Question Five. Whether the Future Resurrection will be Instantaneous

248. The question asked fifth is whether the resurrection is instantaneous.

249. That it is not:

I Thessalonians 4.16-17, “The dead who are in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive     etc .;” therefore      those who are found to be dead at the advent of Christ will rise first, then those caught up to meet him will die and afterwards rise; therefore the resurrection of the latter and the former will not be simultaneous; therefore not in an instant.

250. Again, Augustine in City of God 20 ch.20 n.3 says, “Then with ineffable speed the dust of the most ancient corpses returns to bodily members that will live without end.” And in the same chapter, “They will with marvelous speed pass to deathlessness through death;” the Apostle most openly says the same [n.249]. But fast and slow (from the Philosopher, Physics 4.5.218b15) “are determined by time.”

251. Again, in the resurrection something that existed before will be corrupted, because the matter that will receive the new form existed before under another form that is to be corrupted. That which is to be corrupted will have a finite being; but everything positive that is everywhere finite has at least two positive terms; therefore the being that precedes [the resurrection] will have two terms, and consequently one can grant there is an ultimate instant in the being of that preceding thing. Therefore, if the resurrection will be immediately after the being of that preceding thing and instantaneous, an instant will be immediate with an instant, which is against the Philosopher, Physics 5.3.227a27-32, 6.1.231a22-b10, 232a18-22, 3.234a22-31.

252. Again, the body that is now to be corrupted will have permanent being; but the permanent does not have being in time save because it has it in an instant; therefore if the being of what is to be corrupted immediately precedes the being of what is to be resuscitated, the result is that it will precede in an instant immediate with that resuscitated being, and then (as before [n.251]) it will not be possible for the thing to be resuscitated to have being immediate with an instant.

253. To the opposite:

I Corinthians 15.52, “In a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trump.” This authority is adduced by Augustine City of God, in the place cited before [n.250], as proof for the resurrection’s happening suddenly.

254. Again, generation is in an instant, therefore resurrection is too.

255. Likewise the Master [Lombard] says in the text that the resurrection will be in an instant.

I. To the Question

256. Here one needs to see that since resurrection, according to Damascene [n.162], “is a rising again of that which fell” - but the whole man fell through separation of the intellective soul from the body, and the mixed body secondarily fell through corruption into some other thing or things; and generation and corruption proceed in reverse order, and so the body must be repaired first, in the order of nature, before the soul is united, but this restoration of the body is preceded by collection of the parts of the matter that were dispersed by dissolution of the body into diverse elements (at once or after a delay) - one must see first about this preliminary to resurrection, which is the collection of the parts of the body, second about the induction of the form of the body into the matter, third about the union of the soul with the body.

A. About the Collection of the Parts of the Body

257. About the first point [n.256], I say that collection of the parts will be done by the ministry of angels, and therefore in time. The antecedent is plain from the saying of the Savior, Matthew 24.31, “The Son of Man, with a trumpet and a loud voice, will send forth his angels, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the tops of the heavens to the limits of them,” which is to say: whithersoever the parts of the matter of the body had been dispersed into the elements, whether into fire or earth (“from the tops of the heavens to the limits of them”), whether into any intermediate body (of water, or air, or imperfectly mixed),Scotus is proceeding on the assumption, common to the ancient and medieval world, that the elements of matter are the four of fire, air, water, earth (of which fire is naturally at the top and earth at the bottom and the other two in between), and that material bodies are mixtures more or less of these four. ⁸ from the four winds all the parts of matter will be collected again and reunited.

258. The consequence [sc. the collection will be in time, n.257] is plain from what was said in (Rep. IIA d.8 n.2), that an angel cannot move a body in an instant.

B. About the Inducing of the Form of the Body into the Matter

259. On the second point [n.256] I say that the formation of the body will be instantaneous, because it will be done immediately by divine virtue; for an angel will not be able to induce the material form into matter. Now divine virtue, although it can act successively and induce a form successively (just as created virtue can), and although a substantial form could be induced successively (which others deny [Aquinas, Henry of Ghent]), yet it is more fitting that divine virtue instantaneously induce a form that can be induced instantaneously, for succession is only necessary because of some deficiency in the agent. For all the causes touched on by the Commentator, Physics IV com.71, namely of the movable in relation to the mover, and of the movable to the medium, and of the medium to the mover, are ultimately reduced (as I have touched on elsewhere [Ord. II d.2 nn.428-429]) to the imperfection of the virtue of the agent; and because of this imperfection the movable can resist that virtue, not absolutely but as it regards the terms and the medium through which the movement from term to term needs to be made. But, as it is, the [divine] virtue can have no imperfection; and that this form can be induced instantaneously is plain, because that virtue can perfect it instantaneously.

