Forty Eighth Distinction

Question One. Whether Christ will Judge in Human Form

1. “A question also accustomed to be asked is what form Christ will judge in” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.48 ch.1 n.1].

2. About this forty eighth distinction I ask whether Christ will judge in human form.

3. That he will not:

Judging belongs only to someone who has power and lordship over the one judged; Christ as to his human nature is our brother; therefore he is not lord.

4. Again, Augustine On John’s Gospel tr.19 n.15 [or Gloss ad loc., Nicholas of Lyra], commenting on John 5.21, “The Son makes alive those whom he will” (and it is in Lombard’s text [Sent. IV d.48 ch.3 n.2]), says, “Not the Father but the Son raises bodies, according to the dispensation of his humanity, wherein he is less than the Father.” And he adds, “But according as he is God he makes souls alive.” But judging pertains more to the soul than the body; therefore, it does not belong to Christ save as he is God.

5. Again, if he will judge in human form, then either in glorious form or in non-glorious form.

If in glorious form, two unacceptable things follow: first that the glorious body could be seen by bodily eye, and that a non-glorious bodily eye, because the damned will see him, according to John 19.37, “They will see him whom they pierced;” second, that then the damned would delight in the vision of that glorious form (for what is delightful, present, and perceived by sense, causes delight); but the damned will have no delight in seeing the Judge, but grief and fear.

If the second [in non-glorious form], this seems contrary to Luke 21.27, that he will come “in great power and majesty.”

6. On the contrary:

John 5.27, “He has given him power to judge, because he is the Son of man.” Therefore, the power of judging is given him as to his human nature.

7. Again, Job 36.17, “Your cause has been judged as that of someone wicked; therefore, may you undertake the judgment and the cause,” is said of Christ, and the first part is only true according to his human nature; therefore etc.

I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas

1. Exposition of the Opinion

8. Here it is said [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.48 q.1 a.1] that Christ will judge in the form of a servant.

9. The reason is of this sort, that: “judgment requires lordship in the one who judges, according to Romans 14.4, ‘Who are you, who judge the servant of another?’ Therefore, it belongs to Christ to judge in the respect in which he has lordship over men; but he is lord of men not only by reason of creation but also by reason of redemption. Hence Romans 14.9, ‘For Christ died and rose for this, that he might be lord of the living and the dead’. Therefore, power of judging belongs to him in the nature in which he is redeemer.”

10. Again: “The judgment is ordered toward this, that some may be admitted to the kingdom and some excluded. But the attaining of the Kingdom does not belong to man because of the goods of creation by themselves, for the impediment coming from the sin of the first parent has supervened on them, and if this impediment were not removed by the merit of the redemption, no one would be admitted to the Kingdom. Therefore, it is fitting that Christ, insofar as he is redeemer, should preside over that judgment in his human nature, just as that judgment, by the favor of the redemption displayed in that nature, introduces into the Kingdom.”

11. This is confirmed by Acts 10.42, “He has been constituted by God judge of the living and the dead.”

12. And from this is deduced further that: “since by the redemption of the human race in general the whole of human nature is made better, as is contained in Colossians 1.20, ‘Making peace by the blood of his cross, whether things in heaven or things that are on earth’, therefore has Christ through his cross merited lordship, and so judiciary power, not only over men but over every creature; hence Matthew 28.18, ‘All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth’.”

13. But it is added that he will not in his deity appear terrible to everyone in judgment, because he could not appear without joy, and the impious then will have no joy.

14. The proof of the first point [n.13, sc. he could not appear without joy] is that: “in something delightful can be considered the thing that is delightful and the reason for its delightfulness. And just as, according to Boethius De Hebdomadibus, ‘that which is can have something over and above its ‘to be’, but the ‘to be’ has nothing admixed with it besides itself’, so can ‘the thing that is delightful’ have something admixed with it because of which it is not delightful; but that which is the reason for delightfulness can have nothing because of which it not be delightful. Therefore, the things that are delightful by participation in goodness, which is the reason for delightfulness, are able not to give delight when apprehended; but it is impossible that that which is goodness in its essence not give delight when apprehended.”

15. This [n.13, sc. the impious will then have no joy] can be confirmed through the John 17.3, “This is eternal life, to know thee;” therefore eternal life consists in that vision. But eternal life cannot be had without joy; therefore, in no way is conceded to the reprobate that which eternal life consists in.

2. Rejection of the Opinion in Itself

16. Against the first conclusion of this opinion [n.8]. It is one thing to say ‘Christ will judge in human form’ and another to say ‘Christ will judge according to human form’. For this proposition is true, that ‘Christ in human form creates souls’, but not this one, ‘Christ according to human form creates [souls]’. Rather, whatever he made (namely whatever the Word made from the time he assumed human nature, because he did not, in his act of making, set aside his human nature), he made in his human nature, unless you restrict the phrase ‘in his human nature’ to mean what is meant by ‘according to his human nature’, where is to be noted not only the concomitance of the human nature with the act, but the causality of the human nature with respect to the act.

17. If you understand the remark ‘Christ will judge in human nature’ in the first way, the question is not other than the same as this one, ‘whether, when he judges, he will set aside his human nature’.

