Question Four. Whether the Operation of an Angel is Measured by Aeviternity

143. Fourth and last as to this matter [n.1] I ask whether the operation of an angel is measured by aeviternity.

144. That it is not:

From the author of On Causes proposition 31, “Between a thing whose substance and action are measured by time and a thing whose substance and action are measured by eternity there is an intermediate thing whose substance is measured by eternity (or aeviternity) and whose action is measured by time;” now an angel is of this sort;     therefore etc     .

145. Secondly as follows: the Philosopher in Physics 8.7.261b22-24 says that “nothing is generated in order immediately not to be;”     therefore every operation of an angel endures for a time and consequently is not precisely in an instant. But if it is in aeviternity (since it is not eternal) it will be precisely in an instant; wherefore etc     .

146. To the opposite:

The operation of an angel is not measured by time or by eternity,     therefore by aeviternity. The proof of the consequence is that more than one measure is not posited in an interval of being. The antecedent as to eternity is plain; as to time the proof is that an angel could have an operation when the motion of the heaven does not exist; but when the motion of the heaven does not exist there would be no time; therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Henry of Ghent

1. Exposition of the Opinion

147. Here it is said [by Henry of Ghent] that the intrinsic operation of an angel is measured by discrete time. And it is posited in the following way:

The measure that is of the duration of a thing is a way in which the thing is measured, and it is proportioned to the thing measured (as the measure of a permanent thing is permanent and of a flowing thing is flowing); therefore such a proportion must be found between the thoughts or operations of an angel and the measures of them. Now these thoughts are transient, because an angel does not have always wholly one intellection that is possible for him but many, and these intellections flow and pass by in a certain order, so that one is after another; and yet this happens without connection, so that an angel does not have one thought after another or from another because he is not discursive; it is also without succession, because none of these operations is in a process of being acquired or lost but is, while it is, whole at once and indivisible. So there will correspond to them a measure having indivisible, ordered, transient parts; but such is discrete time;     therefore etc     .

148. This reason is confirmed by Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.22 n.43, where he maintains that ‘God moves the spiritual creature in time’.

149. But if it be asked what this ‘discrete time’ is - the response is that it is a ‘true quantity’, distinct in species from number and speaking; for the parts of number indeed are permanent (so that if they are not permanent this is incidental), but a part of speaking is necessarily not permanent and yet is not continuous with another part. Therefore ‘discrete time’ agrees with speaking in that its parts are not permanent, but differs from speaking in that any part of vowelled speaking is continuous with vowelled speaking and of consonantal with consonantal (and this can be in our time truly and be measured by some part of time), although it is not continuous with another part of speaking; but no thought of an angel can in itself be measured by time (because it is indivisible), nor can it be continuous with another thought.

150. But if it be asked why this ‘discrete quantity’ is not put by Aristotle among the species of quantity, the response is that he posited the intelligences to be certain gods [Metaphysics 12.8.1073a14-b1, 1074a38-b13], and for this reason he did not posit any measure corresponding to such operation of them that was whole at once.

151. And if it be asked how this ‘discrete time’ relates to our time, the answer is that the ‘now’ of discrete time necessarily coexists with some part of our time and consequently with all the parts that exist along with that instant; for if an angel has some thought first along with this instant of ours, he does not at once have another thought in a next instant but he has the previous one in the time following, and in the last instant of the time following he can have another thought in continuity with our time.

152. And in addition, this instant does not have any proportion to our instant, because the same ‘now’ of that discrete time can coexist with any amount of our time, whether a greater or a lesser, according as the angel can continue the same indivisible intellection with a greater or lesser part of our time, without any other new intellection.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

153. Against the conclusion of this position [n.147] I argue as follows:

Things that have a uniform mode of lasting have, while they last, a measure in their duration of the same idea, even though one lasts longer than another; but the thinking of an angel has, while it lasts, the same mode of lasting as the existence of an angel, although it does not have as long a duration as the angel’s existence has; therefore it has a measure of the same idea as the existence does, and so the angel’s thinking is measured by aeviternity and not by time.a

a.a [Interpolated note] In the Reportatio, “The major is plain, both because the subject includes the predicate and because, if a single intellection of an angel were to remain sempiternally like his existence, it would have a measure uniformly; but sempiternal existence is not incidental to the measure, because, if one suppose that the angel will be annihilated tomorrow, his existence now would no less be measured by aeviternity.”

