The answer to this question cannot be doubtful. Absolute space is not and cannot be intrinsically affected or modified by the presence of a material point, or of any number of material points. We have shown that absolute space is nothing else than the virtuality of God’s immensity; and since no intrinsic change can be conceived as possible in God’s attributes or in the range of their comprehension, it is evident that absolute space cannot be intrinsically modified by any work of creation. On the other hand, nothing can be intrinsically modified unless it receives in itself, as in a subject, the modifying act; for all intrinsic modifications result from corresponding impressions made on the subject which is modified. Thus the modifications of the eye, of the ear, and of other senses, result from impressions made on them, and received in them as in so many subjects. But the creation of a material point in space is not the position of a thing in it as in a subject; for, if absolute space received the material point in itself as in a subject, this point would be a mere accident; as nothing but accidents exist in a subject, and since it is manifest that material elements are not accidents, it is plain that they are not received in space as in a subject.
Hence the creation of any number of material points in space implies nothing but the extrinsic termination of absolute space, which accordingly remains altogether unaffected and unmodified. Just as a body created at the surface of the earth immediately acquires weight, without causing the least intrinsic change in the attractive power which is the source of all weights on earth, so does a material element, created in absolute space, acquire its ubication without causing the least intrinsic change in absolute space which is the source of all possible ubications. A material element has its formal ubication inasmuch as it occupies a point in space. This point, as contained in absolute space, is virtual; but, as occupied by the element, or marked out by a point of matter, it is formal. Thus the formality of the ubication consists in the actual termination and real occupation of a virtual point by an extrinsic term corresponding to it.
The formal ubication of an element is a mere relativity, or a respectus. The formal reason, or foundation, of this relativity is the reality through which the term ubicated communicates with absolute space, viz., the real point which is common to both, though not in the same manner, as it is virtual in space, and formal in the extrinsic term. A material element in space is therefore nothing but a term related by its ubication to divine immensity as existing in a more perfect manner in the same ubication. But since the formality of the contingent ubication exclusively belongs to the contingent being itself, absolute space receives nothing from it except a relative extrinsic denomination.
Some will say: To have a capacity of containing something, and to contain it actually, are things intrinsically different. But absolute space, when void, has a mere capacity of containing bodies, whilst, when occupied, it actually contains them. Therefore absolute space is intrinsically modified by occupation.
To this we answer, that the word “capacity,” on which the objection is built up, is a mischievous one, no less indeed than the word “potency,” which, when used indeterminately, is liable to opposite interpretations, and leads to contradictory conclusions.
The capacity of containing bodies which is commonly predicated of absolute space, is not a passive potency destined to be actuated by contingent occupation; it is, on the contrary, the formal reason of all contingent ubications, since it contains already in an infinitely better manner all the ubications of the bodies by which it may be occupied. To be occupied, and not to be occupied, are not, of course, the same thing; but it does not follow from this that space unoccupied is intrinsically different from space occupied; it follows only, that, when space is occupied, a contingent being corresponds to it as an extrinsic term, and gives it an extrinsic denomination. In other terms, everything which occupies space, occupies it by ubication. Now every ubication is the participation in the contingent being of a reality which absolute space already contains in a better manner. Consequently, the capacity of containing bodies, which is predicated of space, already contains actually the same ubications, which, when bodies are created, are formally attributed to the bodies themselves.
This answer is, we think, philosophically evident. But, as our imagination, too, must be helped to rise to the level of intellectual conceptions, we will illustrate our answer by an example. Man has features which can be reflected in any number of mirrors, so as to form in them an image of him. This “capacity” of having images of self is called “exemplarity,” and consists in the possession of that of which an image can be produced. Hence, man’s exemplarity actually, though only virtually, contains in itself all the images that it can form in any mirror; and when the image is formed, man’s exemplarity gives existence to it, but receives nothing from it, except a relative denomination drawn from the extrinsic term in which it is portrayed. In a like manner, God’s omnipotence, and his other attributes, are mirrored in every created thing, and their “capacity” of being imitated in a finite degree arises from the fact that God’s attributes contain already in an eminent manner the whole reality which can be made to exist formally in the contingent things. Hence, when these contingent things are created, God gives existence to them, but receives nothing from them, except a relative denomination drawn from the extrinsic terms in which his perfections are mirrored. In the same manner, too, when a material element is created, it receives its being, and its mode of being in space, that is, its ubication, which is a finite image or imitation of God’s infinite ubication; but it gives nothing to the divine ubication, except the extrinsic denomination; just as the image in the mirror gives nothing to the body of which it is the image, but simply borrows its existence from it.
From this it follows that material elements are in space not by inhesion, but by correlation, each point which is formally marked out by an element corresponding to a virtual point of space, to which it gives an extrinsic denomination. The said correlation consists in this, that the contingent term, by its formal mode of existing in the point it marks out, really imitates the eminent mode of being of divine immensity in the same point; and from this it follows again, that whatever new reality results from the existence of a material element in space, belongs entirely to the element itself, and constitutes its mode of being.
The relation between the contingent being as existing formally in its ubication, and divine immensity as existing eminently in the same ubication, is called “presence.”
We must notice, before we go further, that the virtuality of God’s immensity, when considered in relation to the distinct terms by which it is extrinsically terminated, assumes distinct relative denominations, and therefore, though it is one entitatively, it becomes manifold terminatively. In this latter sense it is true to say that the virtuality of divine immensity which is terminated by a certain term A, is distinct from the virtuality which is terminated by a certain other term B; and when a material point moves in space, we may say that its ubication ceases to correspond to one virtuality of immensity, and begins to correspond to another. Such virtualities, as we have just remarked, are not entitatively distinct, for immensity has but one infinite virtuality. Yet this one virtuality, owing to the possibility of infinite distinct terminations, is capable of being related to any number of distinct extrinsic terms, and of receiving from their distinct mode of existing in it any number of distinct relative denominations. When, therefore, we speak of distinct virtualities of divine immensity, we simply refer to the distinct extrinsic terminations of one and the same infinite virtuality, in the same manner as, when we speak of distinct creations, we do not mean that God’s creative act is manifold in itself, but only that its extrinsic termination to one being, v. gr. the sun, is not its termination to other beings, v. gr. the stars. And in a similar manner, when a word is heard by many persons, its sound in their ears is distinct on account of distinct terminations, though the word is not distinct from itself.