Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

Note 1. Just as the Philosophers distinguish two kinds of parts in continuous quantity, namely commensurate or proportional parts and non-commensurate or aliquot parts: so likewise the medium, or intervening space, between the term from which and the term to which in local motion can be distinguished as twofold, namely communicating with both extremes and not communicating with them; for example, if an angel existing in the first palm of a body three palms long wishes to pass to the third palm, the non-communicating medium will be the second palm, because it has its own extension distinct from the other two palms and participates in nothing of the extremes; yet it could be a communicating medium if something were taken from the first palm and something from the second, or something from the second and something from the third: but these communicating media are infinite in potency, since after some indeterminate part of the first palm another palm can be measured out that participates partly in the first and partly in the second; and since the points and proportional parts are seen to be infinite in potency, even the communicating media can be said to be infinite in potency.

Note 2. That angels can change place in several ways, positively, privatively, and mixedly: positively, by acquiring a new presence while not losing the prior one, as when an angel existing in a point, or in a smaller adequate space, extends himself to a larger space while retaining the former: privatively, when conversely he contracts himself to a smaller space, or to an indivisible, acquiring nothing new: mixedly, when he abandons the prior space either wholly or in part, and acquires another wholly or partially different; then indeed he acquires his presence in part and loses it in part — namely he acquires a new one and loses the old, and this either totally, when he enters into a place entirely different, or in a certain respect (secundum quid), when the place is not entirely different but the same in a certain respect. Furthermore, when a new and totally different place is acquired, either it is remote and distant from the prior one, or it is not distant but immediately continuous or contiguous, yet larger than the angel could occupy all at once. Both cases are inquired into here: whether he can pass from one to the other immediately, and without truly being in the medium between the two terms, from which and to which, through any instant.

Note 3. Here the question is raised not only about motion that is outside the sphere of angelic activity, but also about that which is within the sphere of his activity; suppose, for instance, that the sphere of an angel's activity and his adequate place is a single hall: it is asked whether he can move himself from one part of it to the other extreme without being moved through the medium that lies between those two parts. Likewise, on the hypothesis that there are two other adjacent halls outside the angel's adequate place and the sphere of his natural activity: whether he can transfer himself into the third without passing through the intervening middle one.

First conclusion. — An angel cannot pass from one adequate place to another distant place without passing through the medium, if that medium is communicating; but he will be able to pass thus with instantaneous motion if the medium does not communicate with the intermediate parts. This is the Doctor's teaching in 2 dist. 2. q. 12., where, having set forth this question, he answers at number 3: It seems probable that he cannot, because the order fixed by a superior agent seems necessary for every inferior agent, when it has its action precisely about such ordered things.

The first part is proved by the same reasoning of the Doctor, which is explained at the same time: the order fixed by a superior agent must necessarily be observed by any inferior whatsoever, nor can an inferior cause invert the order prescribed to it by the superior cause: but there is an order fixed by God that no creature can pass from place to a distant place without such a medium having been traversed. The major is evident; since every creature depends on the Creator not only in respect of entity and operation, but also in respect of the mode of its operation and activity, it must act according to the prescribed order. The Doctor proves the minor, first indeed by experience, whereby it is established that since, he says, the order of natural forms succeeding one another in natural generation is determined by him who instituted nature, the same is necessary with respect to any natural agent whatever. Hence no inferior cause can produce the sensitive soul in an organic body unless the vegetative has preceded it, nor can the rational soul exercise its operations in the same body unless the vegetative and sensitive operations have preceded; nor does the soul informing a body pass on to inform one distant part of the body without first informing the intermediate parts by which the distant part is continuous with the part previously informed. Nor, says the Doctor following Aristotle, 8 Metaphysics, can a natural agent make vinegar from wine immediately, because between wine and vinegar there naturally lies a certain other substantial form: therefore, etc.

The Doctor proves the second part.

*But if we speak of indivisible motion, he says, I say that in such motion he can pass through from extreme to immediate extreme without passing through a medium that is something of each extreme; nay, this is necessary, because if he passed through such a medium, he would pass continuously, and not instantaneously.

Hence, when further objection is raised against him below, that if the angel cannot pass from place to place without passing through a non-communicating medium, neither can he pass through a communicating medium, he answers that this inference is false;

Because, he says, in passing through from one where immediately to another where in an instant, he has all these wheres in a certain order of nature, among which there is a potential order ex natura rei; but he need not have them in an order of duration; whereas if he passed from what is distant to what is distant without order of any kind, then he would have them neither in the order of nature nor of duration, things among which there is a natural order, about which nevertheless he operates, presupposing their order as necessary.