260. But there is here a doubt, for then it follows that a local motion will be instantaneous. A proof is that the body will be more densely or more rarely formed from the dust that it will be formed from and, whether this way or that, it will occupy a greater or lesser place than that out of which it will be generated, and so there will be local motion not only of it but of the surrounding air.

261. [A proof] secondly is that the body will be of a different shape than the body from which it will be formed, therefore it will occupy a place proportionally corresponding to its shape - and so as before.

262. I concede the conclusion of these argument [nn.260-261], that by taking local motion generally, in that, when a generated thing succeeds to what is corrupted and occupies a greater or lesser place than the thing corrupted, some change of place is being spoken of - for there is occupation (though not by a body the same in act) of a greater or lesser place; so there is instantaneous change of place because there is occupation of a greater place. And not only so but the surrounding air is at once expelled if the body is greater or follows it if the body is lesser. And indeed I concede that in the first instant, namely when the air is expelled, it is expelled instantaneously, and is so immediately by divine virtue, because that virtue immediately positions a greater body where the lesser body was.

263. But now, what effectively moves one body in place, effectively expels the other body - and it is not the moved body that effectively expels the other body, just as heat too in wood does not effectively expel the cold from the wood, but the hot itself, which effectively causes heat in the wood, effectively expels cold from it.

264. However it is possible for divine virtue to position a greater body in a ‘where’ and to keep the body that was there before, and then two bodies will be together at the same time; but then there would be a new miracle over and above the sudden positioning here of the larger body. But if, simultaneously with this positioning of the body, this body expels that one, there is only one miracle.

265. Now when the generated body is less than the corrupted body, things are different: for then either God will immediately move the surrounding air so that it touches the surface of the lesser body, or he can refrain from moving it. For his moving it is not simply necessary in order for a lesser body to be here; because God can leave nature to itself, and since nature cannot move air instantaneously so as to apply it to the sides of the lesser body, there will for a time be a vacuum - namely until nature is able to make the surrounding air contiguous with the body.

266. From this is plain that, on the supposition that God suddenly makes a lesser body (which assuredly does not involve a contradiction) and leaves the surrounding air and nature’s action to themselves, there will for a time be a vacuum. So there is no contradiction in a vacuum existing in the universe; on the contrary, if nature were instantaneously to make a lesser body from a greater, it would seem one could conclude that a vacuum, without any divine miracle, exists for a time.

C. About the Union of the Soul with the Body

267. On the third point [n.256] I say that animation not only is instantaneous (for the reason stated in the second article, namely that animation is immediately from God alone, whose active virtue nothing resists [n.259]), but must be instantaneous, because there can only be succession in reception of a form either because of the parts of the form to be induced, or because of the parts of the body one of which receives the form before another. But neither of these can be posited in animation. Not the first because this soul will be reunited in the unique degree in which it was created, so that although some part could be more perfect than another, yet this does nothing for the intended conclusion of a successive uniting of the soul. Nor can the second be granted, at least as regards that which is first ensoul-able; for there is something that is the first proportioned ensoul-able, such that nothing of it can be animated unless the whole of it is animated - although perhaps as to many parts of the body that are not simply necessary for animation (as are hands and feet and other exterior parts), one of them could be animated before another; but we are speaking of the first animation.

268. I say too, secondly, that the body is animated in the same instant in which it is formed, because from the fact that this form is a necessitating disposition for the soul (not absolutely, but from the necessity of the agent; not simply, but from its disposition), the soul is, from the necessity of the disposed matter, at once induced when the form of the body has been induced.

269. And if you ask whether the form of the body and the soul are induced by the same change, I say no, but rather that the inducing of the form of the body is by change, while the inducing of the soul is not by any change so as to be a change to the soul, or to animation, as to a term.

The first point is plain, because what is susceptive of the form of corporeity passes from privation to form. The second is plain from the same fact, because what is susceptive of the soul or of animation is not prime matter but the body; now the body will not have privation of the soul itself, so as to pass from this privation to form; nor will it have it at the same time as the soul, because then privation and form would be simultaneous; nor will it have it before it has the form, because it will not exist before; therefore, body and soul will exist simultaneously. But there is never change except when what is susceptive of the term ‘to which’ of some inducing precedes in time the term ‘to which’ and when it is then under privation of the term.

