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