Aquinas on the Incarnation (ST III q.16, a.7–10): Was Man Made God? Is Christ a Creature? Did This Man Begin to Be?

Orientation #

He picks up directly from article 7 (“Article seven here, right?”), having treated “God was made man” previously (prev. lecture), and he forward-references articles 8 and 9 from within article 7. The class covers aa. 7, 8, 9 and 10, with a long digression on the names “Jesus” and “Christ” and on Latin grammar.

The class, in order #

1. Article 7: objections to “man was made God” (“Can you say man was made God?”) #

Four objections read: (1) Rom. 1 — the Son “who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and Christ as man is of David’s seed; (2) Augustine, De Trinitate I — “such was that taking on, that he made God man and man God,” and since by reason of that assumption “God was made man” is true, so is the converse; (3) Gregory Nazianzen to Cledonius — God is humanatus, man deificatus; if God is said humanatus because made man, man should be said deificatus because made God; (4) when we say “God was made man,” the subject of the making is not God but human nature, which “man” signifies — and the subject of making is what the making is attributed to; so “man was made God” is the truer statement. He calls (4) “a pretty convincing argument,” then: “But wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast” — don’t jump to conclusions. Sed contra: Damascene III — “we do not say that man was made God, but that God was made man.”

• A student raises the saying “God became man so that man could become God”; another answers participatively; he defers to Thomas.
• Aside on teaching method: give the objections alone for a day or two, let them stew; then the body; then let them answer the objections. He did this with the text on whether charity is friendship.

2. Article 7, body: three senses of “man was made God” (“can be understood in three ways”) #

1. Factus determines a term absolutely, subject or predicate: false, since neither that man nor God is made — as aa. 8 and 9 will say. In this sense “God was made man” is false too; but this is not the sense in question here.
2. Factus determines the composition: “it was brought about that a man be God” — in this sense both are true. But this is not the proper sense, unless “man” has not personal but simple supposition. His note: supposition is simple when the term is taken for the primum per se significatum, i.e. the nature — as in “man is lord of the beasts,” where no particular man is meant. But hic homo, this man, is not made God, since it supposits for the Person of the Son, who was always God; though “man” commonly speaking was not always God.
3. Properly: factus sets a becoming about man in respect to God as the term (limit) of the making. Since in Christ there is one person, hypostasis and suppositum of God and man, the proposition is false: “man” in the subject supposits, and “God” is verified of that man not by reason of the human nature but by reason of the suppositum — and that suppositum is the Person of the Son, always God. Hence that man did not begin to be God.
   • Counterfactual: if there were another person/hypostasis of God and of man, so that “God” were said of that man by a conjunction of supposita, or of personal dignity, affection or inhabitation, “as historians say,” then by like reason one could say man was made God (i.e. joined to God) and God was made man.

• Student exchange: “a man became God” — no, because “a man” stands for the Person there, the Son of God, who could not be made God. He calls it “kind of a subtle thing.”
• Aside: he was scandalised at the Pope saying faith is purified by reason, then heard Archbishop Burke say faith purifies reason. “I have to chew on that for a while” — the kind of thing one understands more of at each reading, and if not fully in this life, “I get something to look forward to.”

3. Article 7, replies (“Now we got to look at the implied objections”) #

1. In Rom. 1, the relative qui referring to the Person of the Son is not to be taken on the side of the predicate (as if someone existing of David’s seed was made Son of God — the sense in which the objection proceeds), but on the side of the subject: the Son of God, existing of David’s seed according to the flesh, was made “to him,” i.e. to the Father’s honour, as the gloss expounds. He grants “that’s clear as mud,” but insists the negative side is clear. He notes Paul’s opening — “set apart unto the gospel of God” — where “God” may stand for the Father.
2. Augustine’s word is to be understood in the second sense (both true); not speaking most properly.
3. Likewise for Gregory Nazianzen.
4. The key grammatical rule: a term placed in the subject is held materially, i.e. for the suppositum; placed in the predicate it is held formally, for the nature signified. Hence in “man was made God” the becoming is attributed not to human nature but to its suppositum, which is God from eternity, and so it does not belong to it to become God; whereas in “God was made man” the making terminates at human nature itself. Example: pointing at Socrates, who was a man before he became white — “this man today was made white” is true, “this white thing today was made a man” is false. If a name signifying human nature in the abstract were put in the subject, it could signify the subject of the making (“human nature was made of the Son of God”).

