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.