Whether the plants and animals will remain in this renewal?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that the plants and animals will remain in this renewal. For the elements should be deprived of nothing that belongs to their adornment. Now the elements are said to be adorned by the animals and plants [*Cf. Gn. 1:11,12,20,21,24,25]. Therefore they will not be removed in this renewal.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, just as the elements served man, so also did animals, plants and mineral bodies. But on account of this service the elements will be glorified. Therefore both animals and plants and mineral bodies will be glorified likewise.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, the universe will remain imperfect if anything belonging to its perfection be removed. Now the species of animals, plants, and mineral bodies belong to the perfection of the universe. Since then we must not say that the world will remain imperfect when it is renewed, it seems that we should assert that the plants and animals will remain.

❌ Objection 4 : Further, animals and plants have a more noble form than the elements. Now the world, at this final renewal, will be changed for the better. Therefore animals and plants should remain rather than the elements, since they are nobler.

❌ Objection 5 : Further, it is unseemly to assert that the natural appetite will be frustrated. But by their natural appetite animals and plants desire to be for ever, if indeed not as regards the individual, at least as regards the species: and to this end their continual generation is directed (De Generat. ii). Therefore it is unseemly to say that these species will at length cease to be.