Quaest. 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/8/d/1/q/bon-qsc-q1
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### Question I. *Whether the knowledge of Christ, insofar as he is the Word, actually extends to infinite things.*

The question is asked concerning the knowledge of Christ, insofar as he is the Word, whether it actually extends to infinite things. And that it does is shown as follows:

1. First, by the *authority* of Augustine, *On the City of God* XII, chapter eighteen: "The infinity of number, although there is no number of infinite numbers, is nevertheless not incomprehensible to him *of whose intelligence there is no number*."

2. Likewise, the same author, *On the City of God* XI, chapter ten, speaking of the wisdom of God, says thus: "Nor are there many, but there is one wisdom, in which there are certain infinite and, to it, finite treasures of intelligible things," etc.

3. Likewise, it is shown by *reasoning* as follows. The simpler a substance is, the more things it is capable of knowing: therefore a substance which is infinitely more simple than any created substance knows infinitely more things than any creature: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, God actually comprehends both his own essence and his own power; but God can do infinite things: therefore if he actually knows the whole of his *being-able*, he actually comprehends infinite things: therefore, etc.

5. Likewise, it belongs to nobility in a creature to know many things, and to a greater nobility still to know more: therefore a knowledge which is of infinite nobility extends to infinite things: therefore, etc.

6. Likewise, God knows more things than he can do, since he knows the evils of guilt, which he cannot do; but he can do infinite things: therefore he also knows more things than infinite things.

7. Likewise, whoever knows a point according to its substance and power knows it not only in itself, but also those things which can emanate from it; but infinite lines can emanate from one point: therefore if in any line whatever there are infinite points, and from any point whatever infinite lines can issue, and God comprehends the *being-able* of every creature; therefore he not only knows infinite things, but even infinitely infinite things.

8. Likewise, whatever the human understanding understands in potency or has in potency, the divine understanding has in act and more besides, since the created can be equalled to the uncreated neither in act nor in potency; but the human understanding is capable of infinite things, since it never knows so many that it could not know more: therefore if the divine understanding is actually directed to more things than the human understanding is, it actually extends to more things than infinite things.

9. Likewise, *by way of the impossible*: because, if God knew only finite things, then, since with respect to every finite thing something greater can be thought out, something could be thought greater than the divine knowledge; but this cannot be: therefore, etc.

10. Likewise, if he knew finite things, either he *could* know something beyond them, or *not*. If *not*, then his knowledge would be limited; if *so*, then — but one who can know something which he does not know is able to learn; which it is impious to say of God: therefore, etc.

11. Likewise, if he knew only those things which are, and not those which can come to be — then, since a created craftsman knows many things which he can make and never will

make, a man would know something that lay hidden from God; but this is false and impossible: therefore, etc.

**Contra:** 1. Everything known is true, and everything true is a being: therefore if infinite things are known, infinite things are beings; but the consequent is impossible: therefore so is the antecedent.

2. Likewise, whatever God knows he judges; but whatever things he judges are such as he judges them to be, and as many; and whatever God judges he takes as finite: therefore whatever he knows is finite. — *If you say* that it does not follow — because a thing is finite to God, therefore it is finite — *on the contrary*: each thing is in itself such as it is in the judgment of truth: therefore if something is finite to God, it is necessary that it be finite without qualification.

3. Likewise, everything infinite is untraversable both by the infinite and by the finite, since by whatever it were traversed it would receive a limit: therefore it would be finite; but whatever the divine understanding knows it comprehends and traverses: therefore if infinite things are untraversable, infinite things are unknowable.

4. Likewise, whatever God knows he knows distinctly; but whatever he distinguishes he numbers, and whatever things are numbered are measured, and all such things are finite: therefore whatever things are known by God are finite.

5. Likewise, every number is either even or odd: therefore whatever things are numbered by God are numbered by an even or an odd number; but every even number is divisible into two equals, and likewise every odd number, once unity has been subtracted; but every such number is finite: therefore if God numbers whatever he knows, it is necessary that he number those things by a finite number: therefore they are finite: therefore, etc.

6. Likewise, whatever God knows he knows in an ordered way; but wherever there is order, there is the account of a first and a last, which is the account of the finite: if therefore wherever there is the account of order there is the account of finitude, and God knows nothing without order, since he knows nothing in a disordered way — it is impossible that God should know infinite things.

7. Likewise, if God knows infinite things, then either things infinite *to himself*, or *to us*, or *in themselves*. If things infinite *to us*, this is nothing great to say, since those things are finite without qualification. If *to himself* — but whatever things are infinite to someone are not knowable by him nor comprehended by him: therefore if God knows infinite things, he does not comprehend infinite things. If things infinite *in themselves* — but a thing other than God, by the very fact that it is other, is a creature, and by the very fact that it is a creature, is limited: therefore to know other things that are infinite is to know infinite finite things; which is false and unintelligible, since it implies a contradiction in itself.