154. The proof of the minor is that to the formal idea of the existence of an angel - whether uniform or not - there corresponds, in their view [sc. the supporters of this opinion, n.147], a proper idea of measure, because they distinguish and speak ofa three modes of measure for things; and in this way both major and minor are plain. Hence their view maintains that the middle measure corresponds to what has an indivisible duration and is yet defectible (such that of itself it can cease to be), and it posits the measure to be aeviternity. But, just as the existence of an angel is indivisible and yet defectible, so also now, in their view, is the angel’s thinking.

a.a [Interpolated note] In the Reportatio [IIA d.2 q.1], “This doctor [Henry of Ghent] elsewhere says that there are three existences and three measures; existence that is simply independent and invariable, and it is measured by eternity, variable and dependent existence measured by time, invariable and dependent existence measured by aeviternity.”

155. If it be said that an angel’s thinking will not always be but that his existence will always be, and so things are not alike as to his existence and his thinking - this argument does not seem valid, because even if the angel is to be annihilated yet not for this reason would he, while he lasts, not be measured by aeviternity.

156. If it be said that it is in the angel’s power to have or not have the thinking, but not in his power to have or not have his actual existence - this argument does not seem valid, because just as potentiality for being about not to be at some point does not vary the measure of an angel’s existence while he lasts, so will the cause much more by which this potentiality can be reduced to act - namely a created or uncreated cause - not vary the formal idea of his existence or his duration in existing.

157. Further, second and principally, everyone concedes that the beatific act of an angel is measured by aeviternity, as is plain from Augustine [Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter ch.3 n.20. But that act necessarily includes or presupposes a natural act, and this by positing the angel has some perfection in his beatific act, although he not have power in himself for the total perfection of the beatific act; but it is impossible for an aeviternal thing to include or presuppose something posterior to aeviternity, which would, namely, be measured by a measure posterior to aeviternity; therefore the natural act, which is included in the beatific act, cannot be temporal.

158. Against the way of positing this opinion [n.47]:

For it seems to concede a large quantity of times without necessity; for it has as consequence that any angel possesses his own discrete time, because one angel can continue his thinking along with our day and another continue his thinking along with half our day and a third do so along with an hour of our day - and so one angel will have twenty four instants while another will have a single instant; nay, the opinion has as consequence that in any angel there will be two discrete times, because any angel will be able to continue his thinking while not continuing his volition - and so he will have two instants of intellection and yet one instant of volition.

159. Further, according to this opinion the aeviternal durations in diverse aeviternities will, if the actual existences of aeviternal things are of a different idea, also be of different ideas - and in angels of diverse species the opinion posits aeviternal durations of diverse species; so likewise there will be ‘nows of discrete time’ of different species for intellections of different species.

160. From this I argue as follows: no single quantity is composed of several parts of altogether different ideas, because although sixes can be composed of twos and threes etc. (which however the Philosopher denies, Metaphysics 5.15.1020b7-8, because ‘six things are only once six’, and Avicenna also denies it, Metaphysics 3.5, f 80va), yet no quantity ‘composed however much of parts of distinct ideas’ can be the same quantity, because then six could come from tens and twos and from any number whatever; but during the length of a day of ours an angel could understand distinctly any natural intelligibles whatever, as stone, wood, iron, water, and understand anything else at all after anything else at all - and then his time would be composed of diverse instants and instants of diverse species, corresponding to the intelligibles of diverse species.a He would also be able not to think or understand these but instead to think or understand many more (or as many) other species, and consequently his time could then be composed of others parts, and parts positively disposed in determinate nature to time;     therefore it seems etc     . [sc. as above: that ‘his time would be composed of diverse instants and instants of diverse species, corresponding to the intelligibles of diverse species’].

a.a [Interpolated note] In the Reportatio [IIA d.2 q.1], “For number is not composed of numbers but of unities, because ‘once six’     etc . Let it however be so, certainly no number can be composed of parts altogether of another idea, however much; but an angel’s intellection of one object and of another is of another idea in its proper genus, because intellection is specified by its object; therefore      the times that do the measuring will be diverse and of a different idea.”

161. Further, positing that ‘one now of angelic time necessarily coexists with several instants of our time’ [n.151] seems to be a subterfuge, and to be posited in order not to concede that our time is discrete; and if instants of the former time coexisted precisely with instants of our time, then it would follow that, as the former time is discrete, so our time would be discrete - and by avoiding this result the statement that one instant of the former time must coexist with many parts of our time seems to be posited without reason.

