Dist. 15, Art. 1, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/15/q/bon-sent-III-d15-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether the defects in Christ were from nature or from will.*

Thirdly it is asked concerning defects of this kind as to their causality, and the question is whether in Christ they were from nature or from will. And that [they were] not from will, but from nature, [thus] it seems.

*To the opposite.* 1. Wisdom, chapter one: *God made not death;* if he made not death, then by parity of reasoning neither a defect ordered to death: therefore if such a defect was in Christ, it seems that it was not from the will of the one assuming, but from a defect of the assumed nature.

2. Likewise, a defect has no efficient cause, but a *deficient* one; but the will of the one assuming is not posited as a *deficient* cause of anything: therefore such defects could not be from the will of the one assuming; and they were [either] from the will of the one assuming, or from the condition of the assumed nature: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, what belongs to something from its natural origin belongs to it by nature; but defects of this kind belong to Christ from his first origin: therefore it seems that they belong to him by nature.

4. Likewise, that in which the offspring is made like to the parent is natural to the offspring, by reason of the fact that « nature is a force implanted in things, procreating like things from like »; but Christ in the defect of passibility is made like to his Mother, from whom he drew his origin: therefore it seems that defects and penalties of this kind are natural to him.

5. Likewise, by nature that body was first formed before it was united; but that body, as soon as it was formed, was *passible* or *impassible;* and it is agreed that [it was] not *impassible:* therefore it had *passibility* by nature before it was united to Christ's soul, or to the divinity itself: therefore it seems that such passibility was not from the will of the one assuming. *If you say* that this was from the will of the Holy Spirit, who was the maker and sanctifier of that body; *it is objected* that the grace of the Holy Spirit stands together with passibility and penalty. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit coming upon [it] suffered passibility along with itself, it seems that it rather sustained the defect of passibility than caused it: therefore defects of this kind in Christ were not from will, but from nature.

**On the contrary:** *Fundamenta.* 1. The Master in the text: « From the will of mercy alone he transferred into himself true infirmity, just as he took true flesh »: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, all the defects and penalties that were in Christ are said to have been [in him] through assumption; but *to assume* is an act of will, not of nature: therefore those penalties were in Christ not naturally, but voluntarily.

3. Likewise, the quality of a body is principally to be attributed to its effective principle; but the Holy Spirit was the principal effective principle of Christ's body: therefore the quality of passibility ought rather to be attributed to the Holy Spirit than to nature. But the Holy Spirit operates through will: therefore such defects were in Christ from will.

4. Likewise, a penalty does not follow according to the common law except [upon] a nature vitiated and corrupted through fault; but Christ's flesh was immune from all foulness of fault: therefore it was immune from all defect of passibility: therefore if he had a defect of passibility, this was not from nature, but from will.

5. Likewise, what is in us from the nature of those who generate is said to be *contracted:* therefore if defects of this kind were in Christ from the nature of the one generating, they would therefore be *contracted* in him. If, therefore, it is not granted that Christ contracted such defects from nature, it seems that he had them not from nature, but from will.

### Conclusio.

> The defects that were in Christ were not contracted by necessity, but assumed by will, the divine will going before, but not inflicting, and the created will accompanying.

*Conclusion 1.* **I respond:** It must be said that, as the Master says in the text, from one and another cause are these defects in *us* and in *Christ;* for in *us* they are *contracted* by necessity, but in *Christ* they are *assumed* by will. — *It is explained.* And this is plain thus. For we draw these defects from our parents on account of the law of propagation and the law of concupiscence, which wars in those members; for a passible [parent] generates a passible [offspring], and one having the law of concupiscence in his members generates a son subject to concupiscence, from the guilt of which concupiscence all penalties belong to the offspring. And