270. If you argue that therefore neither animation as action nor animation as passive undergoing will be there, because action is not without passive undergoing nor passive undergoing without change, and change is denied to be there; so both action and passive undergoing are denied to be there, which seems unacceptable - I reply that, as was said above in Ord. IV d.13 n.54, passive undergoing asserts of the passive thing a relation which comes to it from without, that is, which follows necessarily when the extreme is posited. Now such relation can exist even if the passive thing never precedes in time the form that it receives, for, however much it may at the same time have the potency in itself, yet it cannot receive this potency from another. And then, in brief, a passive undergoing in the inducing of a form coeval with the passive thing does very well exist without change.

271. An example of this, according to Augustine Confessions 12.3:“Have you not taught me, O Lord, that before you were forming and distinguishing this unformed matter it was not anything, not color, not figure, not body, not spirit? But it was not altogether nothing; it was some unformed-ness without any appearance.” ⁹ matter is, by a certain mode of priority, created before form. And in that prior instant matter has only the respect toward God of produced to producer; and this respect comes from within, indeed is necessarily consequent to the foundation’s nature (from Ord. II d.1 nn.260-275). In the second instant matter receives form from God, and the respect here is not of it as produced to God as producer, but of it as what is unformed to God as in-forming and impressing form; and this second respect comes to matter from without, because matter could remain perpetually (God conserving it) without the respect of receiving something from God.

272. The form, then, is created together with matter simultaneously in time, but later indeed than it in nature is induced or impressed on the matter with a passive undergoing [of the matter] that is in the category of passion but without any change -because never does matter pass from privation of the form to form nor, in brief, is it differently disposed according to form, because different dispositions presuppose an entity [sc. which matter as such is not].

273. From this follows a corollary, that when one says action and passion are taken in abstraction from motion and change, one should not say that only the idea of relation remains in them; rather the idea of action and passion, without any idea of motion and change, truly remains.

D. Two Small Doubts

274. Two small doubts remain: one is whether the resurrection of everyone will be at the same instant (the first argument touches on this [n.249]), and the other is at what instant - though not a determinate or specific one, yet what instant by comparison to the parts or hours of the natural day, as whether in an instant of the middle of the night, or some other instant that has a determinate relation to the parts of the natural day.

275. As to the first, Augustine in the whole of the cited chapter 20 [n.250, City of God] seems to determine of express intent that the resurrection of those who will be found dead at the coming of the Judge will precede in time the resurrection of those who will be found alive. But those who are alive, according to the words of the Apostle [n.249, I Thessalonians 4], “will be taken up to meet him etc.,” and there as is probable, according to Augustine, they will die and immediately afterwards rise; and so the resurrection of these latter will follow after the resurrection of the former.

276. Hence Augustine says [ibid.], “If we believe that the saints who will be found alive at Christ’s coming, and who will be taken up to meet him, will in that same taking up leave bodies mortal and return directly to the same bodies immortal, we will experience no difficulties in the words of the Apostle.” This also seems to be expressly indicated by the words of the Apostle, “the dead who are in Christ will rise first, then we etc.,” where, according to Augustine, the Apostle “exemplified in himself and in those who were alive with him the persons of those who will be found alive [sc. at Christ’s coming].”

277. As to the second doubt, it seems true prima facie that any instant at all has every relation to the parts of the natural day; for what in one part of the earth is an instant in the middle of the night is in another meridian an instant between midnight and midday, and in the meridian opposite the first an instant of midday, and so on about the individual instants that can be singled out in a natural day; therefore, comparing things in this way, the dead will rise in any and every hour of the natural day.

278. But since not without cause is a question raised about the hour of the resurrection, one must understand that those who ask it are asking about the hour in comparison to the region where the judgment of the resurrection will be, and to where those who are to rise will be transferred so as to be judged - transferred, I say, either after complete resurrection or before it through transfer of the collected dust. For both are possible to God, so that either they will be resuscitated in diverse places, perhaps where they were buried, or the dust will be collected from the individual places to the one place where all must come together after the resurrection to be judged; and in that place the resurrection of everyone will happen.

279. Now I mean by ‘dust’ any bodies whatever into which resolution is ultimately made, namely if into so much amount of fire and so much of water and so much of earth; and let an amount of fire be immediately next to the sphere of the moon above any point on the earth, and another amount directly in the diametrically opposite extreme in the sphere of fire, and let a third part be at the bottom of water or the middle or top of it, and the like.

280. All these parts, even a thousand thousands, are understood when ‘dust’ or ‘ash’ are spoken of. For when Christ says, “from the ends of the heavens” and “from the four winds” [Matthew 24.31], he himself does not mean that the dust we usually take in tombs has been dispersed to the furthest distance, but he means generally that ‘whatever bodies or parts dissolution may have been made into, those parts will be collected, and from the collected parts, that is, from the matter in them which was previously the matter of the corrupted body, the same body will again be restored’.