162. But that this is not necessary is proved as follows, because whatever intelligibles I can understand within a certain time (few intelligibles or many), an angel can understand distinctly in the same time, because in a created intellect - which cannot understand everything all at once - it seems a mark of perfection to be able to understand many things without interval, for this is something present more in those more talented; but the human intellect can have an intellection in some one instant and immediately afterwards have another intellection - and in this way it can have many intellections within some given time; therefore there is no necessity that the intellect of an angel should, if it understand a along with an instant of our time, abide in understanding the a for any time and any instants of our time in which my intellect could be having another intellection.

163. But if it be said that my intellect cannot after one instant immediately understand by another intellection but must remain for a time in that thought, otherwise one could not give a first instant for the subsequent thought - if it be posited that ‘the other intellection’ is indifferently measured by time and the instant, the argument would not be conclusive; for then, just as there is no intermediate between instant and time, so neither is there between an intellection of mine that is in an instant and that intellection which is in the immediately possessed time - and then one cannot give a first instant for the second intellection. But if an angel’s intellection is measured by aeviternity (as will be said later [n.167]), then some intellection too of his can be with one instant and some intellection can be with possessed time (and the second has a first instant of its being just as does the first, because the second has an indivisible measure just as also does the first), but yet nothing first in our time coexists with the second intellection; and the way it is with the intellections of an angel is that, if he understand anything along with our time, there is no need for that intellection to persist through a possessed time; but if he at once has another intellection, it coexists with ‘possessed time’ in the instant when the first intellection existed - and then there will be nothing of our time coexisting with the second intellection.

164. Further, it seems that he [Henry] should say as a consequence of his opinion [n.147] that our intellections are measured by discrete time, because our intellections seem to be whole all at once (according to the Philosopher in Ethics 10.6.1176a30-b6, 7.1177a12-8a8), since they are perfect and transient and disposed in a certain order.

166. And if you say (as Henry seems to say) that our intellections have connection because we understand discursively and an angel does not [n.147] - on the contrary, this does not make per se for continuity or non-continuity of intellection with intellection; for the cognition (or intellection) of a conclusion is not more acquired successively because part is acquired after part, and cognition of a conclusion acquired after cognition of the principle, than if knowledge of the conclusion were had precisely after knowledge of the principle and had without it. Likewise, we can have distinct intellections succeeding each other non-discursively; and if the intellections are whole all at once, then they will be non-continuous and in a discrete time - which is against the Philosopher On Memory and Recollection 1.450a7-9, because we understand along with the continuous and with time.

166. Further, as to what is said about the difference of number and of speaking and of a time of this sort [n.149], that ‘the parts of number last and the parts of speaking can be continuous in themselves, but the parts of angelic time neither last nor are continuous in themselves, nor can they be,’ then all these differences seem to be material and not to give a formal distinction to discrete quantity insofar as it is discrete; for they are incidental to the idea of a thing having parts not conjoined to a common term, whether the parts last all at once or are in flux, whether any of them is in itself indivisible or not.a

a.a [Interpolated note] In the Reportatio [IIA d.2 q.1], “To persist or not to persist makes nothing for discrete quantity or continuous quantity, but being conjoined to a common term or not does; and so for no reason in the world should one posit that time is composed of such discrete parts.”

B. Scotus’ own Solution

167. I concede the conclusion of the first two reasons [nn.153, 157], namely that the intellections of an angel are measured by aeviternity - and, in short, so is any actual and invariable existence, that is, an existence to which it is repugnant that there should be in accord with it variation or flux or acquisition of part after part; nor does the lastingness of any of them or the corruption or annihilation or any of them vary the measure formally, provided the existence is of the same idea while it lasts.

C. Instances against Scotus’ own Solution

168. But there is against this that it then seems everything permanent would be measured by aeviternity; for nothing is permanent whose existence does not stay the same while it lasts, and this without succession properly speaking, which is acquisition or loss of part after part.

169. The consequent seems unacceptable, for two reasons:

First, because according to the Philosopher Physics 4.12.221b7-9 rest is measured by time; therefore things where motion is of a nature to be are, when not in motion, measured by time as if they were in motion.

170. Second, because the generation and corruption of all generable and corruptible things are measured by an instant of time; but that which has its first being measured by the ‘now’ of time has its possessed being measured by time; therefore the possessed being of all generable things is, after generation, measured by time.