4. Article 8: is Christ a creature? (“It seems that this is true that Christ is a creature”) #

Objections: (1) Pope Leo — “a new and unheard of coming about: God who is and was becomes a creature”; (2) properties of a nature can be said of the hypostasis common to both natures under any name — being a creature is a property of human nature as creating is of the divine; (3) he is said simply to be born of the Virgin by reason of the body, so by reason of the soul created by God he should simply be called a creature. Sed contra: Ambrose, De Trinitate — “Was Christ made by a word? Was Christ created by a command?” God is of a simple, not a conjoined nature. Body: as Jerome says, from words disorderly put forward heresy arises; we ought not to share names with heretics lest we favour their error. The Arians called Christ a creature and less than the Father not only by reason of human nature but by reason of the divine person. So it is not to be said absolutely (he glosses absolute = simpliciter, against cum determinatione = secundum quid) but with the determination “according to human nature.” Things that no one would suspect of belonging to the divine person in himself can be said simply — “Christ suffered, died, was buried.” Parallel from bodies: what is in a part we do not attribute to the whole without determination — we do not say the Ethiopian is white, but white in his teeth (he attributes the example to Aristotle’s book on the fallacies), yet we say without determination that he is curly, because that can belong to him only by his hair. Replies: (1) the holy doctors causa brevitatis sometimes omit the determination; it is to be understood. (2) All properties of either nature can in some way be said of Christ — Damascene III: Christ is “creatable and uncreatable, visible and invisible” [unclear in recording: “visible into parts”], and the one hypostasis is uncreated by its deity and created in its humanity. Conversely one should not say without determination that Christ is incorporeal or impassible, against the Manichean error that he had no true body and did not truly suffer. (3) No doubt can arise that nativity from the Virgin belongs to the Person of the Son, as could arise about creation; so the cases are not the same.

• His summary: Christ is a creature according to his human nature, but it is dangerous to say it simply, because you might be saying the Person is a creature — “considering how prone we are to make mistakes.”

5. Article 9: did that man begin to be? (“that man, pointing to Christ, began to be”) #

Objections: (1) Augustine on John — before the world was, neither we nor “that mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus”; what was not always began to be. (2) Christ began to be a man, and to be a man is to be simply. (3) “Man” implies a suppositum of human nature, and Christ was not always the suppositum of human nature. Sed contra: Heb. ult. — “Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and for ever.” Body, two reasons: (1) Simply false on the Catholic position of one suppositum, hypostasis and person in Christ; “this man” designates the suppositum, to whose eternity beginning is repugnant. It does not help that beginning belongs to him by the human nature signified by “man,” because the subject term is held not formally for the nature but materially for the suppositum. (2) Even if true, it should not be used without determination, to avoid the Arian heresy, which attributed to the Person of the Son that it began to be, “saying that it was when it was not.” Replies: (1) Augustine’s authority is to be taken with determination — “was not before the world, according to humanity.” (2) With the verb incipit there is no argument from inferior to superior: it does not follow that what began to be white began to be coloured, since “begin” implies now-being and not-before, and “this was not before white” does not give “this was not before coloured.” Esse simpliciter is superior to being a man, so from “began to be a man” it does not follow “began to be.” He illustrates from “the first book of Natural Hearing” [ed.: Physics I]: if the dog becomes a cat and the cat is an animal, it does not follow the dog becomes an animal — he always was one. (3) “Man,” taken for Christ, signifies a human nature that began to be but supposits for an eternal suppositum; so “the man Christ began to be” is false, but “Christ began to be a man” is true.

6. Digression: “Jesus” and “Christ” (“Christ, I thought, meant Messiah”) #

A student objects: since “Christ” means Messiah/anointed, he was not Christ until the Incarnation — so one should say Jesus began to be a man, not Christ. Berquist: “very subtle,” and one must go over it several times.

