Tertia Pars
Lecture 21: The Incarnation: The Assumption of Human Nature and Its Parts

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And because of the Manichaeans, right? You want them to indicate you're on the way down to the flesh. So what do you think of those three reasons? You got any reasons you can think of? You kind of start off the idea that St. John would speak in an appropriate way, right? And what is the way in which he spoke? Well, he spoke using the epica, right? Why is it appropriate that he should emphasize the flesh, right? How is it appropriate? It increases your love for God's humility that he abased himself all the way down to the flesh. That's kind of the middle reason he gives there from the text of Augustine, right? Sort of like he says elsewhere about the Incarnation. It's a way that arouses our hope and glory itself. He can see what he gave about himself now. Kind of in this third reason that he gives there. I mean, it's kind of like, say, a fortiori, right, huh? He took on the soul, right, huh? He'll all be down to the flesh, you know? But if he said he took on the soul, then you'd say, well, you know, the flesh is too lowly for him to go down to or to, you know? You see? He wanted to clear up where there might be difficulty in understanding. The first one is kind of interesting, too, because he takes it right from the text of John, right, huh? Because John is going to give, in a sense, the, what? He's going to narrate, very much so, the visible appearance of Christ, right? And that's the result of his going down to flesh, right? Taking on that which is, what? Visible, right? If he had taken on a, what, soul without a body, right, huh? Then he would have been invisible to us, right? And that would be unnatural for us to be led by something, not by the sensible, right? And that runs through, you know, all the sacraments and these things that they have something, what, sensible whereby we're led to the sensible, to something that's not able to be sensed, huh? But you have to start with something sensible, right? You know, the First Vatican Council talks about the motives of credibility, and there are some motives of credibility that are peculiar to some people and not to others, right? I always give the example there of Hillary, you know, reading the Old Testament and saying, I am who am, and that, you know, such profundity, you know, to be able to instruct the man in the street so much, right? But the Second, the First Vatican Council says that the miracles and the fulfillment of prophecies, right, these are appropriate to everybody, right? But why are they appropriate to everybody? Why the miracle is a motive of credibility? Is that appropriate to all of us, huh? Well, because there's something sensible about the miracle, right? And so we have to be led by, in general, by something sensible to those things that are not able to be sensed, huh? And so Jowans emphasized that he went all the way down to flesh to take on something, right, that was sensible, so that he could, what, as the next sentence says, we could see his glory, right, in his body, right? He says in the second chapter, yeah. Yeah. He says in the second chapter, yeah. Yeah. I thought that, well, it began with this. Yeah, well, sometimes when I talk about the miracle, I talk about it, among other things, as preparing us for the Eucharist, huh? Because in the Eucharist, when the bread and wine is changed to the body and blood of our Lord, you don't sense the body and blood of our Lord there, right? But when the water is changed into the wine, right, you could sense the what? The wine, right, huh? So there you see something of God's power to transform things, right? And so he prepares the way, right, for the miracle of the Eucharist, right? Because it's a sensible way. So all those reasons are interesting, huh? Right. Yeah. I think the third argument there, too, you know, a lot of times in philosophy will show the less obvious case, right? You know, and Thomas is talking sometimes about the way the philosophers reasoned the existence of God. God, and some of them, like Aristotle, assumed that the universe always existed, right? Well, it's less obvious that God exists if the universe always existed. So if even in that case, assuming the universe always existed, you can still argue that there's a God. Well, then, if it's already, if the universe did not exist and began to exist, there had to be, you know, created, you see? So, I mean, or sometimes with sins, you know, you show that the lesser sin is a sin. Then, a fortiori, this other thing is sinful, you know? So if you assume something, you say, God would be less apt to assume, right, namely flesh than the soul. If you assume that which, or took on that which God would be less apt to take on, then a fortiori took on that which is more suitable to take it on. So they're all interesting in their own way, huh? Any time to stop with those three, because that's all you knew? Yeah. I mean, in these other, in these, like the first two articles, and even this article, in the body, he gives, what, three arguments, right? Sometimes, as you know from the Summa Cajentilis, he may give more arguments, but three is enough, huh? They say if you give, you know, more than three, you