2. Of the Order of Organization in Relation to Animation

108. As to the other point, about complete organization [n.105], I say that organization can be understood:

On the one hand either as the final induction of the form immediately disposing it [the body] to the soul - according to one opinion [Avicebron, William of Auvergne, et al.] - or as the induction of the intellective soul - according to another opinion that posits the organic body to exist formally by the soul [Aquinas et al.].This question about the unity or plurality of substantial forms is discussed extensively by Scotus in Ordinatio 4 d.11 q.3. ³⁷

109. Or, on the other hand, organization can be understood as the change preceding the ultimate induction of the organic form, disposing it to intellective form; but two changes precede, namely the local motion whereby the matter is taken to the place proper for generation, and the alteration by which the matter in the due place is altered and disposed for the inducing of the form of the organic body.

110. And in this second way [n.109] - according to an opinion that posits the heterogeneous parts of the organic body to differ in species [infra d.4 n.38] - many generations and many changes can be posited; for just as the parts have different quidditative substantial forms, so there is a different generation for each of them and there is a proper alteration for each generation; and also, further, one can posit that not all these generations are simultaneous but that one precedes another in time, and thus one alteration disposing to one generation is naturally prior to another.

111. But however it may be with these matters, one can say that organization taken in the first way [n.108], namely the organization whereby the body is said to be organized, does not precede animation in time, even in our own case, because then a father would in no way generate a man (as is plain from Augustine [rather, Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter n.60, before the end, “Hold most firmly and in no way doubt that God the Word made flesh has one person of his divinity and his flesh, for God the Word deigned to unite full human nature truly to himself,” and Damascene ch.46 [n.103]); for the whole of a father’s action would be complete in duration first before the soul was complete; but he does not generate a man whose whole action is complete in time prior to and before a man is complete.

112. But if the discussion be about organization in the second way [n.109], one must hold that all inductions of partial substantial forms, even if there be many of them, yet take place in the same instant, and no part is prior in time to another, because no part assumed by the Word ever pre-existed in its own supposit - and this is what would have happened if any part had existed prior in time.

113. But as to the transference of matter to the place proper for generation, and as to the alteration preceding the generation of the whole or the generation of the parts [n.109], there is doubt whether these preceded the incarnation in time or existed in the same instant as it; for if they are posited as having existed together in time, then it seems more possible to save the fact that Mary cooperated in these motions (on this question see infra d.4 n.41) - and if the whole is posited as having happened in an instant, so that there was no local motion there nor any successive change, then the fact is more saved that in the ultimate instant of the Virgin’s express consent the Word-man existed in the Virgin’s womb, because before that instant there does not seem to have been any operation specific to the incarnation, and in that instant the whole incarnation seems to have been complete.