18. Therefore, in order for there to be a question, another understanding must be obtained, which is more properly expressed thus, ‘Christ will judge according to his human nature’. But this is false when speaking of ‘to judge as principal judge’. Proof: principal judgment (as can be got from what was said above in the preceding distinction [d.47, n.17]) is the perfect and proper determination of what is to be rendered to someone according to his merits; but this perfect determination includes a perfect dictate of the intellect that this is to be so rendered, and a complete determination of the will through an efficacious willing that is sufficient of itself for the execution of what has been determined.

19. But Christ according to his human nature cannot have such a willing with respect to the reward to be rendered to a person judged, because he cannot have principal command efficacious for uniting any soul to the beatific object, for according to Augustine On Seeing God 6.18 [quoting Ambrose On Luke] “It is in God’s power to be seen; for if he wills, he is seen; if he does not will, he is not seen.”

3. Rejection of the Conclusions of the Opinion

20. As to the reasons for this conclusion [nn.9-15], they do not prove it as regard principal judgment [n.18], because Christ did not, through the act of redemption, merit principal lordship with respect to man [n.9].

21. Proof: for Christ as he is redeemer possessed the idea of a cause that is meritorious for us; but a cause that is only meritorious cannot be a principal cause; for it only causes because it is accepted by some more principal cause, which principal cause, because of what it has accepted, does the principal causing. Therefore, let it be that, because of the redemption, we are bound to the Trinity as to supreme Lord by some new right, beyond the right of lordship that the Trinity has from creation (which would be true if redemption, as accepted by the Trinity, were as great a good for us as creation) - still, it does not follow that it is by reason of the redemption that we are obliged to Christ as supreme Lord according to his human nature.

22. Likewise as to the second point [nn.10-12, 19], because, insofar as he is redeemer, he does not introduce as principal introducer but only as meritorious cause.

23. Against the second conclusion [n.13]: an absolute naturally prior to something else can without contradiction exist without that something else; the vision of the divine essence is something absolute, at least as to any relation to joy, and is naturally prior to that joy, for an object does not cause delight if it is not first apprehended. Therefore, the vision of the essence could, without contradiction, exist in someone without delight.

24. Nor would the Philosopher deny this save because he would posit a simply necessary conjunction of causes in the universe, such that (according to him) it is simply necessary for the first cause to act along with second causes, according as it can act along with them. But by acting along with an intellectual nature (to the extent it can act along with it), an intellectual nature that already sees the divine essence, delight follows, because by acting along with the proximate cause of that effect it is, as far as it itself is concerned, necessitated to that effect.

25. But theologians deny this proposition: ‘whatever a second cause, as far as concerns itself, is necessitated to, the first cause is necessitated to’; because they deny that the first necessarily acts, as far as it can, along with the second.

26. The reasoning [n.14] is not valid; for it only proves that the idea of delightfulness, which is goodness, cannot not be delightful. But the conclusion does not hold that ‘therefore it cannot not cause delight’, because ‘the delightful’ asserts something in itself, or if it states a respect, only an aptitudinal one, which necessarily follows the foundation; but ‘to cause delight’ states a contingently causable later effect, especially because of the divine will’s contingent determination for acting along with the delightful thing itself.

27. To the confirmation from John 17 [n.15], I reply (without the authority’s gloss [sc. Aquinas’ gloss there]), according to the Philosopher in Metaphysics 12.7.1072b26-27, “An act of intellect is life;” therefore an act of an eternal intellect is eternal life - if actually so, actually; if aptitudinally so, aptitudinally. But now the vision of the divine essence, if it were conceded to the damned, although it would not be eternal actually, yet it would be so aptitudinally (as far as concerns the side of the possible act or power), or it would be apt to be eternal, and therefore to be eternal life; but if you infer from this, ‘therefore it would be beatitude’, the conclusion does not follow.

28. Rather, if you say that Christ says that ‘in this is beatitude [sc. and not ‘eternal life’], that they know you etc.’, then you do not accept the text of the Gospel but a certain gloss of a more particular understanding of the letter of it. So if you wish to weigh the word precisely without any gloss, the solution is that the word is ‘eternal life’; but if you wish to argue through certain glosses that it is speaking of beatitude, then it is permitted for me likewise to add a gloss that does not distract the text: ‘to know you’ by loving and enjoying.

B. Scotus’ own Response to the Question

29. To the question. Taking as supposition (from d.47 n.17) that judgment is a complete determination of that which is to be rendered to someone for his merits, and that this complete determination includes a perfect determination of the intellect about it and a perfect ‘willing’ of the will (efficacious willing [nn.18-19] not just any willing), it follows that ‘to judge as principal’ includes ‘to dictate as principal’ and ‘to have efficacious willing as principal’. But nothing is said to do something as principal that is subordinate, in its acting, to some second thing as principal; therefore, ‘to judge as principal’ only belongs to an intellectual nature whose intellect is not subordinate to some other in its dictating, and whose will is not subordinate to something in its efficacious willing - which efficacious willing can be said to consist in so commanding the willed thing that on the command the effect follow.

