Summa III, Q.4, Arts. 4–6: Not Abstract Human Nature, Not All Individuals, but from Adam's Stock (with a Digression on Universal Cause vs. Universal Predication)

Orientation #

He opens “we’re up to article what, five? No, article four,” and twice refers back to earlier classes: “we talked about that before” (that the Son of God could assume many human natures) and the earlier argument against assuming an angelic nature (prev. lecture). No explicit remark about next time. The previous class finished q. 4 aa. 1-3 (which nature, person or man); the next takes up q. 5.

The class, in order #

1. Article 4, objections: nature abstracted from individuals (“abstracted from all individuals”) #

Point: the three objections for assuming human nature as separated from all singulars, read with his glosses.

• Obj. 1: the assumption was for the common salvation of all (1 Tim 4, saviour of all men, most of all the faithful); nature in individuals “recedes from its commonness”. His aside: “How is that even possible?”
• Obj. 2: what is most noble goes to God; in every genus the per se is most potent. Gloss: in the fifth book of wisdom Aristotle takes up “perfect” and then words signifying a condition of the perfect, per se being one of three. So he should assume per se hominem, man himself, kath’ hauto as Plato would say: human nature separated from individuals.
• Obj. 3: human nature is not assumed as signified in the concrete by the name “man”, which signifies it as in singulars; therefore as separated.
• His diagnosis of the objector: someone who thinks of him assuming human nature without human personality may slide into thinking he assumed the nature “common to all of us”.

2. Sed contra and body: naked contemplation and the two ways (“naked contemplation”) #

Point: Damascene, then Thomas “well positioned, being a student of Aristotle”, shows the separated nature cannot be assumed on either understanding of it.

• Sed contra (Damascene, book III): the Word assumed neither the nature “considered in naked contemplation”, which would be not incarnation but deception and fiction, nor (as at end of body) a nature that does not subsist. Aside: “naked” appears a lot in Albert the Great too: the universal not clothed in anything singular.
• Body: the nature of man or any sensible thing, apart from its being in singulars, can be understood two ways: (a) as having being by itself apart from matter (Platonists); (b) as existing in an understanding, human or divine, unable to subsist by itself, as the Philosopher proves in the seventh book of wisdom: sensible matter belongs to the species of sensible things and is placed in its definition (flesh and bones in man’s).
• If (a) held, unsuitable for three reasons: 1. assumption terminates in a person, against the notion of a common form to be individuated in a person; 2. only common, universal operations could be attributed to a common nature, by which man neither merits nor demerits, but the assumption was that he might merit for us; 3. such a nature is understandable, not sensible (“as Boethius always says, singular when sensed, universal when understood”), but he assumed it to appear visibly (Baruch: “after this he was seen on the earth, he conversed with men”; “quite a prophecy”).
• (b) divine understanding: there it is nothing but the divine nature, so human nature would be in the Son from eternity. Human understanding: that would be only his being understood to assume it; if not assumed in rerum natura, the understanding is false and there is only a fiction of incarnation, as Damascene says.
• His remark: “I’m surprised Thomas would say it’s impossible”, i.e. he first says it cannot subsist, and then still gives many reasons why it should not be assumed even if it did.

3. Reply 1 and the digression on “common” (“community of cause”) #

Point: Christ is common saviour not by community of genus or species but by community of cause; two senses of common must not be confused.

• Distinction: common as a set of many (said of many) vs. common as a cause of many. The first is common only in the mind; the second in things. Thomas: common secundum rationem vs. common secundum rem; Latin universale in praedicando vs. universale in causando. Student question: is “person” common to Father, Son, Spirit in the same sense as the divine nature is common to the three? He answers yes, yes, and points to Thomas’s phrasing “common in many, common in things”.
• The great confusion: Heidegger takes the being said of all things and makes it the beginning from which all proceed. Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles has a chapter refuting this: God, “I am who am”, is not the being said of all things, with many arguments. Behind Heidegger, Spinoza: the order of thoughts and of things is the same, so our first thought corresponds to the first thing; but our first thought is the most confused, “being, something”, so being is placed at the beginning of all things, and Hegel builds on this. Plato is in the same mistake in making the forms universal causes in which all men partake. Student: does Thomas admit something like ideas in God? He understands many things but all by his own nature, one thinking.
• Heraclitus, “those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all”, anticipates the fourteen books of wisdom, where Aristotle is strong in both senses without confusing them: wisdom is about what is said of all (being and one) and about the first causes, whose causality extends to all. In the proemium the six-point description of the wise man argues the first three from “said of all”, the last three from “first causes”, kept distinct; yet both belong to one knowledge.
• Examples for why one science: a science of the king is a science of the citizen, since the king’s causality extends to all citizens; of the general, of the soldier. Citizen is said of more than soldier, and the king’s causality extends further than the general’s: the more common the cause, the further its causality, corresponding to the other sense. Ethics vs. medicine or carpentry: health is not the end of all human things, but happiness is, so ethics treats all human goods (division into goods of soul, body, exterior goods, and which are better: Politics VII, Socrates in the dialogues) and is like wisdom; happiness is common as cause of all we do, “human doing” as a set of all we do.
• “Those who speak with understanding”, by antonomasia, are the wise, who talk of first causes (common one way), being and one (another), the axioms (another).
• The English pun “general”: Douglas MacArthur is an individual said of no one but runs the whole army; “soldier” is general in the other sense, said of everyone in the army. Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida: Cressida “kissed by the general but not in general” (Agamemnon’s kiss, Nestor wanting everyone in), so Shakespeare, seeing the two senses, “is wiser than Hegel”. Schwarzkopf at a Gulf War press conference: “generals always speak general.”
• Aside: a book quoting Roosevelt after a call from Huey Long, “one of the two most dangerous men in the country”; the other, Douglas MacArthur.
• Back to the text: genus, a name said with one meaning of many things other in kind, signifying what it is; lowest species, of many differing individually. The Son has universality of causality because he is God made man.

