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C. Response to the Objections
52. To the first of these objections [n.49], when it says that only God can unite the soul to the body, there could be a doubt whether at the resurrection (when the body will be supremely disposed to the soul) the soul could reunite itself or whether, in generating man, it unites the intellective soul to the body, meaning by ‘union’ the organizing and fitting disposition of the body so it is ultimately perfectible by the intellective soul. Now as to the first point [sc. the union or reunion of soul to body] the place for discussing it is found in Ord. 4 d.43 q.3 nn.21-22, q.4 n.15. But if one concedes the antecedent (that ‘only God can unite the soul to the body’), I deny the consequence (that ‘only God can cause separation’ [of the soul from the body, n.49]), because while a natural or created agent can induce a quality in the body that is incompossible with passive animation of the body, it cannot cause any quality in the body on which would necessarily follow, by absolute necessity, the animation of the body; so the consequence is not valid, for no disposition caused in the body by a natural agent is cause simply of the passive animation of the body (an example: fire can by its action cause a quality suited for separating soul from body, but it cannot cause any necessity for uniting the intellective soul to the body -I mean fire cannot do so by itself alone).
53. On the contrary: it is commonly said [Richard of Middleton] that a natural agent does induce a disposition in the organic body, namely the perfect organization and due complexion of the elements, which is the simply necessitating disposition for inducing the soul.
54. I reply that no disposition induced in matter by a natural agent is a necessitating disposition for the infusion of the soul (but whatever the disposition is, since it exists on the part of the matter under matter’s idea of being receptive of form and in potency to form, that disposition is in contradictive potency to the intellective soul99). For if it were such a necessitating disposition, then the disposition induced in matter by a natural agent would necessitate God’s causing and creating the soul and animation of the body - which is false. The Philosopher, however, would have to say it, because he posited that God acts naturally and does whatever he does by necessity of nature [Ord. 1 d.8 n.251-252]. And so, just as the Philosopher posits that, when air is supremely hot and supremely disposed for the form of fire, the necessary result is that fire acts on the air and corrupts its form as air, so he would posit that, when the organic body is disposed by the action of a natural agent, God necessarily creates the soul in the body by animating the body. But just as the Philosopher erred in that principle (positing that God creates everything by necessity of nature), so theologians, by rejecting the Philosopher as to that principle, must necessarily reject him as to the conclusion, because no natural agent can simply necessitate matter for passive animation. Rather any disposition caused in matter by a natural agent is in contradictive power to form and to animation by God, for God causes voluntarily and contingently whatever he causes that is outside himself.
55. To the second objection [n.50], when it is said that Christ’s passion was then not meritorious, I say that the will can have a meritorious act about any object that is not in its power, or indeed that is necessarily unable to be otherwise, just as the will can love God with love of friendship by willing him good, namely by willing him to be just and wise and other things of the sort, and yet, whether the will wills or not, God is wise, just, etc. Thus too Christ’s will could have had merit about Christ’s passion, although it was not in his will’s power to prevent it, namely by his consenting to the passion and accepting it because of the good following from it and because it was accepted by God.
56. To the third objection [n.51], when it is said that if it was not in the soul’s power not to suffer then the passion was coerced and not meritorious, I say that coercion is in one way opposed to what is natural [Physics 2.1.192b13-36, 8.4.255a2-4] and in another way opposed to what is voluntary [Ethics 3.1.1110a1-3]. In the first way, since it is natural for a stone to go downwards, it is coerced and against natural inclination for it to go upwards - and ‘going upwards’ is coerced in this way because opposed to the natural inclination of the stone. And in this way of speaking about what is coerced (the way it is against the natural inclination of nature itself), death was coerced because against the natural inclination of the body, because the natural inclination of the body is to be perfected by the soul. In another way the coerced is opposed to the voluntary, and then, according to what was said above [d.15 n.95], as to the way the passion was not wanted and yet as not wanted happened, the passion was coerced and Christ did not thus merit by suffering it; in another way, as willed and as accepted by the will, it is meritorious and not coerced. These points are made plain in d.15 nn.98, 100, 126.