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Objection 1: It seems that the bodies of the saints will not be
impassible after the resurrection. For everything mortal is passible.
But man, after the resurrection, will be "a mortal rational
animal," for such is the definition of man, which will never be
dissociated from him. Therefore the body will be passible.
Objection 2: Further, whatever is in potentiality to have the form
of another thing is passible in relation to something else; for this is
what is meant by being passive to another thing (De Gener. i).
Now the bodies of the saints will be in potentiality to the form of
another thing after the resurrection; since matter, according as it is
under one form, does not lose its potentiality to another form. But
the bodies of the saints after the resurrection will have matter in
common with the elements, because they will be restored out of the same
matter of which they are now composed. Therefore they will be in
potentiality to another form, and thus will be passible.
Objection 3: Further, according to the Philosopher (De Gener.
i), contraries have a natural inclination to be active and passive
towards one another. Now the bodies of the saints will be composed of
contraries after the resurrection, even as now. Therefore they will
be passible.
Objection 4: Further, in the human body the blood and humors will
rise again, as stated above (Question 80, Articles 3,4).
Now, sickness and such like passions arise in the body through the
antipathy of the humors. Therefore the bodies of the saints will be
passible after the resurrection.
Objection 5: Further, actual defect is more inconsistent with
perfection than potential defect. But passibility denotes merely
potential defect. Since then there will be certain actual defects in
the bodies of the blessed, such as the scars of the wounds in the
martyrs, even as they were in Christ, it would seem that their
perfections will not suffer, if we grant their bodies to be passible.
On the contrary, Everything passible is corruptible, because
"increase of passion results in loss of substance" [Aristotle,
Topic. vi, 1]. Now the bodies of the saints will be incorruptible
after the resurrection, according to 1 Cor. 15:42, "It is
sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption." Therefore they
will be impassible.
Further, the stronger is not passive to the weaker. But no body will
be stronger than the bodies of the saints, of which it is written (1
Cor. 15:43): "It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in
power." Therefore they will be impassible.
I answer that, We speak of a thing being "passive" in two ways
[FS, Question 22, Article 1]. First in a broad sense, and
thus every reception is called a passion, whether the thing received be
fitting to the receiver and perfect it, or contrary to it and corrupt
it. The glorious bodies are not said to be impassible by the removal
of this kind of passion, since nothing pertaining to perfection is to
be removed from them. In another way we use the word "passive"
properly, and thus the Damascene defines passion (De Fide Orth.
ii, 22) as being "a movement contrary to nature." Hence an
immoderate movement of the heart is called its passion, but a moderate
movement is called its operation. The reason of this is that whatever
is patient is drawn to the bounds of the agent, since the agent
assimilates the patient to itself, so that, therefore, the patient as
such is drawn beyond its own bounds within which it was confined.
Accordingly taking passion in its proper sense there will be no
potentiality to passion in the bodies of the saints after resurrection;
wherefore they are said to be impassible.
The reason however of this impassibility is assigned differently by
different persons. Some ascribe it to the condition of the elements,
which will be different then from what it is now. For they say that
the elements will remain, then, as to substance, yet that they will
be deprived of their active and passive qualities. But this does not
seem to be true: because the active and passive qualities belong to the
perfection of the elements, so that if the elements were restored
without them in the body of the man that rises again, they would be
less perfect than now. Moreover since these qualities are the proper
accidents of the elements, being caused by their form and matter, it
would seem most absurd for the cause to remain and the effect to be
removed. Wherefore others say that the qualities will remain, but
deprived of their proper activities, the Divine power so doing for the
preservation of the human body. This however would seem to be
untenable, since the action and passion of the active and passive
qualities is necessary for the mixture (of the elements), and
according as one or the other preponderates the mixed (bodies) differ
in their respective complexions, and this must apply to the bodies of
those who rise again, for they will contain flesh and bones and like
parts, all of which demand different complexions. Moreover,
according to this, impassibility could not be one of their gifts,
because it would not imply a disposition in the impassible substance,
but merely an external preventive to passion, namely the power of
God, which might produce the same effect in a human body even in this
state of life. Consequently others say that in the body itself there
will be something preventing the passion of a glorified body, namely
the nature of a fifth: or heavenly body, which they maintain enters
into the composition of a human body, to the effect of blending the
elements together in harmony so as to be fitting matter for the rational
soul; but that in this state of life, on account of the preponderance
of the elemental nature, the human body is passible like other
elements, whereas in the resurrection the nature of the fifth body will
predominate, so that the human body will be made impassible in likeness
to the heavenly body. But this cannot stand, because the fifth body
does not enter materially into the composition of a human body, as was
proved above (Sent. ii, D, 12, Q. 1, Article 1).
