I. To the Question

A. About the Action, Real and Intentional, of the Infernal Fire on the Damned

125. As to the question, it is plain that fire present to a corruptible body, animated with a sensitive soul, can have a double effect on it: real, which is univocal, and intentional, which is equivocal with respect to it, because the sensible species is not simply of the same species as the object itself.

126. To the matter at hand, therefore, I say that after the judgment, since man’s body is per se corruptible, fire present to it will be able to do both actions to it, because these actions are not repugnant [sc. to each other] and because there is a receptive subject and an active cause of both there - unless you say the real effect is impeded by the failing of the motion of the heaven, but about this see below d.48 n.69.

127. It is also possible for one effect then to be without the other, speaking of absolute possibility, because neither depends essentially on the other. Hence now too they are separable, if something were susceptive of the form really and not intentionally, and another thing the reverse. But it will not be possible then for one of them not to be present, save because of some impediment - and this either because God does not cooperate with the fire for that action, or because some created agent impedes one action and not the other.

B. About the Sufficiency of the Intentional Action for Causing Pain in the Damned

128. Second I say that intentional action alone suffices for causing pain, but that real action without intentional action would not suffice for this.

129. The second part is manifest when wood gets hot, because however excessively it heats up it yet does not suffer pain.

130. The proof of the first part is that an excelling sensible object, as it is an excelling sensible object, is of a nature to inflict pain because, insofar as it is such, it is disagreeable, and yet, insofar as it is an excelling sensible object, it only has an intentional effect. For although some real change is concomitant with it, whereby the organ loses the mean proportion it consists in, yet if a disagreeable object were sensed without that action, pain would follow.

131. There is also this proof, that sometimes when there is a slight or no real change, there is a great pain because of the intentional change - as when a hand has been made excessively cold by contact with snow or ice and is at once brought close to a fire, it has vehement pain from the object affecting it and yet a slight or no real action on the hand comes from the heat because of this excelling state of the contrary (namely of cold in the passive object).

132. Now the manner is this: pain, like sense delight, is a passion caused in the sensitive appetite by an object apprehended by sense; therefore, just as an object, insofar as it is object (that is, an object that moves intentionally), is agreeable, so it causes, when there is sensation, delight in the sense appetite. Hence it is not easy to suppose in every delight (at least of sight and hearing) a real change for the preservation of the supposit. In the same way, although the intentional change of a disagreeable object is accompanied by some real change disagreeable to nature (which is perhaps not true in sight and hearing), yet from intentional change alone there follows pain caused by the sensed object in the sense appetite.

C. About the Sufficiency of Intentional Change Alone

133. Third I say that it seems more probable to posit that there is only an intentional effect after the judgment, for although both effects could then be posited (from the first article [nn.125-126]), yet the real effect would not cause any pain without the intentional effect; nor even would it do so along with the intentional effect, but only the intentional effect would cause pain. Since therefore “a plurality is not to be posited without necessity” [Aristotle, Physics 1.4.188a17-18], and since suffering by fire is only posited there because the damned are afflicted by fire, it suffices to posit the intentional effect alone, such that the positing of the other seems superfluous, for it would do nothing for the goal.

134. Again, it is fitting to posit in the damned as few miracles as possible, since it is not likely that God would want then to multiply miracles in them beyond what seems required for their just punishment. But it seems that by positing a real action and along with this (as necessary) an intentional one, one has to posit more miracles in them than by positing only an intentional action;     therefore etc     .

Proof of the minor: although any way at all requires one to posit that the damned are not then corrupted by an intrinsic cause - and this either by a miraculous divine conservation or by a non-miraculous but just conservation (because corresponding to the final state in which they now are) - yet, if a real action be posited, some extrinsic corruptive cause is present there, and it seems a miracle if it do not corrupt, since a cause that can induce something incompossible with something else can corrupt that something else. But the fire can induce a heat altogether incompossible with the quality, required for life, of a mixed body. If therefore the fire not induce heat to the upmost and yet it does act really, it is a miracle (as there was in the case of the furnace, where the fire did not have all the action that it could by its own nature have had [Daniel 3.49-50; Ord. I d.8 n.306]). If again it do induce heat to that degree, it is a miracle for that degree to stand compatible with life.

135. If you say that one must in the same way on the other side posit a miracle for the body not to be corrupted extrinsically, for the excessive intentional effect naturally causes excessive pain, and excessive pain kills (as is plain from Antiochus in 1 Maccabees 6.13); nay, even extreme fear, where the point seems less clear, is sometimes a cause of death - I reply that no pain is simply repugnant to a mixed quality that is simply required for life.

136. The point is sufficiently clear, because an intention causative of pain does seem more repugnant; yet it is not repugnant, as neither is one contrary in real being repugnant to another in intentional being.

137. The point is also plain from Augustine City of God 21.3 n.2, “The bodies will not be able to die just because they will be able to suffer;” and he adds, “Why are bodies able to inflict pain on souls but are not able to inflict death, unless it is the case that causing death is not a necessary consequence of causing pain? Pain, then, is not a necessary proof of future death.”

And his reason, stated a little later, rests on this: “It is a feature of soul to be in pain, not of body, even when the cause of the soul’s being in pain is from the body. If then an argument for death were taken from pain, to the soul, to which pain more belongs, would death more belong.” And further, before this, he points to another reason, of this sort as it were: “For what reason is causing pain a proof of death, since rather it is a sign of life? For it is certain that everything in pain is alive” - as if he were to argue: if being in pain necessarily implies life, it does not necessarily imply death.”

