Dist. 49, Part 2, Art. 4, Q. 2
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/49/q/bon-sent-IV-d49-p2-s2-a4-q2
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### Question II. *Whether agility inclines the glorified body to every difference of position, or to some determinate place.*

Secondly there is asked about the inclination of the glorified body which is through agility; and it is asked whether agility inclines the glorified body to every difference of position, or to some determinate place. And that it is not to every difference, it seems:

1. Because the inclination of a movable thing follows what predominates according to quantity; but what predominates according to quantity in those bodies is earth and water: therefore etc. — *If you say* that heaviness will be taken away; *on the contrary*: this belongs to the nature of earth; but Augustine says that "the nature will be preserved": therefore etc.

2. Likewise, everything seeks what is more suited to it; but the place of the empyrean heaven is more suited to it: therefore it seeks to be there. But inclination is a natural appetite: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything that rests somewhere has a power settling it there; but the glorified body rests in heaven: therefore it is settled there by some power. But a power settling in a place inclines toward a determinate place: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. That body is in all things obedient to the soul: therefore, if that will can move it to every difference of position, and equally to one as to another: therefore the glorified body is not more inclined to one than to another.

2. Likewise, what has an inclination toward one direction, if it be moved toward the opposite, is moved with weariness and pain: therefore, if it were inclined upward and were moved downward, there would be labor and pain in it.

3. Likewise, what seeks one place, if it be set outside it, is made needy and imperfect: therefore, if the glorified body were inclined toward some place according to appetite, either it would be impossible that it be moved from there, or, if it were moved from there, it would be imperfect.

### Conclusion

> *The agility of the glorified body does not incline it toward any determinate place, but is a readiness that it be moved to every place, as the soul wills.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *aptitude* for motion follows *inclination*, and *inclination* is an appetite in respect of perfection, because it exists for the sake of that. Since therefore the glorified body draws the whole account of its existence and nobility and stability from the soul, its inclination is therefore toward the *soul*, not toward *something outside*. And since agility follows inclination, and the soul can move it to every difference of position, therefore the body too has an aptitude for every situation. Hence agility does not incline toward any determinate place, as has been proved, but is a readiness that the body be moved to every place to which the soul wills to move it. — And the reasons for this are to be conceded.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected, that earth predominates; it must be said that, because the appetite of the elements is wholly brought to rest in that body, no element in it seeks its own sphere; and therefore that appetite of earth and its heaviness have been taken away. — To what is objected, that the nature is preserved and the vice taken away; it must be said that *vice* is said of everything that implies imperfection.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that it seeks what is more suited; it must be said that this is true if it needs it; but the glorified body needs no place.

*To 3.* To the last it must be said that the body is settled in every place through the soul, and the soul through God; and thus it does not need another inclination.

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