4. Reply 2: Plato’s per se man and the central question (“the way things are”) #

Point: the per se man is not found in rerum natura; and if some hold Plato meant it only in the divine understanding, then it was present from eternity and need not be assumed.

• How Plato gets there (first way): thinking the way we know must be the way things are if we know truly. The central question of philosophy; at first sight yes, since truth is conformity of mind with things; Aristotle answers no, approached by manuductio, bit by bit. Aristotle and Thomas begin in the second book of Natural Hearing: the distinction and order in which we know are not the same as in things; we know in distinction things not distinct in reality, and in reverse order. Sherlock Holmes to Watson, “reason backwards”, from effect to cause: is the mind false in knowing the effect first? No; but if you do not distinguish the two orders you end up mistaken, “and that happens all the time”.
• Second way to argue for Plato: before what is through another is what is through itself. Is Socrates a man through being Socrates? Then he would be the only man; so he is man through another, and there must be something man to itself, the per se homo. Answer from the seventh book of wisdom: a man cannot be without matter, and the universal must lack at least individual matter. Parallel: those who think there must be something bad to itself, when bad is a lack of what one can and should have, so there is always something besides the bad in the bad.

5. Reply 3: assumed in the individual (“assumed in the individual”) #

Point: human nature is not assumed in the concrete as if a suppositum or hypostasis were understood before the assumption, but is assumed in the individual, to be in the individual person, the Word (“the way he explained it before”). Diagnosis of the Platonist position: it confuses the universal cause (the Word) with universal predication, joining the two in a misunderstanding of incarnation.

6. Article 5: not in all individuals (“in all supposita”) #

Point: it was unsuitable to assume human nature in all supposita.

• Objections: 1. what belongs per se to a nature belongs to all in it (“it wouldn’t be you anymore, I would be you”); 2. the incarnation proceeds from charity (John 3:16), and charity communicates to friends as much as possible; he could assume many natures (“we talked about that before”), so all; 3. the wise operator works in the briefest way, and all assumed to natural sonship is briefer than adoption through one. Aside: the parallels cite Sentences III, so these opinions came up there.
• Sed contra: Damascene, he assumed neither the species nor all hypostases.
• Body, three reasons: 1. it would take away the multitude of supposita connatural to man, since in the assumed nature there is no suppositum but the assuming person; 2. it would derogate from his dignity as first-born among many brothers according to human nature, as first-born of every creature according to divine; all men would be equal (“God hates equality, as old T. J. Kasurik used to say” [name uncertain in recording]); 3. one divine suppositum, so one human nature, unity on both sides, “one to one, marriage I guess”.
• Reply 1: to be assumed belongs to human nature secundum se only in that it is not by reason of a person (as assuming belongs to the divine nature by reason of the person), not as pertaining to essential principles or natural property. His gloss: not as it belongs to triangle to have angles equal to two right angles, or to two to be half of four; otherwise it would be common to all men to be assumed.
• Reply 2: God’s love is shown not only in assuming the nature but most of all in what he suffered in it (Rom 5:8, “when we were enemies, Christ died for us”), impossible if he had assumed all. Student exchange: is his love shown more by suffering than by becoming man? Becoming man is a sign, since union is the first effect of love; but “greater love than this hath no man”, laying down his life; and the suffering also shows the love of the incarnation. He could not show that if he had assumed all of us.
• Reply 3: “brevity is the soul of wisdom” [ed.: usually “wit”]. The wise man does not do through many what he can do through one; so through one man he saved all. His question: “you can’t have less than one, can you?”
• Student question: does assuming all take away what is natural, many persons in one nature? Yes; and would assuming one person likewise annihilate that person into the divine one? He connects it to the earlier argument against assuming an angelic nature: a nature without its own person. Man can have many persons in one nature, but assuming all natures brings the same problem as one angelic nature: the nature would not exist with its own personality.