• Another student: St Paul says “the rock was Christ,” not “the word” — different ways in which Christ is present; and the complication of time versus eternity, the ever-present. Berquist: the rock signifies Christ; many Old Testament things signify Christ without Christ the man yet being.
• Thomas on the Sermon on the Mount: “he opened his mouth” — because he had often spoken through the mouths of the prophets, but now speaks with his own.
• The name “Christ” means the anointed one, so it implies the anointer: hence both the divine that anoints and the human that is anointed; some texts of Thomas take it of the human nature, others of both. Berquist inclines to “Christ” as signifying the human, since kingship, priesthood and prophecy — the anointed offices — belong to Christ as man.
• On this division the Gospels are sometimes parcelled out: Luke the priesthood (begins and ends in the temple), Mark the prophetic role (the voice in the desert, the Lord confirming their preaching with signs), Matthew the kingship (the Magi); John emphasises the divine nature.
• John 20:31 — “that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” — is the same profession of faith as Peter’s, minus “living,” and not made in Christ’s presence, hence “Jesus” not “thou.” Why is Jesus the subject and Christ, Son of God the predicate? Because “Jesus” is not explicitly either man or God.
• A student cites modern biblical scholarship’s “Jesus of history / Christ of faith,” identifying Jesus with humanity and Christ with divinity. Berquist replies from Matt. 1: “Call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins” — and forgiving sins is something only God can do (the Pharisees’ objection), so “Jesus” is applicable to God as well, because of the union; and “that you may know the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” refers power to the divinity manifested in the man.

7. Article 10: “Christ, according as he is man, is a creature” (“taken… by reason of the suppositum or by reason of the nature”) #

Objections: (1) Nothing in Christ is created but human nature, and “Christ as man is human nature” is false. (2) A predicate is said more of the term placed in reduplication than of the subject of the proposition (if “a body as coloured is visible,” then “the coloured is visible”); but “the man Christ is a creature” is not conceded absolutely. (3) Whatever is said of any man as he is man is said of him per se and simply; but “Christ per se and simpliciter is a creature” is false. — He glosses per se / secundum quod ipsum: “two per se is a number,” i.e. two through being two, two as such, two as two. Sed contra: everything that is, is creator or creature; “Christ as he is man is the creator” is false; therefore he is a creature. Body: in the reduplication “man” can be taken by reason of the suppositum — and then it is false, the suppositum being eternal and uncreated — or by reason of the nature, and then it is true. But a name so resumed in reduplication more properly holds for the nature than for the suppositum, because it is resumed in the strength of the predicate, which holds formally: “Christ as man” is as if to say “Christ according as he is a man.” So the statement is rather to be conceded. If, however, something is added that draws it to supposit — “Christ, as he is this man, is a creature” — it is rather to be denied, since “this man” refers to the Person.

8. Digression on grammar (“they should be teaching them to read Latin”) #

At TAC a little medieval Latin grammar is taught (Mark teaches it, by background); Warren objects that they should teach students to read Latin, not Latin grammar. At Laval some linguists returned to the Latin grammarians. His story: the Latin grammarians could not work out the grammar of their own language, so they copied the Greek and forced it on Latin — Greek’s four cases (nominative — “not a case in that sense” —, genitive for what is before the action of the verb, dative for what is with it, accusative for after it); Latin took these over and added the ablative, which really signifies what is before the action (“I hit you with my club”), so it should perhaps come earlier, and a Latin ablative may answer a Greek genitive; the Latin dative comes after the accusative (“I gave the book to you”). Then the English grammarians imitated the Latin. Greek is the best language to begin the study of grammar in, because the Greeks succeeded in understanding their own language. — Praise for missionary priests who wrote grammars of American Indian languages from the ground up; his colleague George O’Bann [name uncertain in recording], in French and linguistics at Assumption, retired and still researching among the Indians.

