SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER THE SON OF GOD ASSUMED A PERSON

State of the question. The difficulty is that the Son of God assumed an individualized nature and thus it appears that He assumed this particular man or person.

Reply. Nevertheless, the answer is that He did not assume a person, which is of faith against Nestorius,[702] inasmuch as the Church defined the union to be subsistential, so that there is only one person in Christ. the counterargument gives a quotation from St. Fulgentius, under the name of St. Augustine.

The theological explanation is given in the body of the article, which may be explained by the following syllogism. What is assumed must be presupposed to the assumption. But a person in human nature is not presupposed to assumption, but is rather the term of the assumption. Therefore the human person is not assumed; but the person of the Word assumed to Himself the human nature.

Indirect proof of minor. If the person were presupposed, then it was either corrupted, in which case its assumption was to no purpose; or it remained after the union, and then there were two persons in Christ, which is contrary to revelation, and then the union would not be personal, but accidental, as Nestorius contended.

Reply to first objection. The Son of God assumed an individualized human nature, or a singular human nature, namely, this human nature of Christ.

Reply to second objection. It is pointed out that "the nature assumed did not have its own personality through the loss of anything pertaining to the perfection of the human nature, but through the addition of something which is above human nature, which is union with a divine person." Concerning this difficulty, St. Thomas had said: "It is a greater dignity to exist in something nobler than oneself than to exist by oneself."[703]

Reply to third objection. St. Thomas says: "The divine person by His union hindered the human nature from having its own personality." Therefore St. Thomas considers personality to be something positive, real, and distinct from the nature. It is not identical with existence, because existence is a contingent predicate of any created person, whose formal constituent is personality. No created person, even created personality, is his or its existence. Thus St. Thomas often says that in every creature there is a difference between quod est and esse, namely, between suppositum and existence.[704]

Concerning Cajetan's great commentary, it suffices to note that he shows there is a distinction even between the individualized nature and subsistence. He says: "The whole force of the argument consists in this, that the constituent of a thing, in this respect, is that a being intrinsically and primarily susceptive of real entity, must be some reality. But this man, in this respect, differs from this humanity, because he includes in himself something by which he is primarily and intrinsically susceptive of some real entity that is repugnant to this human nature. Therefore he includes in himself a reality that constitutes him in being, by which he differs from this human nature. But he differs only in personal being, whereby this man is a hypostasis or person, which this human nature is not. Therefore the person of this man adds some reality that intrinsically constitutes him a human person, which this human nature is not."[705] This man is what is, whereas his individualized humanity is that whereby he is constituted in a certain species.

Wherefore St. Thomas says in the present article: "If created personality were presupposed to assumption, then it must either have been corrupted... or there would be two persons." And also in his reply to the third objection, he also says: "The divine person by His union hindered the human nature from having its personality." Hence Cajetan's interpretation, by which he shows that created personality is a substantial mode, truly has its foundation in this text quoted from St. Thomas.

More briefly, Cajetan's whole argument may be reduced to the following syllogism. The created suppositum differs from the nature inasmuch as it is what is, namely, the real subject of existence, which is attributed to it contingently. But that whereby anything is a real and not merely a logical subject of existence is something real, distinct from this nature and from existence, which is predicated contingently of a created person already formally constituted as a person. Therefore the created suppositum is something real that differs both from the individual nature and from existence.

Hence the whole of Cajetan's interpretation has its foundation in the legitimate transition from the common sense notion of personality to its philosophical notion, namely, from its nominal definition to its real definition, or from the Christian acceptation to its theological notion, as Cajetan himself remarks.[706]

Cajetan's opinion asserts only what is required for the verification of the following three arguments of common sense.

Likewise, applying this doctrine to Christ, in accordance with revelation, we say: "This man Jesus is God,"[709] meaning that this man is the same suppositum that is God, or is the same person. But the divine personality of Christ is distinct from the human nature He assumed.

Doubt. Could the Word have assumed a nature terminated by its own subsistence, this latter remaining.

Reply. The answer is in the negative. The reason is that it implies a contradiction for the same nature to subsist and not to subsist in a suppositum different from its own.

Objection. The divine nature is terminated simultaneously by the three personalities. Therefore, in like manner, the human nature could be terminated simultaneously by two personalities.

Reply. The comparison does not apply, for the three divine personalities are not foreign to but belong properly to the divine nature,[710] and from several subsistences that belong properly to the divine nature there follows one effect which is to subsist and be terminated in itself, although in divers ways. On the contrary, from a subsistence proper to a person and one foreign to it there follows a double effect that is repugnant, inasmuch as the person subsists in itself and not in another, and also subsists in another and not in itself.