D. Response to the Instances

1. To the First Instance

171. To the first of these [n.169] I say that the following five things are disposed in beings by a certain order:

Flux of form, form according to which there is actual flux, and form according to which there can be flux of parts; and fourth a permanent thing, in which a flux of parts is not of a nature to be present, yet has a subsequent form in which flux is of a nature to be; fifth, that in which there cannot be flux, nor in anything that naturally follows on it.

172. The first is essentially measured by time, because permanence (or some part of the thing remaining the same) is against its formal idea, but its idea requires that a part of it succeeds to a part of it; the fifth remains invariably the same while it lasts and is therefore in no way measured by time (neither as to its totality nor as to a part of it nor even per accidens); the fourth is not measured by time per se, nor is there properly rest in it, because it is not of a nature to be moved (it rests however per accidens, because rest accords with some form necessarily following on it); the third and second are the same form but as taken according to diverse dispositions - and according as the form is taken in one way there is actually rest, and according as it is taken in another way there is actually motion.

173. About this form [sc. of the second and third in the list] one can say that although it does not have actually varied being (because then there would not be rest according to it), yet it does have variable being - and therefore it is never measured by aeviternity (even though it is not actually varied), because aeviternity requires in what it measures an invariable being that is repugnant to succession of part after part; but if it be said that ‘non-varied being’ is measured by aeviternity, then one can concede that this form - when there is no motion actually in accord with it - is measured by aeviternity.

174. However this last point seems less probable than the one before it, because when the form is actually existing it seems to have the ‘now’ (instant) of time for measure and not the ‘now’ of aeviternity - which however one should posit when positing that, insofar as it is actually under motion, it is measured by the ‘now’ of time and that, insofar as it is actually in rest, it is measured by the ‘now’ of aeviternity.

175. So when the inference is drawn that ‘everything permanent is measured by the now of aeviternity or by aeviternity’ [n.168], this plainly does not follow (as to one way [sc. the first given in n.173]), but it follows only as to things that are truly permanent, namely invariable while they last.

176. And then the first rejection of the consequent, about rest [n.169], is not valid, because rest is not in accord with any such form but in accord precisely with a form in accord with which there is naturally motion.

177. But if someone wants to concede that heat, insofar as it has ‘non-varied being’ is measured by aeviternity [n.173], one can say that its resting is not measured by aeviternity and yet its permanent being is measured by aeviternity, because rest is only a privation of some succession of part after part, according to what the Philosopher maintains in Physics 5.6.229b24-25, where he treats of the opposition of motion and rest, that ‘rest is privation of motion’ - and elsewhere [Physics 5.2.226b15-16, 8.8.264a27-28]; but this privation presupposes the actual existence of the form in which the privation is, such that the privation is not the first reason for the actual existence. So although this privation is measured in this way by time, yet the inference does not, for this reason, hold, that the existence of such a form is measured by time, but rather that it is so by some prior measure.

178. And if you say ‘how can this privation, as it is distinguished from actual existence, be measured by time?’, I say that just as a vacuum, if it existed, would be measured by the same magnitude as the corresponding plenum would be measured by

(for if this house were a vacuum, there would be a greater distance from me to one wall than to another, just as there would by nature be a greater plenum between me and the one wall than between me and the other wall; for then the vacuum would be said to be as much as the body - were there no vacuum - would be that was cut off by the vacuum, and as much as the plenum would by nature be [n.218]), so in the issue at hand there is as much privation of succession in the parts of the form as there is naturally succession by motion in the same form; for this is the measuring of rest, not positively but privatively, by the motion that could then be present when the privation is present (just as in other things the privation is measured by its non-privation; for blindness is as great an evil in an eye naturally apt for seeing, at a determinate time, as vision is a good). In this way, although Aristotle say that rest is measured per accidens [n.169], it can be said (in this way) that it is measured per se, in the way, that is, in which privation is measured per se -because this belongs to privation per se, because it belongs to it as it is such a nature; but the fact that it is this much or that much belongs to it as it is of this or that much positively.

179. Although, then, it be conceded that heat in its being at rest (or the resting of heat) is measured by time, yet it need not be that ‘the actual existence’ of heat be measured by a time that naturally precedes this idea of rest; for the actual existence does not in itself have a relation to time (as time is time), whether an actual or an aptitudinal relation.

180. If however it be conceded - according to the other way [sc. the first, n.173] -that every such form, while it lasts, has variable existence, and that not only a varied but also a variable existence is measured by time - then one must well posit that some permanence is not measured by aeviternity, namely the permanence according to the forms of things where there can be motion; yet one must well concede that generable and corruptible substances are per se measured by aeviternity, though they are per accidens -that is, according to some natural quality consequent to them - measured by time.

