Nature
glossary_termThe created order (34l). Human nature, though wounded and weakened by the effects of original sin, continues to participate in the goodness of God's creative work (405). Through the Incarnation the second Person of the Trinity assumed our human nature, taking flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary (456). The divine nature refers to the one divine substance or essence; each of the three distinct Persons of the Trinity is entirely God, who is one by the divine nature
Catechism Passages
Passages ranked by relevance to Nature, from most closely related outward.
The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity". 83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by Nature one God." 84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature." 85
Although it is proper to each individual, 295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human Nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."