2. Second Opinion

a. Exposition of the Opinion

26. A different position [Giles of Rome, Theorems about the body of Christ] is that, because nature only acts by movement and change, it therefore cannot bring back the numerically same thing because motion or change cannot return numerically the same. But God does not act through motion and change, and therefore too, by contrast, he is able to bring back the numerically same thing. And for this view can be adduced something that this Master [Giles] touches on, that because God has regard to matter as it is a ‘what’ he can impress a form on it as in no way distinct; for matter is not distinct as it is a ‘what’, and so God can always impress the same form on it while the matter remains the same, and matter always remains the same. But a natural agent does not regard matter as it is a ‘what’, and so a natural agent cannot bring any form indifferently to be in it however much it remains the same, and so a natural agent cannot bring to be in it the same form.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

27. Against this opinion: as to the issue at hand, it supposes something false, namely that God does not act by motion when he resuscitates. The proof is that matter first existed deprived of form and it comes to be under a form; therefore it transitions from privation to form through the action of the agent; but such transitioning is properly change, because the whole idea of change is preserved in it.

28. As to what Giles says on the other side about a natural agent, the conclusion seems doubtful, and it is touched on in question 3 below [nn.178-180]. However, the conclusion does not follow from the reasoning, because there is no necessity that, if a posterior cannot return the same, therefore a prior cannot either; and change is posterior to form itself.

A confirmation of this is that God, as a matter of fact, does not bring the numerically same change back when he resuscitates, because resuscitation is not the same change as generation; and yet the numerically same form will be brought back. Hence it is a fallacy of the consequent to infer a distinction of terms from a distinction of changes. For the converse does indeed follow, namely that if a different form is acquired there is a different change. But the same form can very well be acquired by diverse changes, just as a ‘where’ the same in species can be acquired by local motions diverse in species, as by motion in a straight line or in a circle, which are so much of different idea that they are not comparable, Physics 7.4.248a10-b6. Augustine too in On the Trinity 3 ch.9 nn.16-19 maintains that a thing the same in species can be generated equivocally and univocally, which however are changes of different idea.

29. There is a proof also for this, that the antecedent (namely that change cannot be brought back numerically the same [n.28]) does not hold, because although the unity of a whole composed of parts is the continuity of part with part, yet the unity or identity of a part with itself is not the continuity of it with another part; so although interruption posits the non-continuity of posterior with prior, the consequence does not hold that it takes away the identity of a part with itself.