Tertia Pars
Lecture 57: Christ's Operations: Divine and Human in Unity

Transcript
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Nature not being able to be more than one. So for Avicenna, from God there proceeds one creature. That's all. And then from that creature, there's some multiplicity in it, right? You get one thing insofar as he contemplates the God, one insofar he contemplates himself, and one contemplates his own potency. So you get three more things and they keep multiplying, right? So the universe as a whole is not really being what? Distinguished and ordered by God, right? So this is a serious mistake, right? So Thomas has a beautiful article there where he gives four different arguments, right? To show that God produced the universe by reason and will, intellect and will, rather than produced into what? And the first reason he gives goes back to what we saw in natural philosophy, that nature acts for an end. But nature doesn't know the end, and nature can adapt things to the end. So if something acts for an end by nature, it presupposes something that acts for an end by mind and will, that can know the end and can adapt things to the end. So if God made the natural world, where things act for an end by nature, he must have had understanding and will. It's a beautiful argument, huh? And, well then, he has another argument, huh? Which is based upon the idea that nature produces, what? Just one thing. Okay? Now, from God, if nature tries to produce one thing, it's going to produce something that is equal to itself. Unless the matter that is receiving the form is not suitable fully for the form. Or if the power of the maker is not up to the task, right? Okay? So, Shakespeare says, The art by your mother's glass, your mother's mirror. And she and thee calls back the lovely April for crying, right? But if the daughter is not as beautiful as the mother, either the matter in which the mother's form was received was not adequate, or the maker was not quite up to the task, right? Making it. But neither of these can be said about God, God, because he doesn't create, presupposing some matter, right? He creates the matter as well, right? And his power is infinite, so. So, if he made something, if something proceeds from him naturally, it would have to be, what? Equal to him. And, of course, equality is based upon, what? Unity, huh? And, of course, that's what he did with the Son. God and the Son, right? He proceeds naturally from the Father, right? And, of course, Thomas warned you, he says, and that's the kind of thing we said before, that nature, what? Can't act for an end without something before it. Because the generation of the Son is not for the sake of some end. The Son proceeds from the Father, not for some end or purpose, but the Son proceeds from the Father as the end of all things. It's beautifully said, huh? Beautifully said. It's just delicious, you know? It's just no question about it. Okay? Then the third argument is that, what? God understands the same as his nature, right? So, creatures exist in God in an understandable way. And, therefore, they have to recede from God through will. That's how things come from understanding. And then his last argument is very interesting. He's got four of these arguments. The last argument is very interesting. And, again, you should have to know natural philosophy, right? When Aristotle, in the categories, talks about acting upon and undergoing, and in the natural philosophy in the third book of natural hearing, third book of the physics, he says that acting upon and undergoing are really the same thing, but insofar as it's from the mover or maker, right? It's called acting upon. And insofar as it's in the patient, the one undergoing, from another, it's called undergoing. So, really, where is my kicking when I kick you? Is my kicking you when you're being kicked really two different realities? Now, then it has to be double punishment, double indemnity, right? So, my kicking you is really the same thing as you're being kicked, right? But it's called kicking insofar as it's from me to you, and it's called being kicked insofar as it's in you from me. So, really, my kicking is in you, right? Okay. And that's one of the reasons why the preacher can't create. He's got to have something that he can act upon that can receive his acting, right? But God's activity is his very, what? Substance. Therefore, it can't be, essentially, an act that is, what? Transitive, like my kicking you. Therefore, it must be, what? Activity of understanding and willing. Because that's the activity that remains within the, what? The doer, right? So, you must have produced the creatures, right? By an activity of understanding and willing. That's a delicious, delightful, savory thing. You know, it's a wise, wisdom. One more thing from this beautiful thing. There's an objection, right, in another article there when the question is raised. Is the ability or power of the Father to generate the Son, and the ability or power of God to create, are they two different powers? So, they really differ. It's a kundum realm, shall we say, right? No, if there are two different powers, it has some composition, God, and so on. Well, one of the objections to this is that the generating, something is, what, proceeding naturally, right? The creation is proceeding, as we said, by will. Well, nature and will are two different, what, kinds of beginnings. As Aristotle points out in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, he talks about power there. The natural ability is determined to one. Or as Shakespeare says, in Coriolanus, nature cannot be more than, not being able to be more than one thing. Why, the will is open to opposites, right? To do something or not to do it. To do it this way or to do it that way, right? So, how can the same power, right, give rise to one thing naturally, another thing, what? Yeah, yeah, see? And Thomas says, well, it's not impossible, he says, for the same power to be