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.