Question Eight. Whether an Angel could Move from Extreme to Extreme without Passing through the Middle

507. Twelfth and finally I ask whether an angel could move from extreme to extreme without passing through the middle.

508. That he could:

Because either an angel is in place by his operation (according to some), and it seems plain that he can operate on an extreme without operating on the middle [Aquinas Sent. 1 d.37 q.3 a.1, q.4 a.2]; or he does at least move himself by command of will (although through some executive power), and he can wish to be in an extreme without wishing to be in the middle, just as he can understand an extreme without understanding the middle [Aquinas Quodlibet 1 q.3 a.2].

509. Second as follows: the body of Christ, being in the empyrean heaven, is now on the altar, and it does not pass through the middle; therefore an angel will be able to do this, since a body seems more to follow the laws of place than a spirit does [William of Ware, Sent. 2 d.2 q.11 arg.1].

510. On the contrary:

No part of time can pass from the future to the past save through the present; but the essential order between the parts of place seems to be just like that between the parts of time; therefore a transit from extreme to extreme will not be possible save through the middle [William of Ware, Sent. 2 q.11 arg.2 to the opposite].

I. To the Question

511. It is said here by some that extremes can be understood either as two distant ‘wheres’ between which there is some middle that is not part of the extremes, or as two immediate ‘wheres’ between which there are middles yet any one of them is some part of the extremes.

512. Speaking of middles in the second way and of the continuous motion of an angel, I say that he cannot pass from extreme to extreme (speaking in this second way about extremes) save by passing through such a middle as is part of each extreme, because such a middle is the idea of continuity between the extremes passed through, as is plain from the definition of a middle in Metaphysics 10.5.1057a21-26.“We call those middles into which that which changes must change first, as...in the case of colors where, if a thing goes from white to black, it will go to red and to grey before it goes to black.” ⁴³

513. It seems to be similar when speaking of continuous motion and of a middle said in the other way [sc. the first, n.511], because, if an angel moves continuously, he is not completely in either extreme; therefore he is partly in one and partly in the other, or he is in the middle between both; for it cannot be said - as it seems - that he is in part of one extreme and in part of the other and yet that he is altogether not in such a middle between such extremes, because then he would be in two discontinuous places and in not in any way in the middle place, which does not seem to belong to him by natural power [nn.262-64].

514. But if we are speaking of indivisible motion, I say that in such a motion an angel can pass from extreme to immediate extreme without passing through a middle that is some part of either extreme; rather this must be the case, because if he were to pass through such a middle he would pass continuously and not instantaneously [n.512].

515. However as to distant extremes there is doubt. It is plain indeed from the preceding question [nn.503-504] that an angel cannot put himself in a distant extreme with a change that involves the whole reality of motion. - But can he really put himself in a distant extreme that involves precisely the reality of the term of motion, so that in some whole time he is in ‘where’ a and in part of that time he is precisely in ‘where’ b (such that ‘where’ b is distant from ‘where’ a by some middle, and the angel was never in this middle, whether in time or in an instant)? It seems probably that he cannot, because an order pre-established by a superior agent seems to be necessary for any inferior agent when the inferior agent does an action precisely about things in that order (an example: the order of natural forms that succeed each other in natural generation is determined by the institutor of nature, and so this order is necessary in respect of any natural agent, such that no natural agent can make vinegar immediately save from wine); therefore, since the order of the principal parts of the universe has been imposed by God on every created agent and created power, this order seems to be a necessary one when a natural agent moves itself through bodies to which such an order belongs. So when an angel moves himself through bodies to which such an order belongs, he cannot put himself in any ‘where’ whatever and follow no order about any ‘where’ whatever; for then no distance would seem to impede his action.

516. And if you object that this argument [n.515] is conclusive against the second member, ‘about middles that are part of the extremes’ [n.514], I deny it, because in that case, when an angel passes in an instant immediately from one ‘where’ to another ‘where’, he has all the ‘wheres’ in some order of nature (and between these ‘wheres’ there is, from the nature of the thing, a potential order), but he need not have them in an order of duration; and if he passes from a distant ‘where’ to a distant ‘where’ without any order in any way, then he would, without any order at all whether of nature or of duration, possess things to which a natural order belongs even though his acting about them necessarily presupposes the order of them.

II. To the Principal Arguments

517. To the first argument [n.508] I say that a bad angel can will disorderedly; and a good angel, just because he only wills orderedly, need not will with his own power - and so, if a good angel wills to be at once in some ‘where’, still he does not will to be there by his own power, because this would be to will disorderedly. If however such power does not belong to the good angel but he wills to be there at once by the power of God, it is likely that God would accede to his will (if such it be), so as to put the angel in such ‘where’; but an angel can never by his own power be anywhere save in the way in which it belongs to his power.

518. To the second [n.509] I say that the body of Christ is by his infinite power made to be present on the altar, on which point see 4 d.10 p.1 q.3 n.5. But that infinite power can hold any middle between extremes to be no middle, and can hold order for no order, because he is above that order, being the one who prefixes it and not having it prefixed for him; but the limited power of an angel is not of this sort.

519. From this is apparent the response to the passage from On Sense and Sensibles 6.446b28-7a6 [n.404, 299], which was passed over in question 5 about the place of an angel. For it is not unacceptable that some alteration is complete all at once, namely when the agent has regard to the whole passive subject as an indivisible term and to the form in its ultimate degree (according to which degree it introduces the whole form as an indivisible); in that case a perfect form is introduced by an indivisible change in a divisible subject. But according to such form there is no motion, but only a single change - or perhaps several changes are had (in the order either of duration or of nature), as

Aristotle himself there says, that “if it was large, it undergoes one complete change after another” [n.299]; which can be understood in two ways: in one way that a later part is naturally perfected later by a prior part - the prior part naturally perfect before -, so that there is only an order of nature between the change of the prior and of the later part; in another way that there is an order of duration, namely that a later part is moved in succession by a prior part and yet the prior part was changed precisely by the extrinsic agent itself (this second way seems less probable, unless one posits that the prior part -already changed - is more imperfect than what changes it, and thus that it cannot change the later part at once in the way it was itself changed by the extrinsic agent).

520. So the Philosopher says there that “things in change of sound are not as they are in light,” because the multiplication in quantity of a sound, which takes place along with local motion, is necessarily successive - but not so the multiplication of light; and so simultaneity is not repugnant to the idea of alteration as it is to the idea of change of place, and this when making reference to natural power. Yet, however, there is never simultaneity in alterations that are a first change of motion, just as neither in changes of place, because where change is instantaneous, there the change is not a change initiating motion; nor even does simultaneity follow universally where motion follows, if there is a change that is the term of the preceding rest (but where rest, because of the perfection of the power of the agent, is followed immediately by a change, there no change terminating the preceding rest exists).