C. Scotus’ own Response

501. I say therefore to the question [n.486] that a plurality is not to be posited without necessity,A version of Ockham’s famous razor, which at least in this form is not original to Ockham. ⁴² and there is no necessity why one should posit a discrete time that measures the motion of an angel - for whatever is secured by that discrete time is also secured by continuous time in general; for just as they [sc. those who posit such a discrete time] must say that, if an angel passes through something in an instant, he cannot immediately have another instantaneous passing through, so one can, if an angel instantaneously passes through something in an instant of common time, posit that, although he can immediately have after that instant a continuous motion in actual time, yet he cannot immediately have an instantaneous passing through. There is nothing unacceptable, then, in positing that an angel, to the extent he participates in bodily condition (that is, a condition which is in some way of the same nature in himself as in a body), also participates in some way in the measure of body; but to the extent he moves locally, he participates in a ‘where’ (which is a bodily property that is in some way of the same nature in himself as in a body); therefore he can also be measured by the measure of the first moved body.

502. And if you object that an angel could move while the heaven is stationary, so there is no need for his motion to be in time - I reply:

Peter after the resurrection will be able to walk about when the heaven is thus stationary, and yet this walking about is not imagined to be in any time other than our common continuous time, even though it takes place when there is no first motion of the heaven. The resting of the heaven itself, indeed, is (as was said before [n.178]) measured potentially by the time by which the first motion - if it existed - would be positively and actually measured; and by that potential time can another motion be measured which is then actually existing, such that there is no need for what is measured by the first heaven to depend in its essence (or in its being) on that motion (as was the case with the motion when the heaven was standing still in the time of Joshua [Joshua 10.12-14]), because this measuring of a quantity by quantity and quality is not by something on which the measured thing essentially depends (as is true in the case of quidditative measures), but it is sufficient only for that motion - when it exists - to be able to be distinctly known, according to its quantity, by a distinct knowledge of time, whether actual or potential time. And thus I say that, when this motion of the heaven does not exist, yet another motion will be able to be measured by the time of that motion of the first heaven, namely insofar as the other motion could take place simultaneously with some amount of the former motion, if the former motion existed, and takes place now with as great an amount of rest as there could be of the motion.

503. On this supposition then, that there is no need to posit for the motion of an angel a measure other than common time [n.501] - when it is asked ‘whether an angel could change or move in an instant’ [n.486], I say that change can be understood in two ways and can be said in two ways: one way includes the whole reality of motion, and the other includes the reality precisely of the term of motion.

An example. That this thing is changed from ‘where’ a to ‘where’ b can be understood in two ways: either that it possesses at once all the intermediate ‘wheres’ (in the way it would if it precisely moved successively), or that it would possess by that change exactly the ultimate ‘where’ (the way it would if the change were the ultimate term of motion).

504. In the first way - in contradiction to the second opinion [n.490] - I do not see in what way an angel could by natural power move or change in an instant, because it does not seem that he could by his natural power have several ‘wheres’ equal to himself [n.499]; in the second way [n.503] it does not seem he could not move in an instant, because the fact that the term of a motion is not immediately introduced comes from the imperfection of the power of the mover - and this imperfection is not to be attributed to an angel unless some necessity appears, because a nature should be granted as much worth as appearances allow.