Dist. 43, Art. 1, Q. 4
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/43/q/bon-sent-IV-d43-a1-q4
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### Article I.
### Question IV. *Whether the resurrection will be of the same bodies according to number.*

Fourthly it is asked, whether the resurrection will be of the same [bodies] according to number. And that it will, seems [to be shown].

1. Job, chapter nineteen: *In my flesh I shall see God, my Saviour, whom I myself shall see, and not another*; it is clear that he does not say *another* according to species, but according to number: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher: "If from a mortal thing an immortal one should come to be, we do not say that it takes on another life"; therefore if there is not another life, neither is there another living thing, therefore [it is] the same: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, it seems [so] by reason: because the identity of a thing comes from the identity of its substantial principles; but the material principle is the same and the formal principle is the same: therefore [it is] the same man as before.

4. Likewise, "a proper form is not naturally apt to come to be except in its proper matter": therefore, since the soul is the proper form of the body which it perfects, it is not naturally apt to be united except to that [body]: therefore if it is united in the resurrection, it is united to the same [body]. And if this is so; since it [the soul] is the same, the whole will be the same.

**On the contrary:**

1. "Every form that is corrupted and again generated is not the same according to number, but according to species," as the Philosopher says in the second book *On Generation*: since therefore humanity is corrupted in this [man] in death and again generated in the resurrection, therefore [it is] another according to number. If you should say that this holds in the corruption which is into a contrary, not in death; on the contrary: corruption into privation is greater than into a contrary, because in order that reparation be made, it is necessary that a resolution be made down to the ultimate [elements], and that all things be again generated anew: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, although a craftsman may make a statue again from the same matter, still the statue is other after than before: therefore by parity of reasoning it seems that, although a man be [made] from the same dust, still he is another. If you should say that God can do more than nature or a craftsman; it is true that He can do more, yet He does not do so, except what is fitting and is congruous; nor is it intelligible how something should be corrupted and pass into non-being, and again come to be, such that it is the same; or if it is congruous, why does He not give this power to nature?

3. Likewise, essential differences diversify a thing not only according to number, but also according to essence; but *mortal* and *immortal* are essential differences: therefore, since the one who rises is immortal and before was mortal, it is evident etc.

4. Likewise, the first generation and the reformation are diverse operations: therefore if the termini of diverse operations are diverse according to substance, the body which is first generated is one thing, and the body which is afterward reformed is another.

> **Conclusion.** The resurrection is of the same body according to number.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that concerning this diverse men have held diverse [views].

For some have said that there is a threefold diversity according to number: *one*, which comes from the diversity of a part of the matter and of the specified form, as this water and this fire differ in number; *another*, which comes from the diversity of a part of the matter, as this fire differs from that; a *third*, which comes from discontinuity in duration; and this diversity according to number has its origin, as they say, from time; for time numbers duration, just as it does action. The *first* diversity according to number is great, the *second* less, the *third* least. Of the *first* and *second* diversity the rising body will be free, but of the *third* it will not be free nor can it be free, because a proposition about the past cannot fail to be true. Hence, just as a corrupted virgin cannot become a virgin — because she cannot not have been corrupted — neither by God nor by nature, nor is this intelligible; so a corrupted body cannot be repaired as the same by an identity in every respect, because it cannot not have been corrupted. Yet this is so slight a diversity that it does not merit being called *diverse* on this account, since it is the same according to another twofold mode of identity, namely on account of the identity of *matter* and *form*, because the identity of the matter and of the principal form will be in those who rise. Hence it is that the resurrection is of the same [bodies]. What therefore the Philosopher says, that "a form corrupted and again generated is another according to number," he understands of this [third] diversity.

But this does not seem very reasonable: first indeed, because it seems foolish to say that God could not reform the entirely same body by an identity according to number. — *Further*, *identity* according to number in substance does not come from accidents, although it is made known through them, nor does *diversity* [either]. — And *again*, that discontinuity in *being* does not induce diversity in number is seen expressly in artificial things, as if a chest be dissolved and again be repaired from the same boards and according to the same order; it will not be called another chest according to number, but the same; and yet it ceased to be a chest.

And on account of this others say otherwise, that corruption is twofold: one by *dissolution* or separation of the *component principles* or parts; another by the *corruption of the form*. In the *first*

it is possible that the same [thing] be repaired according to number by one who knows how to reduce [it] to the same mode and to the same places. In the *second* — because what is corrupted cannot be the same, since the essence of the form is new, as it is generated anew — they say that of necessity it must be another; and of this the Philosopher understands. The separation and dissolution of the human body is according to the *first* mode; therefore it is repaired as the same, like an artifact, because, the soul and the body being preserved, there occurs a separation of the one from the other, and afterward, the parts of the matter being preserved, incineration occurs; and God, like a good craftsman, gathers and unites the ashes and reforms the same body: and since that body has the same perfection, therefore the whole consummated [body] is the same.

But this does not resolve [it] sufficiently. For it is certain that the form of human flesh *is corrupted* while a worm and a serpent are generated from it; and just as it can be corrupted into the flesh of a serpent or of another animal, so it can be resolved, like that animal too, even into the four elements, and each of the elements be corrupted into another, and thus the forms of the mixture and of the element are corrupted: therefore it is necessary that the elements be other according to number and [that there be] another flesh. And thus this response cannot stand.

And therefore it must be noted that the resurrection is of the same [body] according to number, because otherwise it would not be a resurrection. — If you should ask me how this can be; I say that this can be by *divine power*, although it cannot be *by nature*; and this we can understand thus.

