A. The Opinion of Others
88. My response.
The first opinion in the preceding question [n.11] should concede the affirmative side, because aeviternity [according to this opinion] truly posits the idea of measure and quantity in its proper sense [n.48] - and so aeviternity differs from the existence of an angel, which existence is not in itself formally an extension, a quantum, but is indivisible.
89. Likewise, in that existence one ‘now’ of aeviternity succeeds to another; therefore both ‘nows’ differ from the existence of an angel as something absolute (according to this position [nn.19, 49-51, 58]), because they are quasi-indivisibles of the genus of quantity.
90. Likewise some - holding the second opinion in the preceding question (about the indivisibility of aeviternity [nn.39, 42, 33]) - say that aeviternity itself belongs to the genus of quantity, not as a divisible but as an indivisible in that genus; such that from many indivisibles of the same species, measuring namely the existences of several aeviternal things of the same species, a discrete quantity can be composed, which is the number and measure in aeviternal things, just as number in corporeal things is composed of the discrete unities in those things (for this they adduce reasons - look for them).Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 12 a.8, “But someone might ask in what category the measure of angels is. And I say that it is in the category of quantity as the principle of it, in the way that unity and point and instant are in the category of quantity. For just as from diverse indivisibles measuring the diverse thoughts of any angel there is constituted one discrete measure, which is called time, because it is constituted from transient things measuring the being of a transient thing, so from the diverse indivisibles of aeviternities measuring the substance and ‘the being as to substance’ of several angels, differing in number in one species of angels, there is constituted one discrete measure, which does not deserve to be called time, because it is not constituted from transient things measuring the being of a transient thing as it is transient, but rather is constituted from permanent things of a permanent being as it is permanent; and so it is not a species of time but rather of number - and this number is from discrete unities in spiritual things, just as the number that the philosophers posit is from discrete units in corporeal thing. But if it happen that there is only one angel in one species, yet because there can be several angels, as we made clear elsewhere (ibid. 9 q.1), this makes no difference as to positing that such a number is some species of quantity - just as if everything corporeal were one continuum, this would make no difference as to positing that natural number is a species of quantity, since the continuum can be divided (at least by the intellect) and from the continuum something discrete comes to be. So therefore the aeviternity in a species, containing in itself diverse aeviternities measuring the being of diverse angels of the same species, is a discrete quantity and divisible into indivisibles - which indivisibles are the aeviternities of individual angels and differ in number among themselves; and if from the aeviternities of diverse angels differing in species a mathematical abstraction could be made, just as it can be made from the numbers of diverse corporeal things differing in species - then perhaps, just as there is one number ten for ten men and for ten horses (although the tens are not the same), so there is the same aeviternity in species for all the angels diverse in species, although the aeviternals would not be the same in species.”
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