Order of the Elements Assumed

With the assuming of the human soul, complete human nature was assumed. For it is the soul which is the substantial form (or essential substantial constituent and determinant) of a living bodily man. What the soul determines and substantially constitutes is the flesh-and-blood man. Hence, we say that God the Son assumed human flesh through the medium of the human soul.

The human soul has a capacity for God inasmuch as it can know him, and then love him. Now, the faculty of knowing God(the fundamental act which aligns the soul with its true end or goal), is the mind or intellect. The intellect is the highest,noblest, purest faculty of the soul. Hence, through the medium of intellect, God assumed the soul; and through the medium of the soul, he assumed the flesh.

The human soul of Christ was not assumed separately before the flesh. For human nature demands body-and-soul, and it is human nature that was assumed.

Nor did the Son of God first assume the flesh, and afterwards the soul. St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox,iii 2) says: “At one and the same time, the Word of God was made flesh, and the flesh was united to a rational and intelligent soul.”

The Son of God assumed human nature entire, and therefore assumed its parts. He did not assume part after part until the whole was made up; he did not assume human nature throughthe medium of parts, but he assumed the parts through the medium ofthe whole.

If we understand the word grace to mean God’s free giving of Christ to redeem mankind, then grace isthe effective cause of the assuming of human nature by God the Son. But even in this meaning of grace, we cannot say that grace is a means for effecting the union of the human nature andthe divine Nature. More precisely, grace means either: (a) the grace of union, which is the very Person given freely to subsist inhuman nature; or (b) habitual or sanctifying grace which constitutes the human nature in holiness. Now, the grace of union cannot be the means for assuming human nature; this grace is Christ, the term or outcome of the assuming. Nor can habitualgrace be the means of assuming the human nature; this grace presupposes the human nature already assumed. Therefore, we say: the human nature of Christ was not assumed by means of grace.