Let us now suppose that nature does something, and does it not from nothing; and since it acts upon matter, it is necessary that it produce a form; and since matter is not a part of the form, nor does form become a part of matter, it is necessary that in some way natural forms be in the matter before they are produced; and the substance of matter is pregnant with all [forms]: therefore the seminal reasons of all forms are in it. But at that [point] *resolution stops*, from which *generation begins*: therefore no form is entirely corrupted, but remains in the matter, just as before it was produced. And thus says Augustine; whence he says that the forms are in the matter before their production as regards their *seminal reasons*. He says also that they *are resolved into the matter*, as into the most hidden recesses of nature, meaning the same [thing] to be understood by each name according to one and another respect. But what these [seminal reasons] are is better shown elsewhere, namely *in the second book*. Now let it suffice to have said this, that all forms, when they are corrupted, are not entirely corrupted, but remain in some way. And with this agrees reason and philosophical authority and the authority of blessed Augustine, and what is greater, the authority of sacred Scripture, which is the authority of the Holy Spirit.

This being presupposed, it must be said that although the form be there in some way after corruption, still nature cannot produce [it] to the same *being* which it had before. — And the reason for this is: because a natural agent acts by influencing and imparting something of itself, by the mediation of which it perfects that which was in the matter; and that which is influenced from the side of the agent becomes something belonging to the complete being of the product itself: and therefore it is necessary that nature give something *new* as regards the *substantial mode of being*, which is *being* in act. For although nature does not give a new *essence*, it does give a new *mode of being*, not only *accidental*, but even *substantial*, like *being in act*, according to which a thing can be substantially numbered and diversified. And therefore nature, when it repairs, produces not the *same*, but a *new* [thing]; but God, who can bring the very seminal reasons to perfect being without the introduction of anything new, can make [it] to be the same. And so He does in the case at hand, because from those [elements] alone and by the same order He constitutes the thing in the reformation, from which it was before. Hence if all the elements be converted into fire, God from that fire reforms the same elements, which were there in the seminal reasons, and from them the form of flesh by the same order. And thus it is evident that God can reform the same body according to number; and so it can be said for the present.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1 and 2.* To that then which is objected first and second, the response is now evident: because, although this be impossible for a *lower* agent, still it is possible for a *higher* agent, namely God Himself. — And why God does not communicate this power to the creature is evident: because no creature acts by itself, but through something of itself, sending forth a power, as color too, in order to alter the sight, makes a likeness of itself in the medium: whence it acts as something extrinsic within something intrinsic; not so God. And this I say of natural operation.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning the *mortal* and the *immortal*, it must be said that whatever be [the case] concerning "mortal," whether it be a difference or not — because it is not of the present consideration, since there are reasons for either side, because it seems to signify a defect and imperfection and does not have a difference in the same genus co-dividing [it], and many other things — nevertheless this is true without calumny, that *mortal* is taken in three ways: in one way it signifies a natural *aptitude* toward

dying; in another way, the *possibility* of dying; in a third way, *necessity*. And in the first way indeed *mortal* is present in man by that reason by which [he is] composed of heterogeneous parts. Whence Hilary: "God is not from composite things, since He is life": if therefore man is [composed] of *heterogeneous composites* and *diverse natures* and dispositions; it is impossible that he have life except with an *aptitude* toward dying; and just as such *composition* is natural to man, so also is *mortal[ity]*. And taking *mortal* in this way against *immortal*, they never coincide in the same [subject]; so neither the spiritual nor the simple and the composite. And if in some way it is a difference, in this way it is not one dividing *animal*, but *the living substance*, of which one difference is *immortal*, and by opposite *mortal*. — In the second way *mortal* is present in the manner in which something is composite of *heterogeneous parts* having defectibility, as in the first man, who had the animal state; and in this way it signifies the state *midway* between misery and glory. — In the third way *mortal* is present by that reason by which a living thing is composite of *contraries* having defectibility and a struggle against one another; and thus it is present in fallen man, and in this way it signifies the *state of misery*; and *immortal*, opposed to this, signifies *another state*. And since the *state* can be changed, the unity according to number remaining; hence it is that from *mortal*, according to this twofold mode, comes to be *immortal* without a diversity of substance. And in this way it comes about in the glorified man, who is *mortal* in the first way, namely according to natural aptitude, but *immortal*, inasmuch as it signifies the privation of the potency and the necessity [of dying].

*To 4.* To that which is objected lastly, that the operations are diverse; it must be said that diverse operations induce diverse effects when they are divided on an equal footing; but when it is so, that one is *ordered* to the other, and one is *reparative* of the effect of the other; if the second proceed from an agent entirely powerful, the entirely same [thing] can be repaired. And so it is in the case at hand.

But it is *objected*: how can this be understood? Since these operations are discontinuous, and the *being* of the thing is discontinuous, and of one continuum there are only two ultimate [points]: if therefore *being* is discontinuous, then it is one and another. Since therefore what is one in number follows the same actual [being]; it seems necessarily to follow that it is one and another. And *again*, how can something *begin* twice and be the same? For it is impossible to be and to understand that someone should run twice the same course. — And it can be responded to this that concerning the *being of a thing* one may speak in two ways: either as regards *its flowing-forth and duration*, or *in itself*. If as regards *duration and flowing-forth*; thus it necessarily follows that the duration be one and another, like the measure of duration. If as regards the *being in itself*; thus it is numbered and multiplied by the *permanent principles*; and since the permanent principles are the same, although the flowing-forth of duration and the beginning be one and another: hence it is that the thing is one, and the being of the thing is one. — Nor is it similar concerning *successive actions*, because those are necessarily numbered, and the past and the future regard diverse parts of the action or change or successive duration. It is not so that one ought to judge concerning an *absolute form*, which, once corrupted, can be numbered as the same by God, because in some way it remains in the seminal reason.