Forty Ninth Distinction. Second Part. About the Qualities of Body of a Blessed Man

Single Question. Whether the Body of a Blessed Man will, after the Resurrection, be Impassible

406. As to the four endowments of the body,The four endowments are that the body will be impassible, agile, clear, and subtle. ⁶⁴ I ask whether the body of a blessed man will, after the resurrection, be impassible.

407. That it will not be:

Gregory [Homily 40 on John] on John 20.27, “Put your finger here etc.,” says, “What is touched is necessarily corrupted.” The glorious body will be touchable, as the body of Christ was, as appears in Luke 24.39, “Touch and see etc.”

408. Again if the body be impassible, then the blessed cannot sense anything sensible; the consequent is false, for sensation, since it is a perfect operation of an animal, will not be lacking to a blessed man. The proof of the consequence: because everything sensitive can be corrupted by a surpassing sensible object [Aristotle On the Soul 2.1.424a28, 3.13.435b15-19]; but what is corrupted by an excelling corruptible is affected by a lower one, just as what is corrupted by something very hot is affected by what is less hot.

409. Again, nothing forced is perpetual [Ord. IV d.43 n.126], but that body [sc. of a blessed man], since it is a mixed body, has in itself four elements, each of which

(except one at least) is outside its proper region,The four traditional elements are earth, air, fire, and water, and only the earth in the human body is in its proper place, namely down level with the earth. ⁶⁵ therefore it is violent; at some point it will return to its proper place; and thus the whole will be corrupted.

410. Again, On the Heaven 1.12.282a21-24, the Philosopher argues against Plato that the heaven cannot be corruptible and yet be perpetuated by something else; because a thing cannot be of itself possible and corruptible and yet be perpetuated by something other. And argument can be made in like manner about this body [here]. The Commentator also maintains this, Averroes, Metaphysics XI com.41, where he maintains that only motion can be a possible and yet be perpetuated by something else.

411. On the contrary I Corinthians 15.53, “This mortal will put on immortality,” and this corruptible incorruption. And in the same place [15.42-44], “It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption...”

I. To the Question

412. I reply:

That it is so is plain from the preceding question,This preceding question (number 12, about whether beatitude could be obtained in mortal life) is missing in the Ordinatio (see notice from the editors above). Its place was supplied by editors after Scotus’ death from his oral treatment of it preserved in the Reportatio. ⁶⁶ because man cannot be blessed in this mortal life; but the whole man will be blessed because the whole merited; therefore the whole will be blessed in an immortal body.

413. For this too there is the fact that a blessed man will have the perfection that belongs to his nature; immortality is such, because it is not repugnant to an immortal soul to perfect perpetually its own perfectible [body]. Hence, just as the resurrection is inferred from the immortality of the soul, so is the immortality of the man, and consequently of the body, inferred with probability from the same fact - and so is impassibility inferred, speaking of real passion as opposed to intentional passion, which will be touched on in responding to the second argument [nn.408, 451-453].

A. A Doubt about the Cause of Impassibility, and its Rejection

414. But about the cause of impassibility there is a doubt. For it is not for this reason, that the qualities consequent to a mixed body do not remain then in the body, because in that case the body would not remain mixed nor would it be proportioned to the soul, just as now too the soul could not animate an element. Nor is it for this reason, that the qualities will not remain contraries; for since a form is contrary to a form in its own species, and the same qualities in species that are in the body now will remain in the body then, it follows that they will be contraries, just as they are now.

415. Nor is the reasoning [Bonaventure, Sent. IV d.49 p.2 sect.2 q.2 a.1] for proving they are not contraries valid - the reasoning that: contraries are of a nature to arise about the same thing, and consequently to succeed each other in the same thing; but one quality will not succeed to another there, and so the reason for their contrariety will not be taken away.Or, following other ms. readings, “.. .will be taken away.” In either event the point seems to be that contraries will not then function as contraries because, whether the reason for their being contraries remains or not, they will not then be in the same thing successively replacing each other. ⁶⁷

The reasoning is first indeed not valid because it is circular in proving the premise from the conclusion.To argue that contraries will not then be (or function as) contraries, because they will not be in the same thing successively replacing each other, is to argue in a circle. For ‘being in the same thing successively replacing each other’ is how, in this argument, ‘contrary’ is being defined, so to say that contraries will not then be contraries because this definition will not apply to them is to say that they will not then be contraries because they will not then be contraries. ⁶⁸

Second that description of contraries [from Categories 5.3b24-4a21] is being badly understood, because it should not be understood of any contraries whatever taken numerically, nor of anything numerically the same, but of contraries taken specifically and of something the same in species; and if taken of a contrary numerically the same, not of all of them but some.

