Quaest. 3, Art. 1
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/9/d/3/q/bon-qmt-q3-a1
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### Question III. *Whether trinity and the highest simplicity stand together.*

Next it is asked whether trinity and the highest simplicity stand together; and concerning this two things are asked.

The first is whether the divine *being* is most simple. Second, whether trinity and the highest simplicity stand together.

### Article I. *Whether the divine being is most simple.*

Concerning the first the procedure is thus, and it is shown that the divine *being* is most simple.

1. Augustine, *Confessions* II: "Nothing more simple than you is found": therefore it is simple in the ultimate term, therefore also in the highest degree, therefore it is most simple.

2. Likewise, *Confessions* XIII: "You alone are simple, for whom it is not one thing *to live* and another *to live well*": therefore in God *to be* and *to be well* are the same; but in that in which these are the same, there is no composition, but the highest simplicity: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything simply first is most simple; but the divine *being* is of this sort: therefore etc. The *major* is proved: because the composite is posterior to what composes it, and the simple is prior to the composite: therefore the cause of the predicate is in the subject in the aforesaid proposition: therefore it is true of itself. The *minor* is manifest, because God is a being from himself, for if he had *being* from elsewhere, that would then be God to him, and not he himself. And *again*, if there is a stopping-place and there is no going on to infinity, it is necessary to posit that some being is first of all.

4. Likewise, everything simply necessary is most simple; but the divine *being* is simply necessary: therefore etc. The *major* Avicenna and Algazel prove in their *Metaphysics*; for what is simply necessary is altogether independent and incorruptible: but every composite depends on the things that compose it, and is resoluble into them so far as its own nature goes. The *minor* is manifest, because the nobler side of a contrariety is to be attributed to God: therefore since it is nobler to be simply necessary than possible or contingent; it seems etc.

5. Likewise, everything most noble is most simple; but the divine *being* is of this sort: therefore etc. The *minor* is manifest; the *major* is proved, because to what is most noble the conditions of nobility are to be attributed in the highest degree, otherwise it would not be most noble; but simplicity is a condition pertaining to nobility, as is evident: therefore it is necessary that it be posited to be in God altogether in the highest degree.

6. Likewise, everything most powerful is most simple; the divine *being* is most powerful: therefore etc. The

*minor* is manifest, because he is called *God* precisely because he is omnipotent. The *major* is proved, because "a power united is more infinite," according to what is said in the *Book of Causes*: therefore a power most infinite is most united, therefore most simple; but there is no power most simple unless the substance too be such: therefore etc.

7. Likewise, everything which is whatever it has is most simple; but God is whatever he has: therefore etc. The *major* is evident, because if there were some composition, neither of them would be the other. The *minor* is evident by induction and by reason: because God has wisdom, therefore either he is wisdom, or not, and so of the rest, relatives excepted. If *he is wisdom*, I have what I proposed; if *not*; then he is wise by wisdom: therefore he is wise by something other than what he himself is: therefore if he has wisdom from another, from another also he has perfection: therefore he is not God, etc.

8. Likewise, everything most perfect is most simple; but the divine *being* is of this sort: therefore etc. The *minor* is manifest, because no condition is more consonant with the divine *being* than perfection. The *major* is proved: because that is more perfect which is itself as a whole and according to its whole self a perfection, than that which has in itself something perfectible; but every composite or composable thing has in itself something perfectible: therefore it is impossible that anything be supremely perfect unless it be also most simple: therefore the same as before.

9. Likewise, every composite is mutable: therefore, *by the destruction of the consequent*, everything immutable is simple, and what is simply immutable is in every way simple; but the divine *being* is altogether immutable, since it can be changed neither for the better nor for the equal nor for the worse, being altogether the highest good: therefore the divine *being* is most simple.

10. Likewise, the more simple a thing is, the more it is one; but the divine *being* is supremely one, as was shown in what precedes: therefore it is necessary that the divine *being* be simply most simple.

**Contra:** 1. Anselm: Whatever belongs to God belongs to him in the highest degree; but the divine *being* differs from created *being*: therefore it differs supremely. But the more differences a thing differs by, the more it differs and the more it is composite: therefore it is necessary that the divine *being* be supremely composite.