moved by nature and by the will. Now, at this point, huh? You know, the big thing on my teacher, Monsignor Dion, one of the big things was Question 117, Article 1, there in the Prima Pars, the article on the teacher. And the teacher leads us from the known to the unknown in two ways. And the second way is proposing the order of principles to conclusions, which is more or less enough in maybe geometry, right? But other sciences, you need this other way, monodexio. And Thomas explains, it leads us by the hand, by proposing things less universal that we can judge, right? Or by giving us sensible examples, he said. Or similia, likenesses, right? Or pusita, right? Okay. What does Thomas do at this point? He's explaining this, huh? It's a beautiful monodexio, right? You know what he takes as a monodexio? For what he just said, that the same power can be moved by nature and by what? Will. He takes our own, what? Reason. And he says, your reason naturally ascends to the axioms like the whole is more than a part. But, to the articles of faith, you don't ascend unless your reason is moved by will. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. No one believes unless he chooses to believe, as Augustine says, right? So one and the same ability. It's the same reason in me that ascends to the statement that the whole is more than a part, and that ascends to the theorem or statement that there are three persons in God, let's say, right? God became man. But in the one, it's moved naturally to ascend to it, right? The other, it's moved by the will, which is, you know, helped by grace and so on, but there for less it's being moved by the will. But it's a beautiful, beautiful similia, similitude, likeness there to say something about God, right? Really, his power to generate and his power to create is the same, but the one is right to something naturally and the other by, what, will. As I'm showing the other four arguments that I was touching upon, huh? So, beautiful, beautiful. So, let's go then back to our texture. Incidentally, in the, what? Is that quote from Pericles? No, no, from Pericles. It's from Act 5, Scene 1 of Pericles. Pericles was a play that was added in the third folio. It was in the original folio. The original folio had just, what, 36 plays, right? This, and then the third folio, they added Pericles, right? There's some question, you know, Shakespeare did it all, you know. But, of course, the later acts, they think they're clearly by Shakespeare, you know. I think the whole thing's by him anyway. And this is, this is, this is, these words, huh? Yeah, yeah. As I was saying before, you know, the class began, I've read all these Shakespeare plays many times, so I never, you know, keep, stay up late at night, when is going to happen? You know, keep on reading them. I know what's going to happen in all these plays. So I just read, you know, maybe two or three scenes, or something, not even a whole act, and I kind of save the words, you know, and say what a wonderful play this is, you know, but I don't have to, you know, stay up until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. to see what happens, you know, the play, whether the hero survives or dies or what happens to him, you know. But, so then I noticed things in these words I didn't notice before, and I keep on seeing more. You know, like DeConnick said that he'd been teaching the eight books of natural hearing, the physics, since the 1930s, you know, because I had him in, what, 58, 59, first of all, 59. And he said, you still see something more in the words when he, each time he teaches it. I still remember DeConnick had come down the hall, you know, before class, you know. And one day he was talking to me, he says, you know, because he was filled with wonder, you know. Isn't this wonderful, you know. He's taught this how many times, right, you know. He's just struck by the, by the, by the, by the, the, the, wonderful it is, right? Because he said, if you think you understood everything, it means you've understood nothing. Okay, very important question. 19. Then one ought to consider about the unity of the operation of Christ. And about this four things are asked. Whether there is one operation of both the divinity and the humanity, or whether there are, what, many, right? Secondly, whether in Christ there are many operations according to human nature. Third, whether Christ, according to his human operation, merited something for himself. He said he merited something for us, but he merited something for himself. And fourth, whether through it he merited something for us. So these are interesting questions. In the questions disputate de potencia, he says that the incarnation is the miracle of miracles. In another work, I forget which one now it is, he says that all other miracles are in some way ordered to the miracle of the incarnation. To the first one goes forward thus. It seems that in Christ there is only one doing, one operation of the divinity and humanity. For Dionysius says in the second chapter of the divine names, discreta, discreet, and most, what, benignant, operation about us of God, through this that according to us, from us, as a whole, truly the word became, what, human, right? Which is above substance. And he did and underwent those things which were suitable to his human and divine operation. where one operation he names human and divine, which in Greek is called theandrika, right? That is the virile God, right? He has something of the strength of God. It seems therefore that there is one operation composed in Christ. Christ doing, you might say, operation is both divine and human, right? It's kind of composed of both, right? It's theanduk. Apostle Andrew's name is supposed to mean virile, right? More of the chief agent and the tool, instrument, there's only one doing, right? So we'd say that, you know, the Pietas out there, right? Pietas was the doing of Michelangelo in the doing of the chisel and hammer, two different operations. It