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Annotation Guide:

cover
The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus
cover
Ordinatio. Book 4. Distinctions 8 - 13.
Book Four. Distinctions 8 - 13
Eleventh Distinction. First Part: About Conversion or Transubstantiation
Second Article: About the Actuality of Transubstantiation
Question Two. Whether the Bread is Annihilated in its Conversion into the Body of Christ
I. To the Question
C. Scotus’ own Opinion
2. The Bread is not Annihilated by this Conversion
d. Scotus’ Rejection of the Objection

d. Scotus’ Rejection of the Objection

α. Reasons Proving that the Bread is not Simply Annihilated

318. [First reason] - A reply can be made while holding to this conclusion, namely that the bread is not simply annihilated. For the term of annihilation is a pure nothing, that is, because nothing of the term ‘from which’ remains in the term ‘to which’. And negation in a naturally suited subject (which is called ‘privation’ [n.314]) is not the term of annihilation, and conditions opposite to the above conditions [sc. for annihilation] exist in corruption as corruption is negation. And, third, because negation in a disparate31 positive subject is not the term of annihilation but negation simply outside the genus is -that is, outside everything positive or every subject that might be called a privation according to this negation, or according to a disparate subject that might include this negation.

319. And this last point can be made evident, for not only does the matter of corrupted air remain and have the privation of its prior form, but the negation of the form of air is preserved in the form of fire that is newly introduced. And the negation, as it is in the form of fire, is not there as in a subject suited to it (but it is only so in common matter); rather it is there as in something disparate. And even if one removed the negation as it is in the common matter that is now the term of corruption (and because of which corruption is not now annihilation), yet if this negation as in something disparate were the term of some ceasing to be, the air would still not be annihilated.

320. To the issue at hand: although there are here two reasons which make it clear that, because of them, corruption is not annihilation, namely because something of what was corrupted remains and because the negation that is the term of it remains in a naturally suitable subject [nn.319, 314], there is nevertheless a third reason here, namely that the negation that is the term is in something positive, not in a subject but in something disparate.

321. Hereby, then, to the reason [n.313]: one can say that this ceasing to be of the bread in itself, and also as it is toward the non-being of bread, is not negation outside the genus; but as it is in the body it is not annihilation.

322. And the answer now to the example of corruption [n.314] is plain: for it is true that corruption is not denied to be annihilation precisely because of the concomitant generation, but because of those two causes (one of which includes the other), namely that there is a common subject and therefore the negation that is its term is privation. But if the third cause could stand alone without either of these two, namely that negation would be the term as it is in some positive disparate thing, still this transition would not be annihilation; and such is what this conversion is posited as being.

323. But the third argument [n.315, 320] is more compelling, namely about per se and per accidens. For there is found here one per se transition from the being of bread to its non-being, and another from the non-presence here of the body of Christ to the presence of it here. And then, as was argued [n.312], if the second [the presence of the body of Christ] were not concomitant with the first, the first would be a case of annihilation [sc. of the bread]; therefore now too it is formally annihilation, since its idea does not vary because of that which is per accidens concomitant.32

324. [Second reason] - Again, if the bread were annihilated and the body of Christ were posited as being present here, both the bread and body would, as regard every condition both of being and of non-being, be disposed in the same way as they are disposed now. But what is disposed the same as it would be if it were annihilated is itself annihilated;     therefore etc     . The first proposition is manifest, because if the bread were annihilated, neither its matter nor its form would remain; and they do in the same way not remain now. If too the body were then present under the accidents, it would be present in this way now as well.33

325. [Third reason] - Again (and this is directly against the last response given to the point about corruption [n.317]): because the term, as being the term of a new action, is itself new, therefore the negation of the being of the bread, as it is the term of the ceasing to be of the bread, is new. But as it is in the body of Christ, it is not new, for the way that the disparate thing [sc. Christ’s body] includes the negation of the disparate thing [sc. the bread], the body of Christ was non-bread before the ceasing to be of the bread.

326. If you say “it is true that ‘non-bread’, as it is in the body [of Christ], is not a new negation, just as neither is the separation of the body from the bread new,” - on the contrary: from this follows that the non-being of the bread is the term, because, as this negation is in the body of Christ, it is so, according to this response, by reason of the separation; if therefore non-being is the term as new, it is the term not as it is in the body by reason of the separation.

327. [Fourth reason] - Again, when changes of diverse genera concur together, negation is not the per se term of either of them as it is included in the term of the other. An example: if generation and change of place are together, the negation that is term of the corruption accompanying the generation is not the term of it per se as it is preserved in its ‘where’ (and this is proved by reason, that where the negation of the term ‘from which’ of one change is per se preserved in the term ‘to which’ of the other change, these changes must be of the same genus, because the term ‘to which’ and the term ‘from which’ are opposites). But in the issue at hand, the body of Christ here absolutely does not include the non-being of the bread, as is plain, because the separation of the body from the bread existed while both extremes remained; therefore, it only includes the negation of the being of the bread as it is here. But this term ‘as it is here’ does not pertain to the genus of substance; therefore, this negation is not the per se term of the destruction [sc. of the bread] the way it is preserved in the body as the body is here.

β. On the Possibility of Evading these Reasons

328. Some of these reasons [nn.318-327] can be evaded:

329. [About the second reason] - The second [n.324] as follows: when denying this proposition, namely “what is disposed to being and non-being in every way it would be if it were annihilated is itself annihilated,” one would have to add in the subject the words “and altogether the same thing succeeds to it.” And that this addition is necessary is sufficiently plain, because before a thing is created it is as much nothing as if had been created before and afterwards annihilated, and yet before it is created it is not annihilated. And why? Because in this case its nothingness does not succeed to its being. So I say that, if the bread were annihilated, neither matter nor form would remain, just as they do not remain now. But yet now something succeeds to the total being of the bread which then would not succeed; because now negation in genus, namely in some positive disparate thing, succeeds, but in then negation simply outside the genus would succeed.

330. [About the third reason] - To the third reason [n.325] one could say that negation, as it is included in its disparate subject, is not incompatible with the affirmation of it in the common idea of being; otherwise disparate things could not both be beings together. But the negation in the case of a contradiction is repugnant to the affirmation, even in the whole range of being. If therefore the disparate negation of the bread [sc. negation in something disparate] were in Christ’s body beforehand, nevertheless the contradictory negation of its being is not. But now, after the conversion, the contradictory negation is in the body of Christ; and thus it is new, because it follows the affirmation that contradicts it.

331. Against this: it does not in any way seem that the contradictory negation is in the body more than it was before; and so, as it is new and is the term of the ceasing to be of the bread, it is not the term as the term is in the body. Also, the contradictory negation is pure nothing, and so a pure nothing is said of something positive, as if it were said of a chimaera; therefore, if the negation is the term of this ceasing to be, it follows that this ceasing to be will be a pure nothing.

332. If it be said to the first point here [n.331] that the non-being of the bread, as it contradicts the being of the bread, is in the body of Christ otherwise than it was before, because the contradictory non-being is included in the body of Christ as that body is here, while in the body of Christ absolutely only the disparate negation is included - this is refuted by the fourth reason [n.327], because the later term is not the idea of a new incompossibility with anything that is naturally prior. Therefore ‘it as here’ is not the idea of a new incompossibility of the body with the being of the bread. So one must say that the negation is not new and then it is not the term of the ceasing to be; or if it is new and not in the body as the body is here (because the presence is not the idea according to which such incompossiblity exists in it), in no way will the negation as it is in the body be the term of the ceasing to be of the bread.