2. Likewise, *being* altogether abstracted from a supposit is more simple than concrete *being*; but the divine *being* is not abstract, but concrete with a supposit, because in the divine *being* there is a true deity and a true hypostasis having the deity: therefore etc. — *If you say* that they differ by account alone; then either something of the thing corresponds to that account, or nothing: if *something*, I have what I proposed; if *nothing*: therefore the whole is empty and false.

3. Likewise, what belongs to nobility in the creature is to be attributed also to the Creator; but the more composite a creature is, the more it approaches the condition of nobility; as is evident in man, who is the most perfect of the creatures that are in the universe, who is also the image of God: it seems therefore etc.

4. Likewise, in ordered forms the form that stands by addition is more actual, as is evident in the form of the *genus* and of the *species*, because the form of the *species* is more actual; but what stands by addition is composite: therefore composition witnesses to greater actuality and completeness. Since therefore the divine *being* is most actual and most complete: therefore it is most composite.

5. Likewise, the properties of the divine *being* are unity and truth and goodness: either therefore truth *is the same* as substance, or *not*. If *altogether the same*: therefore truth is no more a property of substance than the reverse, which is absurd; if *not altogether the same*: therefore it adds something: therefore there is some composition.

6. Likewise, either truth and goodness *are the same*, or *not*. If *the same*: therefore the vestige of goodness is the vestige of truth, which is false; but if in some way they *differ*: therefore that in which they are is in some way composite. — *If you say* that they differ *by account*; it is then asked what underlies that account.

7. Likewise, acts are diversified by their objects; but the soul is turned to God under the account of the *true* by knowledge, and under the account of the *good* by love: if therefore those are formal objects, then these acts are formally different; it seems etc.

8. Likewise, in the divine *being* there is power, wisdom and will; either therefore by these three I say *something more* than by one of them, or *not*. If *not*: therefore whoever says that God has *power* only takes nothing away from God, which is false; if *something more*, and that whole is in God: therefore there is composition too.

9. Likewise, either power is *knowledge*, or *not*. If *not*: therefore in the divine *being* there are diverse things; if *so*: therefore *to know* is *to be able*. But God *knows* evils: therefore he *is able to do* evils; but this is absurd: it remains therefore that it is something else: therefore it seems that it is composite.

10. Likewise, the divine will is restrictive of the power; for God does not do all the things which he knows and is

able to do, but only those which he wills; but nothing is restrictive of its own self: therefore power and wisdom and will are one thing and another: therefore the divine nature is composite.

11. Likewise, nothing altogether simple is participated according to more and less; but the divine *being* is participated according to more and less both by wayfarers and by the Blessed, who participate in it and see it in itself: therefore it is impossible that it be altogether simple.

12. Likewise, nothing altogether simple has a multiform operation, because "the same thing, remaining the same, is always born to do the same"; and again, a multiform action either *is the agent itself*, and so it is not simple; or *not*, and so it is still not simple; but God has a multiform operation, namely *to create* and *to govern* and *to reward*: therefore etc. — *If you say* that they differ *by account of the effects*; *on the contrary*: the action is not from the effect, but rather the reverse: therefore it is diversified rather according to the diversity of the actions than according to the variety of the effects.

13. Likewise, nothing altogether simple exercises at once operations altogether disparate and infinite, because the simple, to whatever it turns itself, turns itself wholly, and to an infinite action no power less than infinite suffices; but God at once creates the soul of one and justifies the soul of another, which are disparate and infinite actions: therefore etc.

14. Likewise, nothing altogether simple is multiform in species or in assimilation; but in the divine *being* there is a plurality of ideal accounts, because "by one account man was made, and by another the horse": therefore the divine *being* is not most simple. — *If you say* that the plurality of the ideas is a plurality of respects; *on the contrary*: the likeness of things is attended to not according to respect, but according to form: if therefore the ideas are called likenesses in the divine mind, and nothing that is the same and according to the same has a likeness to diverse things; it is necessary therefore that there be composition in the divine art and wisdom.

**CONCLUSION.**

*The divine being is most simple.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the divine *being* is most simple. — For the evidence of this, two things must be looked at, namely the perfection of the divine conditions and the modes of our considerations.

If we consider the modes of the divine conditions, the divine *being*, by the very fact that it is first, is most simple. For by the very fact that it is first, all things flow from it, and by the very fact that they flow from it, they run back and are led back to it as to their last end; and from this it has that it is *alpha* and *omega*, *the first* and *the last*, *the beginning* and *the end*. Since therefore these things, which seem most distant, converge into what is in every way one; it is necessary that the divine *being* itself be most perfect, as a kind of intelligible circle; it is necessary also that it be most simple.

