Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The title is clear. – In the body of the article he does two principal things. First, he proposes a responsive conclusion having two parts, namely: An angel can be moved locally, but equivocally with respect to a body. Second, he declares and proves it together, with regard to three points: the first is that motion does not belong to a body and to an angel for the same reason; the second is what the motion of an angel itself is¹; the third, of what kind it is².

II. As to the first, he introduces this argument. A body is in place as contained and commensurate: therefore its motion is necessarily according to the requirement of place: and hence, from the continuity of the place there is continuity of motion, and from its prior and posterior there is before and after in motion. But an angel is in place as containing the place, not commensurate with it: therefore his motion is not necessarily according to the requirement of place, nor continuous. – The premises are evident from what was said in the preceding question³, and from VI Physic.⁴

III. Two doubts nevertheless remain here. The first is that St Thomas in this procedure argues from the destruction of the antecedent to the destruction of the consequent; and hence seems to proceed sophistically. – The second is whether that causal proposition is true, that continuity redounds from magnitude or space into motion by the fact that the mobile is commensurate with that magnitude. For on this depends the solution of a manifold question: namely whether an indivisible can be moved as the subject of true continuous local motion; and whether the divisibility of space alone is a sufficient reason for the continuity of motion, etc. And since this doubt is proper to VI Physic., it is to be discussed there, God willing; where the opinion and arguments of Scotus on this, in II Sent., dist. II, qu. IX, will be examined.

To the first doubt, however, it must be said for now that the procedure of St Thomas is founded on that rule handed down in I Poster.⁵: if affirmation is the cause of affirmation, negation is the cause of negation; which holds in proper causes, such as he supposes himself to be assuming here.

IV. As to the second⁶, he intends this: The motion of an angel is a virtual contact of diverse places successively. – And it is declared with regard to two points. Both that it is a contact: because to be in place is nothing other than virtually to touch the place. And that it is of diverse places: because he cannot be at once in several places, and hence diverse places must be touched successively. But since it can happen that diverse places are touched not at once, with a middle rest intervening, and then such contacts would not be called the motion of the angel; therefore the term successively is added, that is, being related immediately and consecutively.

V. As to the third⁷, he intends this: The motion of an angel can be continuous, and not continuous. – And each part is declared: because he can, by leaving the whole place at once, transfer himself to another; and he can, by leaving one gradually, acquire another by continuously occupying part of it.

VI. Concerning the aforesaid, note diligently that the mind of St Thomas expressly, and without doubt, holds that local motion, properly speaking, does not belong to spiritual substances: but just as, abusively and equivocally, using names as many do, spiritual substances are said to be in place, so also to be moved locally. Hence for them to be moved is not to be the subject of motion, just as to be placed is not for them to be the subject of ubi; but virtually to touch diverse places, in the genus of efficient cause.

And from this it is evident, first, that the labor of Scotus, in the place cited⁸, was vain, in proving that an angel can truly be moved locally, because he is receptive of some genus, and not indeterminate nor unlimited, etc. For he supposes what he never proved, namely that an angel is receptive of the definitive ubi itself according to substance, as was said in the preceding question⁹. – It is evident, second, that the opinion of those does not seem consonant, who either attribute to St Thomas that spiritual substances are truly moved locally by local motion; or, suspecting this of his mind, assert it as true; and, what is more, glory in understanding St Thomas.

VII. Concerning the continuity of an angel's motion a doubt occurs, whether there is only one operation there, or many. For if there is one, by it he will be in only one place: and thus he would be moved and not moved at once; because he would be in diverse places on account of the motion, and would be in only one place on account of the unity of the operation. – It follows also that angelic motion would be badly defined by the diversity of contacts: since unity of operation entails unity of contact.

But if there are necessarily many operations there, it follows that the motion is not continuous. – And it would follow also that an angel could not maintain or continue the same operation from place to place: which a man nevertheless can.