416. These facts are evident because this whiteness, which is now in this thing, and that whiteness, which is in that thing, never succeed to themselves; therefore not here either, for otherwise one of them would migrate [from one thing to the other]. But a different whiteness and a different blackness in this thing can succeed to themselves; but not in every subject, because then no subject would determine for itself one of the contraries. Nor, third, can it be posited that this susceptive subject not then be of a nature to receive contrary after contrary, because the susceptive subject remains the same as it is now, and consequently is susceptive of specifically the same thing.

417. If it be said that it remains then without privation, now with privation, on the contrary: this involves the contradiction, ‘the privation of form is taken away from the subject if the form is not present in it’. For the aptitude for receiving cannot be taken away while the nature of the susceptive subject remains; but the lack, which privation adds over and above aptitude, cannot be taken away unless that is posited of which there is a lack.If a subject lacks a property or form, as when water lacks warmth, it has the lack (or privation) of that property, as the lack of warmth. So if, conversely, one says of some water that it lacks the lack of warmth, one is saying that it has the lack of the lack of that property or form, or in short that it has the property and is warm. Accordingly, it is a contradiction to say of water that it lacks this lack of warmth and yet is not warm. But such is what one ends up saying if one says that the impassible body, unlike the passible body, does not receive warmth (or cold) because it lacks the lack of them. ⁶⁹

418. If you say that the higher form takes away the privation of lower forms, as the form of heaven takes away the privation of corruptible forms [n.325; Ord. II d.14 n. 14, III d.16 n.5]; on the contrary - the lack is not taken away save as the habit is posited; and the superior does not include in itself the inferior in its proper idea but only virtually; therefore it does not take away the lack of it in its proper idea; therefore not the privation of it either, if it be of a nature to be present [sc. in a subject that naturally has the contrasting habit and suffers privation if it does not have it].

419. This is also plain specifically in the issue at hand, because the noblest form, which will then be in the whole, will be the intellective soul; but it will then be the same as it also is now and equally perfect substantially; so it will also not take away privation then, just as it does not now either.

1. Scotus’ own Explanation of the Reasons about Impassibility

420. Whence then will this impassibility be?

421. I reply: no intrinsic cause of this impassibility can be found on the part of the susceptive subject; either then it is found from a defect of agent, or from an impediment of agent absolutely, namely both intrinsic and extrinsic agent.

422. A defect cannot be posited because “to every passive power there corresponds an active power” [Metaphysics 5.15.1021a14-16], either intrinsic or extrinsic; however perhaps a lack of power of the intrinsic agent could be posited by positing that these qualities in the body [sc. of the blessed] are reduced to such equality that one could not be the principle for one to act on another.

423. This is persuasive because, notwithstanding the contrariety of the elements, if they were taken in such equality of bulk and virtue that none of them could overcome any other (or any others), or be overcome by another (or by others), and if they were, thus proportioned, included perpetually in any body whatever - never would there be corruption of any of them there, because although there was contrariety, there was yet proportioned equality.

424. It seems to be similar now among the elements; for as to why fire does not burn up all the elements, though it is of greater activity, there does not seem to be a reason save from the proportion or adequacy of the other elements in resisting fire’s power in acting, at least while the heaven concurs in cooperating with the others in resisting it.

425. But because this cause [n.422-425] perhaps supposes something false, for the qualities will not then be thus reduced to equality to such an extent that none could be the principle for acting on another, wherein some qualities must be overcome also in virtue -which appears to be the case, because the human body is more in flux as to its material parts than the body of any animate or inanimate inferior, and this is only from the dominance of some quality that requires such an animal.

426. Likewise, this cause could not posit impassibility with respect to an extrinsic corruptive cause; and therefore, if it were to exclude corruption from within, it would still be diminished; and so one must posit impassibility through something that impedes corruptive suffering. Either a positive or a privative such impediment can be posited; the positive is double (namely the soul or a gift in the body); the privative is double (cessation of heavenly motion, and God’s non-cooperation with the corruptive second cause).

a. About the First Opinion of Others

427. Argument [Richard of Middleton] for the first is that the soul is constituted in the middle between God and corporeal creatures; therefore just as the soul will be then perfectly subject to God as to its superior, so will it then perfectly dominate over its body as inferior.

