Quaest. 7, 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/7/q/bon-qmt-q7-a1
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### Question VII. *Whether trinity can stand with supreme necessity.*

Next it is asked whether trinity can stand with supreme necessity. And concerning this two things are asked.

The first is whether the divine *being* is supremely necessary.

The second is whether trinity and supreme necessity stand together.

### Article I. *Whether the divine being is supremely necessary.*

It is asked, then, whether the divine *being* is supremely necessary. And that it is, it seems.

1. Everything immutable and eternal is supremely necessary; but the divine *being* is of this kind: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it is necessary that everything which belongs to nobility and perfection be posited in God in the highest degree; but it is certain that necessity is more than knowledge: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything which is such that it cannot not be, nor be thought not to be, is necessary in the highest degree; but the divine *being* is of this kind: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything which has *being* from itself and through itself and according to itself is altogether necessary; but such is the divine *being*, since it is first: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, it is impossible that necessity be in an effect except through a cause: therefore if in God there is not

necessity, in nothing is there necessity: therefore nothing is necessary. But if nothing is necessary, nothing is impossible: therefore all things are possible: therefore it is possible for something at once to be and not to be. But this is absurd: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, it is impossible that there be necessity in the composite except through a necessity existing in the simple; therefore if the most simple lacks necessity, it is impossible that necessity be posited in any combination or composition. But this is absurd, that no argumentation should be necessary: therefore etc.

Cᴏɴᴛʀᴀ: 1. Everything necessary is determined to being disposed thus and not otherwise; everything determined to something is finite; but the divine *being* is infinite: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, nothing that is indifferent to opposites is necessary; but the divine *being able*, *willing* and *acting* is indifferent to opposites: therefore it is not necessary. But the divine *being able*, *willing* and *acting* is the divine *being:* therefore the divine *being* is not necessary.

3. Likewise, to nothing immutable can anything mutable be attributed, therefore to nothing supremely necessary can anything contingent be attributed; but something contingent is attributed to God: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, just as *impossibility* is repugnant to power, so *necessity* is to will; but the divine power is so great that all things are possible to it, nor is impossibility posited in God in any mode: therefore since the *willing* of God is most perfect, it seems that it does not suffer necessity in the divine *being*.

5. Likewise, if the cause is necessary, the effect is also; but God is the first and highest and immediate cause of all things: therefore if there is necessity in God, all things are necessary.

6. Likewise, the more contingent a thing is, the more indifferent it is, and the more indifferent, the more common, and the more common, the more simple: therefore *from the first*, the more contingent a thing is, the more simple: therefore the most simple is the most contingent, and therefore not necessary.

7. Likewise, everything necessary is knowable, just as everything probable is matter of opinion; but everything knowable is either a principle of demonstration or something demonstrated; but the divine *being* is neither: therefore etc.

8. Likewise, the more necessary a thing is, the more certain it is, and the more certain, the more known; but the divine *being* is supremely hidden: therefore etc.

9. Likewise, just as one is moved in vain because he desires the impossible, so too because he fears the necessary: therefore if the divine Majesty is necessity, then it is in no way to be feared. But this is false and absurd: therefore etc.

Cᴏɴᴄʟᴜsɪᴏ.

*The divine being is necessary with the most perfect necessity of immutability.*

Rᴇsᴘᴏɴᴅᴇᴏ: For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that necessity is threefold: one *wholly extrinsic*, one *partly intrinsic* and *partly extrinsic*, and one *wholly intrinsic*. Necessity *wholly extrinsic* is that which has its origin from a principle which is *outside*, the patient cooperating in nothing; and this has being in two ways: either with respect to *natural* works, or with respect to *voluntary* ones; and thus necessity is twofold, namely of *coercion* and of *violence*. — But necessity *partly within*, *partly without* is that which is in some way from an intrinsic principle regarding something outside, either by way of a *moving principle*, or by way of a *resting term;* and thus necessity is spoken of in two ways, namely of *inevitability* and of *need*. — But there is a necessity *wholly intrinsic*, which is in the thing from its own nature; and this is the necessity of *immutability* and of independence; and such necessity is found *in a certain respect* in the creature, but *simply* it cannot be found except in the creating essence. For it alone is that which admits no dependence; but the rest, since they are created, necessarily depend on it.

Now this necessity is necessarily posited in the *divine being*, because it is *in itself* and *from itself*. And because it is *in* *itself*, it therefore lacks a *composing* principle, or a *sustaining* one; therefore it can neither be changed nor fail.

And because it is *from itself*, it therefore lacks anything *producing* and creating it; therefore it can neither *depend* nor *begin;* and on this account it has the highest and most perfect necessity, which excludes all mutability and dependence, inevitability and need, coercion and violence, which speak of a diminished necessity; and on the contrary it posits the highest permanence and stability, the highest sufficiency and freedom. For because it is *itself*, it is therefore permanent and most stable; but because it is *for its own sake*, it is therefore liberal and most sufficient; and because it is *itself* and *for its own sake*, it is therefore the *alpha and omega*; and therefore the rest are *from it*, and the rest are *for its sake*, whether necessary or contingent. For just as all *mobile* things flow forth from one immobile first and are led back to it; so all *contingent* things flow from the necessary and are led back to it. The necessity of the divine *being*, therefore, is the origin and completion of all *being*, *living* and *understanding;* and all things cry out that the first principle is necessary, whether they be necessary or contingent. — And therefore the reasons for this side are to be conceded.

