III. In what Ways the First Opinion can be Sustained

A. The First Way, which is according to the Intention of Bonaventure

1. As to the Opinion itself

48. He who wishes to hold the first opinion [n.11] (which seems probable and has probable reasons on its behalf) can say - according to the intention of him who poses it [sc. Bonaventure] - that aeviternity is properly a quantity and consequently has proper divisibility; but not a permanent divisibility, therefore a successive one; such is an indivisible succeeding to an indivisible, and a different indivisible to a different indivisible.

49. And so the ‘now’ of aeviternity, as far as concerns itself, passes instantaneously - and aeviternal being, as it is posited in being in the ‘now’, has, from the force of this position, being precisely in the ‘now’ and then immediately non-being (when the ‘now’ has gone by), unless the same cause, by another causation, were to posit the same being in another ‘now’. And so the cause conserves it by positively causing, not another being (as is true in the case of something successive), but the same being over and over infinitely - such that the first causation is called ‘creation’, because it follows not-being immediately in the order of duration, but each following causation follows not-being mediately in the order of duration, and not-being immediately in the order of nature, namely because not-being would then be present unless the conserving cause were to bestow being. But the being posited secondly follows, in the order of duration, the being posited previously - and thus, in this way, there is conservation and continuation of the same being.

50. There is an example of this. If an angel has some virtual quantity by which he can be present at some place, then he is, by this virtual quantity, present at this place, because he cannot simultaneously be present at another place; and he can absolutely not be present at another place save by some change made with respect to the former place; either because the virtual quantity becomes formally greater, or because it is transferred from place to place, or because it is, by divine power, in another place without leaving the former place.

51. So it is in the issue at hand, that the being that the angel has by a single causation is limited to this ‘now’ - and, when nothing new is done with respect to the angel, he cannot, by force of this single causation, exist beyond this ‘now’; but God, by giving the angel perpetual, enduring quantity (and this by a single continuous causation or by infinite causations of the same being), gives it to him always uniformly, so that by it the angel is extended to the whole of time.

2. To the Arguments brought against the First Opinion

52. To the arguments against this position.

To the first [n.33], which proves that a contradiction follows from the position, I reply: in the duration or persistence of being which precisely is successive there is renewal (and one part of it goes away and another part succeeds, and in general one part succeeds to another), but there is not any renewal in the existence of that of which there is persistence; just as, if the same flesh were posited, not possessed of part after part in the same permanent quantity, there would be an otherness there of parts in the extension itself formally (which is a quantity), without any extension or diversity of parts in that to which such extension happens.

53. And when proof is given [n.34] that ‘there is no distinction in the measure (from the Philosopher Physics 4. 11.219a10-29) unless there was distinction in the measured’ - I say that the consequence is good that ‘if the parts of time are other, then the parts of motion are other’, as inference from effect to cause; but it is not necessary that in anything whatever the parts of duration are other, because there may be some ‘distinction of parts’ that are prior; the reason for this is that the distinction that is second to one thing can be first in another thing.

54. There is an example of this: fire heats and dries, because of distinct ordered accidents in fire, such that the distinction of actions there is second, presupposing another prior distinction, namely the distinction of active accidents [sc. of hot and dry in fire]; but it does not follow from this that, wherever there is a distinction of actions, this distinction is second - because if these distinct accidents of fire were virtually contained in the sun, then the first distinction there would be of actions, which distinction was second with respect to fire. So must one say in the issue at hand.

55. To the other argument [n.36] I say that the ‘now’ can fail, because of itself it has only instantaneous being - although its subject remains the same, and no agent corrupts it. And as to the fact that ‘the now of time fails when its own proper subject fails’ [n.36], it is accidental to a ‘now’ that its proximate subject fails - because if the subject were to remain the same (as in the case of something at rest), then one could say that the same subject, acting through what is another ‘now’ succeeding to the prior ‘now’, does, by producing another ‘now’ incompossible with the prior ‘now’, destroy the prior ‘now’, not first of itself but by way of consequence.

56. And if you ask what the prior ‘now’ fails in, whether in itself or in another (as Aristotle argues in Physics 4.10.218a8-21) - I say that ‘to fail’ (as also ‘to cease’) can be understood in two ways: in one way by positing a present and denying a future, and in another way by positing a past and denying a present. The first way must be understood in the case of indivisibles and things that have the ultimate of their being; for they do not have a first stage in their not-being, and they then cease to be when they are - and in this way the ‘now’ ceases to be in itself, because then it is and after this it will not be; and if you ask for the first stage in its not-being, there is none, as neither in the case of anything that has the ultimate of its being.Tr. The point here seems to be something as follows. The ‘now’ of time comes and goes with the process of change in temporal things, as these come to be and cease to be. Angels do not undergo change but simply are or are not without any process (they have, or do not have, the fullness of their being all at once). The ‘now’ of angels comes and goes, then, not because angels are subjects of change, but simply because of itself, because it is an indivisible that immediately is and immediately is not. ¹⁸

B. Second Way, which is tangential to the Intention of Bonaventure

57. The conclusion [sc. that there is succession formally in the existence of an angel, n.1] can be sustained in another way (although not according to the intention of him who posits this principal position [n.11]), because the total existence of an angel persists according as it is absolute, but it has new respects, one after the other, to the cause - such that this total existence as it is under one respect to its causing cause succeeds to itself as it is under another respect to its conserving cause.William of Ware Sentences 2 d.2 q.2, “The whole of aeviternity, taken under one real respect to an angel, succeeds to itself under another real respect to an angel, succeeding to itself; likewise the creature, as it now coexists with God, has a different respect from when, in another ‘now’, it coexists with itself, without any absolute newness. Hence the whole succeeds to itself in both measured and measure, as the measure succeeds to itself the way the measured whole, in every respect of proportion, succeeds to itself; nor can there be concluded from this any succession in parts succeeding to themselves. Hence the first succession of whole to whole exists in aeviternity without absolute newness, but not without respective newness, because it receives different real respects.” ¹⁹

And this way would perhaps be easier for maintaining succession than the previous one (which posits quantity [n.48]), although, on the other side, there would be much difficulty in sustaining how there would be there a succession precisely of respects without any distinction in what is absolute in any way, whether in the foundation or in the term.