3. Third Opinion

182. The third opinion [Henry of Ghent, William of Ware] is an intermediate one, which posits that although not everything could return numerically the same by the action of nature, yet something can thus return numerically the same.

183. [First argument] - Argument for this opinion:

First by the remark of the Philosopher Metaphysics 8 [n.159], “If the agent is the same and the matter the same, the effect will be the same,” because he only assigns a possible diversity of effect because of a diversity of matter or efficient cause. But it is possible for the efficient cause and the matter to be, in their second relation to the thing produced, the same as they were in their first relation to the thing produced; therefore, it is possible for the thing produced second to be the same as the thing produced first.

184. The proof of the minor is that, although dispersion or division of matter frequently happen in corruption, yet the opposite is possible in many cases. For example, if a fire is contained within a urinal and is corrupted there into air and then from this air is generated fire by reflection of the rays of the sun or in some other way, the contained matter will be the same. Similarly, if something compact is generated from something compact precisely when the form of the thing generated can follow the form of the thing corrupted, the consequence is that the reason that the whole matter was in the form of the thing corrupted is equally reason that the same whole matter will be in the form of the thing to be generated.

185. Response: the remark of the Philosopher [n.183] must be understood with the addition of ‘at the same time’, because, according to him in Physics 5.4.227b21-24, not only is there an adding up of effects because of difference in species and subject, but also because of difference in time.

186. Another and better response is that Aristotle means that if the agent and matter are different the effect too will be different, but not that, by reversing the antecedent, if the agent and matter are the same, therefore the effect will be the same. Hence at the end [of the passage from the Metaphysics 8., n.159] he says in conclusion: “If then [nature] happens to make the same thing from the matter, it is plain that the principle that functions as mover is the same, for if the matter is different the mover and what is made are different,” supply: “since there the mover is different, what is made will also be different.”

187. Against the first response [n.185]: if the agent acts now in instant a, it will cause this (let this be p), and if it does not act now but stops until instant b, it will cause the same thing; therefore if it cause in a, and in the time intermediate between a and b the caused thing is destroyed, and the cause act again in instant b, it will cause the same thing. The consequence is plain from the fact that the continuity of the intermediate time does nothing for the identity of what persists through it, because what persists has the same being in the time as in the limits of the time.

188. If you deny the assumption, because in instant b a cause second from the universal cause (namely the heaven) cannot have the same influence as it had in instant a, and therefore it will not be able then to cause the same thing - to the contrary in two ways:

First because a like influence is sufficient for identity of effect; for if in instant a another agent were next to the passive thing, it would produce the same thing numerically as the original agent produced, and yet the influence would not be numerically the same as the influence of the latter, but only like it; now, however, there is in the other instant, namely b, an influence like what there was in instant a.

Again, this influence is not anything absolute received in the second cause, because then the second cause could, through what it received, act without the first cause whose influence it receives, because it now has the whole of that for which it needs the action of the first cause - which is unacceptable; therefore the influence of the higher cause with respect to the lower one is not anything received in the lower cause. Hence there is only the order in causing of the lower cause to the superior cause, which superior cause is, as concerns itself, always causing; so there will not be a different influence, just as neither a different order of higher cause to lower cause.

189. [Second argument] - Again, either it is simply impossible for the same thing numerically to be differently produced, and then it follows that neither does God have power for this; or it is not simply impossible, and then it follows that it will also now be in the causality of the things which it was possible in before; but it was before in the causality of natural causes, therefore it will be in their causality now as well.