428. To the contrary:

The soul is not repugnant to these qualities [of the body], even insofar as the qualities are contraries and are not reduced to the mean wherein they are active. This is plain because it supposes them thus to be in their susceptive subject, and nothing is repugnant to what it requires in its susceptive subject. Nor even is it repugnant to their effects, because although they act mutually, they only act by univocal action. At any rate their effects up to a considerable intensity are not repugnant to the soul, because they stand along with the soul now though they be intense to a considerable degree; therefore they will not be repugnant to it then as it is the ‘informing form’.

429. So if the soul prohibits the actions of these qualities then, it is not because of its repugnance to the action of them, but because of command through act of its will, with full dominion, as it were, over the body. This does not seem probable, because the highest angel cannot, through sole command of his will, impede the action of any natural cause; for bodily causes do not, as to their action or alteration, obey angels’ wish.

b. About the Second Opinion of Others

430. For the second opinion (namely a gift in the body [n.426], [Thomas Aquinas]) argument is given from the remark of Augustine Letter 118 To Dioscorus 3 n.14, “So powerful has God made the soul that from its full happiness there redounds to the body perpetual health and incorruptible vigor.” The manner is as follows [Henry of Ghent]: as hardness is a certain impassibility [cf. Ord. IV d.1 n.319], namely one that prevents a certain suffering (as being easily cut), so is it possible for there to be a quality in the body that prevents all corruptive suffering.

431. Against this:

This quality is not a heavenly quality, first because it is not transparency nor light nor luminosity, second because, since the human body is a mixed body, it is not capable of a heavenly quality. Either then it will be a quality of an element or a quality proper to a mixed body; but whether this or that, it is not an impediment to all action or suffering. The thing is plain in their example, because although hardness prevents cutting, yet it does not prevent burning or some other destructive suffering.

432. There is also proof of it through reason, that all forms of the same proximate susceptive subject are of the same physical genus, from Metaphysics 5.28.1024a29-b9; but all such forms are contraries or intermediates, and all forms of this sort do not prevent mutual action; rather they are principles of mutual action as is said in Metaphysics, 10.7.1057a18-19, 30-31, b2-4. Therefore, this quality, whether it belongs to an element or a mixed body and consequently to the same susceptive subject, does not prevent all corruptive passion, but is rather a principle of acting or suffering.

433. Again, this quality is either repugnant to other qualities (and then it does not prevent all action, because it is of the same genus), or is not repugnant (and then it does not prevent an action of any of them on another, because those others are repugnant to each other and so principles of mutual action) - and thus is it not repugnant to any action of them.

c. About the Third Opinion of Others

434. For the third opinion argument is given as follows: when a first is taken away anything posterior is taken away; the heavenly motion is the first of motions [Physics,

8.9.265a13]; therefore, when it ceases there will be no other motion [cf. d.48 nn.82-83, 89].

435. Against this is the article [one of the 219 articles condemned in 1274 by the Bishop of Paris]: When the heaven stops and fire is next to flax [candle tow], to say that fire does not burn the flax is an error

436. Again by the argument of the Philosopher On Generation 2.10.336a16-18: “motion is to this extent cause of generation, that it brings forward the generator;” but it only acts for the presence or nearness of the generator as regard matter. Therefore if the same presence or nearness were had without motion, the form would act just as much. An example: if the sun suddenly by divine power came to be at midday the way it does so now by motion, it would illuminate and heat opposites in the same way as it heats them now; indeed it would then heat more strongly, because it would not cease to act until it had totally corrupted, if it could corrupt, what was in front of it or placed beneath it; but as it is, because it does not linger over the passive and supposed object, it acts on it less effectively.

B. Scotus’ own Response

437. I say, therefore, that the cause of impassibility is the divine will not acting along with the corruptive second cause. And by this is it [the body] impassible: not by remote but proximate power, not by an intrinsic cause but an extrinsic impeding cause (as was said about impeccability in this distinction above, in the question about secure possession, nn.348-353). An example from the fire in the furnace [Daniel 3.19-24, 92], which did not act to consume the three boys - not indeed because of any impassibility intrinsic to the boys, nor from the lack of passive potency, nor from an impeding intrinsic contrary, but because God by his own will did not cooperate with the fire in its action.

