Pars 1, Cap. 7
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/1/q/bon-brev-p1-c7
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### Chapter VII. *On the omnipotence of God.*

Concerning the *omnipotence* of God, according to sacred doctrine these things are to be held: that God is omnipotent, yet in such a way that there are not attributed to him *culpable* acts, such as to lie and to will evil; nor *penal* acts, such as to fear and to grieve; nor *corporeal* or material acts, such as to sleep and to walk, except perhaps by transferred speech; nor *unfitting* acts, such as to be able to make something greater than himself, or another God equal to himself, or something actually infinite, and the like: « because, as Anselm says, anything unfitting, even the least, is impossible with God ». But although he cannot do these things, he is nevertheless omnipotent truly, properly, and perfectly:

Now the understanding and the reason for the aforesaid is this: because the first principle is powerful with a power which is power *simply*; and therefore the distributive sign added to it distributes over those things for which *to be able* is *to be able simply*. Now these *are* the things which issue from a power that is *complete* and *ordered*. — And I call that power *complete* which cannot *fail*, nor *give way*, nor *be in need*. But a power fails in sinning, gives way in suffering, and includes neediness in corporeal actions. But the divine power, because it is the highest and most perfect power, is therefore neither from nothing, nor under anything, nor does it need anything else; and through this it is capable neither of *culpable* nor of *penal* nor of *material* things; and this because the Omnipotent is a *complete* power.

But an *ordered* power happens to be spoken of in three ways: either according to *act*, or according to *aptitude* on the part of the *creature*, or according to *aptitude* on the part of the *uncreated power* alone. What is possible to power taken in the first way is not only *possible*, but also *actual*; what is possible in the second way and not the first is *possible simply*, though not actual; but what is possible in the third way, not in the first or the second, is *possible to God*, but impossible to the creature. But what is possible in none of the aforesaid ways — as that which directly conflicts with the order according to the primordial and eternal reasons and causes — is *simply impossible*: as that God should make something actually infinite, that he should at once make something to be and in no way to be, that he should make what has been not to have been, and other such things; and *to be able* for these is against the order and the completeness of the divine power. — From these things it is clear with respect to what the divine power is; it is also clear what things ought to be called *simply possible* and what *simply impossible*, and that the impossibility of certain things stands together with true omnipotence.

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