be understood in two ways. In one way, as it has by itself being, apart from matter, as the Platonists lay down. In other way, insofar as it exists in the understanding, either the human understanding or the, what, divine understanding. But is not able to subsist by itself, as the philosopher proves in the seventh book of wisdom. Because to the nature of the species of sensible things, sensible matter pertains, which is placed in its definition. Just as flesh and bones in the definition of man. Whence it is not possible that human nature be apart from, what, sensible matter. Now, if our human nature were subsisting in this way, it would not have been suitable that it be assumed by the, what, word of God. First, because this assumption terminates or ends in a, what, person. But this is against the notion of a common form that be individuated in a person. Secondly, because to the common nature are not able to be attributed anything but common operations and universal ones. By which man neither merits nor demerits. When, however, this assumption was made that the Son of God, in the nature assumed, might merit, what, for us. Third, because a nature thus existing is not sensible, but, what, understandable. As Boethius always says, the thing is singular when sensed and universal when, what, understood. But the Son of God assumed to human nature that he might appear to men in it in a visible way. According to that of Baruch, after this he was seen on the earth. He conversed with men. Quite a prophecy. Likewise, human nature could not be assumed by the Son of God according as it is in the divine understanding. Because, thus, is nothing other than the divine nature. And, in this way, from eternity, there would be in the Son of God human nature. Likewise, it is not suitable that the Son of God assumed human nature insofar as it is in the human mind. Because this is nothing other than if he were understood to assume a, what, human nature. And, thus, if he did not assume it in reality, in verum natura, that's why, if I could say in reality, his understanding would be, what, false. And there would not be anything other than a fiction of the Incarnation, as Damascene says. I'm surprised that Thomas would say, it's impossible, but if it were, there's still many reasons why we couldn't, huh? Now, to the first it should be said, that the Son of God, incarnate, is the common Savior of all. Not by a community of genus or species, which would be attributed to the nature separated from individuals. But by the community of cause, insofar as the Son of God, incarnate, is the universal cause of human, what, salvation. So, that's a distinction you'll find a lot in Thomas and so on. And, let's just touch one together. These two different meanings of common, huh? One, I suppose, would be what? A set of many, right? The other one would be a cause of many. Okay? And this first sense of common is common only in the, what, mind, right? The second one is in things, right? The other senses are common in things, huh? So, if you say, for example, that person is common to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then you say that divine nature is common.