Question Two. Whether it is Possible for any Being to be Converted into Any Being

51. Proceeding thus to the second question - it is argued that anything could be converted into anything.

First that a creature can be converted into divinity, because it is not repugnant to a Divine Person to be the term of some real action, as is plain in the Incarnation, whose term was the Word;     therefore by similarity in the matter at issue.

52. Second as follows: it is not repugnant to the divine nature to be the term of that action which does not require changeability or possibility or limitation in the term. But transubstantiation is of this sort, because it does not require its term to change nor consequently does it require any possibility in the term; nor does it require anything to be added to its term, and consequently not limitation or composition either; therefore etc     . A confirmation of the major is that it is not repugnant to the divine nature to be the term of understanding and volition, to the extent these actions do not require change or possibility or limitation.

53. Third thus: no creature is able to be converted into another because of the agreement of the term ‘from which’ with the term ‘to which’, for in this conversion no agreement of any abiding common subject is required; therefore, however much one creature does not agree with another, it is none the less convertible into it.

54. To the opposite:

First, it is plain that nothing can be converted into the divine nature, because then the divine nature could be converted into something else, for the terms of this change can be mutually terms for each other. Also, the divine nature could then begin to be somewhere it was not before or in a way it was not before - which seems unacceptable.

55. Again, then the quantity of the body of bread would be converted into the quantity of Christ’s body, and consequently Christ’s body quantum would be where the bread was before. The consequent is impossible because then a larger body would be in a smaller place.

56. Again, Augustine in Literal Commentary on Genesis 7 ch.12 n.19 and Boethius On Person and Two Natures ch.6, “in no way can a body be converted into a spirit or conversely.”

57. Again, then an absolute could be converted into a relative, and consequently a relation could per se be without a foundation and without a term, just as the absolute is which is converted into it. The consequent is impossible, as is manifest, because it is a contradiction for a relation to be without a foundation and a term.

II. To the Question

58. This question, as is plain from the arguments, contains two articles, namely about the conversion of deity into a creature and of a creature into a creature.

59. About the first I answer no.

60. And the reason was touched on in the preceding question [nn.28-29], because nothing can be converted, whether as term ‘from which’ or as term ‘to which’, unless its being and non-being are totally subject to the power of what does the converting; but nothing intrinsic to God is subject to the divine power, because that power has for object only what is possible, but what is intrinsic to God is necessarily existent.

61. About the second [n.58] I say that anything can be converted into anything for the same reason, that each extreme in creatures is subject to the divine power both as to total being and as to total non-being.

II. To the Initial Arguments of the First Part

62. [To the first argument] - To the first argument [n.51] I say that ‘the Word is Incarnate’ does not state that the Word is the term of any action of the genus of action.

63. And when it is said that ‘the Incarnation has the Person of the Son as term’ [n.51] I say that that union (speaking of a union that introduces relation) introduces the Word as term, because in the human nature there is a real relation to the Word, and only a relation of reason on the other side. But a term of action of the genus of action is something that receives being through the action; but this is the real union of the human nature with the Word.

64. And if it is argued that “the Son of God is incarnate,     therefore he is the subject or term of the action, because ‘to be incarnated’ signifies an undergoing that one must indeed place in the subject or the term;” - and further, “to any action there responds its proper passive undergoing; the Three Persons were carrying out the Incarnation by action properly speaking; therefore what responds to it is passive undergoing properly speaking [Ord. III d.1 nn.74-83]; but this is ‘to be incarnate’, therefore etc     .”

65. Solution: to the first point I say that ‘to be incarnated’ is ‘to be united to flesh in unity of person’, and this according as ‘united’ states a relation of reason, not a real relation.

66. To the second point [n.64] I say that to the action of the Trinity there corresponds some real passive undergoing; but the object of it is the human nature and the term is something in the human nature, namely formal unity of that nature with the Word, so that the union of the Trinity, or rather the uniting, which is the action of the

Trinity, is for the union formally of the human nature with the Word, which union is really in the human nature.

67. And when it is said that ‘to be incarnate’ states a passive undergoing as ‘to incarnate’ states an action, I say that if ‘to be incarnate’ or ‘to be incarnated’ grammatically introduces passive undergoing because of the mode of signifying, yet not in reality in that of which it is said, but only in something else that connotes being united to it; and this other thing is said to be the subject of the undergoing really introduced by ‘to be incarnated’, which namely corresponds to the action that ‘to incarnate’ introduces.

68. [The second argument] - To the second argument [n.52] I say on the contrary that unchangeability, necessity, and infinity belong to anything that can be the term of some action of the genus of action properly speaking.

69. And when the actions of understanding and willing are spoken of [n.52], I say that this is not to the purpose, because (as was said in Ord. I d.3 n.501, Rep. IA d.3 nn.191-195) these are called actions because they are operations, for by actions of the genus of action some term receives ‘being simply’ (if it is produced), or ‘being in some way’; but through intellection the object understood in no way receives being; rather being is altogether presupposed to the intellection. And this is for the reason that these operations, which are called actions, are ultimate terms, and are not for the sake of other terms.

