 First, Scotus argues that God can create and conserve what was called “prime matter”: that is, matter that has no form whatsoever. (For an analysis of the arguments, see Ward 2014.) Matter and form are distinct things, as the case of substantial change makes clear: matter persists when forms come and go. Now that fact by itself might be taken to show only that matter can exist apart from any given form (and Scotus thinks that too), but Scotus takes the separability of matter and form even further. Divine omnipotence means that God can cause immediately (that is, without a secondary cause) whatever he ordinarily causes through a secondary cause. God ordinarily causes matter through form; but given divine omnipotence, he need not. He can create matter without any form. Moreover, given that matter is a thing distinct from form, God creates matter directly and immediately; and what God creates immediately, he can conserve immediately. So God can conserve matter without conserving any of the forms that characterize that matter.