B. Second Opinion, which is that of Thomas Aquinas

1. Exposition of the Opinion

463. There is another opinion [Thomas Aquinas, Sentences IV d.12 q.1 a.2, ST IIIa q.77 a.5] that posits return of the matter.

463. The exposition, however, is that the opinion cannot be understood of the matter that was previously annihilated, “because what has been reduced to nothing cannot return numerically the same.” Nor can it be understood either of matter previously converted into the body of Christ, because this matter cannot return again unless the body of Christ or the matter of the body of Christ were, contrariwise, converted into the matter of bread, just as neither could the converted bread return unless the body of Christ were converted into bread.

465. But if this opinion is to be sustained with any probability, the understanding of it needs to be that God creates new matter. And one must not posit a new miracle, because this comes from the original miracle (lest faith lose its merit), and consequently so that every change that could be brought about if the accidents were in a substance could be brought about by a natural agent. Nor would the substance of bodily matter then simply be diminished, nor the matter created in the beginning increased, by the return of this substance, because as much of matter is created, or as much returns here, as was converted from matter into the substance of the body of Christ.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

466. I argue against this opinion: because I ask when the matter returns - whether in the final instant, when a new substance is generated there, or before the final instant?

467. Not before for two reasons: because then, while the Eucharist remains, the matter of the substance there would be different from the matter of the body of Christ, which the school in common does not hold. Then too the matter would be without form, which that doctor [Aquinas, ST Ia q.66 a.1 ad 3, q.76 a.6] says is simply impossible; at least it is not possible without a new miracle. But more miracles are not to be posited without necessity.

468. If however the matter returns in the instant of generation, in vain is it posited to return so that a natural agent may generate something from it, because a natural agent only generates from a matter quantum, especially according to him [Aquinas]. Likewise, a natural agent can only generate if some corruption accompanies the generation, and especially according to this opinion; but it will not corrupt any substance then [sc. in the instant of generation], because the matter does not return under any substantial form needing to be corrupted, for then it would have matter and not have matter at the same time.

469. The manner too, in which this doctor says the opinion must necessarily be held (namely that annihilated matter does not return nor does converted matter, but it can only be said to return because some new matter is created), does not seem probable, because both annihilated matter and converted matter can return.

470. Proof of the first point:

Because the nothing that follows annihilation is of the same idea as the nothing that precedes creation of matter, just as the term of annihilation ‘to which’ and the term of creation ‘from which’ are the same or of the same idea, as in the case of corruption and generation. And the distance from matter to the nothing that follows the annihilation of it and to the nothing that precedes the creation of it is the same; therefore the same power has power over this distance and that; therefore the power that can create can also repair what has been annihilated.

471. Again, matter that has been annihilated is not more nothing than it was before creation; therefore, it does not include a greater contradiction than it included before; therefore just as omnipotence could previously have produced what was thus nothing, so can it produce it now as well.

472. Second, namely about converted matter [n.469], the proof is that the body of Christ is not differently disposed because of the fact that bread is converted into it. Therefore, conversely, the converted bread could return in the same way in which it was converted into that body, without its being the case that Christ’s body would be in itself differently disposed; because just as this body is not disposed in a different way positively by having this entity after conversion in itself [sc. the entity of being under the species of bread], so it would not be disposed in a different way privatively by not having it in itself (namely if the bread were to return).