1. Objections against Scotus’ own Response

438. Against this: impassibility would then not be a gift of the blessed body, for the gift is something intrinsic to him whose it is; but the fact that God wills to prevent second causes from causing corruption is not something intrinsic to the body; the consequent is false because it seems contrary to the authority of Augustine above [n.430].

439. Again, according to this position, the gift of impassibility will be as much in the elements as in the body of Peter; equally too in the bodies of the damned [n.381], because both the elements and the bodies of the damned will then be preserved from corruption.

440. Again, third, there then seems to be a miracle in the preservation, as there was in the guarding of the three boys from harm; but it does not seem that perpetual divine works are miraculous, according to Augustine’s remark, City of God 7.30, “God so administers the things he has established that he allows them to perform their own motions.”

2. Confutation of the Objections

a. To the First Objection

441. To the first of these [n.438]: it is very possible for a gift not to be present really in the person gifted. Just as there is not present in a bride what is given her by her spouse, which is wont to be called the gift of dowry, as is contained in Genesis 34.12, where Sichen says to Jacob and his sons, “Increase the dowry and demand gifts...”

442. Also, if the dowry-gift is said to be what is given by the father of the bride, it is indeed for the spouse, for his use, but it remains property of the bride. Just as it usually now is called a gift, plainly it is not really present either in the spouse or the bride; rather it is only something possessed in some way by reason of the marriage. And so in the resurrection, by reason of consummating the spiritual marriage, there will be given to each blessed for gift this divine assistance that preserves him from all corruptive forces, although this guarding not be in him really.

443. In another way it could be said that the one gifted has a right over what is assigned him as gift; so here the blessed by his merits has a right over the dispensing to him of this divine guarding; and this right of preservation of the body from every corruptive force by divine guarding is a gift in the blessed and as concerns his body, because it is for protection of the body.

b. To the Second Objection

444. To the next [n.439], it is plain from this that neither do the elements have a right to be preserved from corruption, nor do the bodies of the damned, but they are preserved for affliction because of their past demerits; but the bodies [of the blessed], because of their past merits, do have the right, and this for the advantage of these bodies.

445. And accordingly it can be said to the authority of Augustine [nn.430, 438] that this health and vigor flow from the soul to the body, because there is a certain ordering in the body whereby vigor and health are preserved for it by God. And this ordering belongs to the body for thereby preserving what is animated by this sort of soul, which soul was the principle for meriting that such health is preserved for its body by God - so that to say ‘this incorruptibility flows from the soul to the body’ is nothing else than to say ‘this reward, which is preservation of health, is a reward of the body by mediation of the soul’, and this soul, as it was more principal in meriting, so is it more principally in nature rewarded.

c. To the Third Objection

446. To the third [n.440] I say that [God’s] acting along with the body of the blessed for preserving it against any corrupting force is more natural than his acting along with the contrary in corrupting it, because a superior cause acts more perfectly with a more perfect second cause. And although this were now as to the body of someone just a thing miraculous, because now is the time of change and action, yet then it will be the time of rest and changelessness in bodies, and for the time then it will be natural and customary (according to the common course of things) that [God] act for rest, just as he now acts for motion

3. Scotus’ own Response to Others’ Reasons

447. To the reasons for these three positions [nn.427-436].

To the first [nn.427-429], about the lordship of the soul over the body, I reply that God will not then make the will of the soul omnipotent, and so not powerful either to do whatever it wish to do; but sufficient for it is that whatever it wish be done will be done; and thus its body will be perfectly subject to its will (that is, it will be as the will wishes it to be), just as it is perfectly subject to God. But this subjection of its body will be from the divine will effectively.

448. To the reason for the second [nn.430-433], it was said what Augustine’s understanding [nn.430, 438] is about that gift: that it is a certain right possessed in the body, insofar as it is animated by this sort of soul, for such passive preservation from all corruption

449. To the third [nn.434-436]: the motion of the heaven has a certain priority relative to the others, namely of uniformity and velocity, but not a priority of causality, save insofar as it brings forward the generator [n.436], which is per accidens - the way the motion of fire to wood has a priority, namely of burning the wood, and without such prior there cannot be a posterior; [there can be] ifInstead of ‘if’ another ms. has ‘unless’, which is required if the ‘[there can be]’ is not taken to be implied ⁷⁰ something supply the place of such prior.