70. But there still remains the argument that action of the genus of action does not require the term to change.

I say that it does not seem easy how an action of the genus of action could be posited whereby the term does not receive being; rather, the way such action is posited in divine reality, the Son does receive being by active generation. But whether something could be the term of action or generation thus taken and yet in no way receive being will be stated in a section of the following question [nn.180, 189-190, 192-196].

III. To the Arguments for the Opposite

72. To the arguments for the opposite.

[To the first] - The first [n.54] I concede.

73. [To the second] - To the second [n.55] I say that if the bread were converted into the quantity of Christ’s body yet Christ’s body would not be here nor its quantity, as was touched on in the first question of distinction 10 [nn.39-41].

74. To the proof touched on above but not solved [d.10 n.29], namely that ‘the thing generated is where the thing corrupted was’, I say that for this reason is it the case there, because the matter remains common, which in generation is not moved from there in place; and consequently the matter receives the form where it is, and hence what is generated from the matter and the form is where the thing corrupted was.

75. On the contrary: the matter is not the reason for being located in place, but quantity is; and the same quantity does not remain in the thing generated and the thing corrupted save as it is in the matter; therefore matter is not the reason why the generated thing is where the corrupted thing was before.

76. I say that matter by itself is disposed to be in place definitively, just as is any limited substance; but it has being in place circumscriptively as it is under quantity. So because it remains definitively where it was, therefore does it receive form there, and for this reason is the generated substance definitively there where the corrupted substance was before; and where a substance is definitively, there is it circumscriptively as it is a quantum. And therefore does it follow that the generated thing, as possessing quantity circumscriptively, is where the corrupted thing was circumscriptively. But one must not think that sometimes it was a substance here or there definitively and not circumscriptively anywhere; because it was never without the quantity that was the idea of circumscription.

77. Nevertheless, by not positing any quantity that remains the same (which I believe to be more true), one does not have to posit something remaining circumscriptively the same, nor posit the idea of being in the same place in the generated thing and in the corrupted thing; but the matter remaining in the place definitively where the thing corrupted was is sufficient.

78. It could be said,     therefore , that where also an agent finds a passive subject it gives it form there; but the agent generates, and in generating does not change place; therefore it gives being to the passive subject there; and where the passive subject receives form, there it is a composite of passive subject and introduced form; therefore etc     .

79. Having conceded, then, according to the common opinion that ‘the term of conversion could be there where the thing converted was’, I say that the ‘where’ should not be understood precisely, but in this way or that way part by part; and thus, where the bread was before, the body of Christ could be as a quantum precisely, or as in a part of its ‘where’, so that a part would be there and a part in the surrounding ‘where’. Let it also be that the principle common to some people [Aquinas, Richard of Middleton] were maintained, that ‘the term of conversion is where the thing converted was before’, yet it is not located there in place.

80. And thus one could concede that, if the quantity were the first term of the conversion, it would be where the substance of the bread was before, yet it would not be located there in place. And this is the argument against the other way [Richard of Middleton, Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines], which posits that for this reason is the quantity of Christ not here as in a place, because it is the second term and not the first -for let it be that it was the first, still it would not necessarily be here in place; for this mode could as much be separated from the first term of the conversion as from the second.

81. [To the third] - To the third [n.56] the answer is made that Augustine and Boethius are speaking by comparison with created potency.

82. But this is nothing, because no created virtue can convert any body whatever into any body whatever.

83. Therefore I say differently that there are as many reasons for impossibility as there are reasons for repugnance, and when some of these are removed there is a possibility that there was not before - not indeed a possibility simply, but from a part of it. For example, sight cannot receive intellection, both because intellection is not extended while sight is extended, and because sight knows something only under the idea of a singular and intellect understands not precisely under the idea of a singular. Take away one impossibility, namely if sight were a power that could have an object under the idea of a universal, and yet another idea of impossibility were to remain, this latter case would be impossible just as the former would be. And yet the latter would be said to be possible in reference to the former, not simply but because the idea of impossibility in the latter is not the idea of impossibility in the former.

84. To the matter at issue: each body has some non-repugnance to being converted into a body, namely because it has a quantum of matter and the like concurring ideas for being convertible; every spirit has opposite reasons to these. Therefore, although it is impossible simply for a celestial body to be converted into an elemental body, in the way it is impossible for a spirit to be converted into fire, because with respect to any created agent both are impossible, yet, with respect to an uncreated agent, just as one is possible so is the other. However, the one is said to be possible and the other impossible, because there is an idea of impossibility here that there is not there.

85. [To the fourth] - To the fourth [n.57] I concede that an absolute could be converted into a relative and conversely, but it does not further follow that there would be a relative without a foundation and term, because a term of conversion receives being through conversion in the way that it can have being; but a relation cannot have being without a foundation and term.

86. Nor does it follow that if the term ‘from which’ was without these therefore the term ‘to which’ can be without them, just as this is not the case in other things where one term requires different things for its being that the other term does not require.

87. I say, therefore, that if an absolute were converted into a relative, the relative would require a foundation and a term - and it would have them, whether the old ones that preceded the conversion or new ones. An example of this response in the case of other things: This inference does not hold: ‘a stone can be converted into knowledge and conversely, and a stone does not inform any intellect, therefore neither does knowledge inform it’. For however much something is converted, the term of the conversion will always have its proper mode of existing, just as the term ‘from which’ of conversion had its own proper mode of existing before the conversion.