seems like it's one. But the human nature in Christ was the tool of his, what, divine nature, as has been said above, right? Therefore, there's the same doing of the divine and the human nature in, what, Christ. Moreover, since in Christ there are two natures in one hypostasis or person, it is necessary that that be one and the same that belongs to the hypostasis or person. But doing or operation belongs to the hypostasis or person. For nothing operates except a suppositum subsisting, whence according to the philosopher, acts are the singleness, right? Because a person is doing something, right? So one person must be one doing. It seems to be so. Therefore, in Christ there is one and the same operation of the divinity and humanity. Moreover, just as to be existence is of the subsisting hypostasis, so also doing is of the hypostasis subsisting. But on account of the unity of the hypostasis in Christ, there is one, what, to be, one existence. Therefore, also on account of the same unity, there is in Christ one, what, operation. I would say you've got to be before you can do something, right? But if there's one being, there must be one doing. Moreover, where there is one thing done, there is one doing. But the same done, but there's the same thing done of the divinity and humanity as the healing of the leper or the raising of the dead, right? Or even the changing there of water into what? Wine. When Thomas tries to explain why he calls her woman there, right? By the cross he calls her mother, right? Well, he suffers in his human nature that he got from his mother. So he calls her mother there, right? But he performs a miracle due to his divinity, which he didn't get from his, what, mother. Therefore, it seems that in Christ there's only one doing of his divinity and his, what, humanity. But against this is what Ambrose, and he's one of the, what, four or five supreme doctors of the Western Church, and of course a great influence upon custom, right? Went to hear his words. Ended up getting his thoughts, huh? But the words came in the thoughts, huh? Words are dangerous, right? But against this this is what Ambrose, in the second book, to Gratia and the Emperor says. How and what way is there the same doing of, what, diverse power, right? Can the lesser do what the greater does, huh? Kind of 3D translating here. Or can there be one doing where there is a diverse, what, substance? Substance now in the sense of, what, nature, huh? In the sense of hypostasis. We'll get back into that problem. Okay. Thomas usually says in our style it gives two main reasons, meanings, rather, of substance, right? One is the hypostasis, certainly. Supposed to him, and the other, the nature, right? I answer, Thomas says, it should be said that as has been said above, the heretics who place in Christ one will place also in him one doing. And that their erroneous opinion might be better understood, right? It should be considered that wherever there are many doers that are ordered, right, the lower is moved by the higher. Just as in man, the body is moved by the soul. And the lower powers by the reason, huh? Thus, therefore, the acts and motion of the lower beginning are more, what, done than are they doing, right? But that which belongs to the highest beginning is properly operationally doing. If, for example, we say that in man, that to walk, which is of the feet, right, and to touch, I guess, which is of the hands, are some doings of, are things done by man, right? Of which the one, the soul does through the feet, the other through the hand, huh? And because there is the same soul doing through both, right? From the side of the one doing, which is the first beginning thing that is the mover, there is one end, undifferentiated doing. But on the side of the, what, things done, there is found a difference, right? Just as in a pure man, the body is moved by the soul and the sense desire by their rational desire so in the lord jesus christ the human nature is moved and ruled by the divine and therefore they say that there is the same what doing and it's indifferent from the side of the divinity operating but from the side of the divinity operating there are nevertheless diverse things done right insofar as the divinity of christ does something other through itself as that he carries all things by the word of his power other through human nature as that he walks bodily right whence in the sixth senate senate are brought in the words of severus the heretic thus saying and those things which are done by the one christ much different right for some things are what tribules to god some human as for example for him bodily to go upon the earth uh is truly human uh but to what yeah and to walk upon the earth oh he's walking on the water walk at all oh okay okay but one thing namely the incarnate word this and that did right and never this of this and that of that nature right who he's saying seems kind of orthodox right take it down to this point nor in this that diverse are the things what done right therefore to operating natures and forms do we justly what define but in this they were deceived thomas says it's it's really weird to follow these heretics through all their formulations you know and and they have some words that sound uh orthodox and then other ones that snuck in there and so on just um i should read some of these heretics even today you know you find you know one page it sounds pretty orthodox and then kind of sits on the other page yeah but in this day they were deceived because the action of that which is moved by another is what twofold right one that it has according to its own form another which it has according as it is moved by what another just as the operation of the saw is that what x okay according to its own form is cutting right but according as it is moved by the artist its operations to make a what benches benches benches okay so the doing which is a something according to its own form is its own right nor does it pertain to