therefore these penalties in us are called *contracted,* as drawn from the concurrence of two things, namely the propagation of nature and the corruption of concupiscence. — *Otherwise in Christ.* In Christ, however, it is otherwise; for he was propagated in neither mode, neither according to the propagation of natural law nor according to the corruption of lust; but the Holy Spirit, coming upon the Virgin herself and making her fruitful, purified his flesh from all foulness of corruption, yet left passibility. From that flesh, however, the Wisdom of the Father, namely the Son of God himself, built for himself an immaculate body, and united that body to himself and to the rational soul, which indeed had immunity from fault both in itself and in the conjoined flesh. And just as it had immunity from the guilt of fault, so according to the order of divine justice it ought to have had immunity from the passibility of misery. That, therefore, penalty remained in that flesh, this was from the dispensation of the one assuming, with the acceptance of that rational soul concurring at the same time, which in the first instant of its creation had the use of cognition, and it pleased him to be united to such a body for the salvation of the human race. — *Conclusion 2.* And so it is plain that such defects were in Christ not by the necessity of generation, but by the will of dispensation — by the will, I say, divine [and] going before, but by a created will accompanying. *Conclusion 3.* And I say that they were from the divine will not as from one *inflicting* anew, but as from one *leaving* [them] and *accepting* [them], since it was in his power and choice to exclude those defects. — Hence the reasons that are for this side are to be granted.

*Solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that God made not death; the response is plain: because God did not inflict that defect of mortality anew upon Christ's flesh, but did not take it away, since the flesh had it from its original principle. *Note.* Therefore such a defect is not said to be from the will of the one assuming as from an *efficient* [cause], but as from one *receiving* [it], since he could exclude [it].

2. To that which is objected secondly, that a defect has no efficient cause, but a deficient one; likewise the response is plain: because such defects do not take their rise from the action of God acting, but rather from a defect of the nature of the conceiving Virgin herself. *Note.* Yet it is attributed more to will than it is attributed to nature, on account of the fact that in the constitution of that body there was more by supernatural power than by natural.

3. To that which is objected, that that is from nature which is from a natural origin; it must be said that this does not hold true, unless something be understood to be from a natural origin in such a way that the preposition denotes not only *concomitance,* but also *cause*. But defects of this kind were in Christ at the beginning of his origin, yet they were not [there] according to natural propagation. For according to natural propagation such defects take their rise from a vitiated nature, inasmuch as that nature acts in a certain manner *naturally,* and in a certain manner *viciously;* but this does not hold true in the generation of Christ, which was beyond vice and above nature.

4. To that which is objected, that Christ in passibility was made like to his Mother; it must be said that, even if he were made like to her in some way, nonetheless a difference is found in the mode and the cause. For the Virgin has passibility on account of the guilt of original sin contracted by necessity; but Christ had passibility without any guilt found in him, from the divine dispensation alone. And therefore they are not said to have been in Christ altogether *from nature,* nor yet were they altogether *beyond nature;* for it was of the Mother's nature to generate such a son.

5. To that, then, which is objected, that that body was first formed before it was united; it must be said that, even if it were first [so] according to *nature* or according to the *order* of understanding, in *time* nonetheless the formation and the union were simultaneous; but both, namely the formation and the union, were preceded by the will of the Word forming and assuming such a body, and the will of the soul accompanied both. And therefore from this it cannot be concluded that the defect of passibility in the flesh preceded the act or command of the will. For the operation of the Holy Spirit himself in the Virgin, which indeed was according to the will of the Word, brought about the very conception of the flesh and the purgation from all foulness *first naturally,* before it was united to the soul; and with such a purgation a penalty ought not to stand according to the common law, according to which one immune from fault ought to be immune from penalty. — Hence as to what he himself adds, that purgation stands together with passibility; it must be said that, even if some purgation can stand together with passibility, such as the purgation that is from sins previously committed, that purity nonetheless which was in Christ could not have stood together with penalty, unless the dispensation of God and the acceptance of Christ's will had intervened. And so the response to the questions raised is plain.