SIXTH ARTICLE: WHETHER SEVERAL DIVINE PERSONS CAN ASSUME ONE AND THE SAME INDIVIDUAL NATURE

State of the question. The meaning is: Can the three persons assume this human nature, terminating it proximately and immediately by their own relations?

The difficulty is that it could not then be said the human nature is assumed by one man or by several men, because there would be one human nature and three divine persons who possess it.

Reply. Yet St. Thomas affirms the possibility of the three persons assuming one and the same human nature. It is the commonly accepted teaching, but it was attacked by Scotus.

Indirect proof. It is taken from the counterargument of this article, and proceeds by way of analogy; for just as the divine nature is common to the three persons, so likewise the human individualized nature can be common to Them.

A more direct and proper proof is found in the argumentative part of this article. It may be expressed by the following syllogism.

The divine persons do not exclude one another from communicating in the same nature, since they terminate together the same divine nature.

But in the mystery of the Incarnation, the whole reason of the deed is the power of the doer, as Augustine says.

Therefore in passing judgment on the act, we must take into special consideration the condition of the person assuming, who does not exclude the other two persons from communicating in the same nature.

There is no repugnance on the part of the human nature, because it can be assumed, not by reason of its natural limited power, but because of its obediential power, which extends to all that is not essentially repugnant.

What is truly impossible is for a divine person to assume a human person, for then there would be two persons in one person.

Reply to first objection. It contains the solution of the difficulty proposed in the objection, namely, that, granting the hypothesis, it would be true to say that the three divine persons were one man, because of the one human nature, just as we say that they are one God, because of the one divine nature, which is one numerically, without any multiplication and division.[676]