1. As to the First Question

284. Against this opinion as to its position on the first question I argue as follows:

a. First Argument

285. First as follows: a creature cannot act instrumentally for a term of creation, according to him [nn.276-280], and this, as he says elsewhere [ST Ia q.45 a.5], is above all manifest about corporeal substance (of which sort a sacrament is). But the disposition previous to grace, of the sort he posits [n.279], is a term of creation;     therefore etc     .

286. Proof of the minor:

The previous disposition is a supernatural form, and anything such is as equally incapable of being drawn from the natural potency of the receiving subject, as the subject too is equally in obediential potency to any such form.

Again, since the disposition, according to him, is a disposition that necessitates for grace when there is no impediment in the receiver, it follows that in a non-indisposed soul the disposition and the grace come to be at the same time. Therefore this disposition comes to be in an instant, just as grace does. And the fact is plain, because in the introduction of a form there is succession only as to parts of the movable subject or as to parts of the form itself. But neither is present here. The first is not because the subject is indivisible. The second is not because then there could only be degrees of grace if the disposition were to be continuously larger and smaller. But it is possible for a smallest disposition to be introduced in someone who receives a sacrament, just as it is possible for a smallest grace to be infused into him. But the smallest grace only requires the smallest disposition, so there is no succession there as to different degrees in accord with which the disposition is successively introduced.

The minor is also plain in a third way, that an instrument only acts in virtue of the principal agent. Therefore, if the instrument can act over a period of time for the disposition, then it follows that God would be acting over time or successively for the same disposition. The consequent seems unacceptable, both because of the infinite power of the agent, and because of the supreme capacity of a receiving subject that does not have a contrary.

287. So therefore we may suppose from these three proofs that this disposition preceding grace that they set down could be introduced in an instant.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] But the minor is denied [sc. by Aquinas], because what does not per se come to be is not created; a form does not per se come to be while the composite does, just as the form is not per se existent. Therefore the form is not created, because the form would not come to be by the creation.

     Again, a form that lacks an operation that the subject has no share in along with the form is not created (the proof is from On the Soul 1.1.403a10-12, “If the soul has nothing proper to itself, it is not separable from the body,” and from Generation of Animals 2.3.736b27-29, “It remains then that the intellect alone comes from outside and alone is divine; because the operation of the body has no share in its operation”). Therefore only the intellect that comes from outside, because it has an action that the body does not share any supernatural accident with, lacks an action that the subject does not share in with it. The same point is admitted about grace.

     In response to the proof of the minor it is said that the disposition is drawn from the obediential potency of the subject, therefore it is not created.

     On the contrary: every obediential potency has regard to a natural form in the subject; therefore it also has regard to some agent, because to every natural passive power there corresponds an active natural power, according to the Commentator [Authorities from Aristotle 1.137].This reply seems to be against all three of the arguments given here against the truth of the minor premise [sc. the minor that the disposition previous to grace, if it is posited, will be something that has to be created directly by God, and so not an instrument God uses for creation, n.285]. For if, as the reply says, the obediential potency in a creature is relative to the active power that realizes it, and if this active power is God acting alone without a created instrument, and if the disposition previous to grace is drawn from the obediential power, then it will be something created, regardless of whether it is a form, and regardless of whether it is unlike the intellect and grace (which are confessedly created). ⁵

288. But sacraments commonly cannot have their action in an instant, the proof of which is that words and many other things are commonly required for sacraments (as will be plain below [about each sacrament individually]), and these cannot have their being in an instant; and so they have it in time. Therefore they cannot do their natural action in an instant, and so not their supernatural action either. For, according to them [n.278], an instrument has its own action when it has the action that surpasses its own virtue.

289. Also, if any single syllable of the whole wording that is instrumental to the sacrament is imagined to have its being in an instant (which is a fiction, because the formation of this syllable involves local motion of air and motion is not in an instant), the claim is not saved. For this syllable will be either the first syllable or the last or in between, and, whichever one it is posited to be, from the fact that it and no other syllable acts for the disposition caused in an instant, it follows that it alone would suffice, and that it alone among all the others would possess the nature of the sacrament. For all the others beside it do nothing either instrumentally or in any other way for the preceding disposition. And this is unacceptable, because in such sacramental wording no single syllable is posited as the sacrament but the whole of it is.