30. But as it is, the intellect of Christ’s soul is subordinate to divine truth in dictating, and especially about things about which there can only be a certain dictating if it follows from rules determined by a divine will contingently disposed with respect to them (of which sort are all things that regard the beatitude and misery of those to be judged). But the will of the soul of Christ is subordinate to the divine will in rightly willing; and to the extent it efficaciously wills something by commanding it efficaciously (such that by its command the thing come about), it is necessarily subordinate to the divine will, because the will of his soul is not omnipotent. Therefore, it is impossible for Christ according to his human nature to judge as principal. For, in brief, the whole of created nature together does not have efficacious command with respect to the fact that ‘this soul sees God’. I call ‘efficacious command’ a command on which, from the command itself in itself, and not from another cause, the effect follow. Nor would the will of Christ presume to command as principal that Peter will be blessed, but only to command in subjection to the true author, as that the command become efficacious from another as the superior, in virtue of whom the command is made.

31. In another way ‘to command’ can be taken, not as being such altogether principal commanding, but as a commanding by commission or in subjection to the true author, a command excelling with a singular excellence, namely an excellence by which there could not be by commission any authority that is higher.

32. And in this way I concede that Christ judges according to his soul, for although it could be committed to a pure creature that its intellect would rightly dictate about retribution, and that its will would righty will, and that on its right willing would always follow the happening of the thing willed (although not causally from itself, but from the divine will always enforcing that efficacious willing) - yet it could not be committed to a pure creature that its every willing would be fulfilled by the same [created] person, because then a pure creature would be omnipotent. Therefore, the highest commission possible is that not only would everything that was determined by the will infallibly come about, but that it would come about by the same person whose will it was, so that thus that person would have an efficacious command, whose created will determines in its own order as much as it can the coming about of something.

33. In this way does the will of Christ’s soul make determination with subordinate authority and with this sort of subordinate commission, because although that will not command as principal, just as it is not lord as principal, however it does well give command (as having lordship with respect to what is commanded) but it commands as commissioned (because it commands as having lordship subordinate to the supreme lordship of God) - and yet it does so command that its command has, from that person, complete efficacy. And if someone attribute another authority of judging to the soul of Christ, it seems to be blasphemy, by attributing to created nature what is proper to the Creator.

34. Now this way, just as it does not concede omnipotence to the soul of Christ, so neither does it deny to it the highest excellence that can belong to a creature.

35. Nor should the authorities adduced for the opinion (Romans, “that he may be lord of living and dead,” and Acts, “judge of living and dead,” and Matthew, “all power has been given to me” [nn.9, 11, 12]) be understood of principal, but of subordinate, lordship and judiciary authority or power, yet of the most eminent kind that can exist under the principal.

II. To the Initial Arguments

36. To the first argument [n.3] I say that Christ as man has power the most eminent by commission, but not principal power; and so it does not belong to him as man to be principal judge.

37. As to the second [n.4], the remark of Augustine is stated by way of appropriation, as the Master expounds in the text [Sent. IV d.48 ch.3 n.3]; or one can say that the making alive of souls belongs to the deity alone, and this whether as to first life, which is justification, or as to perfect life, which is beatitude. But the resuscitating of bodies and judgement can belong to the man Christ as commanding, although with command subject to the true author, because he can have a less principal dominion with respect to bodies, at any rate when taking ‘resurrection’ for the preparatory stages that are carried out by the ministry of angels; for Christ has efficacious command with respect to the power of angels. Similarly, he will have himself, even according to his human nature, efficacious command for passing sentences.

38. To the next [n.5] I say that he will appear in glorious form, because from the fact of his having been once glorified, he will never be not glorified, just as after his resurrection he will never be not immortal (Romans 6.9, “Death will no longer have dominion over him”) - and so on about the other things that belong to the glory of the body. But if you take the ‘appear’ not for ‘what sort of body he will have in himself’, but for ‘what sort of body will be seen by those to be judged’, one can say that the glorious form will be seen by the blessed; for they will already in the judgment be blessed who were even in the body the elect.

38. But about the bad there is a difficulty. It can be said either that they will not see the glorious form, indeed not any form (and then it will be necessary to give some exposition for ‘they will see him whom they pierced’), or that they will see Christ in his glorious body. Nor does any delight follow from this, because it is very possible for the vision of an agreeable object to be separated from delight, as was touched on against the other opinion [of Aquinas, n.26]; nor is it unacceptable for a non-glorious eye to see a glorious body (see on this the material about endowments in d.49 [Rep. IVA d.49 q.11, esp. nn.3-4]).

40. But against this: if the verse is brought forward from Isaiah 26.10, “Let the impious be taken away, lest he see the glory of God” - there is a sort of dialogue there between God and the prophet, which latter brings allegation against the impious ‘lest he see the glory of God’ [cf. Jerome On Isaiah VIII 26 nn.10-21]; and this remark from that place, “within the land of the saints let them see,” is the word of the prophet, according to those who read the text as falling under the same prophet.

41. In another way there is a better reading, such that there is an allegation by the prophet against the impious, “he has done iniquity in the land of the saints,” and then follows as a question a word of the Lord, “and they will not see the glory of the Lord?”, as if he is saying, “may they not see?” The prophet replies, “Lord, let your hand be exalted so that they do not see.” God replies, “Let them see, so that the zealous of the people be confounded.” And this last ‘let them see’ is referred to the eternal vision, not only to vision in the judgment; and then the ‘let them see, so that they be confounded’ does not belong to the same thing, but ‘let them see’, supply: ‘let the impious converted through mercy see’, and from this comes ‘let the zealous of the people be confounded’, because by a sort of zeal they do not want mercy to be shown to the impious.