Moreover the truth of this Conclusion is evident; for while the angel passes instantaneously from place to a contiguous or continuous place, if he were in an intermediate place participating in both places, either he would not be moved in an instant to the neighboring place, which is against the hypothesis, or he would be simultaneously in two adequate places, which naturally implies a contradiction. Proof: for when he is moved from this hall in an instant to another neighboring one, he must be in that neighboring hall: therefore either he is simultaneously in the intermediate participating place, made up of the middle part of the prior place and the middle part of the posterior place, or he is not. If he is not: therefore he has not passed through all the intermediate communicating places; if he is: therefore he is simultaneously in the whole neighboring hall and in the middle part of this hall, and so he is in two adequate places, or at least in a place larger than his adequate place, because the neighboring hall, as is supposed, and the middle part of this hall is a place larger than the neighboring hall alone: therefore he would be in a place larger than his adequate one.

— But the disparity that the Doctor adduces, why an angel can pass from place to place without passing through a communicating medium, yet cannot so pass without passing through a non-communicating medium, consists in this, says Pontius on this passage: that when he passes from place to an immediate place in an instant, there is no part of the communicating medium to which he was not present, whether by priority of time or by priority of nature, before he was present to the whole immediate place, although he was not present to some parts of the medium earlier in time. This is clearly evident, supposing the angel to occupy this hall as his adequate place, and thence to pass in an instant to a wholly contiguous or continuous hall: in this case, the communicating media are the parts interposed between the two halls; for example, if this hall is four palms long and the second the same, one communicating medium is the three posterior palms of this hall together with the first of the neighboring hall, another communicating medium is the two posterior palms of this hall together with the two anterior ones of the neighboring hall, and so on for the rest. Now when the angel passes from this hall to the neighboring one, during the time he was in this hall he occupied all the palms and parts of this hall, and this earlier in time than he instantaneously occupied the neighboring hall; and when in an instant he placed himself in the neighboring hall, he simultaneously occupied all its palms and parts: whence it is evident that in this case there would be no part of the medium between the two places to which the angel was not at some time present; and indeed he was present to the parts of this hall earlier in time; but to the anterior and nearer parts of the neighboring hall he was present before the posterior ones, or before the whole place, yet not in time, since he occupied all of them in an instant, but only in nature, namely because unless he were present to those parts he could not be present to other, posterior parts; yet he could well be present to those anterior parts without being present to the posterior ones. Hence this consequence holds: he is present to the posterior parts: therefore he is or was present to the anterior ones too; but this one does not hold: he is or was present to the anterior parts: therefore he is or was present to the posterior ones. And consequently, since that is said to be prior in nature from which the sequence of subsisting is not converted: the presence of the angel to the anterior parts of the neighboring hall is prior in nature than to the posterior parts, and thus the angel himself is prior in nature present to the anterior parts than to the posterior ones, which cannot be doubted. But so it is that the order necessarily to be observed from the nature of created things in mutation is not that every thing must first, in time, be in the medium before being in the extreme place toward which the motion is directed; but rather in time or in nature. Whence it follows manifestly that even if the angel moved himself instantaneously from place to place, not passing through the whole medium first in time, he would still observe the order of nature, because he would be in every part of the medium first in time or in nature. But if he moved himself from place to a distant place without traversing a non-communicating medium, as from this hall to a third hall leaving out the second, he would invert that order, because he would have been in the intermediate second hall neither prior in nature nor prior in time than in the third. Such is Pontius's account.

Here however take note, that by instantaneous motion the Doctor does not understand a passing from place to place that is truly motion properly so called, since, as was proved above, motion properly so called cannot occur in an instant; but he merely calls that passing instantaneous which is a simple change of place, namely abandoning the term from which and acquiring the term to which, which we proved in the preceding Question can occur in an instant.

You will object against the first part: The angel is in a place by his substance with subordination to the command of his will: but he can will to be in a distant place without willing to be in the medium: therefore it is not necessary, in order that he pass from one place to another, that he be moved through a medium.

— The Doctor distinguishes the minor, number 4, speaking of angels in that state in which they are now constituted: that a bad angel can will inordinately to be in a distant place without willing to pass through the medium, from which volition no effect would follow, since it plainly exceeds his natural power, nor could he obtain it except by God acting extraordinarily — he concedes; that a good angel could will in an orderly way to be in a distant place without willing to pass through the medium as if by his own power he could attain it — he denies; for in that case in which a good angel wished to pass from place to place without traversing the medium, God, granting his wishes and acting extraordinarily, would so move him from place to place without moving him through the medium; but this would come about by supernatural power, of which we are not here speaking.

Otherwise I distinguish the minor. That the angel can will to be in a remote place with a volition by which it suffices that he be in such a place, or through which he can naturally obtain the remote and distant place — I deny; with an ineffectual volition that does not obtain what is desired — that he pass, I concede: and so just as we are moved from place to place through the command of the will, and yet cannot always obtain the place desired according to our will, but only when we truly apply ourselves to reaching the place: so although the angels move themselves locally with dependence on the command of their will, they still cannot obtain the place desired unless they apply themselves in the due manner to attaining it: but this due application cannot occur except with an ordering toward running through the medium before the place to be reached.