290. But if you further imagine that the last syllable is the sacrament by way of completion, and that it performs the action attributed to the sacrament not by its own virtue but by virtue of all the preceding ones (just as “the last drop wears away the stone in virtue of all the preceding ones,” Physics 8.3.253b14-21), this is nothing. For in such cases the last stage only ever finally causes the effect in virtue of the preceding stages because the preceding stages have left behind some disposition preparing the way for the term. But these preceding syllables do not leave any such disposition behind before the last syllable;     therefore etc     .

b. Second Argument

291. Again, in the case of one of the sacraments, namely the Eucharist, the causality does not seem to be possible, whether we are speaking of the full sacrament, namely the now consecrated Eucharist, or of the sacramental consecration itself, which is the way to the sacrament.

For, if one speaks of the first way, the species of bread does not seem to be an instrumental cause that reaches the effect, that is, the real existence here of Christ’s body, or that reaches any disposition for the effect.

The same is also plain about the consecration, because the spoken words do not reach transubstantiation (which is the term of the consecration), for transubstantiation only happens by the infinite virtue of God, and this infinite virtue is equally or more manifest here than it is in creation. Nor does it reach any disposition preceding transubstantiation, because the disposition would be either in the bread or in Christ’s body. But it cannot be so in either way. For it cannot be in Christ’s body since then it would not be a disposition; nor can it be in the bread, because since the disposition would be a necessitating factor for transubstantiation it would exist in the same instant as transubstantiation does, and so in that instant there would be bread. For when the disposition exists, then the subject of it exists also at the same time. Therefore the bread where the disposition is would exist in the same instant as the transubstantiation does, which is contradictory. Likewise, it seems a pure fiction that the bread would be really altered by the words ‘for this is my body’ more than it would be altered by other spoken words, as ‘this bread is white’ and the like, since sound does not have an active virtue for causing a real alteration in bread.

c. Third Argument

292. The argument can also be made here that was made before [n.288], that sacramental words have their being in time and so they precisely have their action in time. But the disposition for the Eucharist [nn.285, 279], if it is imagined to exist, cannot be posited as caused in time, because of proofs like those mentioned above in the second argument [n.291].

293. In the matter at issue, then, there is a special reason that the words of consecration of the Eucharist cannot do anything with respect to transubstantiation, or the disposition necessary for transubstantiation, because they do not act on the passive subject until they mention it, according to them and to Aristotle (Physics 7.2.244a17-18 about the simultaneity of agent and patient). But as it is, at the instant when the speaking is complete, the species of the words are not mentioning the species of bread, because the multiplying of words only takes place in time, according to the Philosopher (On Sense and Sensible 6.446b5-9, the penultimate objection). Therefore during the time after the last instant of the complete speaking of the words, transubstantiation and the disposition preceding it have not yet happened. Therefore the bread remains throughout the whole time - which is contrary to the common opinion about the Eucharist.

d. Fourth Argument

294. The fourth argument is that this opinion posits plurality without necessity, which is against the teaching of the philosophers, as is plain from Physics 1.2.184b15-16, about the opinion of Melissus against Anaxagoras, and also from On the Soul 3.4.429a18-20 and Physics 8.3.354a24-27, that “nature does nothing in vain.” For fewness, when it suffices for saving the appearances, is always more rationally to be posited [Metaphysics 4.6.1011a17-21, Ord. I d.3 n.315]. But that such a disposition should be brought about in the case of the sacraments seems altogether superfluous. There does not seem to be any necessity for this plurality in the Eucharist, as is plain, because it seems the purest fiction to posit there some preceding disposition, or to posit some intermediate disposition in the species of bread (which are the sacrament [Ord. IV d.8 q.1 n.15]) or in the existence of the body of Christ (which is the thing signified).

295. There is proof of this in the other sacraments too, for in those that do not impress a character there seems no necessity to posit the disposition that they call an ‘ornament’ [n.279]. Indeed, this seems to be against the common opinion of the theologians. For they posit a disposition for the principal effect in some sacraments if, because of some obstacle in the receiver, the final effect is not then caused; but when the obstacle ceases the disposition suffices for the principal effect (this appears in sacraments that cause a character, which sacraments for this reason cannot be repeated). But in the case of a pretended penitent, there is nothing, when his pretense ceases, that suffices for the effect of true penitence; otherwise it would not be necessary for such a pretended penitent to be confessed another time. Therefore, no disposition is impressed in such a sacrament as if to necessitate the effect of the sacrament.