Dist. 2, Art. 3, Q. 2
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-a3-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether the soul of Christ was assumed by the Word through the medium of some gratuitous habit.*

Second it is asked, whether the soul was assumed by the Word through the medium of some gratuitous habit. And that it was, it seems.

*To the opposite.*

1. Augustine, in the thirteenth book on the Trinity: « Among things that arise through time, the highest grace is that God is joined to man into the unity of the person, with no preceding merits »: therefore it seems that the Son of God is united to the soul through the medium of some grace or gratuitous gift.

2. Likewise, Augustine: « Whatever belongs to the Son of God by nature belongs to the Son of Man by grace »: therefore it seems that the union of the Word and the soul comes about through the medium of some gift of grace.

3. Likewise, God is more perfectly with something through union than through indwelling; but if God dwells in nothing except through the medium of some gratuitous gift, then it does not seem that He assumes the soul except through the medium of some habit or disposing grace.

4. Likewise, it is more for the soul to be united to the Word than to enjoy God; but the soul of Christ does not enjoy God except through the medium of some habit of glory, by which it is made deiform: therefore it seems that neither is it united to the Word itself except through the medium of some habit of grace, whose deiformity surpasses the deiformity of glory.

5. Likewise, union is a relation; but no *relation* is introduced into *being* except through the introduction of something *absolute*, because « in the *in-relation-to-something* there is no motion per se »: if therefore God assumes some soul which He did not previously assume, since this is not according to a change *of Himself*, because He is immutable, nor according to a change *of the soul* from *non-being* into *being*, because this change is creation; it remains therefore that this will be through the medium of the infusion of some most noble grace.

6. Likewise, to be united to the divine nature into the unity of the person exceeds every created nature; but when some creature is ordered to something which is above its own nature, it needs an aiding and elevating habit: therefore it seems that the soul is united to the divine nature through the medium of some habit of grace.

*Foundations.*

**Sed contra:** 1. Every grace, so far as it pertains to itself, regards the three persons equally, since it is an effect of the whole Trinity: therefore if a gratuitous habit caused union with the person of the Son of God, by the same account it would do so with the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit as well; but it is settled that the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit are not united to that soul into the unity of the person: therefore that union was not of any grace.

2. Likewise, every gratuitous habit signifies something created; but everything created is infinitely inferior to God: therefore man is made God by nothing created. But by the union it came about that man was God: therefore it does not seem that that union came about by any gratuitous habit.

3. Likewise, if that union came about by some gratuitous habit, then since the body is not receptive of that grace, the body would not be unitable; but the body is unitable and united: therefore it does not seem that the union of the soul to God comes about through an intermediary habit.

4. Likewise, let us suppose that God should assume one glorious soul and lay it aside; it is plain that that soul, both before the union and in the union and after the union, would have nothing but the habit of glory: if therefore that habit is common to the creature both united and not united, it seems then that the union of the divinity to the soul does not come about through the medium of any habit of glory. Nor is there any other habit above this to be granted: therefore it does not seem that the soul is united to the Word through the medium of any gratuitous habit.

### Conclusio

> The soul of Christ was not assumed by the Word through the medium of any gratuitous habit cooperating after the manner of a cause.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that when it is asked whether the soul is united to the Word itself through the medium of some gratuitous habit, this can be understood in two ways: *(Twofold sense.)* either that that habit holds in that union the account of *congruity*, or the account of *cause*. If it be so that it holds the account of *congruity*, then it can be conceded that *(Conclusion 1.)* the soul is united to the Word itself through the medium of a created habit, because it is not fitting that it be united to the Word unless it be made like Him by a habit of perfect deiformity. Hence the soul of Christ
was not only graced in the instant of union, but also glorified above all blessed souls, because it is not fitting that the soul of God lack deiformity.