8. Likewise, if God knows infinite things, then either infinite things in their cause, or in their proper genus. If infinite things in their cause — but everything which is in a cause is one: therefore whatever things he knows as in a cause he knows after the manner of one, and therefore not after the manner of infinite things. If *infinite things in act and in their proper genus* — but to be infinite in act in one's proper genus is false and impossible: therefore it is false and impossible that God should know infinite things.

9. Likewise, let everything knowable by God be called A; then I ask thus: A is either God, or other than God. If it is God, then what is known by God is God: therefore an ass is God. If other than God, then every such thing is actually finite: therefore A is actually finite; and A names all knowable things: therefore all knowable things are finite: therefore, etc.

10. Likewise, A is either *equal* to God, or *less*, or *greater*. If *less* than God, then it is finite; if *equal* or *greater*, then it is God: therefore if God knows infinite things, God knows nothing but God; and if he knows nothing but God, he does not know infinite things: therefore if he knows infinite things, he does not know infinite things.

11. Likewise, since there is in God a power of making and a power of knowing, and each is infinite, and the power of making always makes finite things, it seems that the power of knowing always knows finite things in act; or if not, why not? This is to ask — since in God there is *willing*, *knowing* and *making*, and *willing* and *making* do not extend to infinite things — how *knowing* extends to infinite things, when the mean does not exceed the extremes.

> **Conclusion.** By the knowledge of simple intelligence God knows and comprehends infinite things.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that, according to the ancient doctors, we are compelled to hold that God knows infinite things, since the Prophet David says in the Psalm: *Great is our Lord, and great is his power, and of his wisdom there is no number*; and since Augustine not only asserts this but even proves it in *On the City of God* XII, chapter eighteen, where he says thus: "That, then, which certain men — namely the philosophers — say, that not even by God's knowledge can infinite things be comprehended: it remains for them to dare to say and to plunge themselves into this abyss of impiety, namely

that God does not know all numbers. That these are infinite is most certain, since in whatever number you should think a limit is to be set, that very number can — I do not say, be increased by the addition of one, but, however great it may be and however immense a multitude it may contain, in the very account and knowledge of numbers it can not only be doubled but even multiplied. Yet each number is so bounded by its own properties that none of them can be equal to any other: therefore they are unlike one another and diverse, and each single one of them is finite, and all of them are infinite. Is it then the case that God does not know all numbers on account of their infinity, and that the knowledge of God reaches up to a certain sum of numbers and is ignorant of the rest? Who, however demented, would say this?" And a little further down: "The infinity of number, therefore, although there is no number of infinite numbers, is nevertheless not incomprehensible to him *of whose intelligence there is no number*. Wherefore, if whatever is comprehended by knowledge is bounded by the comprehension of the knower, then assuredly all infinity too is in some ineffable way finite to God, since it is not incomprehensible to his knowledge. And so, if the infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God by which it is comprehended, who at last are we manikins, that we should presume to fix a limit to his knowledge?" — By these, therefore, as by the most certain witnesses, we are compelled to say or to hold that God knows infinite things.

But the manner of this position is assigned by the more modern doctors, who said that the manner of divine cognition is threefold, not on account of any diversity in the divine knowledge *in itself*, but *in what it connotes*. For there is in God a cognition *of approval*, *of vision* and *of intelligence*. The cognition *of approval* is of good things only, and of finite things. The cognition *of vision* is of evil and of good things, but of finite ones, for the reason that it concerns time; for it is only of those things which have been, are, and will be. But the cognition *of intelligence* is of infinite things, for the reason that God understands not only future things but also possible ones; and possible things are not finite to God, but infinite.

But the ground of this position — that is, why we hold that God *knows* infinite things and does not *make* or *will* or *dispose* them — is that *divine knowing*, taken according to the third manner, is an *intrinsic* act of God. And I call it *intrinsic* not only because it comes about *from what is intrinsic*, but also because it is *toward what is intrinsic* and *through what is intrinsic* and *according to an intrinsic manner*. It is *toward what is intrinsic*, I say, because the divine gaze in knowing does not leap outside itself, but by looking upon itself as truth it knows all truth. — It is *through what is intrinsic*, because it is through the eternal reasons, which are the same as himself, that he knows whatever he knows. — It is *according to an intrinsic manner*, because divine *knowing* abstracts not only from the account of an *actual cause*, but even from that of a *cause without qualification*. For he knows *evils*, of which he is not the cause; he knows also *future things*, which he does not yet make; he knows also *possible things*, which he never will make. And therefore, since *knowing* itself neither concerns nor connotes anything actual outside, therefore it denotes there an act *after the manner of a habit* — an act, I say, adequate to the power itself, for whatever God can know he knows — and it also denotes an *act* that is *in no way constricted*, neither as regards *itself* nor as regards *what it connotes*, and therefore one that is *universal* as regards *places*, as regards *times* and as regards *objects*. For whatever he knew anywhere he knows everywhere, and whatever he knows once he knows always, and as he knows one thing, so he knows all knowable things. Hence, since knowable things are not only beings *in act* but also *in potency*, and since it is not unfitting to posit infinite things *in potency*, it is not unfitting to posit infinite things actually known by God. — And by this the answer to the question and to the objections is clear.

