Dist. 5, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/5/q/bon-sent-III-d5-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether assuming can befit the divine nature, with every person abstracted.*

Fourthly it is asked, whether assuming can befit the divine nature, with every person abstracted. And that it can, it seems.

1. (*Toward the opposite.*) When all persons are abstracted, the Omnipotent is still understood; but to the Omnipotent no word is impossible: therefore it seems that, with every personality abstracted, it is possible for God to assume flesh.

2. Likewise, with every personality abstracted, God is still understood as supremely good; but because he is supremely good, he loves the creature, and through his exceeding charity he assumed human nature: therefore, with every personality abstracted, it is still possible to understand that God can assume human flesh.

3. Likewise, with every personality abstracted, God is still understood as able to create and able to restore the human race; but he restores by assuming flesh: therefore the same as before seems to return.

4. Likewise, with every personality abstracted, God is still understood as wise, and therefore as knowing and able to overcome and conquer the tyrant; but the mystery of the assumption is for conquering and overcoming the tyrant: therefore he is understood as able to assume flesh.

**On the contrary:** 1. (*Foundations.*) To assume is to unite to oneself, therefore either in a supposit or in a form; but the divine nature cannot unite the human to itself in a form: therefore if it unites in any way, it is necessary to unite in a supposit and a person: therefore, with supposits and persons abstracted, it is altogether impossible to understand an assumption.

2. Likewise, assumption asserts some action; but no action is understood to belong to anything except as a being in act — for nothing is a being in act except insofar as it is in a supposit — therefore, with the supposit abstracted, there is no understanding of any assumption.

3. Likewise, it is impossible to understand that a human nature is assumed, unless it be assumed in an individual or in a singular, because, as Damascene holds, «a nature apart from singulars exists only in bare consideration»: therefore by parity of reasoning it is impossible to understand that an assumption takes place in a nature abstracted from every person.

4. Likewise, it is impossible that the assumption of anything befit anyone except after its completed being — for no one assumes anything to himself except after he is complete — but the perfect completion of a rational nature is nothing but a person: therefore, with every personality circumscribed, it is impossible that the human nature be assumed by the divine.

> ### Conclusion.
> With every personality circumscribed, it cannot be understood that the human is assumed by the divine nature; but with the personality circumscribed [only] as faith determines, this assumption can be understood, though not so fittingly.

**I respond:** It must be said that there are two ways of circumscribing personality in the divine by the intellect: either simply, or as faith determines. (*Distinction.*) — (*First member.*) The intellect of personality is circumscribed simply, when the divine nature is considered as in itself, not in any determinate supposit, and insofar as it is communicable to many, not insofar as it is in this one or in that one. And in this way the divine nature is considered after the manner of something orderable toward another. And in this way it is not understood according to the account of acting nor of being acted upon, because action is not attributed to a form except in a supposit. And so the assumption cannot befit it (*First conclusion.*), both because such a nature is not understood as an agent, since action belongs to a form in a supposit; and also because such a nature, considered thus, has nothing in which it could be united with a human nature; for it cannot be united in a form. And these two things fall within the meaning of this word, which is "to assume"; and therefore on account of both there is an impediment, such that the assumption can in no way be understood to befit a nature considered in abstraction from all personality.

(*Second member.*) In another way personality can be circumscribed in the divine not simply, but in the manner in which faith determines, namely [the personality] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, yet in such a way that there be understood there a supposit of rational nature, as the Jews and the pagans understand. And in this way the assumption can be understood to befit God (*Second conclusion.*); though not so fittingly as it is understood when the personal distinction is presupposed. — (*It is explained.*) For granted that only that person which is unbegettable were in the divine, he could indeed assume humanity, and it can be understood that God should become man; but yet it would not be so fitting as it is now, because then there would not be there the account of mediation nor of satisfaction nor of mission, as there is now, when the Son is sent by the Father and makes satisfaction to the Father on behalf of man and is mediator between God the Father and the human race. Hence no one has ever understood the incarnation, unless he has first understood the distinction of persons.

(*Epilogue.*) It must therefore be conceded that, with the personality circumscribed [only] as faith determines, even though the assumption can be understood, yet not so fittingly. But with every personality circumscribed, it does not come about that the human is assumed by the divine nature. Hence the reasons toward that side are to be conceded, because they proceed according to that way.

**To the arguments:** *1, 2, 3, 4.* (*Solution of the opposing [arguments].*) But to that which is objected on the contrary — that the divine nature, with the persons abstracted, is understood as supremely powerful, as supremely wise, and as supremely good, and as the effective cause of creatures — to all those reasons one can reply by way of destroying [them], if it be understood that an abstraction is made from every supposit. For necessarily whoever thinks of God thinks of him as someone having deity or an intellectual nature; otherwise he does not think of him as perfectly being in himself, nor as perfectly powerful, nor as supremely wise. There is also another understanding there, because for the assumption there is required not only an efficient cause, but also that in which the union takes place. And therefore, granted that, with every personality circumscribed, the divine nature were considered under the account of being perfectly powerful and wise, yet it could not be thought of under the account of an assumer, because there could not be there an understanding of unitability.