the mover except in so far as it uses a thing of this sort for its own doing just as the heat is far his own doing right and not of the what yeah blacksmith whatever grandfather's a blacksmith by the way yeah father's father he's strict disciplinary too you can imagine you didn't if he said come in you'd come in you know it's not of the of the blacksmith except in so far as uses fire for heating what the metal right but that doing which is of a thing only according as is moved by another is not other besides the doing of the mover so just as to make the what we say was the bench is not by itself a doing of the acts that's other from the doing of the what yeah yeah that's true about my example there michelangelo right and therefore wherever the mover and the moved have diverse forms right or diverse operating powers and there is necessary that to be another proper operation of the mover and another that of the mood so i'm always kind of you know hesitate you know translate this properly its own really um although the motion partakes yeah partakes of the operation of the mover right and the mover uses the operation of the move and thus both acts with what communion of the other right thus therefore in christ the human nature has its own form and power through which it operates and likewise the divine right whence also the human nature has its own doing distinct from the doing of the divine and a converse of the same is true that the divine has its own operation but nevertheless the divine nature uses the operation of the human nature as a what doing of its instrument and likewise the human nature partakes of the operation of the divine nature as the instrument partakes of the operation of the chief agent and this is what leopapa does and as he said to be the fifth great doctor of the of the western church and this is what leopapa says in the epistle to flavian that both what forms act right to wit both the divine nature and the human christ and notice that word form you know it's used for nature there like in the philippians is it you know form of god you know he didn't think it wrong to be equal to god right but then he took on the form of a slave right so their form is used in the sense of the nature right so it's not just that pagan aristotle sometimes uses form in that way but you find it right in in the epistles of saint paul to wit the divine nature and the what human in christ thomas is saying that form is means that there with the what communion of the other right which is its own but the word doing what is of the word and the flesh doing what is of the what of flesh if there were only one doing of the divinity and humanity in christ it would be necessary to say either that the human nature does not have its own what form and power because this cannot be said about the divine right from which it would follow then christ is only in the divine operation or it'd have to be said that from the divine power and the human foundation there was uh blown together in christ right one uh power of which both of which is impossible for the first of these posits that the human nature in christ was imperfect right didn't have its own operation and to the second there would be a what confusion of the natures going in the direction of the monophysites and therefore reasonably thomas says in the sixth senate you This opinion was condemned, in whose, what, determination is said, two natural operations, not convertible, right? One confused, separately, and the same Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, we glorify. That is the divine operation of human. We owe quite a debt to these early councils, don't we? If I can find that text, you know, where they say, one of the folks with it said that he venerated the first, what, four councils as much as the four gospels, huh? Kind of a strong, beautiful statement. That's a beautiful example of the Second Vatican Council, you know, where it says that the tradition and sacred scripture and the magisterium cannot, what, stand one of them without the others, right? When I was in the military academy, they used to have the, you know, little hooks like that, and you'd put one emery flower on the other one, and then you'd get a third one, and you'd get the three. But you couldn't do it just two, they'd just four, right? You needed three, you know? So it's something like that, down to these three things. I keep on thinking that for some reason. I think of the text in Vatican II. Now, what about the language here of Dionysius, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Dionysius places in Christ a doing that is what? Theandricum, huh? That is some of the royalty of God, right? Or divinum humanum, right? Human, divine one. But not to some confusion of the doings, right? Or confusion of the powers of both natures, right? But to this, that his divine operation uses his what? Yeah. That's one reason. And secondly, the human operation partakes of the what? Power of the divine operation, right? Whence, as he himself says in a certain, what? The epistle. The case, it says down there. Above man, he does those things which are man. That's because he partakes, I suppose, of the power, right? Which shows the virgin supernaturally, what? Conceiving, right? And the water sustaining his feet, right? The weight of his feet, yeah. Walked upon that. And it manifests that to conceive is of human nature, right? Likewise, to walk. But both of these were in Christ supernaturally, right? And likewise, the divine things operated humanly. As when he healed the leper by touching him, right? Once in the same epistle, he adds, but God being made a man, there was a new doing of God and man. But that he understands there to be two operations in Christ, one of the divine nature and the other human, is clear from those things which he says in the second chapter of the divine names. When he says that these, which pertain to the human operation, the Father and the Holy Spirit communicate in these, for no