know, the guy forgets the first one, then you don't get anything. You don't get three arguments in mind, so you might as well stop with three. But there's a human, there's a human reason for these things. Should we take a little break now, or what, three, twenty, or what? You finished the last two of the actions. Oh, oh, oh, excuse me. Yeah, okay. Now, there's a second. It says, why do you need a soul to make, to give life to the body? I mean, here you've got the fountain of life, right? To the first, it should be said that the Word is the fountain of life as the first, what, efficient cause of life, right? But the soul is the beginning of life to the body as its very, what, form. Well, God can't be the form of the body, right? But the form is the effect of the agent, huh? Whence in the presence of the Word, one should more conclude that the body was, what, in soul, just as from the presence of fire, one concludes that the body to which the fire adheres is hot. Okay? So you should argue more that from the fact that the fountain of life was there, and that the body would, what, receive its own, what, life to a soul, then that, what, would take away the life from the body, huh? Just as from the fact that the fire is there, it's going to make the stone there, whatever it is, hot, right, huh? Now, the third objection is based upon misunderstanding there of, what, Damascene, huh? To the third, it should be said that it was not unsuitable, but rather necessary to say that in Christ there was a nature which was constituted through a soul coming to a body, huh? Damascene, however, denies that in the Lord, Jesus Christ, there is a common species in the sense of, what, some third thing resulting from the union of the divinity and the, what, humanity, huh? We'll take Thomas' word for that. That's what Damascene said, huh? So let's take a little break now. Is that appropriate, Dan? We'll take a little break now. We're up to article four here, right? So to say, sometimes, you know, Aristotle and Thomas use the word intellectum to mean the power itself and sometimes the soul, right? But the two go together in a sense. To the fourth one goes forward thus. It seems that the Son of God did not assume a human mind, and this could include the will as well, you know, like when Augustine speaks, or the understanding, right? And it could mean the understanding soul or the understanding itself. For where is present the thing itself, one does not require its image. But certainly the statue of the man when he's there. But man, according to his mind, is to the image of God, as Augustine says in the Book of the Trinity. I guess God says so too in the Genesis. Since therefore in Christ there is present the divine word itself, it's not necessary that there be there the human, what, mind, huh? Moreover, a greater light diminishes or obfuscates the lesser, huh? So you don't notice the, what, candle when the sun is out, right? But the word of God, who is the light, enlightening every man coming into this world, as is said in John 1, 9, is compared to our mind as the greater light to the, what, lesser. Thomas said in the prayer there for communion, right? Light of eternal glory, right? Eternal light. Cekus illumine claritatis eternae. So I mean, obviously this light of my mind is completely obfuscated by the presence, right? Because your style compares the ancient intellect down to the light. Because the mind itself is a certain light, as it were a lamp illuminated from the first light. For the lamp of the Lord is the spirit of man, huh? Therefore, in Christ, who is the word of God, it was not necessary that there be a, what, human mind, huh? Moreover, the assumption of human nature by the word of God is called incarnation. But the understanding of the human mind is not flesh, nor is it the act of the flesh, huh? Not a form in the flesh. Because it's not the act of any body, as is proved by Aristotle. In the third book, about the soul. Therefore, it seems that the Son of God would not, what, sue, right? Human mind, human soul. But against this is what Augustine says in the book about faith to Peter. Hold most firmly, right? And in no way doubt. That's pretty strong, I guess, and says it there, right? That Christ, the Son of God, right? Having the, what? The flesh of our kind and the rational, what? The soul, right, huh? Who about his flesh said, touch and see, it's probably to his touch, right, huh? Because the spirit does not have flesh and bones, right? Because you see me, they have. And the soul also, he shows, saying, I lay down my soul, and again, I take it up again. And his understanding also, he shows, saying, learn from me who am, what? Meek and humble of heart. And about him, the prophet, the Lord, says, behold, my boy, what? He understands me. Okay. I answer, it should be said, that as Augustine says in the book about heresies, the Apolloneristus, huh? The Apolloneristus. Dissenting about the soul of Christ in the Catholic Church, right? Saying, as the Arians did, that Christ took on flesh only without a soul. In which questions, huh? Conquered by the evangelical testimonies, they said that, what? Mind of the soul. And for this, the word was in place. But this position, right, huh? Is overcome by the same reasons the ones before