1. First Opinion

a. Exposition of the Opinion

10. About the first, one view [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.44 q.1 a.1] is stated as follows, that if the sensitive soul in man were diverse from the rational soul and were consequently corruptible as it is in other animals, the conclusion would well be drawn that in the resurrection there would not be the same sensible soul, and so not the same animal either.

11. But if it be posited that the rational and sensible soul in man is the same in substance, we will suffer no difficulties in this respect, as he himself declares elsewhere [ibid. IV d.44 q.2 ad 1], when he shows, relative to the point at issue, the difference between man and other corruptible things, that “the form of the other animals is not per se subsistent so as to be able to remain after the corruption of the composite, the way this holds of the rational soul, which retains after separation from the body the being it acquired in the body. And the body after the resurrection is drawn into participation with that being, so that there is not in man one being of the body and another of the soul; otherwise the union of soul and body in man would be accidental. And thus no interruption is caused in the substantial being of man to prevent the numerically same man being able to return after interruption of being, as does happen with other corrupted things whose being is altogether corrupted.”

12. This claim, then, rests on this, that although something that has been interrupted cannot return numerically the same, yet, because the being of the intellective soul is the same being as the being of the whole, the matter too remains the same; and so in nothing that pertains to man’s substance is any interruption caused in his being. Therefore, it is possible for a man to return numerically the same. It is not so in other corrupted things

b. Rejection of the Opinion

13. Against this is the authority of Augustine City of God 22.20 n.2, when he speaks of the flesh that is to return to man in the resurrection: “although,” he says, “a man had in all ways perished and none of his matter had remained in any hidden parts of his nature, the Almighty may bring it back whence he will and repair it.” Therefore, something totally destroyed and corrupted in the totality of its being can be restored the same.

14. Again by reason:

If a destroyed thing were annihilated, the nothing following the annihilation of it would be of the same idea as the nothing that was the term ‘from which’ of the creation of it, because these opposite changes have the same thing for term - one for the term ‘from which’ and the other for the term ‘to which’. But there is no repugnance in the nothing preceding creation to prevent what is opposed to that nothing from being capable of being created; therefore after annihilation it can be created the same. The reasoning is confirmed because it is plain that the same power on the thing’s part remains. Now a stone, though it be annihilated, has on its part as much possibility simply for existing after its annihilation as it had before its creation, because this possibility does not include contradiction more; nor does the nothing to which the stone departed take away the possibility more, because it would only take it away as being opposed to it; but it was opposed to the same thing, and equally so, before creation.

15. Again, there is some positive entity in man that is neither the material nor formal part or parts, as was proved in III d.2 nn.73-77. And, for the purpose in hand, it is sufficient to repeat one reason, that something is caused there by intrinsic causes; but neither the material cause nor the formal cause, nor both together, are caused by intrinsic causes; so there is some entity other than those causes taken separately or together; and it is destroyed. Otherwise a man would not be truly dead, because the whole entity of man would not be corrupted; and yet that entity will be repaired numerically the same, otherwise it would not be numerically the same man.

16. Again, if God conserved the ‘to be’ in instant a and in the whole intervening time up to b and in b too, one would concede that it was altogether numerically the same. Therefore if God conserve it in a and again in instant b, and not conserve it in the intermediate time, it will still be the same and yet will be interrupted in time; therefore a thing that has been interrupted can return numerically the same.

17. Proof of the consequence:

Because the identity of that ‘to be’ as it is in b in relation to itself as it is in a does not depend essentially on its conservation through the intermediate time, for it does not depend on it as formal cause or as any essential cause.

This is also proved in another way, that otherwise God would not be able to create the same ‘to be’ in some instant and not conserve it in another instant or particular time; because if he creates it in a prior instant and conserves it in the following time, and if the ‘to be’ (as it is conserved in that time) is essentially required for the identity of the ‘to be’ in instant b, then if it were not conserved at this time but were first created, it could not be created the same in b.