You will say 2. The adorable Body of Christ the Lord passes from heaven to the altar without the medium having been traversed: therefore the angel too can pass thus.

— The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent: That the Body of Christ becomes thus present on the altar by an extraordinary and supernatural power, which need not conform itself to the natures of things nor be measured according to their power — he concedes: Because, he says, it is above that order, foreshadowing it and not having it as prefixed. That it becomes present by natural power — he denies. Here, however, the speech is about the natural power of the angel, which, since it is limited and determined in every way, cannot alter the order established and fixed by God for things, and therefore cannot reach from the term from which to the distant term to which without transit through a medium.

You will say 3. The motion of an angel is like our thought, and also like the motions of the bodies of the Blessed: but our thought can pass from heaven to earth without a medium: for our intellect thinking of heaven can straightaway direct its thought to earth without thinking at all of the intervening air. Similarly the bodies of the Blessed (says the Author of the book De Cognitione verae vitae, cap. 25., cited by S. Augustine in Tome 9.) can be transferred from East to West as quickly as our thought can, which certainly can do this in an instant and without transit through a medium: therefore much more can the angels be moved thus.

— I deny the major. For there is a great difference between the motion of thought and local motion: both because thought does not require a real and substantial presence of the thinker to the object, but only a metaphorical and intentional one, whereas local presence to space does; and also because the intermediate space is not a medium of cognition, and hence the intellect need not think of that medium when it casts its thought from one extreme in order to think of the other; but it is otherwise with local motion, which must necessarily come about through the intermediate space between the two distant terms. As to what the praised Author says about the bodies of the Blessed, I can reply that it should be understood thus: namely that those blessed bodies are transferred as quickly as our thoughts because of their most swift motive force and their marvelous gift of agility.

Second conclusion. — By instantaneous mutation an angel can be transferred from one adequate place into another adequate place that is continuous and congruent with the prior one; and likewise can abandon part of his adequate place and restrict his presence to the smallest part of that same place. This Conclusion has two parts, of which

The first is proved. No lesser power is to be conceded to the angel than to the rational soul and to a luminous body: but the rational soul is simultaneously infused into the whole organic body in the instant of animation, and likewise into every part regenerated through nutrition. Similarly light from the Sun or from fire is diffused in an instant through the contiguous and continuous air: therefore similarly the angel by instantaneous mutation will be able to pass from one place to another contiguous one. Further, if the angel could not accomplish this, especially because succession is necessarily required in the abandonment of the term from which and the acquisition of the term to which — but this is false. Proof: because no succession is required on the part of the medium, since none is supposed to exist; nor on the part of the term to which, or of the presence that is acquired, because what can be simultaneously possessed can also be simultaneously acquired if nothing else stands in the way, and there is no contrary standing in the way of and impeding this acquisition, as heat, for example, is produced successively on account of opposing cold; nor on the part of the term from which, since the angel abandons it by the very first moment of his not being in it, as was said in the preceding Question: therefore nothing makes succession necessary, and consequently that mutation can occur instantaneously.

You will say. The term that the angel acquires is extended, and therefore has parts nearer, others middle, others more remote: but the nearer parts are acquirable before the middle ones, and these before the more remote ones: therefore the angel cannot abandon one adequate place and acquire another except with some succession.

— I distinguish the minor. If this acquisition comes about through true motion, I concede; if it comes about through a diffusion of himself through the adequate space, and likewise through a replication of himself and a multiple positioning in diverse parts or points of space, I deny: for just as the light of the Sun, for example, is diffused without transit through the production of diverse parts of light in the diverse parts of the whole hemisphere, without temporal succession but with the order of nature alone, because the Sun illuminates by nature the parts near it before the more remote ones, granted that naturally it cannot act at a distance per se primo: so the angel can in the same instant and at the same time diffuse himself through the adequate space by a replication of himself and a multiple positioning in diverse parts or points of space, with the order of nature alone, because he cannot naturally occupy the remote parts except through the intervening ones, since he cannot be moved to a distance without occupying the medium. Thus also the rational soul is simultaneously present to all the parts disposed sufficiently at once, not earlier in time to the nearer than to the remote parts, and simultaneously leaves off and ceases to inform the parts cut off at once; by which example it is evident that the angel can fill the space adequate to himself all at once. For if no succession is necessary in the soul in order to occupy simultaneously any whole space — nay, such succession is not even naturally possible, since the soul can neither at the outset inform a single indivisible, nor in growth does the ultimate disposition come about through indivisibles — then succession does not seem more necessary to the angel, strictly speaking, in order to fill that space which is adequate to his power.

The second part is evident from what was said in the preceding Article, in which it was proved that the angel can lose, by a simultaneous mutation, the real presence he had to all the parts of his space or adequate place, retaining presence only in a smaller part of that space; yet he cannot accomplish this by true local motion, which cannot occur in an instant, but only by a sudden mutation, of which it has often been spoken.