Lecture 15

15. Divine Nature, Assumption, and the Incarnation

Summary
This lecture explores whether divine nature (as opposed to divine persons) can assume human nature, how the human intellect can abstract personality from God’s nature, and whether divine persons other than the Son could have become incarnate. Berquist works through Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of these questions, emphasizing the distinction between the act of assumption (proceeding from divine power common to all three persons) and the term of assumption (the divine person to which human nature is united), and clarifies how both God’s simplicity and the Trinity inform these theological conclusions.

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

  • Whether divine nature assumes human nature - The distinction between nature as principle of action versus person as terminus of union
  • Abstracting personality from divine nature - How the human intellect can consider God’s nature separately from the three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
  • Whether divine persons other than the Son could assume human nature - The possibility and fittingness of the Father or Holy Spirit becoming incarnate
  • Divine power and personal properties - How divine power (common to three persons) relates to the act of assumption, while personality (particular to each person) constitutes the term

Key Arguments #

Article 2: Does Divine Nature Assume? #

Against: Nature did not take human nature to itself; union occurs in person, not nature. Divine nature is common to three persons, so if assumption belonged to nature, all three would assume. Assumption is an action, which belongs to persons, not natures.

Response: Assumption involves two aspects:

  1. Beginning of the act - the divine power/nature acting (common to all three persons)
  2. Term of the act - the divine person as endpoint (particular to one person)

Thus: The divine nature assumes “by reason of the person of the Word.” The Father does not properly assume because Father and Son are not the same suppositum.

Article 3: Can Nature Assume Abstracting from Personality? #

Two modes of intellection regarding divine things:

  1. Knowing God as He is in reality (no separation possible—Trinity and simplicity remain intact)
  2. Knowing God through our divided, multiple mode of understanding (separation in thought possible)

In the second mode: We can understand divine nature without the three persons, just as Aristotle and the Jews understood God as one subsisting nature and therefore as one person capable of assuming.

Key distinction: Abstracting personality leaves something remaining in intellect (the divine nature as subsisting and personal), unlike taking away form from matter entirely (which leaves nothing).

Article 4: Can One Divine Person Assume Without Others? #

Principle: The act of assuming proceeds from divine power (common to three). The term of assumption is the person (proper to one).

Key argument: “Three persons made it that human nature would be united to the one person of the Son.”

Appropriation example: The Holy Spirit “overshadowing” the Virgin attributed to Him due to associations with love and mercy, though all three persons perform the action.

Article 5: Could the Father or Holy Spirit Become Incarnate? #

Against: This would make God “Son of Man” without being Son of God, confusing the persons. Adoptive sonship for us derives from Christ’s natural sonship, which belongs only to the Son.

Response:

  • Divine power relates equally and without distinction to all three persons
  • Each person is equally a person—no person is “more a person” than another
  • Therefore, the Father or Holy Spirit could have assumed flesh, though the Son actually did
  • Temporal sonship (being born of Virgin) does not constitute eternal personality
  • If Father were incarnate, we would receive adoptive sonship appropriately from Him as source of natural sonship

Important Definitions #

  • Assumptio (Assumption): “To take to oneself”—involves both the act of taking and the terminus/end to which something is taken
  • Suppositum: The underlying individual substance; the particular subject (person or hypostasis)
  • Hypostatic Union: Union accomplished in the person, not in the nature
  • Appropriation: Assigning common divine actions to particular persons based on their personal properties (e.g., creation to Father, though all three create)
  • Kundum se (By itself/In itself): Considered according to its own nature without relation to persons
  • Personal property: What distinguishes and constitutes each person (Fatherhood, Sonship, Procession for the Holy Spirit)

Examples & Illustrations #

  • Color and visibility: Just as a body cannot be seen without color (the property on which visibility depends), so divine nature cannot assume without the person (the property on which assumption terminates)
  • Discrete vs. continuous quantity: Discrete quantity is like number (distinct units); the Incarnation belongs to “discrete theology” because something distinct is said of the three persons
  • Common to many vs. particular: Understanding man without any individual (black, white, yellow) parallels understanding divine nature without the three persons; but if only individual men exist, remove all individuals and nothing remains—similarly, removing all persons from God leaves nothing
  • Ruminating animals: The mind, like ruminant animals, should “chew” on arguments, returning to them to extract further understanding

Questions Addressed #

  1. Does assumption belong to nature or person? - Primarily to person as terminus; secondarily to nature as principle (by reason of the person)
  2. Can we abstract personality and still understand nature assuming? - Yes, in our divided mode of understanding, though not as God is in Himself
  3. Could the Father or Holy Spirit have become incarnate? - Yes, the divine power could have united human nature to any person; the Son actually did so
  4. Would the other persons assuming contradict “undivided works of the Trinity”? - No; the operation (act of assuming) is common, but the term (the person) is particular
  5. What of temporal sonship (being born)? - It does not constitute eternal personality; the Father could be incarnate without being “the sent one,” though temporal birth would not be called sending

Notable Quotes #

“The divine nature is both that by which God acts, and it is also God himself acting.”

“Therefore, whatever is attributed to God in the abstract, considered by itself, other things being cut off, will be something subsisting, and consequently, a person.”

“The whole divine nature is said to be incarnate, not because it is incarnate in all three persons, but because nothing is lacking of the perfection of divine nature to the person who is incarnate.”

Philosophical Method #

Berquist emphasizes how Thomas navigates the Incarnation doctrine by:

  1. Distinguishing multiple aspects of a single operation (beginning vs. term, act vs. terminus)
  2. Using the principle of appropriation to explain Scripture’s attribution of actions to particular persons
  3. Demonstrating how divine simplicity and divine operations relate to the Trinity without contradiction
  4. Showing how human reason (intellect in its divided mode) can approach mysteries it cannot fully comprehend as God comprehends them