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Objection 1: It would seem that the sound of the trumpet will not be
the cause of our resurrection. For the Damascene says (De Fide
Orth. iv): "Thou must believe that the resurrection will take
place by God's will, power, and nod." Therefore since these are a
sufficient cause of our resurrection, we ought not to assign the sound
of the trumpet as a cause thereof.
Objection 2: Further, it is useless to make sounds to one who
cannot hear. But the dead will not have hearing. Therefore it is
unfitting to make a sound to arouse them.
Objection 3: Further, if any sound is the cause of the
resurrection, this will only be by a power given by God to the sound:
wherefore a gloss on Ps. 67:34, "He will give to His voice
the voice of power," says: "to arouse our bodies." Now from the
moment that a power is given to a thing, though it be given
miraculously, the act that ensues is natural, as instanced in the man
born blind who, after being restored to sight, saw naturally.
Therefore if a sound be the cause of resurrection, the resurrection
would be natural: which is false.
On the contrary, It is written (1 Thess. 4:15): "The
Lord Himself will come down from heaven . . . with the trumpet of
God; and the dead who are in Christ shall rise."
Further, it is written (Jn. 5:28) that they "who are in the
graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God . . . and (Jn.
5:25) they that hear shall live." Now this voice is called the
trumpet, as stated in the text (Sent. iv, D, 43).
Therefore, etc.
I answer that, Cause and effect must needs in some way be united
together, since mover and moved, maker and made, are simultaneous
(Phys. vii, 2). Now Christ rising again is the univocal cause
of our resurrection: wherefore at the resurrection of bodies, it
behooves Christ to work the resurrection at the giving of some common
bodily sign. According to some this sign will be literally Christ's
voice commanding the resurrection, even as He commanded the sea and
the storm ceased (Mt. 8:26). Others say that this sign will be
nothing else than the manifest appearance of the Son of God in the
world, according to the words of Mt. 24:27: "As lightning
cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west, so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be." These rely on the authority
of Gregory [Moral. xxxi, as quoted by St. Albert the Great,
Sentent. iv, D, 42, Article 4] who says that "the sound of
the trumpet is nothing else but the Son appearing to the world as
judge." According to this, the visible presence of the Son of God
is called His voice, because as soon as He appears all nature will
obey His command in restoring human bodies: hence He is described as
coming "with commandment" (1 Thess. 4:15). In this way His
appearing, in so far as it has the force of a command, is called His
voice: which voice, whatever it be, is sometimes called a cry [Mt
25:6], as of a crier summoning to judgment; sometimes the sound
of a trumpet [1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:15], either on
account of its distinctness, as stated in the text (Sent. iv, D,
43), or as being in keeping with the use of the trumpet in the Old
Testament: for by the trumpet they were summoned to the council,
stirred to the battle, and called to the feast; and those who rise
again will be summoned to the council of judgment, to the battle in
which "the world shall fight . . . against the unwise" (Wis.
5:21), and to the feast of everlasting solemnity.
Reply to Objection 1: In those words the Damascene touches on
three things respecting the material cause of the resurrection: to
wit, the Divine will which commands, the power which executes, and
the ease of execution, when he adds "bidding," in resemblance to our
own affairs: since it is very easy for us to do what is done at once at
our word. But the ease is much more evident, if before we say a
word, our servants execute our will at once at the first sign of our
will, which sign is called a nod: and this nod is a kind of cause of
that execution, in so far as others are led thereby to accomplish our
will. And the Divine nod, at which the resurrection will take
place, is nothing but the sign given by God, which all nature will
obey by concurring in the resurrection of the dead. This sign is the
same as the sound of the trumpet, as explained above.
Reply to Objection 2: As the forms of the Sacrament have the power
to sanctify, not through being heard, but through being spoken: so
this sound, whatever it be, will have an instrumental efficacy of
resuscitation, not through being perceived, but through being
uttered. Even so a sound by the pulsation of the air arouses the
sleeper, by loosing the organ of perception, and not because it is
known: since judgment about the sound that reaches the ears is
subsequent to the awakening and is not its cause.
Reply to Objection 3: This argument would avail, if the power
given to that sound were a complete being in nature: because then that
which would proceed therefrom would have for principle a power already
rendered natural. But this power is not of that kind but such as we
have ascribed above to the forms of the Sacraments (Sent. iv, D,
1; FP, Question 62, Articles 1,4).
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