9. Article 10, replies, and the “Bene scripsisti” story (“although Christ is not human nature”) #

1. Christ is not human nature, but is having human nature; and “creature” is apt to be said of the concrete as well as the abstract — we say humanity is a creature and that man is a creature. So “Christ as man is a creature” does not say Christ is human nature.
2. “Man” as placed in the subject more regards the suppositum, as placed in reduplication more regards the nature; since the nature is created and the suppositum uncreated, “this man is a creature” is not conceded simply, but “Christ as man is a creature” is — a creature secundum quid.
3. To any man who is a suppositum of human nature only it belongs to have being only according to human nature, and of such a suppositum it follows, if as man he is a creature, that he is a creature simply. But Christ is suppositum also of a divine nature, according to which he has uncreated being; so the inference fails.

• Aside: the story that Christ spoke from the cross to Thomas, “Bene scripsisti de me” — Berquist connects it with the Tertia Pars, and recalls the statue of Thomas with that inscription on the walkway between the two main buildings at the College of St Thomas. A student remembers the detail as concerning the Eucharist; another mentions a saying about “my mother” — “that’s a Franciscan gloss.”
• He ends: “Two markers to go. What time do we have to stop here?”

His words #

• “factus determines absolutely / determines the composition” — the first two of the three senses of “man was made God.”
• simple supposition — a term taken for its primum per se significatum, the nature, as “man is lord of the beasts”; against personal supposition, where it stands for a person.
• “the term placed in the subject holds materially… placed in the predicate it is held formally” — his recurring rule; subject = for the suppositum, predicate = for the nature.
• humanatus / deificatus — Gregory Nazianzen’s pair: made man / made God.
• “absolutely” [ed.: simpliciter] vs “with a determination” [ed.: secundum quid].
• causa brevitatis — “on account of brevity,” why the doctors sometimes omit the determination.
• “reduplication” / “doubling” / “taken over again, resumed” — “Christ as man.”
• per se — “to itself and as such”; secundum quod ipsum — “two as two is a number.”
• “Natural Hearing” [ed.: Aristotle, Physics].
• Bene scripsisti de me — “You have written well of me.”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 16, aa. 7, 8, 9, 10 (objections, body, replies throughout)
• Romans 1:2–3 (in obj. 1 and reply of a. 7)
• Augustine, De Trinitate I (a. 7, obj. 2); Augustine on John (a. 9, obj. 1)
• Gregory Nazianzen, Epistle to Cledonius (a. 7, obj. 3)
• John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa III (sed contra of a. 7; reply 2 of a. 8)
• Pope Leo (a. 8, obj. 1); Ambrose, De Trinitate (a. 8, sed contra); Jerome (a. 8, body)
• Hebrews 13:8 (a. 9, sed contra)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations — the Ethiopian white in his teeth
• Aristotle, Physics I (“Natural Hearing”) — dog, cat, animal
• John 20:31; Peter’s confession; Matthew 1:21; “the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”
• 1 Corinthians 10:4 (inferred) — “the rock was Christ”
• Thomas on the Sermon on the Mount, “he opened his mouth”
• Thomas on whether charity is friendship (his teaching anecdote)

His questions #

• Can you say “man was made God,” as you say “God was made man”? — Properly speaking, no: “man” in the subject stands for the suppositum, which is the eternal Person of the Son.
• In what three ways can “man was made God” be understood? — Factus determining a term absolutely (false); determining the composition (both true); as setting the becoming toward God as term of the making (false in Christ).
• Can you say “a man became God”? — No: “a man” stands for the person, and that person is the Son of God, who could not be made God.
• Why is “this white thing was today made a man” false, while “this man was today made white” is true? — Because the subject term stands for the suppositum, and the making terminates at what is in the predicate.
• Is Christ a creature? — Not to be said absolutely (that was the Arian error concerning the Person), but with the determination “according to human nature.”
• Did that man, Christ, begin to be? — No, said without determination: “this man” designates the eternal suppositum; but “Christ began to be a man” is true.
• Does “began to be white” give “began to be coloured”? — No; “begin” implies now-being and not-before, so there is no argument from inferior to superior.
• Does “Christ” name him from his human nature or from both? — Left open: since “anointed” implies the anointer, Thomas sometimes takes it of both; Berquist inclines to the human.
• “Christ, according as he is man, is a creature” — true or false? — True, since a name in reduplication holds formally for the nature; but “Christ as he is this man is a creature” is rather to be denied.