18. Again, the diversity of what is posterior does not prove diversity in what is essentially prior; but the above instants are essentially posterior to the persisting ‘to be’; hence too the ‘to be’ remains the same in all succeeding instants whatever. Therefore, whether there is continuity between the instants or not, the ‘to be’ will no less be the same. Or put it thus: if the ‘to be’ were in a and in the subsequent time and in b, it would be the same in a as in b; therefore if it were destroyed after a (which is its enduring in the intermediate time), still no diversity of it between a and b would thereby necessarily follow.

19. Again, from the root principle of the argument, that a ‘to be’ simply destroyed or interrupted cannot return the same [n.11], unacceptable results follow.

First, that God could not resuscitate the numerically same brute, the opposite of which is sometimes read to have been miraculously done by the saints, as is plain of the bull that St. Silvester resuscitated according to the story about him [Jacob Voragine, Golden Legends ch.12]; and to deny that this is possible for God is a mark of great infidelity, and yet a brute’s sensitive soul is interrupted and destroyed.

A further result is that none of the accidents that are corrupted in a man’s corruption, or before a man’s resurrection, could return numerically the same; and then the resuscitated man would not have numerically the same proper accident as before, because the proper accident did not remain after death, for it belonged to the whole as whole and not to the soul alone. The consequent is impossible, that it be the same thing in species and not have the same proper accident.

A further result, about the other accidents, is that the powers of the soul, which (according to him [Aquinas]) are accidents, cannot return numerically the same, for they are not accidents of the soul alone but of the whole composite (according to the Philosopher On Sense 1.436b6-11 and On Sleep 1.453b11-54a7); and so man in the resurrection would not have the same hearing and seeing power, and so on about the rest.

A result too is that he would not have the same quantity, because that does not remain either in the remaining matter alone or in the intellective soul.

20. Again the position seems to be at fault in another respect, that it posits that the whole of man’s ‘to be’ remains uninterrupted. [n.12].

First because, as proved before [n.15], the total entity is interrupted.

Second because the ‘to be’ of the intellective soul is not the total ‘to be’ of man (as he supposes, nn.10, 12), because every being has some ‘to be’, and man as man is some being and is not the soul alone; therefore he has some ‘to be’ of his own and not only the ‘to be’ of the soul.

21. Again, he contradicts himself in this, that elsewhere he says the state of the soul in the body is more perfect than its state outside the body because the soul is part of a composite, and every part is material with respect to the whole.

22. Against this I argue: what has the same proper ‘to be’ totally is not more imperfect from the mere fact that it does not communicate that ‘to be’ to something else. But the soul for you [sc. Aquinas] has totally the same ‘to be’ when separated as when conjoined; indeed, it has the ‘to be’ which, when communicated to the body, is the total ‘to be’ of a man; therefore it is in no way more imperfect by the fact that it does not communicate that ‘to be’ to the body.

23. The major is plain, because perfection is naturally presupposed by what it is ‘to communicate perfection’; therefore, perfection is not greater or lesser by the fact that it communicates or does not communicate - and this is especially so if, by such communication, there is no other ‘to be’ of the whole than the ‘to be’ here in question.

24. Again, it was proved above, in the material about the Eucharist [Ord. IV d.11 nn.285-286] that in man the substantial form is different from the intellective soul, and consequently, since it belongs to any form to give ‘to be’, the intellective soul does not give the total ‘to be’ of the composite.

25. This same argument can be directed against his first argument [n.10], because the form is interrupted in its being and yet is brought back the same.

As to the proof he intimates to the contrary [n.11], that then the union of soul and body would be accidental, the consequence must be denied. For just as union is not nothing but is of something to something and is consequently of being to being, so it is of what has being to what has being (for I do not understand how there could be some being that exists outside its cause and yet does not have its own proper ‘to be’); therefore just as being can be compounded per se with being, so can what is per se receptive and has its proper being be compounded with what is per se received and has its proper being. Nor is the union accidental because the latter is per se perfectible and the former per se perfection, for if ‘having being’ took away the idea of ‘per se perfectible’, then nothing but non-being could be per se perfectible.