138. I say, however, that sometimes, indeed most of the time, death does follow extreme pain, because a disproportion in some natural quality requisite for life follows -and to set down how it follows would require making clear how the imaginative faculty and appetite can act on natural qualities. But however it may be, no formal repugnance exists there between any sensation or pain and any degree of natural quality necessary for life. Therefore, it is not so great a miracle that some pain exists without death as it is that a real quality simply contrary to the quality of a mixed body exists along with life. For there would in the latter case be a sort of formal repugnance between the quality induced by the contrary and the quality requisite for life; and if the second quality were not posited, it would be a miracle that life existed without that mixed quality.

139. But in the former case the only miracle required is one that suspends pain, for the most part, from having its effect, namely so that a disproportion in the mixture’s humor repugnant to life not follow on the pain. And for the pain to be suspended from having such effect there is no need to posit a new miracle, but only to reduce it to the same thing as the suspension of contraries within is reduced to so that they do not cause corruption - namely so that, because of the final state to which they have been reduced, God may, for the most part, suspend causes from their effects, which effects, if they followed, the composite would be destroyed.

140. Besides, third, Scripture seems to say that the same damned person suffers from contraries, according to the verse of Job 24.19, “From waters of snow will they pass to extremes of heat.” And although an alternating of these afflictions would be saved according to the surface reading of the text, no probable saving would be possible of why the damned would suffer contraries simultaneously at their peak and really. But that they suffer them at the same time and at their peak can be saved, because the [intentional] species of contraries, even at their peak, are not contrary.

141. Therefore this way [n.142], about intentional effect without real effect [cf. n.133], can save more things pertaining to the affliction of the damned than the other way can.

D. About the More Probable Possibility of Admitting Real Effect

142. Fourth, I say that there is no altogether certain reason to deny a real effect there, for from the fact that a real effect can be posited (as is contained in the first article [n.125]), though it not be necessary for pain (as is contained in the second article [n.128]), yet, if all that is argued for in the third article [n.133] be ascribed to miracles as cause, it cannot be refuted.

143. God too could act along with the fire to induce real heat in the body, but not what would be formally repugnant to the quantity of the mixture or complexion [of the body], and then a miracle could be posited in this, that God does not act with the fire for the total effect that fire can act for.

144. Also God could act along with fire to generate supreme incompossible heat, and then the proportioned mixture [of the body] would be destroyed, and yet life would not be destroyed if God miraculously conserves it.

145. But if it be posited that heat is induced to the extreme limit and that yet the quality of the mixed body stands in the same heat, there seems to be a repugnance formally - just as there would be if the middle and the extreme were to come together in the same thing. And as to whether this is possible for God (not discussed here but elsewhere, [d.46 nn.103, 105]), yet it is not as known as either of the two aforesaid possibilities [nn.143-144].

146. So therefore I say that the damned will suffer a passion of affliction from the fire, and so necessarily suffer it with an intentional suffering but not necessarily reach an affliction with a real passion. But if real passion is concomitant as a natural cause proximate to the susceptive subject, the incorruption of the body from without must be saved in one of the aforesaid ways [nn.142-143].

E. Objections to the Third Article

147. Against the third article [nn.133-141] there is an objection from the fact that the senses of the blessed would sense every difference in sensible things. Therefore, if someone blessed were in the fire he would be changed intentionally by it the way the damned are, and yet he would not suffer an afflicting passion. Therefore, the afflicting passion does not come through the intentional passion alone.

148. Again, every operation is delightful to the operating power, because it is a perfection of it; therefore, any sensation that accompanies an intentional action will be delightful; therefore, none will be painful.

149. Again, the sense appetite only exists because of nature; therefore, nothing is disagreeable to it save because it is disagreeable to nature.

150. To the first [147]: either no sensible thing would be excessive for the senses of the blessed, or the senses will be so perfect that no sensible object will, because of its excess, be able to be disproportionate to them; and then it follows that they would be changed intentionally by the fire but not painfully, because not by anything disagreeable.

151. Or in another way, since pain is not caused in the senses but in the sense appetite (as was said [n.132]), and since the sense appetite in the blessed is totally at rest (or completely satisfied) in sense delight, and since excelling delight excludes all sadness whatever (Ethics 7 [n.110]), no pain could be caused in the sense appetite of the blessed.

One should therefore concede that, if the sensible object were excessive for the senses of the blessed, pain would be caused in his appetite save for the fact that there is in his appetite from a more efficacious cause something that excludes all pain.

152. To the second [n.148]: a disproportionate operation is not delightful; such is the sensation of an excessive object; and no wonder, because an operation is not delightful save because it is about a delightful object; but an excesssive object is disagreeable, therefore it causes sadness or pain.

153. To the third [n.149]: it is true that nature makes a thing to be disagreeable to sense appetite because that thing, or what accompanies it, is commonly corruptive of nature. However, let it be that sometimes there is no such accompaniment; the initial disagreeableness remains. So in the issue at hand, although the heating up that accompanies the species of the excelling hot thing not be extreme, yet the disagreeableness of the hot thing, as it impresses the species on the sense appetite, remains.