For in three ways something falls short of the highest simplicity: either because it is *composed out of others*, or because it is *composed with another*, or because it is *composable in aptitude*. But the divine *being*, from the fact that it is *first*, is not *composed out of others*, for it has nothing prior before itself; from the fact that it is *most perfect*, it is not *composed with another*, for the perfect does not come to the constituting of a third; from the fact, moreover, that it is *last*, the rest are ordered to it as to a term that brings rest: and so it is itself most absolute, and through this it lacks not only *actual* composition but also *possible*; and thus to be most simple belongs to God *truly and properly*, for it is not possible to find these three in anything else. — It belongs to him also perfectly, from this threefold condition. For because it is *most perfect*, it has all the conditions of nobility; because it is *last* and best, on account of which all things are, it has all those conditions in the highest degree; because it is *first*, in which there is no diversity, it is necessary that they all be one in it, and thus most simple by the exclusion of all composition and the inclusion of all perfection. There are therefore in God all the conditions of nobility, namely power and wisdom and will, goodness, truth and unity, being, living and understanding and the rest of the like, truly, perfectly and in the highest degree under their proper and perfect account; yet they are so one that they introduce no composition nor lessen anything of the simplicity. — Which he does not see clearly, unless he likewise understands concerning the divine *being* the highest simplicity together with the highest *immensity*; and how this can be grasped will be able to be searched out in what follows, but for now it must be supposed as certain and indubitable, so that we may rightly understand the divine simplicity according to the requirement of the divine conditions.

We must also see the diverse *modes of our considerations*. — For since to a consideration three things necessarily converge, namely the *one understanding*, the *thing understood*, and the *medium* or *account of understanding*; some mode can be attributed in three ways to our understanding: either so that it puts that mode *about the thing*, and then it is true if it is found in that thing, as when it understands spiritual things

spiritually; or so that it puts that mode *about itself*, as when it understands abstractly things that are joined, and yet it is not lying, because, as the Philosopher says, "there is no lie in abstracting"; or when it puts it about the *account* by which it understands, as when it understands in many ways what is one by many. — It must be known therefore that our understanding resolves every understanding of a thing completely into the understanding of its *quo est* ("that by which it is") and its *quod est* ("that which is"), and when it understands a *composite* thing, then it puts that resolution *about itself* and *about the thing*; but when it understands a thing altogether *simple*, then it puts it not *about the thing*, but *about itself*, because otherwise it cannot understand. Hence our understanding, when it understands God, altogether understands that in him there is every simplicity and no composition, no concretion, yet it understands by way of *quo est* and *quod est*; nor yet is it false, because it does not put that mode *about the thing*, nor is it empty, because in truth something corresponds on God's side, though not something diverse. For truly there is in God essence and supposit, yet they are one; truly will and power, yet they are not many, but are known through many. — And hence it is that "he is more truly than he is understood, and is more truly understood than he is spoken," as Augustine says. For this reason every understanding falls short in understanding the divine *being*, and yet nonetheless the faithful understanding concerning it understands nothing but *one*, since it understands the *one* multiformly, the *abstract* concretely, the *simple* complexly, the *immense* finitely, the *eternal* temporally, because, as has been said, it attributes those modes not to the intelligible itself, but to itself understanding, or to the account of understanding. The true understanding therefore confesses, by the proper lumen of reason, that the divine *being* is altogether most simple. — Hence the reasons which show this are to be granted.

1. To that which is objected first on the contrary, that the divine *being* supremely differs from created *being*; it must be said that this is true; but as to what is further inferred: *therefore it differs by several differences*; it can be said that this does not follow, because the first genera supremely differ, and yet they differ by themselves. Differences too that immediately divide the genus itself differ by themselves, and yet are maximally distant from themselves. — And *if you object* that the more things agree in more respects, the more they are alike: therefore the more things differ in more respects, the more they are different; it can be said that the divine *being* differs from created *being* by several differences, which indeed posit plurality and a real difference on the side of the creature, yet not on the side of God, because the things that are in the creature by multiformity and real difference are found far more perfectly in God by a most simple identity, as is evident from the things which have already been said and will be said below.