2. To the Second Instance

181. And then to the second instance [sc. the first, n.173], which is about things producible and corruptible:

Taking the change of these substance according as the Philosopher speaks of it [Physics 6.5.236a5-7], that is, as indivisible, change is either of such sort or is an indivisible necessarily concomitant to the indivisible that is the term of the motion - such that ‘to change’ is to be differently disposed now than before, and ‘to be differently disposed’ is taken for an indisivible but ‘before’ is taken for a divisible. The first being of the form, then, per se terminating the flux is per se measured by the first instant, and the change is properly toward it - but toward the first being of the form not per se terminating the flux there is not change properly and first but, as it were, secondarily, insofar as the first being is concomitant to change properly said.

182. I concede therefore that the first being of a generable substance, insofar as it is concomitant to change properly so called, is measured by an instant; but the further consequence does not hold that ‘therefore the being had after that instant is measured by time’ [n.170], because, in the first instant, the being is compared to a particular generating cause, and after that instant it does not have dependence on that particular cause but only on the first conserving cause; and then it has a uniform relation to the conserving cause - just like the being of an angel, which is conserved in perfect sameness without variability.

183. And from this is plain the answer to a certain argument that could be made about succession in aeviternity: the argument is that ‘if there is succession then there is newness, and consequently change’ [nn.33, 37]; and further, ‘change is measured by an instant of time, therefore an aeviternal thing is temporal’ [n.37], because whatever is measured by time or an instant of time is temporal.

I reply that not every form according to which there is newness is measured by time, but only the form according to which the changeable thing had a different disposition successively to the disposition it would now indivisibly have - that is, there is presupposed to the term ‘to which’, possessed divisibly, the term ‘from which’, possessed indivisibly in the term, and this term is either the one according to which the motion was measured by time or the one which was necessarily concomitant to the motion measured by time.

184. Hereby it is also plain that God could create something without any time -given also that creation (or annihilation) was said to be change according as there is a succession in it of the form after negation of the form [d.1 n.294] - because there is no change in the way in which the Philosopher speaks of change [n.181], for there is nothing indivisible that is necessarily the term of the flux in its opposite, either as the opposite is what flows first or as it is necessarily concomitant to the motion measured by time.

II. To the Principal Arguments

185. To the first principal argument [n.144] I say that the doctrine in On Causes accords with the erroneous doctrine of Avicenna [Metaphysics 8 chs.6-7, 9 chs.1-4 f99vb-105rb], as if the author of On Causes understood the intelligences to be gods and their operations to be measured by the ‘now’ of time; not indeed their intrinsic operation (because for this he posited neither potentiality nor succession), but their extrinsic operation - as to bodies - which operation he understood to exist truly in the moment of time. And therefore this authority [sc. of On Causes] is not to be held for an authority because it is delivered according to an error at its root [sc. that God cannot immediately cause anything save the first intelligence alone].

186. To the second [n.145] one can concede that the intellection of an angel is not instantaneous but endures along with some part of our time, and yet not for this reason does it follow that the intellection is in time; for what exists in aeviternity can endure along with our time. Or one can say that some intellection could be in an angel precisely with an instant of our time, and after that instant the angel can have another intellection immediately.

187. And when you say ‘nature produces nothing in order for it immediately not to be’ [n.145] - it is true that nature does not intend that what it produces ‘immediately not be’. Nor either does nature produce anything by generation without there being between generation and generation - which are in instants of continuous time - some intervening time; and therefore generation and corruption cannot be perpetually continuous with each other, according to Aristotle’s intention in that place [n.145]. However there is nothing unacceptable in something’s being in continuous time and immediately not being, as is plain about change and an instant, which only have instantaneous being and at once are not.

III. To the Authority of Augustine adduced for the Opinion of Henry

188. To the remark of Augustine (n.148, ‘God moves the spiritual creature in time’) adduced for the first opinion [sc. Henry’s], one can say that Augustine takes time there for everything that can have being after non-being (as the authorities above were expounded in the first question about aeviternity [n.79]), and in this way anything at all that is other than God is temporal. And so what has one thing succeeding to another (as being after non-being) can be said to be ‘moved in time’, even though what succeeds - or what it succeeds to - is not properly temporal, because ‘non-being’ or ‘nothing’ has no measure. So should one speak in the issue at hand.