281. Now the place of the general judgment is reckoned probably to be the land of promise [Genesis 13.14-17, 17.8] or the valley of Josaphat [Joel 3, 2.12], or another determinate part there, or as large a part as will suffice for the reprobate (if indeed the elect will not be on the earth but “will be caught up to meet Christ in the air” [n.249]); and, consequently, the hour [of general judgment] must be understood with respect to that part of the earth.

282. But as to what is then said to be “in the middle of the night” (it is taken from Matthew 25.6 and from the Apostle in I Thessalonians 5.2, “Now the day of the Lord will come as a thief”), it does not seem it must be understood literally, because, although the Lord could make himself manifest to each singly, yet it is more probable - for the confusion of the reprobate (who will be seen by each other and the good) and for the glory of the elect (who will be seen by each other and the bad) - that it will be in an illumined place, and so there will not then in the place of resurrection and judgment be the darkness of the middle of the night. Therefore, in the hour perhaps in which Christ rose, in that hour, I say, in reference to the place mentioned, the dead will be resuscitated; or in the hour in which he was condemned by Pilate; or in the hour in which he expired on the cross - since we do not have certainty about this from Scripture. And whichever of these times be posited, the words ‘in the middle of the night’ must be expounded as signifying uncertainty.

II. To the Initial Arguments

283. As to the first argument, from the Apostle [n.249], I concede that the instant of resurrection will not be the same for all, because in the first instant of the resurrection of the dead there will still be some alive, and that too with mortal life; and it is probable that they will pay the due of death as Christ and his Mother did, and then they will rise, and so after others who have already been resuscitated.

284. As to the next [n.250], what Augustine says about speed, I say that it can be referred to the collection of dust, not to the two other things that follow [sc. in Augustine, inducing and uniting the soul, nn.257, 259]; and it has been conceded that the collecting will take place in time, but the other two in an instant and in the same instant.

285. The third and fourth [nn.251-252] raise considerable difficulty among those who philosophize about the last instant of a thing permanent in being. But if it be said, as was said in Ord. II d.2 n.167, that ‘anything permanent in its being is measured by aeviternity’, there is no difficulty, because the same aevum measures the body that precedes [sc. the resurrection] as long as it remains, and when that body ceases to be its aevum ceases to be; and then one can, it is true, grant there is an ultimate in the being of a permanent thing [n.251], and the ultimate and the first are the same, and this same measures the whole, if one upholds the indivisibility of an aevum. So when it is argued about finite being that it will have two terms [n.251], one must deny it, because it is not something continuous but indivisible.

286. And if you say, “at least immediately before the being of what is to be resuscitated there is the being of what is to be corrupted” - I ask in what or with what limit of the time itself? Not with time because then the time would not be something finite with proper limits; with an instant of time therefore, so an instant of time will not immediately succeed - I reply: the being immediately preceding the resurrection is itself in an instant of the aevum, which aevum indeed can coexist with time as also with the ‘now’.

287. And when you ask about what coexists with it in time as it immediately precedes resurrection [n.252], I say that what coexists with it is time and not an instant; and thus those who speak of permanent things as if they had being in time should say that they never have ultimate being, but have being in the whole time, and in the ultimate of the time they have non-being, because then the thing generated has being; however the finite time has its own limits, because the instant that measures the being of what is to be generated is the term of the time that measures the being of what is to be corrupted.

288. And if you say that that being is something finite, therefore it will have its own proper limits - the inference that it will have limits within which it may be preserved does not follow; for ‘having its own proper limits’ only corresponds to it by reason of the time that measures it, and its proper limits are two instants, whether they measure that being or another.

289. Thereby to the next argument [n.252]: when it is said that a permanent thing does not have being in time or with time save because it is in an instant - this is false when holding to the first way, about being measured by the aevum [n.285].

290. But if one holds the other way [sc. being measured by time, Ord. II d.2 n.146], one must say that it is with the whole time as it is immediate to an instant in the way something continuous is immediate to its term; and it does not have this immediacy save as it is in some instant; and then one must deny the statement that “the permanent does not have being in time save because it has it in an instant” [n.252]. True indeed it is that it can be in an instant, provided, however, it can have being in time, namely being with duration; and according to this being, and not instantaneous being, it is immediate to the following instantaneous being.

291. But the first response [n.290] seems easier and more reasonable, because a permanent thing, even if it persist with time, seems nevertheless to have a being in itself that is just as indivisible.