2. To that which is objected, that *being* altogether abstracted from a supposit is more simple than concrete *being*; it must be said that a supposit is twofold: one which *adds* something over the nature, the other which *does not add*. Of the first supposit, which *adds* something over the nature, contracting and distinguishing it, it holds true; but in this way we do not posit a supposit to be in the divine, because there there is no distinction by any *addition* made about the nature, but by the *origin* of one person from another; hence there is no concretion there according to *real inherence*, but only according to *our understanding*. — And *if it be objected* that either something corresponds on the side of the thing to that understanding, or nothing; the answer is already evident, that *something does correspond*. For there truly is in the divine a nature and truly a supposit, that is *deity* and *what has the deity*; hence although the understanding understands this by way of a certain difference, it is not on that account false, because it puts that mode *about itself* or *about the account of understanding*, and not *about the thing* which it understands; or if it be posited, there is posited some real difference between the supposit and the nature, and it is such that it introduces no composition, as will better appear in the following question.

3. To that which is objected, that *whatever* belongs to nobility in the creature is to be attributed to the Creator; it must be said that there is a nobility *simply*, and there is a nobility *in a certain respect*. But that which in the creature says nobility *simply* is properly and truly to be attributed to the creating essence; but what says nobility with a diminution, that does not befit being attributed to God. When therefore it is said that greater composition in the creature makes for the perfection of nobility, as is evident in man; it must be said that this is a diminished nobility, which comes from the aggregation of many things, because what a thing cannot have in itself through one it has through many; and therefore such nobility is not to be attributed to the divine *being*, which indeed is most noble at the term of a perfect nobility.

4. To that which is objected, that in ordered forms the form which stands by addition is more actual; it must be said that there is an actuality *in a genus*, and there is an actuality *outside a genus*. But actuality *in a genus* is an actuality mixed with potency, which

potency is preserved in the nature of the genus and is brought to act by the superaddition of a distinguishing and specifying difference; and of this actuality the premised proposition holds true. — But there is besides this an actuality *outside a genus*, which has nothing of potency mixed in, and such is pure act; and therefore there is no positing there of one thing added to another, as act is added to a pre-lying potency; and such actuality is posited in God: and therefore it does not follow that any addition or composition is posited.

To that which is objected, that the highest good stands by addition to the good; it must be said that it stands by addition on the side of the *understanding*, because in the understanding of the highest good the understanding of the *good* is enclosed; but it does not stand by addition on the side of the *thing*: both because created and uncreated good do not communicate in any common nature; and also because the highest good is of a greater simplicity than is the common intention itself which is signified by the name *good*; and also because the highest good exceeds every created good by a disproportionate excess. Hence when *good* is said of created and uncreated good, this is only by a certain analogy, because every created goodness flows from the uncreated goodness as from a first cause; hence that one is posterior and through this falls short of the highest simplicity; but that other, as first, by the very fact that it is first, is most simple. Hence just as the condition of simplicity added over *being*, as when I say *simple being*, does not posit any composition about it; so neither does *highestness* about the *good*.

5. To that which is objected, that the properties of the divine *being* are unity, truth, goodness; it must be said that truth is called a property of the divine *being* because, so far as it is of itself, it says a mode of being; but because in the divine *being* there is no difference between *being* and *being able*, therefore there is no difference between *being* and *being thus*, because it cannot be thus and otherwise. And therefore, because there *being* and *the mode of being* are the same, therefore there is no composition there; but because *the mode of being* is a property of being itself, and not the reverse: hence it is that *unity*, *truth* and *goodness* are said to be properties of the divine essence; but *essence* cannot be called a property of *truth* or of *goodness* the other way round, because it does not name a mode of being, as those do.

6. To that which is objected, that either truth and goodness are the same in God, or not; it must be said that, so far as it is on the side of the *principal thing signified*, or of the thing understood through these names, they say the same about the divine being, because it is not by one thing that God is good and by another that he is true, but by the very same thing by which he is true he is good. But so far as it is on the side of the *account of understanding*, according to which the understanding ascends from creatures to the understanding of the Creator; thus there is a difference: because, since uncreated truth and goodness are understood through the created, and these in creatures have some difference; therefore those are said in some way to be distinguished on the side of the accounts of understanding, though they are the same on the side of the thing; nor yet is there falsity or error in the understanding, because these are truly and most perfectly in God, though they are not really diversified among themselves, as in created *being*. And this is clear enough if what was said at the beginning of the solution about the manifold mode of our consideration is understood.