42. But if the passage be taken only about vision during judgment, then the understanding can be that ‘the impious even then are not adjudged fit to see glory’, that is, the glorious form of Christ’s body, ‘and let them be confounded’, because the vision will rather cause confusion and sadness than delight. However, the sense of the text is more about vision in the form of deity than of humanity.

Question Two. Whether in or after the Judgment the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies will Cease

43. I ask second whether in or after the judgment the motion of the heavenly bodies will cease.

44. That it will not:

In Genesis 1.14 it is said: “Let there be lights etc., and let them be for signs and for times, and for days and years,” and they seem to have been made for this end; but this cannot be had without the motion of them.

45. Again in Genesis 8.22, “For all the days of the earth, summer and winter, night and day, will not rest.”

46. Again, Metaphysics 9.8.1050b22-24, “The sun always acts, and the stars and the whole heaven; and there is no need to fear lest they should at any point stop, which some fear about nature.” And he adds a double proof as it were:

47. The first is this [ibid. 24-30]: “Nor do things that always act always labor.” And he treats more of this reason in On the Heavens 2.1.284a14-18, which reason rests, as it were, on this: ‘No agent ceases to move unless it is wearied in doing so’.

48. Another reason he touches on there [Metaphysics, ibid.], “For motion is not in these corruptible things as to potency of contradiction [sc. motion is not in them as something that could either be or not be], so that the continuing of the motion be laborious,” as if the minor were as follows: ‘These movements are not fatiguing, because there is no potency of contradiction in them’. And further he proves this supposition there [ibid. 27-28], “For matter, substance, and potency (and not potency in act) are cause of this, namely of contradiction.”

49. Again, the universe will not be more imperfect after the judgment than it is now; therefore, the principal bodies of the universe will not then lose any of their proper perfection; but motion is a proper perfection of the supra-heavenly bodies, or it is required for their perfection, because otherwise their motion would be vain.

50. Again, the motion of the heaven is either natural or violent; it is not violent, because “nothing violent is perpetual,” On the Heavens 1.2.269b7-9. Such motion, if it is natural, can be perpetual; therefore, the opposing rest is violent, and consequently it will not be perpetual.

51. On the contrary:

In the text [of Lombard, Sent. IV d.48 ch.4], “Then there will not be change of day and night;” and he proves it from Zechariah 14.7, “There will be one day that is known to the Lord; not day and not night.”

52. Again, Isidore [Ps.-Isidore, On the Order of Creatures, 5. nn.6-7] and it is in the text [of Lombard, ibid. ch.5 n.6]: “After the judgment the sun will receive the reward of his labor; and neither sun nor moon will set, but will stand in the order in which they were created, lest the impious in prison, placed beneath the earth, enjoy their light; hence Habbakuk 3.11, ‘Sun and moon have stopped in their habitation’.” So Isidore.

I. To the Question

53. In this question one must see first what the Philosopher thought, second what the theologians thought.

A. About the Opinion of Aristotle

54. About the first point the answer is sufficiently plain from his intention, in diverse places, that he thought the motion of the heaven would last perpetually. For this he posited one reason, in Metaphysics 12.8.1074a17-23, as follows: “If it is necessary to reckon that every impassible substance has been allotted the best end, there will be no other impassible substance besides these,” besides these that are active causes of local motion.

55. From this the argument goes: if the best end of a separate substance is in causing the local motion of a celestial body, and if any such substance cannot lack its end, then it cannot not move.

56. This reasoning is derided by some [Richard of Middleton] who do not understand it as the Philosopher posed it, because even according to the Philosopher, Ethics 10.8.1178b7-8, Metaphysics 11.7.1064a33-b5, the perfection of these separate substances consists in speculation of truth; so their end even according to him is not, the way he seems to take it here, to move a body

57. But the procedure in this objection begins from an equivocation:

For the end in one way is the end that perfects, and thus is beatitude in the intellect or the will posited as the internal end of a separate substance, and the object of that act is posited as the external end (and this is what Aristotle himself understood in the Ethics, ibid.); and this end is the end simply.

58. In another way the end is said to be the ultimate result of the perfection of a thing, although it not be perfective of the thing. And in this way the Philosopher would say that not only are those separate substances perfect in themselves, but that from the fullness of their perfection it is necessary that they communicate that perfection to others; and thus are they allotted not only a first end but a second. This second end cannot be had without the motion of some celestial body.

59. This reasoning [n.55], thus understood [nn.57-58], can be formulated as follows: the most perfect substance does not lack anything that belongs to substance from the perfection of substance, whether that is the intrinsic perfection of it or the communication of its perfection outwardly; but to substance from the perfection of substance belongs that it not only be perfected in itself but that it communicate its perfection to another - by producing it; therefore this belongs most of all to impassible substances.

60. But they cannot produce any substance save by moving the heaven. This Aristotle himself supposes as having been made clear, in Metaphysics 7.2.1028b18-21, against the ideas of Plato.

