Question LIII. In what manner of communication did the flesh of Christ become a participant in the divine attributes?
The manner of communication by which the flesh of Christ became a participant in the divine operative attributes is not effective, by duplication (a), nor transitory or transfusive (b), nor equalizing (c), nor overthrowing or destructive of human nature (d), but rather, it is entelechial and perichoretic (e), not by subjective inherence (f), but by common possession, usage, and denomination (g).
Proof a. There is not a double omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and glory in Christ, but rather, the same glory that the divine nature of the Logos has from eternity, the assumed flesh received in time, as stated in John 17:5, just as the body has the same life that the soul has.
Proof b. The attributes of the Son of God are communicated to the humanity in such a way that they always remain properties of the divine nature and never become properties of the human nature. For they do not depart from the hypostasis of the Word and migrate or pass into the human nature as into a subject; rather, the humanity, having been assumed into the communion of the person by God the Word, has at the same time also been made a participant in the divine nature and its properties. Nor does it receive them in itself as in a subject, so that they become its own properties, but it possesses them in the person of the Word by a real communication.
Proof c. For equalization, the communication of the same thing is not sufficient, but in addition, the same mode of possessing it is required; and this is different with respect to God and the Son of God than it is with respect to the flesh: the former possesses majesty through eternal generation, the latter through the grace of union. Hence, even today, Christ, as man, is less than the Father (1 Cor. 15:28), because the divine attributes that He has received, He possesses by grace (Phil. 2:9).
Proof d. Through the communication of attributes, human nature is not abolished or destroyed; rather, it is adorned and perfected for the function of the mediatorial office. For the fullness of divinity inhabits the body of Christ as its own temple, not to overthrow it but to illuminate it.
Proofs e. & f. The internal and perfect union of two substances, which are indeed essentially distinct yet intimately conjoined, one possessing the nature of ὲντελεχείας (i.e., a perfecting act), the other of δυνάμεως (i.e., a capacity for perfection), necessarily entails the communication of attributes. These attributes inhere subjectively in the more excellent, uncreated substance, while the other participates in them through common possession, usage, and denomination. For example, life and sensitive faculties inhere in the soul and express themselves through the body’s members. Fire is present in iron, yet it burns and shines through the glowing iron. Regarding specifically the divine attributes of the Logos, since they are not qualities or accidents, they do not inhere in any subject as a mode of inherence. Nevertheless, their first and immediate subject of attribution, to which they formally and inherently belong, is the divine nature of the Son of God. The second and mediate subject of attribution, to which they pertain by participation and by the grace of personal union [per unionis personalis gratiam], is the human nature.
Proof g. The ἐνεργητικὰ [energetic] divine attributes dwell in the flesh of Christ as in their proper temple, operate through the flesh as through an instrument hypostatically united, and are predicated of the flesh as its second or mediate subject of attribution.
