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.