Moreover it is absurd to say that a natural power, such as the power
of a heavenly body, should endow the human body with a property of
glory, such as the impassibility of a glorified body, since the
Apostle ascribes to Christ's power the transformation of the human
body, because "such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are
heavenly" (1 Cor. 15:48), and "He will reform the body of
our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the
operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself"
(Phil. 3:21). And again, a heavenly nature cannot exercise
such power over the human body as to take from it its elemental nature
which is passible by reason of its essential constituents.
Consequently we must say otherwise that all passion results from the
agent overcoming the patient, else it would not draw it to its own
bounds. Now it is impossible for agent to overcome patient except
through the weakening of the hold which the form of the patient has over
its matter, if we speak of the passion which is against nature, for it
is of passion in this sense that we are speaking now: for matter is not
subject to one of two contraries, except through the cessation or at
least the diminution of the hold which the other contrary has on it.
Now the human body and all that it contains will be perfectly subject
to the rational soul, even as the soul will be perfectly subject to
God. Wherefore it will be impossible for the glorified body to be
subject to any change contrary to the disposition whereby it is
perfected by the soul; and consequently those bodies will be
impassible.
Reply to Objection 1: According to Anselm (Cur Deus Homo ii,
11), "mortal is included in the philosophers' definition of man,
because they did not believe that the whole man could be ever immortal,
for they had no experience of man otherwise than in this state of
mortality." Or we may say that since, according to the Philosopher
(Metaph. vi, 12), essential differences are unknown to us, we
sometimes employ accidental differences in order to signify essential
differences from which the accidental differences result. Hence
"mortal" is put in the definition of man, not as though mortality
were essential to man, but because that which causes passibility and
mortality in the present state of life, namely composition of
contraries, is essential to man, but it will not cause it then, on
account of the triumph of the soul over the body.
Reply to Objection 2: Potentiality is twofold, tied and free: and
this is true not only of active but also of passive potentiality. For
the form ties the potentiality of matter, by determining it to one
thing, and it is thus that it overcomes it. And since in corruptible
things form does not perfectly overcome matter, it cannot tie it
completely so as to prevent it from sometimes receiving a disposition
contrary to the form through some passion. But in the saints after the
resurrection, the soul will have complete dominion over the body, and
it will be altogether impossible for it to lose this dominion, because
it will be immutably subject to God, which was not the case in the
state of innocence. Consequently those bodies will retain
substantially the same potentiality as they have now to another form;
yet that potentiality will remain tied by the triumph of the soul over
the body, so that it will never be realized by actual passion.
Reply to Objection 3: The elemental qualities are the instruments
of the soul, as stated in De Anima ii, text. 38, seqq., for
the heat of fire in an animal's body is directed in the act of
nutrition by the soul's power. When, however, the principal agent
is perfect, and there is no defect in the instrument, no action
proceeds from the instrument, except in accordance with the disposition
of the principal agent. Consequently in the bodies of the saints after
the resurrection, no action or passion will result from the elemental
qualities that is contrary to the disposition of the soul which has the
preservation of the body in view.
Reply to Objection 4: According to Augustine (Ep. ad Consent.
cxlvi) "the Divine power is able to remove" whatever qualities He
will "from this visible and tangible body, other qualities
remaining." Hence even as in a certain respect "He deprived the
flames of the Chaldees' furnace of the power to burn, since the
bodies of the children were preserved without hurt, while in another
respect that power remained, since those flames consumed the wood, so
will He remove passibility from the humors while leaving their nature
unchanged." It has been explained in the Article how this is brought
about.
Reply to Objection 5: The scars of wounds will not be in the
saints, nor were they in Christ, in so far as they imply a defect,
but as signs of the most steadfast virtue whereby the saints suffered
for the sake of justice and faith: so that this will increase their own
and others' joy (Cf. TP, Question 54, Article 4, ad 3).
Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxii, 19): "We feel an
undescribable love for the blessed martyrs so as to desire to see in
that kingdom the scars of the wounds in their bodies, which they bore
for Christ's name. Perchance indeed we shall see them for this will
not make them less comely but more glorious. A certain beauty will
shine in them, a beauty though in the body, yet not of the body but of
virtue." Nevertheless those martyrs who have been maimed and deprived
of their limbs will not be without those limbs in the resurrection of
the dead, for to them it is said (Lk. 21:18): "A hair of
your head shall not perish."
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