A. Needed Preliminaries

43. I reply:

This conflagration, or purgation by conflagration, which is predicted in many authorities and especially II Peter 3.11-12, is possible for God in many ways, because it is possible for him in every way that does not involve a contradiction.

44. But let inquiry be about what way is more consonant with the nature of the parts of the universe:

It can be that some fire be newly created and of great or small size; and it can be that it is at once in some total breadth and thickness about the earth, and only everywhere by motion round the earth.

45. And both of them can be: namely the first, that fire be generated, and the second, that it be generated in some determinate part above the earth and not everywhere save by motion round the earth. Let enquiry, then, be about these two points, namely production of the fire and the place of the production or conservation or continuation.