f. Response to the Initial Arguments for the Opposite

234. According to this opinion [nn.203-204], the response to the two authorities [nn.190-191] adduced for the other side of the question is plain, because they are adduced badly and altogether not according to the intention of the authors, as is plain in the first reason for the opinion [nn.205-206, 208-218].

235. As to the reason for the first part introduced [n.192], about indelibility, I reply: the sacrament is not unrepeatable for the reason that it impress an indelible effect, but from divine ordination, as is said in the preceding question [n.163].

The reason can also be taken to the opposite: for a sacrament is more unrepeatable if it impress no form, because whatever form it impress, it could be deleted.

236. But if it is posited to be unrepeatable because it crosses over into the past, then the ‘indelible’ is preserved simply, because God could not, of his absolute power, make what is past not to have been past.

237. And if you take flight to the impressed form - since any form whatever can be destroyed, unrepeatability is simply not obtained. But if it be said that a past act is sign, since the past cannot be destroyed, that is, cannot not have been, it follows that the reason is simply one of impossibility.