were overcome. First, because it is contrary to the narration, the evangelical narration, which commemorates him as having, what? Wondered, huh? This is one of the modes of the sacred scripture, the modus narrativa, as Thomas calls it, in the Psalms, I think it is. But admiration or wonder, without reason, is not able to be, because it implies to bring together the effect of the cause. As when someone sees the effect whose cause he is ignorant of, and he seeks that cause, right? As is said in the beginning, the physics, right? The first book of wisdom. Secondly, so that's the argument from authority, basically. Secondly, it's repugnant to the usefulness of the incarnation, which is the justification of man from, what? Sin. For the soul of man is not capable either of sin nor of the grace that, what? Justifies him, except through, what? The mind. Whence especially is necessary that he take on the human, what? Mind, huh? Rational soul. Whence Damascene says in the third book, huh? That the word of God took on a body and a, what? Understanding soul, a rational reasoning soul, right? That's just about the same thing as what Guston says there, right? Okay? That's the content we have. And afterwards, he adds, the whole, he's added to the whole, so that he might, what? Make the whole, right? He might save the whole, right? He might gratuitously, right? Give salvation to the whole, right? For what is not able to be taken on is incurable, right? So basically he's saying he's got to take on the soul as well as the body, right? And the soul, he might say, more than the body, because only that, through that, are we capable of being, what? Justified, huh? Released from our sins. So he didn't take that on, he wouldn't be redeeming that. Third, because it's contrary to the truth of the incarnation. For since the body is proportional to the soul, has mattered to its own form, huh? That's where Aristotle argues in the second book of Natural Hearing, that it belongs to an actual philosopher to consider both matter and form, right? Because in a way, they're relative to each other. And it belongs to the same science to talk about opposites. Just like you wouldn't have one science talking about virtue, another one about vice. Okay? Or one logic about truth, another logic about error. And you wouldn't have one science talking about what a father is, not talking about, oh, what a son is. Another one talking about what a son is, and not a father, right? Or one science talking about what a husband is, not what a wife is. Another one talking about what a wife is. No. See? They'll go together. And therefore, if Christ had a soul without a, what, mind, he would not have had, what, true human flesh, but bestial flesh, yeah? Because only through the mind does our soul differ from what? The bestial soul, right? When Augustine says in the book of 83 questions that according to this error, it would follow that the son of God was a certain beast, right? He took on a certain beast with the figure of the human body, which is ridiculous, huh? which also, again, is a public to the divine truth, which undergoes no falsity of fiction, if we were fiction. A woman's right to abortion, I would say it's a fiction. Something unreal. It doesn't exist. Okay. So all of these articles are very similar, aren't they? This one is so. Now the first argument says, why do you need the image from? You've got the thing. To the first, therefore, it should be said that where the thing itself is through its presence, there is not required its image to, what, take the place, right, of the thing. Just as where there is the emperor, the soldiers do not venerate his, what, his image. But nevertheless, there is required with the presence of the thing, its image, that the image might be perfected from the, what, presence of the thing. Just as the image in the wax is perfected by the impression of the seal, right? And the image of man results in the mirror to his, what, presence, huh? Whence to perfecting the human mind is necessary that the word of God unite it to himself, right? So we might be, what, more in his image, right? It's kind of a common thing, isn't it, among the the Benedictines and so on in the Middle Ages that we're trying to renovate this image, right? Okay. So in that sense, the presence of the word is not taking away the image, but what? Renovating it or, you know, restoring it, huh? Refreshing it, huh? Just like you put the image in the butter, right? And the butter kind of gets so warm and loses its image and come back and unite it again with the seal. Now the second objection, huh? About the greater light. To the second, it should be said that the greater light takes away the lesser light of another body, illuminating, right? But nevertheless, it does not take away, but perfects the light of the body, what? Illuminating, illuminating. To the presence of the sun, the light of the stars is what? Obscure. But the light of the air is what? Perfected. But the understanding or the mind of man is, as it were, a light, enlightened by the light of the divine word. And therefore, through the light of the divine word is not emptied out the mind of man, but more perfect. To the third, it should be said that although the understanding power is not the act of