1. To that, then, which is objected — everything known is true, etc. — it must be said that knowledge is twofold, namely that which *causes things* and that which is *caused by things*. What is known by a knowledge caused by things is true in *itself* and in *effect*; but what is known by a knowledge causing things is true in its *cause* and in *potency*, and that truth does not entail a being in act, but a being in the potency of the cause; and therefore from this it does not follow that, if God knows infinite things, infinite things are beings, but rather that infinite things are possible to God.

2. To that which is objected, that God judges whatever he knows, etc., it must be said that God, in knowing infinite things, judges them *infinite without qualification*, but *finite to himself*; and this is not unfitting. For just as it does not follow that, if something is infinite *to a finite thing*, it is infinite *without qualification*, so it does not follow that, if something is finite *to an infinite thing*, it is finite *without qualification*; and this is what Augustine says in the authority set out above.

3. To that which is objected, that everything infinite is untraversable, etc., it must be said that *traversable* is said in two ways: in one way after a discursive manner, from one thing to another; and in this way the aforesaid statement holds true, and thus the Philosopher understands it in *Physics* VI; in another way, by a universal and full intuition of that which is known by the intelligence; and in this way the infinite, since it is not incomprehensible to the infinite, is not untraversable to it, but only to the finite.

4. To that which is objected, that whatever he knows and knows distinctly he knows, etc., it must be said that that consequence fails in this, that it says: whatever he distinguishes he numbers; because *to distinguish* extends to more than *to number*. — Or say that whatever he distinguishes he numbers by a finite or an infinite number; but then it does not follow that he measures, since measure states only something finite.

5. To that which is objected — if he numbers, then either by an even or an odd number, etc. — it must be said that that consequence does not hold, for the reason that an infinite number comprehends both; hence, just as this consequence does not hold — man and ass are animals, therefore they are rational or irrational — so neither does the aforesaid one.

6. To that which is objected, that whatever God knows he knows in an ordered way, etc., it must be said that divine cognition has a relation both to the *knower* and to the *known*; by relation to the *knower*, whatever he knows he knows all at once, just as all at once and at one stroke he says whatever he says; but by relation to the *known*, I say that he knows in an *ordered* way; yet just as what is known by God is not only present but also future and possible, so too that *order* is not only an *actual* order but also a *potential* one, since he knows things in an ordered way not only by the order which has been made, but also by the order which he can make. — As to what is said, then, that every order has a first and a last: this is true of *actual* order, not of *potential* order; as is clear in numbers, which have infinity and are nevertheless ordered; for they have a possible order, just as they have infinity.

7. To that which is objected — either he knows things infinite to us, etc. — it must be said that he knows infinite things *in themselves*, not indeed infinite *in act*, but *in potency*; and those things which are in potency are actually known by God. Hence a potential infinity in the things known suffices for the actual infinity of the divine comprehension; therefore, just as infinity *in potency* is not repugnant to actual finitude in a creature, so neither is the *actual* infinity of the divine cognition repugnant to the finitude of the creature.

8. To that which is objected — either he knows infinite things in their cause, etc. — it must be said that it is in both ways. — And *if you object* that in the cause they are one, this is of no force, since, although the art and the power be one, nevertheless the accounts of the things to be known are many. — If *you object* that in their proper genus they are finite, this is true according to the *being* which they have; but nevertheless according to the *being* which they can have, they are at least infinite *in potency*, and thus infinite things are known by God, since, as has often been said, those things which are *in potency* are *in act* known by God.

9. To that which is objected — A is either God or other than God, etc. — it must be said that *what is known by God* sometimes names the very *account of knowing*, and sometimes the *thing known outside*. In the first way it is God, since, as Anselm says in the *Monologion*, "the creature in the Creator is creating essence." But in the second way it is other than God; yet then it does not follow that it is infinite in act, because for infinite things to be *actually* known by God it is not required that they be *actually* infinite, but it suffices that they be infinite *in potency* in their proper genus.

10. To that which is objected — either A is equal to God, etc. — it must be said, according to the aforesaid distinction, that in the first way it is the same as God; in the second way it is other than God, for the reason that, although it has infinity *in potency*, it does not on that account have *actual* infinity; whereas God has actual infinity.

11. To that which is objected last, concerning the power of making and of knowing and concerning *willing* as also *making*, the answer is clear from the principal solution.

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