61. That this is the mind of Aristotle and of the philosophers is accepted by Avicenna in his Metaphysics 1 ch.3, where he maintains that, in one way, metaphysics is useful for the other sciences because it directs and rules them (in which way too it can be conceded that a lord is useful to a servant, according to Avicenna there). But conversely, when taking ‘utility’ properly, it only belongs to another thing in view of an end; and in this way are the other sciences useful to metaphysics, and the servant useful to the lord. Therefore in the same way it will be possible, since ‘utility’ is equivocal, for ‘end’ also to be equivocal, so that to utility said in the first way there correspond the end that is the term and not the end that consummates, and to utility said in the second way there correspond the end of perfection.

Hence no philosopher posits that a necessity of externally acting belongs to the separate substances as if the things produced were to perfect the producing substances in some way; but that it is from the fullness of the perfection of those substances that they necessarily diffuse themselves to other substances.

62. The second reason of the Philosopher is as follows: anything that is permanent and sempiternal in relation to anything else that is permanent and sempiternal always and necessarily is disposed in the same way (the proof of this is that a relation between certain things cannot vary save by variation in one or other extreme; the extremes are thus [invariable] extremes if the sempiternal things are invariable). But the Intelligence that moves [the heaven] is a certain permanent and sempiternal substance, and the heaven is likewise; therefore, the sempiternal thing here has the same disposition to the other thing, as mover to moved.

63. If you object, “so when will a different disposition of the sempiternal to anything else begin?” - I reply: according to Aristotle, the first difference is in the parts of the uniform sempiternal motion (or uniform as a whole according to him); for because the motion is uniform from the uniform relation of a movable to a mover, therefore it has new different parts, and from this difference of parts another difference or variety can follow in the substances that are generated in this way. And thus from uniform causes, namely the Intelligence and the heaven and their being in uniform relation to each other, some uniform thing consisting of different parts, as motion, is first caused, and by means of that motion other things simply different are caused.

64. The third reason: whatever is in beings is either simply necessary in being or is for the most part or for the least part or open to either side. In the heavens nothing is open to either side nor for the least part, because both these would be marks of imperfection repugnant to such a body. Nor is anything there for the most part, because then sometimes the opposite would chance to be, albeit for the least part, which has never been seen (for never has the opposite of anything belonging to those regular motions come aboutThe observation at any rate of irregularities among the regularities has led to the replacement of this philosophical and Aristotelian system of necessities with our modern quantum mechanical and Einsteinian relative system of necessities. There is still necessity and still system, but a different system. The possibility of thinking a different system, however, was provided, not so much by different observations, as by the theologians next discussed who thought that this system, however consistent with observations, was not inevitable but optional and could, by divine omnipotence, be otherwise. ³⁶); therefore, whatever is there is simply necessary.

B. About the Opinion of the Theologians

65. The theologians commonly maintain the opposite.

66. For this they adduce authorities and reasons:

One authority is Isaiah 60.19 (and it is in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.48 ch.5 n.5), “For you there will be sun no more to give light through the day.” But this authority, as Master Lombard replies adducing Jerome On Isaiah XVII.60 19, “does not say that sun and moon do not then shine (which however the words seem to indicate), but what is signified is that there is no use of light for those who will then be in eternal life and beatitude.” Hence Jerome says, “The office of sun and moon will cease, and the Lord himself will be the light in perpetuity for his own.” The like meaning has the authority from Revelation 21.23, “The city does not need light.”

67. Another authority adduced is from Revelation 10.6-7, “The angel swore an oath that, after this, there will be no more time.” But it could be given an exposition, that ‘there will be no more time’ for the fulfilment of prophecy, because now all will be fulfilled.

68. The reason is brought forward of this sort: the motion of the heavens is for generation and corruption as though for its end; therefore when generation ceases, such motion will be vain. And this is confirmed by On Generation 2.11.338b1-5, where the Philosopher maintains that the carrying round of the sun in an oblique circle by the daily motion is necessary so that the generation and corruption of things here below may be continuous; and by Physics 2.2.194a34-35, “For we are in a way the end of all things.”

69. But the Philosopher would deride this reasoning. For never would he posit a more ignoble thing as the end of a more noble thing, when speaking of a perfecting end, but only of a consequent or terminating end in some way or other. And then from the failing of such end, which failing however he would deny, he would posit that there will be a future end of the more noble thing, because he posits perpetual generation just as also motion of the heaven. However, from this failing, if it were posited, the failing of the motion of the heaven would not follow, just as neither does the failing of the cause follow from the failing of the effect, especially if the failing of the effect is not because of the failing of this cause but of some other cause - the way a theologian must say that generation does not fail because of the failing of the heaven in its causality, but because of the divine will.

70. And when it is said the motion is vain [n.68], this has no plausibility, because a thing is not vain if it has its perfecting end, even though no further extrinsic end, which is not a perfecting end, come from it - just as neither was God vain from eternity though he had not created things externally, which things are in a way an end.

71. The authority from Physics 2 [n.68] can be given exposition: ‘end of all things’, supply ‘of all generable and corruptible things’, because man is noblest among those, and is in this respect in some way a perfecting end.