1. To the objection that everything determined to something is finite, it must be said that determination is twofold, namely by *restriction*, of which kind is that which comes about by the *addition* of one thing upon another, as a disposition is added upon the incomplete potency of matter; and there is determination by *completion*, as the supreme good is determined to doing good, because it cannot fail by doing evil. In the first mode determination is repugnant to infinity but in the second mode it is not repugnant; and it is this determination that befits necessity as it is in God, and not the first mode.

2. To the objection that nothing indifferent to opposites is necessary, it must be said that the divine *being able* and *willing* and *acting* is called *indifferent to opposites* not by reason of itself in *itself*, but by reason of an indifference in the *effect to be produced*. Whence that indifference does not posit any vertibility in the divine *being able;* but it posits one most simple power, omnipotent over all opposites, such that it cannot be restricted to any one of them; and this is more consonant with necessity than repugnant to it.

3. To the objection that nothing contingent can be attributed to what is supremely necessary, it must be said that when something is predicated contingently of God, there is enclosed in that predicate both the *principal significate* and the *connoted;* and as regards the *principal significate* it is nothing other than God, but as regards the *connoted* it is an effect; and by reason of the first, to which the predication belongs, it is in Him *necessarily;* but by reason of the second it is said to be in Him *contingently*, and on this account contingency is not posited to be *in God*, but rather *from God*. In predications of this kind the divine *being* receives within itself no predication that does not include the most complete necessity. — But that the whole dictum is called *contingent*, namely that God saves Peter, this is because the nature of the whole conjunction is such that the denomination in it comes from the less noble part, so that a copulative proposition is called *false* when one of its parts is false, and *contingent* when one of its parts is contingent. And the reason for this is that it is easier for a thing to be destroyed than to be constructed; and a *habit* ought to be unmixed with privation, and so ought its denomination; but the denomination of *privation* holds in the contrary way, because of necessity the understanding of position and of habit is in some way enclosed in its understanding.

4. To the objection that necessity is repugnant to will, as impossibility is to power, it must be said that this holds true of that necessity which is *from outside*, of which kind is the necessity of *violence* and of *coercion;* but of that necessity which is *intrinsic*, of which kind is the necessity of *immutability*, it does not hold true, as is clear from what has gone before.

5. To the objection that if the cause is necessary, the effect is also, it must be said that, as Augustine says in the fifth book of *The City of God*, of causes some are only *made;* others are *making and made;* and the third are *making only*. The causes *only made* he calls natural causes, which are determined to a single course; the causes *making and made*, free choice and will; the causes *productive only*, the divine providence itself. And he says that natural causes are *made*, not *making*, not because they do nothing, but because they so act, according to what is implanted in them, not having dominion over their act, as free choice has, and such causes are of one kind with their parts and conformed to them; and in these the aforesaid proposition holds true. But of a *making* cause, which is able to effect and not to effect by the same power on account of its dominion over its action and

the consequent effect, it does not hold true. For just as such a cause is not changed on account of the mutability and difference of its effects, so neither is it posited to be contingent on account of the contingency in its effects.

6. To the objection that the more indifferent a thing is, the more common it is, it must be said that *commonness* is twofold, namely by *abstraction*, and by *non-denomination*. When therefore it is said that the more indifferent a thing is, the more common it is, this is understood of commonness by *non-denomination*, in which mode we say that there is a single subject of contraries; which is most true in those of which neither has a determinate cause in regard to the subject. But when it adds that the more common a thing is, the more simple it is, that is understood of commonness by *abstraction;* whence from this it is not concluded that contingent things posit simplicity; rather they include mutability, which excludes supreme simplicity; on account of which supreme simplicity cannot be found except in what is supremely necessary. Since therefore the divine *being* is most simple, it is therefore necessary that it be not contingent, but necessary.

7. To the objection that everything necessary is knowable, and everything knowable is a principle of demonstration or concluded through demonstration, it must be said that there is the necessary *in a genus*, and there is the necessary *outside a genus;* and this in two ways: either outside a *determinate genus*, or outside *every genus simply*. The necessary *outside every genus simply*, then, is in God alone, who is above and outside every genus of being, because He cannot be in a genus, neither *through Himself* nor *by appropriation;* and such a necessary precedes and surpasses all demonstration, because it can have no definition whatever. — As to what is said, then, that everything necessary is a principle of demonstration or something demonstrated, it must be said that this is understood of the necessary which is *of a determinate genus*, or which *can be appropriated* to a *determinate genus*, as are the common conceptions of the mind, which, inasmuch as they are appropriated, enter into demonstration. Whence that reasoning does not conclude that the divine *being* is necessary as restricted to a determinate genus.

8. To the objection that the more necessary a thing is, the more certain it is, it must be said that a thing is said to be more certain or more known than another in two ways: either *simply*, or *as regards us*. The first proposition, then, holds true inasmuch as it is understood of greater certitude *simply*, but not inasmuch as it is understood of certitude *as regards us*, for the reason that the things which are most certain and most lucid in themselves seem obscure to us on account of a defect on the part of the created understanding; and therefore the Philosopher says that "as the eye of the owl is to the light, so is our eye to the most manifest things of nature." Nevertheless, although the divine *being* in the fullness of its clarity is hidden from us so long as we are in the state of wayfarers, it is most certain and indubitable to us that God is, as is manifestly clear from the preceding questions.

9. To the objection that the necessary is not to be feared, just as neither is the impossible to be desired, it must be said that the necessary in the *event* or in the effect is not to be dreaded, because dread profits nothing where it is necessary that things so come about; but the necessary according to an *intrinsic state*, which can without change of itself render everlasting glory or everlasting punishment — this, I say, is most to be dreaded, both for acquiring grace and for avoiding punishment, because such a necessary does not exclude the liberality of will and the justice of equity, as will appear better in the following question.

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