II. To the Principal Arguments

27. To the arguments.

To the first argument [n.2] I say that an angel does not in vain guard a man, because he can do something with respect to man’s intellect - teaching through sensible signs - more efficaciously than a man can, and perhaps by doing something with respect to his imagination, and perhaps with respect to his possible intellect (in the last way stated [n.26]). Given even that an angel could do none of these things, the guarding of the angels would not be in vain, because they guard us from many of the assaults of the demons, according to what Jerome [Hilary] says in his homily (on Matthew 18.10, “Their angels always see, etc.”), “Nor would the life of mortals be safe [among so many assaults unless it were fortified by the guarding of the holy angels].”Hilary, Tractate on Psalms, psalm 134 n.17: “For there are angels for little ones who behold God every day. These spirits therefore are sent out for the salvation of the human race. For our infirmity, without the gift of the angels to be our guard, would not withstand so many and so great wickednesses of celestial spirits. God then produces these winds [sc. the good angels] from his storehouse, giving through them aid to human infirmity, so that these divine protectors for us against the worldly powers of the present darkness might keep watch in inheriting salvation for us.” ²⁴

28. To the second [n.3]: the consequence is not valid, because the lower passive thing [sc. our possible intellect, n.13] is not able in this present state to be affected by that agent [sc. an angel], and this because the passive thing is impeded for the present state from receiving anything such; hence this lack of power is not because of any defect in the active power of the angel or of impotency in the passive power of our intellect absolutely, but because of an impediment in it for this present state.

29. By this is also plain the answer to both proofs of the consequence [n.3]; for the active thing can act on the passive thing when the passive thing is not impeded from receiving such form as such an agent acts for - but when there is an impediment, the active thing cannot act by immediate power although it could by remote power.

30. And if you say that ‘then God cannot for this present state act immediately on the intellect without a phantasm’ - I say that the consequence is not valid, because the impediment for the present state is an order among the inferior powers [n.13], and this order is subject to the causality of God but not to the causality of any creature - and therefore in the case of any created agent (which presupposes this order) there is an impediment, but not in the case of God, who is above this order.

31. As to the final argument [n.4], it is plain that sensible things can affect the intellect for this present state but purely intelligible things cannot; not, however, because they are not active, nor because our intellect is not passive with respect to them absolutely, but because it is for this present state impeded from being immediately acted on by, or receptive to, such things. But when this sort of impediment is removed, then it will receive, as it will in blessedness; for then an angel will speak to a blessed man and a blessed man to another blessed man, as was said before that ‘angel speaks to angel intellectually’ [n.13, d.9 nn.49-52]; for then, according to the promise of the Savior (Matthew 22.30), we will be “like the angels of God in heaven”.

32. And from this is plain why a teacher cannot cause science in his students; not because of a defect of active power in the science of the one teaching, but because of a blindness in this present state in the intellect of the student - for which state he is prevented from being thus affected, because for this present state he is determined to phantasms as to what affects him, as is plain from what has been said [nn.31, 28, 13].a

a. a[Interpolation] Question: Whether matter can exist without form, that is, whether it is repugnant to matter to exist in fact without form. Here Avicenna replies [that it cannot] Metaphysics 2 ch.3 -and for this he has several reasons. First it seems that what is indefinite [sc. matter] cannot exist without a definite term; second, either matter would exist in place, and then either divisibly and as of determinate quantity, or indivisibly, and thus it would be a point; or it would not exist in place, and then it would be an intelligence; the third reason he gestures to is that form is the cause of matter’s existing in fact and not conversely. See what he says there. - For the opinion [sc. of Avicenna, that matter cannot exist without form] there are the reasons of the moderns [identity unknown] who hold this opinion, and their Achilles is: because if matter can exist without form then for the same reason it can exist without privation, which is more separable or alone separable (because it is other than matter). They prove this in many ways by means of problems about the same and different, Topics 7.1-2.151b28-153a5. The falsity of the consequent is plain, because thus matter would be deprived [sc. not have form] and not deprived [sc. not have privation], and would lack [sc. lack form] and not lack [sc. lack privation, which is to lack nothing]. Against this opinion are the reasons of Scotus [Reportatio IIA d.12 q.2] and other reasons [William of Ware et al.]

[The Twelfth Distinction (on matter and form in corruptible things) is lacking in the OrdinatioThe Vatican Editors point out that the absence of the twelfth distinction was supplied in various ways by different editors, who excerpted passages from Scotus’ other works and from the Additiones Magnae complied by William of Alnwick. ²⁵]