SIXTH ARTICLE: WHETHER THE HUMAN NATURE WAS ASSUMED THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF GRACE

This article is inserted here because of the necessity of explaining the threefold meaning of the word "grace."

Two conclusions follow from this distinction.

Thus St. Thomas, speaking of the grace that predestines the elect, inquires whether predestination places anything in the predestined, and he replies: "Predestination is not anything in the predestined, but only in the person who predestines.... But the execution of predestination, which is the calling, the justification, the magnification, is in the predestined."[787]

Doubt. Is there a created actuation produced by the uncreated act in the hypostatic union by the very fact that Christ's human nature began to be actuated terminatively by the Word, as Father de la Taille contends? Is the grace of union in Christ anything created, as St. Thomas maintains?

This question is about the same as that concerning the substantial mode whereby Christ's humanity is united with the Word.[788]

Reply. Both parts of the question are denied. St. Thomas says in the present article: "The grace of union is the personal being that is given gratis from above to the human nature in the person of the Word," and therefore it cannot be understood in the sense of a created medium, a created actuation that is produced by the uncreated act. The grace of union is not something created, but it is the very Word that terminates the human nature, both possessing and sanctifying it.

Likewise, when St. Thomas inquires about the union of the two natures in Christ, as to whether it was effected by grace, he replies: "If grace be understood as the will of God gratuitously doing something, ... then the union of the Incarnation took place by grace, ... but not as though there were a habitual grace by means of which the union took place."[789] It would have been so, however, if there were a created and indeed supernatural actuation produced by the uncreated act.

St. Thomas says, too, in the present article: "Grace is an accidental perfection of the soul, and therefore it cannot ordain the soul to personal union, which is not accidental."[790]

We have already quoted the passage in which St. Thomas says: "It must be known that in the union of the divine nature and the human nature, there can be no medium that formally causes the union, to which the human nature is previously joined before it is united with the divine person; just as there can be no mediating being between matter and form, which would be previously in the matter before the substantial form, otherwise accidental being would be prior to substantial being, which is impossible. So also, between nature and suppositum there can be no medium in the above-mentioned manner, since each conjunction is for substantial union."[791] But it is shown that the union, as a real relation of the human nature with the Word, is the consequent or resulting effect; for St. Thomas says: "This relation follows, which is called union; hence union is the medium, not as causing the assumption, but as following it."[792]

St. Thomas also shows elsewhere that the union is declared to be something created since it is a real relation of Christ's human nature to the Word, but it is only a logical relation of the Word to the human nature. Thus creation in the passive sense is a real relation of the creature to the Creator.[793]

As we remarked above,[794] it cannot properly be said that the human nature undergoes a change in its assumption by the Word, and that this change is the finite actuation produced by the uncreated act.

St. Thomas shows that we look upon creation as a change, whereas in reality it is not a change, saying: "Change means that the same something should be different now from what it was previously."[795] But this is impossible in the case of creation, and even in the assumption of Christ's humanity, because the subject that is to undergo the change is not as yet in existence. As Thomas says, "When motion is removed from action and passion, only relation remains."[796] Hence passive creation is simply a relation of dependence, which is likewise the case with Christ's hypostatic union. This means that Christ's human nature is dependent on the Word.

Likewise the formal effect is not distinct from the form that is received in the subject. Thus the formal effect of whiteness is to make a thing white, and it is only by this whiteness that anything is white. Similarly man is made pleasing to God by habitual grace.

Matter is also actuated by form, and there is no distinction between this actuation and its substantial form, otherwise, as St. Thomas stated above, "accidental being would be prior to substantial being, which is impossible."[797]

But if the actuation of prime matter is the same as the formal act that it receives, so also the actuation produced by the uncreated act cannot be anything created, because then there would be a real and infinite distinction between it and the uncreated act.

Thus we terminate the metaphysical questions concerning the mode of the union of the human nature with the Word, first in itself, and then on the part of the person assuming, and of the human nature that is assumed together with its parts, as also the order in which these parts are assumed. Let us pass on now to consider questions that are not so much metaphysical as psychological and spiritual, and that concern the co-assumed parts, such as Christ's grace, knowledge, power, His sensitive nature or His propassions. But metaphysical questions will again arise, when we consider the consequences of the hypostatic union,[798] namely, the truth of the propositions because of the personal unity in Christ, and when we come to inquire whether there is unity of being in Christ, just as there is unity of person in Him.[799]

It is already to some extent apparent that the answer will be in the affirmative.