Dist. 2, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/2/q/bon-sent-III-d2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the assumed nature with respect to the fittingness of the union.*
### Question I. *Whether the fittingness for union is greater in a rational creature than in the whole universe.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus and it is asked whether the fittingness is greater in a rational nature than in the whole universe, or the contrary. And that the fittingness is greater in a rational nature seems [to be the case]:

1. *First*, because God assumed only a rational nature: if therefore God always does what is better and more fitting, it seems that the fittingness is greater in a rational nature than in the whole world-machine.

2. *Likewise*, the created nature [that was] assumed is [assumed] into the unity of a person; and what is more suited to personal unity is more suited to being assumed: if therefore personal dignity exists only in a rational creature, it seems that it is most fitting that it alone be united.

3. *Likewise*, the grace of union is greater than the grace of fruition or beatification; but only the rational nature is disposed to fruition: therefore it alone seems to have a fittingness for union.

4. *Likewise*, the whole universe was made for the sake of the rational creature: therefore the rational creature is more excellent than all the other things which belong to the constitution of the universe: therefore it draws nearer to God; and what draws nearer to God is more fitting to be united to God: therefore, etc.

5. *Likewise*, the whole universe is not said to be made to the image and likeness of God, but only the rational creature; but the image bespeaks an express likeness: therefore among all creatures only the rational creature is more expressly assimilated to God. But that alone is fitting for union with God which has an express likeness with him: therefore the same as before.

**Sed contra:**

1. Augustine *to Volusianus*: « In marvelous things the whole account of the deed is the power of the doer »: therefore, since the incarnation is the assumption of a creature and is a marvelous work, it seems that the whole account of the assumption is on the part of the doer: therefore the fittingness is not greater in a rational nature than in another created nature.

2. *Likewise*, of things infinitely distant, the one does not approach [the other] more than the other does; but every creature is distant from the divine nature to infinity: therefore there is no greater fittingness in a rational creature than in others.

3. *Likewise*, the incarnation contributes in some way to the completion of the whole universe; but the universe would be more perfected if God were united to the whole itself than to the part itself: therefore it seems that the whole universe is more apt for union than the rational creature.

4. *Likewise*, a universal effect is more assimilated to a universal cause than a particular effect is; but the universe encloses within itself universally every effect of God: therefore it is more assimilated to God than the rational nature. But what is more assimilated to God has a greater fittingness for union: therefore, etc.

5. *Likewise*, that is more unitable in whose assumption the divine power, wisdom, and goodness are more manifested; but the universe is of this kind. *Proof of the minor:* for the divine power, wisdom, and goodness are more manifested in the making of the whole universe than of any part of it, because, since each of its parts is good, its universe is not only good, but even *very good*: therefore if [it] is more manifested in the making of the universe, much more does it seem that it would be manifested in the assumption of the universe.

### Conclusio.

> The fittingness for union in the whole universe is not so great as it is in some part of it, namely in the rational creature.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that the nobility for union is not so great in the whole universe as it is in some part of it, namely in the rational nature.

And the reason for this is the defect of *unity*, and of *personal dignity*, and of *likeness* or conformity, which indeed is found in the whole universe; and therefore it is not suited for union with a divine person, as the rational creature is. — For the universe has a *multitude of parts* differing in number, genus, and species; and therefore it is not fit for union with God in the *unity of a hypostasis*. — It also has parts *lacking life and reason and sense*, and therefore falling short of the excellence of personal property, and on this account it does not have aptitude for union in the unity of a *person*. — It also has parts in which only the account of a vestige is found, and therefore *falling short of conformity to an express likeness*, and consequently unfit for so great an *excellence of union*. — But in the rational creature there can be found *unity*, and *personal dignity*, and *express conformity*; and therefore in it the aptitude or fittingness for being assumed is greater. — And consequently the arguments which show this must be granted.

*To 1.* To that which is objected concerning the word of Augustine, that the whole account of the deed is the power of the doer; it must be said that there is an account of *causality* and an account of *fittingness*: of causality in the effecting, of fittingness in the receiving. When therefore Augustine says that the account of the deed is wholly the power of the doer, he understands it of the account of *causality*, not of the account of *fittingness*.

*To 2.* To that which is objected concerning the infinity of distance, it must be said that, as was held in the first and second [book], when it is said that every creature is distant from God to infinity, it is understood of the distance *by recession from the equality and participation of a third nature*, because nothing is univocal of the creature and the Creator, nor in anything can the creature be made equal to the Creator; but it does not hold true of the distance which is regarded *by opposition* *to agreement according to the account of order and imitation*. For the rational creature is *ordered immediately to God* and *most expressly* among creatures *imitates God*; and by reason of this *assimilation* and *agreement* it has the account of an image and a fittingness with respect to the divine union.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the incarnation contributes to the completion of the universe; it must be said that this is *accidental*; nevertheless it more fittingly contributes to the complement of the universe in the assumption of the noblest creature than of all of them; since a *multitude* must be reduced to some *one* as to a complement, because stability lies in unity rather than in multitude. — To that which is objected, that the whole universe is more assimilated than the rational creature; it must be said that to be assimilated is said in two ways: *intensively* or *extensively*. And extensively it is true that a greater world is more assimilated to the archetypal world or to God than a lesser one, or the whole universe more than the rational creature. *Qualitatively* or *intensively* it is the converse, on account of the great distance of some of its parts, in which the divine goodness shines back from afar as in a vestige.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that the divine power, wisdom, and goodness would be more manifested if it were to assume the universe; it must be said that this is false; because to bring it about by union that an ass should become God or any other brute would rather disgrace the divine power and wisdom than commend it. But to bring it about that man should be God in no way prejudices either the power or the wisdom, since man is born to be made deiform. — Nor is that valid which it objects, that the divine power and wisdom are more manifested in the making of the universe than in the making of some part of it; for the reason that it befits the divine power and wisdom to produce into being not only the more noble creatures but also the less noble; and therefore both in these and in those [it is] commended,

and is more manifested in all together than in any of them by itself; but it is not so concerning the assumption, as has been seen.