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].