some body, nevertheless, the essence of the human soul, which is a form of the body, requires that it be, what? More noble, in order that it might have the power of, what? Understanding, huh? And therefore, it's necessary that it correspond to a body, what? Better disposed, huh? Kind of strangely answered that, through the objection, huh? Mm-hmm. Thank you. Well, Thomas says, the better your flesh is, the better soul you'll have, right? The better understanding you'll have. So we'll try to do one article from question six. Okay, now we get to the before and after the Perkwis-like son. Looking before and after order, huh? I bet you never hear this in your sermons, huh? Well, then we're not to consider about the order of the force taking on, right? And about this, six things are asked. First, whether the Son of God took on flesh through the medium, you might say, of the what? Soul, right? And secondly, whether he assumed the soul through the, what, medium of the spirit of the mind. What's the difference between the word soul and the word spirit to us when you apply it to man, huh? Spirit is a higher power to the soul. Yeah. So the soul is the first act of a natural body, huh? Imposed of tools. So the soul, not maybe exclusively, but the soul is a source of those powers that are in the body, right? Okay? But the spirit is used for those powers of the soul that are not in the body, right? So a lot of times I wonder when I think about the Magnificat, huh? My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, right? Why do you have the two words there, my soul and the spirit, right, huh? Well, in what sense does her soul magnify the Lord, huh? Is that referring to her divine eternity? Well, you probably understand it in various ways, huh? But if you want to take a contrast there between the soul and the spirit, right? My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. She means her reason and her will, right? Her spirit, you know, is the way we think in here. When she says, my soul magnifies the Lord, maybe she's referring to even, what, in her body, giving, what, flesh to God, right? Increase. Yeah. I mean, it's also referred to, you know, the body's service in magnifying the Lord when you praise Him with your tongue and so on, right? Remember, I was struck by that, the way this, that one psalm, this is Psalm 62, O God, you are my God whom I seek, for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts, like the earth parched, lifeless, and so on. But it brings in both the body and the soul, right, huh? And then it goes on, you know, and kind of alternates between the two, huh? Where, you know, my lips are, you know, praising the Lord, you know? So the body is, what, brought into praising God, huh? So when she says, my soul magnifies the Lord, maybe she, she's touching upon what she does to the Lord through her body, right, huh? Giving birth to Him, taking flesh in her, but also maybe, you know, we're praising Him, right? She's doing it to me, to God, I mean, the words, right? But then she says, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, it's what? If this is upon her reason and her will, you know, concentrating or dwelling in God. Okay. Doesn't St. Paul speak of the sword dividing the spirit and the soul? Yeah. I suppose that happens when you don't know whether you're in the body anymore, right? Like St. Paul is carried up to heaven, right? Or like St. Teresa of Avila talking about, you know, kind of divorced from the world, right? When you're carried away, contemplating God. Okay. Third, whether the soul of Christ was assumed by the word before the, what? Yeah. I mean, since it's before, right? And then the reverse. Whether the flesh was, what? Taken on by the word before, what? It was united to the soul. And that's strange, that fifth one. Whether the whole human nature is taken on by means of its, what? Parts. And fifth, whether it is taken on by means of, what? Grace. I kind of remember thinking of these kind of questions. A man of leisure. Let's just look at the first article, maybe. Whether the Son of Man assumed the flesh by means of the soul, so to speak. To the first one goes forward thus. It seems that the Son of God would not assume flesh by means of the, what? Soul. Maybe he's going to take the opposite side, you know? For more perfect is the way in which the Son of God is united to human nature and his parts than that by which it is in, what? All creatures. But in creatures it is immediately through essence, presence, and power. It goes back to the treatise on the substance of God, right? The inaporation of God. Therefore, much more was the Son of God united to flesh and not by means of the, what? Soul. If you're not immediately united to it, it seems, right? It's just some separation, right, of the body. Moreover, the soul and flesh are united to the, what? Word of God in the unity of the hypostasis or person. But the body immediately pertains to the person of the hypostasis of man just as the, what? Soul. Nay, it seems more, huh? Near, right? To have itself to the hypostasis, the body of man, which is matter, than the soul, which is form. Because the beginning of the source, the principle of individuation, which is implied in the name hypostasis, seems to be what matter, right? In