C. Scotus’ own Response

1. Neither Way or Conclusion is Proved Necessarily

72. To the question it can be said that the Philosopher fails to prove his conclusion necessarily and the theologians fail as well, not to say failing to do so by necessary reason, but even failing to do so by evident authority of Scripture.

73. And it is plain from what has been said how what is adduced for the second way [sc. that of the theologians] is solved. But the reasons for the Philosopher’s way will be solved later [nn.97-102].

74. What then? The first part [sc. that of the Philosopher] seems to be proved more than the second; although the second part [sc. that of the theologians] is not got expressly from Scripture, it does seem to agree more with the words of the saints and of Scripture.

So the possibility of each part can be proved.

2. A More Probable Proof of Both Ways

75. The first part [n.74] is proved easily, and that commonly according to both the theologians and the philosophers. For just as the moving second causes are sufficient to cause motion for all time from the beginning of the world to the judgment, so are they able to cause movement infinitely: for the virtue of the infinite mover [sc. God] is sufficient for causing motion of itself in its order as first cause, and the other virtues are, by virtue of the infinite mover, sufficient for causing motion sempiternally.

76. The possibility of the second part [sc. of the theologians, n.74] is proved, but not from what the philosophers concede but only from what the theologians concede, namely that the will of God is contingently disposed toward moving the heaven and not moving the heaven. When the first cause is contingently disposed to the effect, the effect is simply contingent, and the effect is able simply not to be from the fact that the [first] cause is simply able in its own order not to cause; and when it does not cause, nothing else will cause.

77. This [possibility of both parts] is proved in another way from the side of the movable itself, because the motion of the heaven is neither natural nor violent [sc. forced].

It is not natural, as Avicenna proves, Metaphysics 9 ch.2, first because, when it reached what it was naturally moved toward, it would naturally come to rest, because natural motion is toward natural rest in that toward which the motion is; and consequently motion away from that would be violent. And then further, since it is always the case that while there is approaching of one part [of the heaven] to some ‘where’, there is a receding of another part from that same ‘where’ (indeed, after any part has passed that ‘where’, it is, while it is approaching another ‘where’, receding from that [first] ‘where’ according to the diverse parts of the circle in which it is moved) - [since this is so] it follows that the same thing is moved naturally and violently at the same time.

78. Nor is the motion of the heaven violent, because then the receding from it would be natural, and then, as before, it would be natural and violent at the same time.

79. Therefore, on the part of the movable itself, there is no repugnance either to its motion being continued or to its motion coming to an end.

3. Objections against the Second Way

80. Against the second way, which is that of the theologians, objection is made as follows:

After the judgment there will be succession in the thoughts of the saints, or at least of the damned, and also in acts of the imaginative power; such succession cannot be without time, because according to Averroes, Physics 4 com.98, 100, 106, ‘On Time’, if anyone were not to perceive any change save only in an act of imagining, he would still perceive time; so if time will then be, and time will not be able to be without the motion of the heaven (because time is a property of the first motion, Physics 4.12.220b24-28), then etc.

81. Again, if the celestial bodies were to stop, they would have an excessive action on the bodies placed beneath them; because when the sun approaches, more is generated from the higher elements and more is corrupted from the inferior elements; conversely when it recedes. Therefore, when the sun is standing perpetually above some part of the hemisphere, excessively more of fire would be generated in that part and more of water and earth would be corrupted; and so, in the region placed beneath it, the distinct order of the elementary spheres would not stand. Nor similarly would this order stand in the opposite part either, because the opposite manner of generation and corruption would be there. Or, alternatively, two bodies would exist together, or there would be excessive compression.Sc. if there were generation but no corruption, the increase in the amount of material bodies would mean either that several bodies were in the same place or that they were excessively compressed together. ³⁷ The same result would hold of the mixed bodies - provided however that some mixed bodies were posited as then remaining; for the celestial bodies that are standing directly above that region would corrupt the mixed bodies, and at length corrupt them all (placed beneath the virtue of the celestial bodies) into things agreeing to the virtue of their elements.

82. Again, in any essential order, when the first is destroyed, everything after it is destroyed, Metaphysics 2.2.994a18-19; the celestial motion is the simply first motion

(from Physics 8.9.265a13); therefore, when it is destroyed, it is impossible for any other motion to exist. But it will be possible for some other motion to exist, namely the local motion of blessed men, and also some other motion in these inferior parts; for if an active force come close to a passive object, as fire to anything combustible, there is no reason for it not to be able to act on it. And in favor of this is an article [of the magisterium]: the statement “when the heaven is at a standstill, if fire be applied to tallow, it will not be able to burn it” is an error.One of the propositions condemned by Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, in 1277. ³⁸

83. Again, if the sun were to stand always on the opposite side of the earth, there would always be darkness, for since the earth is an opaque body, it is necessary that, when obstructing that luminary body [sc. the sun], it would create beyond itself a cone of shadow.