VIII. To this it is said that, when an angel is said to be moved with continuous motion, it happens that both only one and many operations intervene. For the evidence of which, two distinctions are to be noted. The first is this. It can be understood in two ways that an angel is continuously applied to diverse places: in the first way, so that place and patient accompany each other as to unity and diversity; in another way, so that with diversity of places there is unity of patient. For a third way, namely with diversity of patients there is unity of place, is not to the purpose: because local change does not intervene there, of which we are now speaking. – The second distinction is that for an operation to be one or many happens in two ways: in one way, according as it proceeds from the operator; in another way, according as it terminates in the patient. And this in two ways: namely either in order to something extrinsic to the patient itself; or according to the patient itself.

For from these it is evident first that, whether an angel is said to be moved from the fact that he carries the same stone from place to place, or from the fact that he moves one great body of water gradually, part after part, continuously, there always intervenes diversity of contact and of operation on the part of the patient; either in order to the extrinsic only, namely magnitude or space, as when he carries the stone; or in order to the extrinsic and according to the patient itself, as when he moves the water in the aforesaid way. But that diversity of operation on the part of the operator concur in this continuity, I see to be neither necessary nor impossible: for to save the description of angelic motion, such diversity of contacts on the part of the patient suffices. – Nor does it follow from the unity of the operation that through it he does not touch diverse places continuously: just as from the unity of the placed body it does not always follow that it is in the same place. But just as when a body is moved, in any part of time, and at whatever instants, it is in diverse places (otherwise it would be at rest); yet in single instants it is in one place adequate to it: so an angel operating with one operation on his own part, but a manifold one on the part of the patient, simply or in a certain respect, at whatever instant regards one place; yet in single parts of time, and in any two instants, attains diverse places.

IX. In the reply to the first, a doubt occurs, in that St Thomas seems contrary both to himself and to the truth, when he says that an angel can be said to be moved while he is at the term from which or to which. For in I Sent., dist. XXXVII, qu. IV, art. 1, ad 3, he says that an angel is moved in neither term, but in the succession of one to the other. And the reason is that the motion of an angel is not composed of motions, but rather of completed changes; and hence the parts of his motion are not motions, and consequently he is not moved in either term. – And it is confirmed. Because the motion of an angel is compared to being (esse) at the terms as number to units, in St Thomas¹⁰: and consequently, just as a number cannot be said to be, one unit alone existing, so neither can an angel be said to be moved, one term alone existing. And so, just as continuous motion does not exist upon the arrival of its term, so neither does the motion of an angel: the opposite of which is said here.

X. For the solution of this difficulty, two things are to be attended to. The first is that the terms of angelic motion are of the nature of instantaneous changes in this respect, that in them are found at once becoming and having become, as is said in VI Physic.¹¹. So that any term whatever of angelic motion can be distinguished into becoming and having become: and inasmuch as it contains in itself the having become, the negative is verified, namely that in it the angel is not moved; inasmuch as it contains in itself the becoming, the affirmative is verified, namely that in it the angel is moved. And rightly, because the term from which of angelic motion has not the character of a part of motion, nor the character of term from which, except in relation to the succeeding term; and conversely for the term to which: yet according to such relations the succession of terms is attended to, and consequently angelic motion.

– Second, it is to be attended to that, since motion is of the genus of successive things, and not of permanent ones, angelic motion is related not as a permanent number but as a successive number. Now it is established that a successive number sufficiently is, if it is in the succession of its units. Hence it does not require the units of which it is composed to be at once, but to be in successive act. – And from these the reply to the objections is evident.

Nor impute to me that, in the place that is the term from which, I said there is a relation to the term to which, when the angel, leaving the stone in which he was, has applied himself to the empyrean heaven.

But rather take from my words that in the angel himself operating about one term there is an act mixed with potency, inasmuch as, by operating about it, he will operate immediately about the other. And similarly the operation about the term to which has necessarily two things: namely to succeed the preceding, terminating the aforesaid potency; and what it is absolutely: and sometimes a third, namely a potency mixed in for the succeeding operation.