Second Question. Whether paradise is a suitable place for human habitation

Scotus, Sent.2 d.17 q.2
Thomas, ST Ia q.102 a.2
Richard of St. Victor, Sent.2 d.17 q.5

1. The question is asked secondly whether earthly paradise is a place fit for human habitation.

2. That it is not: because the Master says at the end of this distinction that it is a place so high it reaches to the sphere of fire, but there is no fit habitation for men in fire;     therefore etc     .

3. On the contrary: Genesis 2, God created man and placed him in a paradise of pleasure.

To the Question

4. I reply by saying [Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, Master Lombard] that paradise as to its height reaches to the globe of the moon, and therefore the waters of the deluge did not rise up to it. As to its location, the saying is that it is in the East and is directly under the equinoctial, and they say that the equinoctial place is the most habitable, because although it has the sun twice a year above the zenith of our heads, yet it causes heat there because it has there its quickest motion and consequently causes fewer reflections there.

5. I say that it is a place habitable both for the state of innocence (as was plain of Adam and Eve, Genesis 5), and for the state of fallen nature (as is plain of Enoch, Ecclesiasticus 44, and of Elias, Kings 4); and there is no need to posit miracles, since these are not necessary. I say however that its location is not next to the globe of the moon, because next to that is the sphere of fire and so the place would not be habitable; nor is its location in the intervening middle sphere of the air, because it would not then be a habitable place because of the extreme cold. For that place is very cold for two reasons, namely a positive and a privative one; the positive one is that there are always very cold clouds there; the privative one is double, namely lack of the heat that is caused by reflection of the rays from the earth, and lack of the heat that is caused by the sphere of fire, for the intermediate place of air is at extreme distance from both of them. The location of paradise then is either above the intervening middle sphere of the air in the sort of disposition that it has in the time of heat caused by the sphere of fire, and yet its place is inaccessible because of the cold of the intervening middle sphere of the air; or the location of paradise is below the intervening middle sphere of the air, and then, to the point about the water of the deluge, I say that there was absence of a miracle, for so great an amount of water does not rise up to it naturally but miraculously.

6. I say also against the opinion [n.4] that a location below the equinoctial is not fit on account of the excessive heat, the reason for which is that when we are in the depth of winter the sun is nearer to them than it is to us in the height of summer; for it is then 24 degrees distant from them but it is 25 degrees distant from us in the height of summer. And the argument about the speed of the sun’s motion is rather to the opposite effect, because motion is of itself a cause of heat.

7. To the principal argument [n.2] I say that the words are metaphorical or false, as is plain from what has been said.