II. To the Initial Arguments

450. To the first main argument [n.407]: [yes] if the authority of Gregory be conceded, which however does not seem necessary; for why could the heaven not be touched by a finger that existed there?The sphere of the heaven was understood to be physical, and so in principle touchable, but not corruptible. ⁷¹ - understanding touching in this way, that the body were sufficiently resistant to touch, though not through any sensible quality (neither as hard nor as soft, nor as hot nor as cold etc.). But as to what is touched according to some sensible quality, something corruptible is, by its affect on touch, very well left behind by it.That is, when something touches, or is touched, by something according to some sense quality, it leaves something of itself behind (some quanta of energy, we might now say), and so is progressively corrupted by such acts of touching. ⁷² And so not more follows than that the body, were it not preserved by God, would be corruptible by a corrupting passion.

451. To the second [n.408] it is said that all the senses of the blessed are within his act. The reason for this is that each sensation is a proper perfection of the sensitive power. However, I do not see the necessity that the senses pertaining to nutrition be among the blessed’s acts, since nutrition is not necessary then, because the body will not be an animal one, that is, a body in need of food. Some senses, however, can well be posited among his acts - those senses whose acts do not require a concomitant imperfection, such as sight and hearing, which are more spiritual. About sight no one doubts, nor about hearing, if there is sound there and sound capable of being propagated and of affecting the hearing.

452. When it is argued that such affecting is not without a real corruptive affecting, I deny it, because sometimes there is a greater intentional affecting and a lesser real affecting, as was said elsewhere [supra d.44 nn.130-131].

453. As to the proof [n.408], that a surpassing sensible object can corrupt sense, I concede that these two affectings do now come together, because the active object is able to act with both actions [sc. real and intentional, n.452] and the passive subject (either the same or conjoined) is receptive of both actions. And for this reason is each action now conjoined together in the same passive subject (although sometimes one action is greater and the other less, according to the disposition of the passive subject to this action or that). But God will not then keep the organs of the senses away from one of the passions [sc. the intentional one], because it does not serve their perfection to be so kept away; but he will then keep the whole body away from the other action [sc. the real one], because this keeping away is for the well-being that the body has merited through the mediation of the soul, or the soul has merited for the body, or the whole has merited for the body principally through the soul.

454. To the third [n.409]: if it be denied that the elements are really in the mixed body, the response is plain [sc. because the proble ceases to arise]. But if this is not denied, I say that that is simply violent which is opposed to what is simply natural, and that that is more violent which is opposed to what is a more perfect natural, and that that is less violent which is opposed to what is less natural.

455. An example: that there is water above [e.g. in clouds] so that a plenum may be kept in the universe is not simply violent; rather what would then descend, with a vacuum left remaining above, would be violent, and natural in a certain respect, because the nature of the whole universe is more a principle of naturality than is this particular nature, and more natural because it belongs to such a whole than what belongs properly to this part. Now the mixed body, and especially the human body, is more perfectly something natural than is any of the elements; and so, what is natural for that [mixed] body, this is simply more natural than what would be natural for any of the elements in itself. More natural, then, is that the body of man be conserved and the elements in it than that the body of man be violently dissolved and each element tend by its own naturality to its own proper place.

456. The proposition too of the Philosopher, that nothing violent is perpetual [n.409], is not necessary for theologians, speaking of the violent that is against the particular nature of this body; because God can preserve some particular perpetually under the opposite of that to which it is naturally inclined. But with Aristotle the proposition was true [supra d.43 nn.157, 221-222; cf. Aquinas, SG III ch.45], because he posits that to every passive potency there corresponds, in the whole coordination of active causes, some cause that would sometimes necessarily reduce it to act. Therefore, this natural potency will sometime be reduced to act, and thus will its violent opposite be corrupted.

457. To the next [n.410] from On the Heaven [1.12.282a21-24], I say that when one act is repugnant to another, although the possibility for this act stand with that act (and more with the possibility for that act), yet the possibility for this act does not stand with the necessity of that act; because if this act is necessary, that act is impossible, because what is repugnant to the necessary is impossible. Therefore if Plato said that the heaven is in contingent disposition to being corrupted and to ceasing, and also is in contingent disposition to being perpetually conserved by God [supra d.43 n.102], the argument [n.410] is of no avail against him, because no incompossibility follows when the possible is posited; because in such things, where each act is contingent separately [sc. neither is necessary by itself though one or other must hold], from the positing of the possible no new impossibility arises [sc. if of two possibles contradictory to each other one is posited, the other cannot be posited; but the other does not thereby cease to be possible; it just ceases ever to be actual].