material things, huh? The matter is the source of individuation, right? So since it's assumed, you know, in the person, it seems the matter is closer to that, right? Therefore, the Son of God did not assume flesh by means of the soul. Moreover, if you take away the middle, you separate those things which are joined through the middle. Just as removing the surface, there would cease to be color from the body, which is in the body through its surface. But separated by death, the soul, there still remains the union of the word to the, what? Well, flesh. So the body and the tomb was still united, okay? Which will be more clear later on. Therefore, the word is not joined to the flesh by means of the soul. That seems like it would be not joined to the body anymore once the soul is separated from the body in the death of our Lord, right? Let's see how he gets out of this, huh? Houdini, huh? He really got tied up, you know, huh? Aristotle, you know, he talks about his objections, you know, in the third book of wisdom, which is all, you know, doing this sort of thing. He talks about the mind being tied up, right? And it can't move, right? So it's not inappropriate to compare it to Houdini, right? He can be tied up in the way you say, you never get out of this, you know? Well, this isn't, uh, but here it is, that guy again. I wish he knew who he was. But against this is what Augustine says in the epistle to Feliciana, that the, what? The magnitude of the divine power, right? join the or adapted, huh, the rational soul to itself and to it, the human body, right, and the whole, what, man. So Thomas seems to be following his other master, Augustine, huh? I'll have to bring that little thing in there, this little vision of Tisadavila there and the Feast of Augustine. That's, well, how far are we going to do this? It's a little thing that I was thinking of doing that I forgot about today. Okay. The answer should be said, huh, that a middle is said with regard to a beginning and a, what, end, huh? Whence as beginning and end imply order, right, so also, right, the middle. But there is a two-fold order, one of time and the other of, what? Nature. Now, according to the order of time, there is not said in the Mystery of Incarnation any middle because the whole of human nature together, right, huh, the Word of God united to itself as will be, what, clear below, right? So he's going to show later on more clearly that in time, right, huh, he didn't, what, unite the soul to himself before the, what, body or vice versa, right? There are Simo, Amah, together, right? Okay. Now, the order of nature among some things can be observed in two ways. In one way, according to the, what, grade of dignity, huh, as we say, for example, that the angels are, what, in between, right? Men and God, right? In another way, by reason of, what, causality, as we say that the middle cause exists between the first cause and the last effect, right? And notice, this touches upon, what, the crowning sense of before in Aristotle, right? The cause of before the effect and then the fourth sense of before, right? It's indignity, right? Okay. In this second order, he says, in some way, follows upon the, what? First. Because the cause is better, right? In effect. As Dionysius says, huh, in the 13th chapter of the celestial hierarchy, which is about the angels, right? God, through substances that are more near, acts upon those which are more, what, remote, huh? That's why we invoke the angel ceremonies, starting our studies on. If, therefore, we pay attention to the greater dignity or worth, the soul is a middle between God and the, what? Flesh. Because the soul is suddenly more like God than the flesh, And in particular, you know, what we call the spirit is the image of God. And according to this, it can be said that the Son of God united flesh to himself by means of the soul, right? But according to the order of causality, huh, the soul itself is in some way because of the, what? The flesh being able to be united, right? To the Son of God, huh? For it would not be able to be taken on except by the order which it has to the, what? Rational soul by which it has that it is human, what? Flesh. For it has been said above that human nature before others is more, what? Able to be taken on, huh? So you got that now? He denies that the soul is taken on in time before the body, right? And he, for it's the order to be first. Okay? So the first sense of before and after is in what? Time, right? Okay? Remember, I was putting a little text there in the beginning of the class there from the compendium, right? Where he said he's the firstborn, you know? And there he's before in time, right? And he's before in what? Cause is before and effect and he's before in the sense of dignity, right? But here he's denying that it's before in time, right? But he does see these other two ways, right? In which it's before by what? Nature, right? In the first objection it says, isn't this way in which the Son of God is in this human flesh, right? Human nature more immediate, right? than the way which is in all things, right? Okay? So suddenly he kind of united immediately to the flesh and not to the soul, right? Okay? Thomas says, to the first therefore it should be said that there's a