a. To the Reasons of Henry of Ghent

133. [To the first] - To the first [n.81] I say that the first proposition [the major] could be so understood that it would have to be denied absolutely. For God has power for all vision and for all modes of vision; but he cannot cause every vision in every eye, because not every eye is susceptive of every vision, as the eye of a bat is not capable of the vision of an eagle, because the vision of an eagle is repugnant to its receptive power. But let it be that Henry is speaking of any form to which the power of the agent is of itself equally disposed, and to which the receptive power is equally disposed, and let it be that anything through this power could be caused in the recipient - then the proposition is true, because both by reason of the active power and by reason of the passive power the possibility would be equal.

134. But the conclusion still does not follow if it is about any power individually and about all the many possible forms at once, because a surface has, on the part of God and of the active and passive recipient, an equal possibility for every color, but not for every color at once. And then Henry would need to show that a body is on its part equally receptive of all diverse ‘wheres’ and of two of them, which is denied by an adversary. However, I concede as to the thing that, on the part of God as active and on the part of body as receptive, there is an equal possibility in a body for two ‘wheres’ that are simply distinct, and to each or to any number, and then to all.

135. And when it is said that ‘by no virtue can one body have all ‘wheres’ or be everywhere’ - this is false. And my proof is that they concede that Christ’s body could be everywhere sacramentally; for God could convert any body universally, just like bread, into the body of Christ. And I say that, when making comparison with the power of God, there is no greater limitation to existing anywhere by location than to existing anywhere sacramentally.

136. Also, whatever can be done by an active second cause God can do immediately; but the sacrament, that veils the body of Christ, is only the reason for the body being here as second effective cause, because it is not the formal cause, as was proved before [d.8 nn.141-149].

137. And when it is said [n.81] that ‘being everywhere is proper to God’, I say that God is necessarily everywhere by his immensity, because there can be no ‘where’ in which God does not exist by his power, presence, and essence; and in this way is it impossible for anything other than God to be everywhere. But it is not unacceptable that something other than God be by God’s active power in any ‘where’ whatever, nor should it for this reason be said to be everywhere the way God is, for it is not immense.

138. [Second reason] - As to the argument [n.82] that includes many of those contradictories or repugnancies, the answer is plain from the three aforesaid propositions [nn.129-131]. Yet I apply them as follows: let it be that to this body in this place an agent, namely fire, comes next to it, and another agent, namely water, does so in another place - I say that either the agents are of equal power in action or one overcomes the other.

If they be of equal virtue and if they be then next to the body that has one ‘where’, either each would impede the other so that neither would act, or they would act for some intermediate effect in which the passive thing would be perfectly assimilated neither to one nor to the other. And I answer in the same way now when they are next to the same body that exists in diverse places or ‘wheres’.

But if the virtue of either one overcomes the other, it will either assimilate the passive thing to itself or will do so more than the other does.

139. And I reply in the same way if they are in diverse places, because there is no greater difficulty in this case than if fire and water were placed together (which it is not denied can be done by God), and if the same body were next to fire and water having the same ‘where’, because one should not there say, so as to prevent contraries in the passive thing, that ‘anything can more easily, or equally easily, avoid it here’.

140. About hunger and satiety [n.82] I say that hunger is appetite for the cold and dry. But this appetite is either natural or voluntary, namely the wish to eat, and whether it is one or the other it states something absolute. Therefore it does not vary with variation in ‘where’ (from the first proposition [n.129]), and consequently if it be here sated and its appetite cease in one ‘where’, it would cease elsewhere too, though not from food taken there, as will be immediately said about death [n.143].

141. But if you say satiety is ‘bodily fullness of stomach’ then, since it would not receive food as it does here, a doubt is possible whether it would for this reason be thus full here. And I say no (just as neither was the body of Christ wounded as it is in the pyx), because this fullness only states the presence of food contained by the container, namely the belly; and just as it is possible that the containing capacity of this body is different in this place and in that, so it is possible that the active containing capacity of this body here is different from the containing capacity of the same body in another ‘where’, for this containing capacity does not state something absolute but an extrinsic respect.

142. About the third [n.82], namely about health and illness, and temperateness and intemperateness, I say that intemperateness of the air expels temperateness as to the body of an animal on which the temperate or intemperate air acts. And then, in brief, the body would be such as the overcoming agent would be of a nature to cause it to be, although it would perhaps act less intensely because of the reaction of some contrary thing impeding or resisting it. But if they are equal in acting, the passive thing will then alter to the middle state, in the same way in short as you would say healthy and unhealthy things would be if they were together (which you concede God can do), and the same body would be next to this one and to that one together.

143. The fourth, which is about death and life [n.82], is easily solved, because each is something absolute (privative or positive), and consequently does not vary because of variation in ‘where’ (according to the first proposition [n.129]). If then it dies here, it dies there as well, but yet this inference does not follow ‘it is wounded here, therefore it is wounded there’, because wounding states a division of what is continuous as it is here by something dividing it here. But yet it is true that if it has a wound here it has it elsewhere as well, because such is what the discontinuity of the parts is like, and if it is in this body there it is also in the same body elsewhere.

144. [To the third] - To the next argument [n.83], the third main one by this doctor, I say that it is not necessary that something located in place be commensurate with the dimensions of place according as [the place] is one and many, so that according to the multitude of the dimensions of place there follows a multitude of the dimensions of the placed thing; just as neither does a multitude in what is prior follow on a multitude in what is posterior, especially as to an extrinsic respect and foundation, as was touched on in argument earlier [nn.123-126].