7. Article 6: from the stock of Adam (“the root of Adam”) #

Point: it was suitable that human nature be assumed from Adam’s stock.

• Objections: 1. Heb 7, a priest segregated from sinners, more so if not from Adam the sinner; 2. in every genus the beginning is nobler than what is from it, so rather in Adam himself; 3. the Gentiles were greater sinners than the Jews (gloss on Gal 2, “we by nature Jews, not sinners from the Gentiles”), so rather from Gentiles than from the seed of Abraham, who was just.
• Sed contra: Luke 3, the Lord’s generation is led back to Adam.
• Body: Augustine, De Trinitate XIII: God could have taken man from elsewhere than Adam’s genus (another sense of genus, the multitude descended from one man, one of the meanings in the fifth book of wisdom); but judged it better that from the one overcome should come the one who conquers the enemy. Three reasons: 1. justice, that he who sinned satisfy, so from the corrupted nature satisfaction is made for the whole nature (touches one of the earlier reasons for the incarnation); 2. greater dignity of man, the victor over the devil born from the genus the devil overcame (“very close together”); 3. God’s power shown more, promoting a corrupt, infirm nature to such dignity.
• Reply 1: segregated as regards guilt, which he came to destroy, not as regards nature, which he came to save (likened to his brothers in all things); and his innocence is more marvellous, such purity from the mass subject to sin. Aside: “maybe Mary more than Thomas understood.”
• Reply 2: the one who cleanses all should not himself need cleansing, as in each genus the first mover is immobile according to that motion (the first altering thing inalterable, Aristotle’s point); Adam was subject to guilt and led out by Christ.
• Reply 3: to reach the height of innocence, from the first sinner to Christ through many just in between, in whom signs of future sanctity shone; God instituted signs of sanctity in the people, beginning with Abraham, first to receive the promise, and circumcision as sign of the covenant (Gen 17:11).

His words #

• “fifth / seventh / fourteen books of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V, VII, the Metaphysics]
• “Natural Hearing” [ed.: Physics]
• per se hominem, kath’ hauto: man himself through himself, the Platonic separated man
• “naked contemplation”: the universal not clothed in anything singular
• in rerum natura: in reality, as opposed to in the mind
• common secundum rationem vs. common secundum rem; universale in praedicando vs. universale in causando: said of many vs. cause of many
• antonomasia: “those who speak with understanding” for the wise
• manuductio: leading by the hand, bit by bit
• secundum se: as such, as belonging to the essential principles
• suppositum, hypostasis: the individual subject of a nature; “personality” for having one’s own person
• “brevity is the soul of wisdom” [ed.: usually “wit”]
• Pontifex: high priest

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae III, q. 4, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1-3)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 4, a. 5 (whole article)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 4, a. 6 (whole article)
• Scripture quoted within: 1 Tim 4; Baruch (“seen on the earth”); John 3:16; Rom 5:8; Heb 7; Gal 2 with gloss; Luke 3; Gen 17:11

Mentioned

• Damascene, book III (sed contra of aa. 4 and 5)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (“perfect”, per se; senses of genus), VII (sensible matter in definition), proemium (six-point description of the wise man); Physics II; Politics VII (all the goods of man)
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, chapter against God as the being said of all (no chapter number given); Sentences III (from the parallels)
• Augustine, De Trinitate XIII; Boethius (singular when sensed, universal when understood)
• Heraclitus fragment; Plato’s dialogues; Spinoza, Hegel, Heidegger; Albert the Great
• Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida; Sherlock Holmes
• Verified-source matching also reports handout pages “Causes of Love” p. 2 and “The First Statement” p. 3, and DHB vols. I and III; not named in the transcript

His questions #

• How is it even possible to assume human nature abstracted from all individuals? Not possible: sensible matter is in the definition (Met. VII), and in the mind it is nothing but the divine nature or a mere fiction.
• Is “person” common to the three and the divine nature common to the three in the same sense? Yes, common in things (secundum rem), not the mind’s “said of many”.
• Does Thomas acknowledge something like ideas in God? He understands many things, but all by his own nature, one thinking.
• Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Seems yes, since truth is conformity; Aristotle answers no (Physics II), by manuduction.
• Is the mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? No; but confusing the two orders leads to error.
• Is Christ’s love shown more by what he suffered than by becoming man? By what he suffered (“greater love than this hath no man”), though the suffering also shows the love of the incarnation.
• Brevity: can you have less than one? “That’s a good question”; left open.
• If assuming all natures removes the multitude of persons, does assuming one person do the same? Yes, it parallels the argument against the angel: a nature without its own personality.