7. To that which is objected, that acts are diversified by their objects; the answer is already evident: because, although those are *the same* in reality in God, they are yet said to be *diversified* according to the *account of understanding* on our side. Hence just as one and another representative property corresponds to them in the vestige of the representing creature, because goodness and truth are not the same in created nature; so one and another power corresponds to it in the apprehending image, in the intellective and the affective, because both in the vestige and in the image there are some things by way of diversity, corresponding nevertheless to some things in God which have an identity in every way according to reality.

8. To the other thing which is objected, that either power and wisdom and will say more than any one of them, or nothing; it must be said that *explicitly* they say something more, but *implicitly* one of them is enclosed in the other; for there cannot be the highest power where there is not will and wisdom; and therefore, if one is attributed to God apart from the other, it is attributed diminishedly; not because they are really different, but because by the very fact that they are posited as separated by an impossibility, they are posited also as diversified by an impossibility; and therefore, just as they cannot be diversified, so they cannot be separated.

9. To that which is objected, that either power is knowledge, or not; it must be said that there are two ways of speaking of power and knowledge: either according to the *principal thing signified*, or according to the *connotation*. They are therefore the same according to *the thing* and the principal signification, but they differ according to *connotation*; for it is not the same for something to be *knowable* to God and *possible*, just as *to be known* and *to be made* are not the same. For *the possible* names something as it is in the account of what emanates or can emanate; but *the knowable*, as in the account of what is present to the understanding of the knower; and since in God there is not one thing by which he is powerful and another by which he is knowing, because by his very self both belong to him: therefore, although these are diversified by *connotation*, they are yet the same according to *the thing*.

10. To that which is objected, that the will is restrictive of the power; it must be said that there are three ways of speaking of power and will: either as regards

*affection*, or as regards *effect*, or as regards *respect*. In the *first* way they have identity and equality, because whatever God wills he can will, or whatever he can he wills to be able. In the *last* way they have inequality, because power is said with respect to possible things, and will with respect to willed things, and possible things are more than willed things. But in the *middle* way they have equality, namely as regards *effect*, because, although the power extends to more things than the will, yet since God does nothing except what he wills, the will and the power are said to be equal as regards *effect*: and therefore the will is said to be *restrictive of the power*, not by reason of that *which* they are, but by reason of that *to which* they are compared.

11. To that which is objected, that nothing altogether simple is participated according to more and less; it must be said that something is said to be participated in two ways, namely according to *form*, as a genus is participated by its species; or according to *influence*, as a cause is participated by its effects. In the first way the proposition holds true; but in this way the divine *being* is not said to be participated according to more and less, but only in the second way; and this does not posit a diversity in the participated thing itself, but in that through which that participation comes about, namely in some created gift.

12. To that which is objected, that nothing altogether simple has a multiform operation; it must be said that operation is said both of the *work working* and of the *work worked*, that is, of the active act and of the effect produced. In the first way, therefore, God's operation is the same as God himself, and therefore it is not multiplied by reason of itself in itself, but by reason of the effect produced on the side of the creature. In the first way, therefore, the proposition holds true, but not in the second: because the more simple a thing is, the more powerful, and through this the more it is a principle of multiform effects.

13. To that which is objected, that nothing altogether simple turns itself at once to disparate and infinite operations; it must be said that a thing happens to be simple in two ways: in one way, in which simplicity *excludes immensity*; in another way, in which it *includes* it. Of the first the aforesaid proposition holds true, but of the second not at all, for the reason that the infinite — by the fact that the infinite divine *being* is infinitely infinite — can turn itself at once to all things, however many and of whatever sort, without restriction, since it admits absolutely no limitation.

14. To that which is objected last, that nothing altogether simple is multiform in species or in assimilation; it must be said that there is a multiformity according to the *account of informing* and according to the *account of expressing*. In the first way multiformity belongs to that which has within itself the natures of diverse forms; and thus it cannot stand together with the highest simplicity. In the second way multiformity belongs to that which has in itself the ideas of many forms, and in this way it stands together with the highest simplicity. For just as the most simple, by its highest actuality, has the highest power, by which it can produce all things distinctly and fully; so also the highest truth, by which it can represent all things eternally, as appeared better above in the question on the eternal accounts.

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