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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.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.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.