But if that union is understood to come about through the medium of a gratuitous habit, in such a way that that habit holds with respect to the union the account of *cause*, then it does not hold true; *(Conclusion 2. Reason 1.)* because that union which is through an infused habit, as is the union of love and of knowledge, regards in common the three persons; but that union regards one alone. — *(Reason 2.)* Again, that union makes man to be *conformed* to God and *toward God*, because grace is an influence going forth from God and leading back to God; but this union makes man to be *God*; and therefore no created habit can effect this, nor does it come about by the conferral of some created good that man be God, but by this, that the very person of the Word makes itself the hypostasis and supposit of the human nature. *(Note.)* This, however, it does not do according to a change made *in itself*, but according to a change made *in the assumed nature*. But that change in the assumed nature consisted in the formation of the nature itself, in such a way that it lacked personal distinction in its proper genus and rested upon the divine person. — *(Why it is called grace.)* But because God does all this by gratuitous goodness, therefore the highest grace is said to be in the union of the divine nature to the human; not because that union is perfected or completed by any created influence, but because it comes about by the gratuitous goodness of God, *(Note.)* *with the influence* of the gratuitous gift *coexisting* toward *congruity*, not toward *causality*.

Hence the reasons which show that that union does not come about through the medium of any gratuitous habit are to be conceded; because they proceed along that way according to which something is said to come about through a gratuitous habit cooperating after the manner of a cause; just as man is justified through the medium of informing grace and merits through the medium of charity moving and ruling.

*(Solution of the opposing arguments.)* 1. 2. To the two authorities of Augustine adduced concerning the grace of union, it must be said that grace is there taken broadly, not for a habit informing the soul, but for that which is received gratis and surpasses the terminus of nature; and thus it can be said that a great grace was done to the body when it was assumed by the person of the Word. And so from this it does not follow that that union of the Word to the soul comes about through the medium of any gratuitous habit.

3. 4. To those two reasons concerning indwelling and enjoyment, it must be said that it is not similar, because *(Note.)* the indwelling of God in the soul and *enjoyment* itself posit some *act* which is done by the soul, with respect to which the infused grace is a *cause*, and toward which the soul is *enabled* through the medium of grace, and into which it *goes out* when it is aided and ruled by grace. But it is not so concerning *union*; because the human nature is united to the divine without any act of its own and holds itself there only after the manner of a *passive* thing, and not of an *active* one; and therefore it does not in this way need, through an aiding and ruling habit, a disposition which would be the *principle* of that union.

5. To that which is objected, that a relation is not introduced except through some change made in something absolute; it must be said that this is true; but just as two lines can be understood to be united at a point and continued, yet in such a way that there is no change in either of the lines except by this, that it loses the distinctness of unity; so it must be understood that if God should assume some individual of man already constituted in *being* and informed by *grace*, it would lose only its personal distinctness through the union with the Word itself in the unity of the person. But in the assumption of that nature which the Son of God assumed of the Virgin, the formation and the union were *simultaneous*; and therefore there never was in that man, as regards the human nature, a personal distinctness; for this the union itself with the Word brought about. And therefore it does not follow from this that the union in the unity of the person must come about through the medium of any gratuitous habit. For assumption properly regards that nature, although *congruously* it ought not to come about without grace.

6. To that which is objected last, that to be united to the divine nature surpasses the rank of a creature; it must be said that this is true; and therefore it must be conceded that such a union comes about from grace; but nevertheless it does not follow from this that it comes about through a created gift of grace, because every created gift is inferior to this union.

*(The grace of union is said in three ways.)* Hence if it be asked whether the grace of union signifies something created or uncreated; it must be said that the grace of union can be taken in three ways. For the grace of union can be called that by which the soul is made *gratuitously congruous* for the union; and thus it signifies a created gift of grace, by which the soul had deiformity excellently. In another way the grace of union is called the grace *effective* of the union; and thus it signifies an uncreated gift of grace. In a third way the *grace of union* can be called the very *gratuitous union*, or that which is done gratis; and thus on the part of the divine nature it signifies something *uncreated*, on the part of the human nature it signifies something *created*, not absolute, but relative; and thus the whole is clear.