reason, right? In no way. And as someone was to say, according to their will being pleased with them, right? Their most indignant and merciful will. In so far as the Father and the Holy Spirit, from their mercy, wished Christ to do and to undergo human things. And every sublime and ineffable operation of God, which he did, is unchangeable in that he is God and the word of God. Lest, therefore, it is clear that other is the human doing in which the Father and the Holy Spirit do not, what, communicate, except according to their accepting it in their mercy. And other is the operation insofar as he is the word of God in which the Father and the Holy Spirit, what, you know. It's kind of interesting, because they have the same, they have the same power, right? So what Christ does is God, in some sense, the Father and the Holy Spirit also do, right? But what he does is, as man, they don't do. Don't they prove it? They ratify it, they affirm it, okay? Now, the second one about the instrument or tool. To the second, it should be said that tool is said, something said to be a tool, from this that it is moved by the chief agent, right? So sometimes they define a tool as a moved mover, right? Which, nevertheless, apart from this, is able to have its own doing according to its own, what, form, as has been said about fire. Thus, the action of the instrument or tool, insofar as it is a tool, is not other from the doing of the chief, what, agent. But it is able to have another operation insofar as it is a certain thing. Thus, therefore, the operation, which is of the human nature in Christ, insofar as it is a tool of the divinity, is not other from the doing of, what, the divinity. For there is not another salvation by which the humanity of Christ saves and his divinity. But he has, but human nature has, nevertheless, in Christ, insofar as it is a certain nature, right? A certain, what, its own operation, apart from the divine, right? Got thirsty there, so. Incidentally, when I was thinking about salvation, I got thinking about the magnificat, right? And says, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. So she calls God her Savior, right? Now, you know how in the Gospel of Matthew, right? The angel says, you'll call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. So you say, well, well, then wasn't Mary saved from her sins by Christ, right? You might say, you know, because of the beneficat itself. But yet, the Church teaches us, right? That Mary's without sin, both original and actual, right? So why does she say, he's my Savior, when he didn't save her from her sins? Well, it's because he, what? Yeah, yeah. And so in the Declaration there, the Immaculate Conception is it. It says in the very official text for the defining of the mystery, right? That in view of her, of Christ's passions, right? She was preserved from it, right? In that sense, she was saved from it, right? In the way that, you know, you create a one from St. Therese of Assure, right? Where the one who runs ahead and removes a stone from the path, you know, saves you from what? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of interesting. I never thought about that exactly. You could argue from the, yeah, that she must have been saved from sin in some way by Christ, right? Not in the way that us other riches are. To the third, it should be said that to do is of the subsisting, what? Hypostasis, right? But according to some form. form in nature, right? From which the doing, he sees it's what? Species, huh? And therefore from the diversity of forms or natures, there is a diverse what? Species of doings. But from the unity of the hypostasis, there's a unity in number as regards what? The operation of the species. Just as fire has two operations differing in species to enlighten and to heat according to the difference between light and heat. And nevertheless, there is one in number, the illumination by the fire once illuminating, right? And likewise in Christ it's necessary that there be two operations differing in species according to his two natures. But each, what, of the operations is one in number in Christ done once. Just as one walking and one, what? Yeah. My understanding this and your understanding this is not the same, right? Even at the same time. We both understand at the same time. Still two understandings. Now the fourth objection may be, why if there's one essay, isn't there one doing? To the fourth it should be said that to be and to do is of the person by the nature, but not in the same way. For to be belongs to the very what? Constitution, you might say, the person. And thus insofar as what? Yeah, yeah. So that's not so bad my example of the point there, isn't it? Go back to the first meaning of point there, right? You've heard me put the two lines on the board, right? Draw them to the same point, right? And because the unity of the person requires the unity of what? Being, right? But operation is an effect of the person according to some form or what? Nature. So since he's saying that to be belongs to the person in himself, right? Right? To do something belongs to the person through some nature. So he has two natures. However, that happens. The miracle of miracles is, he calls it in the potencia. Yeah. Once he says that plurality of operations does not prejudice the unity that is personal. And the fifth, it should be said, that other is the proper thing done of the divine operation and of the human operation, Christ. Just as what is done, the proper doing of the divine operation is the healing of the leper, right? But the proper operation of human nature is the contact, the touching, right? But they run together, both operations, to one thing done, according as the one nature acts in communion with the other, right? You need a break, don't you think, after that, huh? You need a break, don't you? You need a break, don't you? You need a break, don't you? You need a break, don't you? You need a break, don't you? You need a break, don't you?