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].