two-fold order able to be considered between the creature and God. In one order according to which creatures are caused by God and depend upon him as from the what? Beginning or source of their being and thus on account of the what? Infinity of his power God immediately right? Attains each thing causing it and what? Conserving it, right? And to this it pertains that God is immediately in all things to his essence power and what? Presence, huh? Another is the order according as things are led back to God as to their what? End. And as you guard this, huh? There's found a middle between the creature and God because the lower creatures are led back to God through the what? Higher ways as Danesia says in the book of the celestial hierarchy and to this order pertains the what? Taking on of human nature by the word of God which is the what? The limit, the end of the taking on and therefore through the soul he's united to the what? Flesh. That's a very interesting distinction he makes there between those two what? Orders, right? So what's theology is about what? Consider God in himself and then God is the what? Beginning of things and then God is the end. I am the Alpha and the Omega, right? The first and the last the beginning and the end. But here he sees a little difference in there, right? There's more of a middle in the second order to the end, right? I think they kind of go to the thesis there in theology there, right? You know, the scandal in mediation. Some people are kind of scandalized, I suppose, by our being led back to Christ through Mary, right? So it's kind of a common place there in Maryology that, you know, to Christ through Mary, right? Plus, referring to being led back, right? To the one that's closer to him, right? No one's closer to him. Among human beings, right? Than Mary, I suppose he's closer to him than the angels, huh? But he also, you know, invoked the other saints too, right? He is back to God, That's interesting, huh? I'm surprised at how subtle he is to answer, that first objection, Smart guy, this guy. I told you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, my teacher said, compare to Aristotle, got the brain of Angle, huh? Like you say, it's 840 compared to Thomas the Coynes, I get the brain. Now the next one is, isn't the, if matter is the principle of individuation, right? This seems to be proximate to what a hypostasis is, which in the flesh be. To the second it should be said that if the hypostasis of the word of God was constituted through human nature, it would follow that the body was what? Closer to it. Since it is matter, which is the source of individuation, these things. Just as a soul, which is the specific form, has itself nearer to what? Human nature. When Aristotle shows in the second book of natural hearing that both matter and form are nature, right? But then he argues that form is more nature than matter. And the reason he gives is that what? By matter you have a natural thing in ability. But by form you have a natural thing actually. So if nature is that for which you have a natural thing, form is more, right? And this is the kind of way here, in which the soul is more. But because the hypostasis, in the case of the word of God, is before, right? And higher than human nature, right? Not constituted by it simply, right? The more something in human nature is what? Nearer to him, right? The what? The higher it is, the more it is, what? Nearer to him, right? And therefore, the soul is nearer to the word of God than the body. So the fundamental distinction is that the hypostasis of the word of God is not constituted simply by the body, right? If it were, you could argue that there isn't. Now, what about this body not being separated, right? To the third, it should be said that nothing prevents something from being the cause of something as regards its aptitude, right? And suitability, which nevertheless removed, it is not, what? Taken away, huh? Because although in the coming about of something, it depends upon something, right? Afterwards, right, when it's been made, it does not depend upon it, right? It comes to a very simple example here. If among or between some people, right, friendship is caused by someone, there's a middle, he receding, still the friendship, what? Remains, huh? And if someone is led to matrimony, an account of beauty, which makes suitable for the woman, the adjoining, conjugal adjoining, nevertheless, the beauty is seizing, there still remains the, what? Marital. Conjugal bond, huh? And similarly, the soul being, what, separated, there remains a union of the word of God to, what? Do flesh, huh? That's a nice, simple way of showing it, huh? There's one woman my wife talked with, huh? There's one guy who thought, and he's the right guy for her, right? So he arranged a party for everybody who was a married couple, except these two. So they end up talking to each other, and a week or two afterwards, they knew they were going to get married, right? They didn't get married. But even if that guy should disappear, or something could happen to him, right? They're still married, and still united. You're going to have to stop there, right? Yeah. You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right? You're going to have to stop there, right?