4. Rejection of the Aforesaid Objections

84. To the first [n.80] reply is stated as follows, that time is not in the motion of the heaven as one quantity in another quantity, because there is no need to posit two such quantities in the same permanent quantum, one of which is as it were the subject and the other as it were the property. Therefore, time adds over and above motion (as motion includes its own succession) only the idea formally of measure, and adds only those ideas that are fundamentally required for measurement, which ideas are uniformity or regularity and velocity; because measure is what is most certain as to the first idea, namely regularity or uniformity, and least as to the second idea, namely velocity. But there will not then [sc. at the judgment] remain any quickest motion, or at any rate not a uniform or regular one; and then in no motion will there be based the idea of a measure for all other motion. And therefore time will not exist in the way in which it is now posited to be a property of the first motion.

85. If you argue that a thing measured cannot be without a measure, I say that this is true of the measure of a thing in its quidditative essence. And the reason is that ‘this sort of measured thing depends on this sort of measure’ (Metaphysics 5.15.1020b30-31, on ‘relation’); for the measured thing is referred to the measure and not conversely, just as the knowable is the measure of knowledge because knowledge depends on the knowable. Now this assumption is true of an accidental measure, which measures a thing by application to it or by co-existence with it, the way an arm measures cloth; for it is plain that the amount of cloth does not depend on the size of the arm; and in this second way, the first motion, taken according to its own successive extension along with its relation of measurement to other motions, is the measure of them by application or coexistence, and not by being the term of dependence. In favor of this response, Joshua 1012-13 is brought forward, because Joshua fought while sun and moon stood still, and consequently while the whole heaven stood still, so that, with sun and moon standing still and all the other bodies moving, there would not be too much irregularity in the motion of the other celestial bodies. For this view there is also Augustine, Confessions 11 ch.23 n.29, where he maintains that if the heaven stood still the potter’s wheel would still move. (Look for argument contrary to this.)

86. To the second [n.81]: this reasoning should not move us to posit, for the sake of avoiding such excessive action in the elements, that the heaven stands still; because there will then too be the same idea for acting as there is now (though not equally uniformly); and there is now the same idea for not acting excessively on things below as there will also be then.

87. Proof of the first part [sc. there will then too be the same idea for acting as there is now]: because there is then an idea for acting on the part of a particular cause only because the particular cause has a sufficiently active form and a passive object close to it; or if you say ‘along with this I want another universal agent, namely the heaven’, not insofar as it is moved locally, because local motion is not the reason for its acting in its order (“for local motion does nothing,” according to the Philosopher On Generation 2.10.336a16-18, “save that it brings the generator forward,” that is, through local motion the agent, possessing its proper virtue, comes close to the passive object). But all these things, namely the particular agent (having its own active virtue), and nearness to the passive subject, and relation or aspect toward the celestial body (possessing the determinate virtue of the higher cause), can then be posited, because the celestial body at rest has the same virtue of the higher cause with respect to the lower cause placed beneath it as if it would have if it were moved; therefore the things required for action exist then as now.

88. Proof of the second part [n.86, “there is the same idea now for not acting excessively on things below as there will also be then”]: for the reason that there is not excessive action now is either on the part of the proximate causes mutually resisting it in their actions (even for the time now when each is sufficiently close to the passive object, as the sun from here and Saturn from there on a fistful of earth) - and this resistance could be found in both, whether at rest or in motion; or the non-destruction is on the part of the whole heaven, because such harmony exists in all the celestial bodies when related to any part of things active and passive that they do not permit an excessive consumption repugnant to the perfect existence of the elements in their spheres, and this cause will exist then as now; or if a cause of this prevention could not be found in the heaven itself, or in the elements themselves, it could be posited in the conserving divine will.

89. To the third [n.82]. The priority of celestial motion to the other motions is not the priority of cause, or of anything on which other things essentially depend, but only the priority of something more perfect in certain of the conditions of motion, which conditions are regularity and velocity. For it is plain that the action of the celestial body on something below does not depend on the motion of the body, because according to the Philosopher On Generation [n.87], “transfer in place does nothing for generation save by bringing the generator closer;” therefore if the generator were as equally close without that motion, it would act as equally.

90. To the fourth [n.83]. The point about the cone of shadow is not held to be unacceptable; and hence is derided the authority of Isidore [n.52] adduced for the claim that ‘the sun and moon will stand still so that the damned under the earth may not have any light’. For the damned are not under the earth in the way some imagine the antipodes to be, being as it were on the surface opposite our habitation; but they are under the earth, that is, in the center of the earth or within the concavity of the earth, and so they would no more have light if the sun were carried round that if the sun always stood still in one part. Likewise too the other part of the authority, that ‘sun and moon will stand in the order in which they were created’ [n.52], seems irrational enough. However, since from when they have once left that [original] place, they do not return again before the space of 36,000 years [d.43 nn.164-165], therefore the judgment would have to be put off for that long after the creation of the world - which is not probable. Likewise, they were created in a place most fitting for the production of new things. And they will stand in a place most fitting for the conservation of things without new production. Therefore the latter place cannot be the former.

II. To the Initial Arguments

91. To the first main argument [n.44]: That they may be lights “for days and years etc.” is not the principal end but an end under that end, namely for the time of the mortal life of men, who need such distinction of times.

92. The answer to the second [n.45] is plain from the same point: “For all the days etc.,” that is, all the days for which seed-time and harvest is useful, which is only for mortal life. Or in another way: “for all the days of the earth,” that is, all the days of the earthly life of man.