458. An example: let ‘I will run tomorrow, I am able not to run tomorrow’ be posited in existence; no new impossibility arises. And if [Plato] posited one of the two statements to be necessary, namely, that God necessarily conserve things, or it be proved that from the possibility [sc. of things ceasing] (which Plato concedes) a necessity follow because of matter [sc. that material things must necessarily cease to be at some point] -then, by positing the other possibility to be existent in fact, no new incompossibility is got; but the incompossibility that is now manifest between ‘the necessary is present’ and ‘the opposite is present’ was before between ‘the necessary is present’ and ‘the possible is present’.The point seems to be that Plato’s position (the heaven is in principle corruptible but God will prevent it ever being corrupted in fact) does not, contrary to the objection [n.410], involve a contradiction. For the two possibilities are not contradictory as they stand, and though one becomes impossible if the other is posited, this is not a new necessity in the things (de re) but only a necessity in the statements (de dicto). For both statements assert something possible in itself, but if one is asserted the other is necessarily denied. ⁷³

459. In this way must the argument of Aristotle be expounded:

Namely either by accepting from Plato, if he granted it, that ‘the heaven will be necessarily perpetuated by God’, and then to posit in being that ‘it is possible for the heaven to be corrupted and cease’, and the impossible follows [sc. the heaven will last forever, and the heaven will cease] - not because of the positing of the ‘possible’, since by making comparison with the opposite ‘necessary’ there is no new incompossibility.

Or if Plato did not grant it, it needs to be proved that there follows from what was granted that which is indeed true according to the Philosopher; and according to him, Metaphysics 9.8.1050b6-8, whatever is sempiternal is necessary; and so, if it can be sempiternal, it is necessarily sempiternal.

460. And thus does the Commentator seem to treat of this proof in On the Heaven I com.138, that nature would change if from being possible it became sempiternal, or two opposite natures would be together in the same thing (which was expounded above in Ord.1 d.8 nn.236-258).

461. In another way is proved to follow, from what is granted, that whatever God immediately does he necessarily does, according to the Philosopher; from this does he proceed at the beginning of Physics 8.1.251a8-b10, 252a3-22, 6.259b32-60a19. And this second proof proves a different necessity (because an inevitability) from the first (which proves an intrinsic necessity); in this latter way is the motion of the heaven necessary, not in the first way,In the first way the necessity is about what God must do to the heaven extrinsically from without; in the second way the necessity is about what the heaven must undergo intrinsically from within. This intrinsic condition, however, can be prevented from every being realized extrinsically by God. ⁷⁴ Averroes Metaphysics 11 com.30; Aristotle Metaphysics 12.6.1071b13-20.

462. In each way (by deducing the necessary from act or from the possible granted by Plato) the positing of the other possible in being shows the positing to be unacceptable, for it includes contradictories; because just as now there is a contradiction of act with necessity, so before it was of the possible with the same necessity, though a less manifest one.Before the contradiction was not in the things but in the statements, that while both were possible yet if one was true (or even necessary) the other could not be true. But once one of the statements is posited to hold in reality (being), the other is necessarily shown not to hold in reality. ⁷⁵

463. The necessity of the other opposite, namely, to cease or be corrupted [n.459], can be proved thus; that to every passive power there corresponds in being some active power [n.455], (but if not, then our will sometimes will be necessarily reduced to act).The will is a free power so must be reduced to act by a free cause. If there is no free cause, it will be reduced to act necessarily. ⁷⁶ Similarly, ‘everything corruptible will necessarily be corrupted’, and then the remaining part must be posited in being, namely that it be perpetually conserved [sc. by God]; and there will be a manifest contradiction, which however before was because of the necessity of one of the opposites.Hitherto the contradiction has concerned the necessity of things being conserved by God and the possibility of things ceasing to be. This contradiction has arisen because of necessity in one of the opposites (namely that if God necessarily conserves things, the possibility of their ceasing to be is removed). The contradiction now is because of necessity in the other opposite as well, namely not only that God necessarily conserves things but also that corruptible things must at some time necessarily be corrupted. The contradiction in this case is more manifest because there is an opposed necessity on both sides, whereas the contradiction before was between necessity on one side and possibility on the other. Scotus is, however, not disturbed by either contradiction, because it is in the statements rather than the things - for if God conserves things, even necessarily, the possibility of things ceasing to be is only removed in fact and not in idea [n.458-459]. ⁷⁷ This second [sc. way of taking the contradiction] seems to agree less with the text [sc. of the objection, n.410].