VII. To the Principal Arguments

80. To the principal arguments [nn.8-10].

As to the first [n.8], it is conceded that one angel is created before another, but it does not follow because of this that there is in the existence of the angel first created a ‘before’ and ‘after’.

81. As to the second [n.9], it can likewise be said that an angel can be annihilated, and in the same ‘now’ negatively (if it has a ‘now’), that is, that its ‘now’ should cease along with it; but if its ‘now’ does not differ from its existence, then it can be annihilated with eternity and can exist with eternity, but not with the whole nature of the present-ness of eternity [nn.71-72].

82. To the last one [n.10] I say that the being of the [angel] restored follows the not-being of the [angel] annihilated, and that the not-being of the annihilated was preceded by the being of the created, and that the being of the created was preceded by the not-being of the creatable - and so the ‘being’ follows the same being, with the interrupting not-being in between. Nor does there follow from this any continuation in the being itself ‘if it had not been annihilated’ [n.10], because there is not now any succession in some one thing, but succession of one opposite to another [sc. not-being to being to not-being to being].Vatican Editors remark that Scotus means the identically same being is restored as was annihilated, not some other being, and that the not-being of annihilation was identically the same as the not-being prior to creation, not some other not-being. ²³

83. On the contrary: therefore in this way the interrupted existence is at one with itself restored, as if it was a non-interrupted existence.

I reply: if there was no succession there of opposite to opposite [sc. of being to not-being to being] (which opposite [not-being] mediates between this being [the being of the created] and itself [the being of the restored]), the consequence would be that there would be as much at-oneness as if the opposite did not intervene; but now the opposite mediates as it were between the created being and that very being repaired (and this ‘opposite’ is a mean, or has a certain relation to both extremes), and so these are not as at one as if not-being did not intervene. However, just as in this case the same repaired ‘now’ (or the same existence, if it requires no ‘now’ [n.72]) is the same, and there is ‘created existence and repaired existence’ in the same thing without any succession in it in itself (although, as posited in being, it succeeds itself as previously posited in being) -so it would have been in the same ‘now’ if it had not been interrupted, and without any succession, in either way.