93. As to the next [nn.46-47], it is plain the conclusion was the Philosopher’s intention, but the proof ‘because the agent is not wearied’ is bad; for an agent, although not wearied in acting, can voluntarily stop acting; hence this must be conceded, that ‘every agent that is wearied in acting at some time stops’. But if it is not wearied there is no necessity that it [not]This extra ‘not’ is a variant noted by the Vatican editors in the apparatus criticus but not inserted in the text. The context of the argument, however, suggests it should be so inserted. ³⁹ stop, because there is a reason for stopping or ceasing other than weariness.

As to the other proofs from Metaphysics 9, that there is no potency of contradiction there [n.48], and this because there is no matter there: if these proofs are adduced for proving indefatigability, I concede that the issue at hand [sc. the heaven does not cease moving] does not follow from indefatigability; but if they are adduced for proving the main conclusion [sc. there is no potency of contradiction there], they are not valid, because whether the matter that is a part of a substance is in the heaven or not, there is at any rate in the heaven a potency for ‘where’, namely a movable subject; and one would have to prove that this subject is not of itself in potency of contradiction to motion and non-motion. For the opposite seems more probable, since it does not have in itself any potency save the receptive potency of a movable thing for motion, and every potency precisely receptive seems to be a potency of contradiction.

94. To the next [n.49], I say that motion is only a perfection of the heaven in a certain respect, and the sort of stopping [in question here] is not unacceptable, especially since perpetual rest is a greater perfection for it.

95. And if you argue ‘then its moving now would be altogether vain’, and further ‘motion is related to rest as potency to privation’ - As to the first I say: the heaven is not moved because of some intrinsic perfection completive of it that would consist in motion or be acquired by motion; but while the non-imperfection of the heaven stands (because it is in a potency that is indifferent to moving and resting), nevertheless the perfection of the heaven for the present state of things requires rather that the heaven move, on account of the state of corruptible things. As to the second: when taking ‘rest’ as it states precisely lack of motion, then rest is thus more imperfect, because to the extent that what motion states is something positive rest would be more imperfect. However, the lack of motion, as lack, is not thus imperfect but there is something that is substrate in rest, namely uniformity or identity in being, and this is simply more perfect than the positive thing in motion, namely motion’s being now this way and now that.

96. To the next [n.50] Avicenna replies [nn.77-78] that the motion of the heaven is neither natural nor violent but, on the part of the agent, voluntary, though with a will of the sort that (according to him and to Aristotle) it is determined necessarily to acting. But on the part of the passive subject the motion must be posited to be neither, in the way that it was said elsewhere [e.g. d.43 n.234] that surface is in neutral potency to whiteness. And universally, when a subject is determinately inclined to neither contrary, it receives neither of them naturally or violently. However, there is in the heaven a certain aptitude for circular motion because of the fact it is of spherical shape; but this aptitude does not suffice for naturalness, but only for non-violence.A concession, however implicit on Scotus’ part, that the motion of heavenly bodies, however circular these bodies are or appear to be, need not by nature, or at all, be circular (and in fact it is not). ⁴⁰

III. To the Reasons for Aristotle’s Opinion

97. To the reasons for the opinion of the Philosopher:

As to the first [nn.54-59], a theologian would perhaps refuse to the Intelligence all potency productive of substance, and then the difficulty would seem to be how this potency would not belong to the Intelligence and yet does belong to a more imperfect substance. And even if a substance would not in this [potency] be made perfect in itself, yet this does belong to substance because of perfection, as was argued [n.59].

98. If again it were said to the Philosopher that this substance is communicative of itself by producing substance, the consequent does not hold that therefore it produces necessarily or sempiternally, because actual production of another substance is not for the good of this [producing] substance but of the universe; and the good of the universe does not require such production infinitely. And here the theologian would have to take his stand if he wanted to argue for his side from matters of belief, or even from things in some way probable according to natural reason - by showing that the perfection of the universe requires rather, or is equally compatible with, the ceasing of generation than the continuing of generation.

99. And further, from this is still not got the proposed conclusion about motion, as was replied to the reason for the opinion of the theologians [nn.68-69], but it would be necessary to show that the perfection of the universe rather requires, or equally permits, the resting of some bodies.

100. As to the second [n.62], one must deny the major in the case of an agent acting voluntarily, because [such an agent] can, by its old and immovable will, act in different ways on a passive object that is in itself old and unchangeable. And then as to the proof of the major: the extremes of this new relation are not the absolute nature of the agent and the absolute nature of the passive object (which are uniform), but are the agent and passive object as having a new form caused by the agent; and this foundation is new and therefore it can found a new relation to the agent.

101. If you ask whether this new caused thing has any new relation of passive object to agent [n.63], I say that there is none, because just as the first newness in the passive object is in its having this form, so the first new relation of it to the agent is according to this new form.

102. As to the third [n.64], I say that a thing can be contingent to either side in such a way that there is no repugnance to this contingency on the part of the heaven itself, because the thing of itself is in potency of contradiction; but the completion of the contingency to either side comes from contingency on the part of a cause moving voluntarily, such that its will is not necessarily determined to moving or to not moving.