Quaest. 3
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/3/q/bon-qsc-q3
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### Question III. *Whether God knows things through likenesses really differing.*

Supposing that God knows things through exemplary likenesses, it is asked whether through likenesses really differing. And that he does, it seems:

1. *By authority.* Augustine, in the *Eighty-three Questions*, in the question on ideas: « If it cannot rightly be said or believed that God founded all things irrationa-

lly, it remains that all things were founded by an account, and not man by the same account as the horse; for it is absurd to think this: single things, therefore, were created by their own proper accounts ».

2. Again, in the same place: « Ideas are unchangeable forms, which are contained in the divine intelligence »; but every form is a thing: therefore if there are many forms, there are many things. If therefore the ideas are many, it is necessary that they really differ.

3. Again, Dionysius, *On the Divine Names*, chapter five: « We say that the exemplars in God are the substantifying accounts of existing things, singularly pre-existing, which theology calls *predefinitions* »; but of diverse things the substantifying accounts are diverse: therefore, since created things are really diverse, it is necessary that those substantifying accounts be really distinct.

4. Again, the Philosopher, in the seventh of the *Metaphysics*: « Every agent acting through an exemplar is, at the end of the operation, the form of the thing done »; but God is an agent acting to an exemplar: therefore if the completive forms of things made have a real difference, it is necessary that those exemplary accounts have a real diversity.

5. Again, this same thing seems to hold *by reason.* God is an agent acting from a purpose; but an agent acting from a purpose does not produce things unless it has them with itself; therefore if it produces a diversity of things, it is necessary that it have them with itself under the account of diversity. But it does not have them except through their accounts: therefore it is necessary that the accounts of things be really diversified.

6. Again, whatever things have they receive from God; therefore, since they have diversity from one another, they receive it from that most noble art: therefore if they receive it thence, it is necessary that it be found there. But it is not there except in the exemplary accounts: therefore it is necessary that those be really distinguished.

7. Again, of opposite effects the proximate causes acting immediately and uniformly are opposite; but the exemplary accounts of things are the proximate causes acting immediately and uniformly: therefore, since they are the causes of things not only diverse but even opposite, it is necessary that they be not only really distinguished but even opposed to one another.

8. Again, « number, as Boethius says, was the greatest exemplar in the mind of the Founder »; and Augustine in the second of *On Free Choice* says that number and wisdom are the same; and it is agreed that the exemplary number is not found in God except as regards the exemplary accounts. If therefore number posits a true plurality, and in those accounts the account of number is truly and properly posited: truly, therefore, and properly is a real diversity posited.

9. Again, to know distinctly makes for the perfection of cognition: therefore the most perfect cognition knows most distinctly; but God does not know things except in the way in which he has them with himself: therefore it is necessary that he have them with himself most distinctly. But he does not have them except through his accounts: therefore it is necessary that they be most distinct: therefore there is there not only a distinction according to account, but even according to the thing.

10. Again, God does not know things otherwise within himself and outside himself, but rather uniformly; but outside he knows them under a real distinction: therefore also within. But he knows in that way in which he has: therefore he has them with himself as really distinct.

11. Again, like is known by like; this is true of itself, since Augustine says in the ninth of *On the Trinity*: « All knowledge according to species is like that thing which is known »: therefore, *from the opposites*, the unlike is known by the unlike; but the things known are really unlike: therefore the accounts of knowing are also really unlike, and therefore also really differing.

12. Again, what is like one of two opposites is, in so far as it is such, unlike its opposite: therefore if the idea of white is like white, it is unlike black, and by parity of reasoning the idea of black is unlike white: therefore it is necessary that the ideas of white and black be unlike one another: therefore also really differing.

13. Again, an idea is a likeness; either therefore according to the *whole*, or according to a *part*. If according to a *part*: therefore a thing is never known totally through it. If according to the *whole*; but whatever things are like some one thing according to the whole, are according to the whole in nothing unlike: therefore if there were one likeness of creatures according to the thing, it would be impossible that they really differ. But it is agreed that they do really differ: therefore it is necessary that there correspond to them a real difference of exemplary likenesses.

14. Again, an exemplary account is a likeness of the thing known; either therefore a *common* likeness, or a *pro-*

*per* one. If *common*: therefore through it the properties of things are not known; if *proper*; but proper likenesses are multiplied according to the plurality of things: if therefore created things are really diverse, it is necessary that their likenesses too really differ from one another.

15. Again, let *A* be called the account by which man was made; *B* the account by which the ass was made; it is agreed that *A* is not *B*: if therefore those things of which one is not predicated of the other in divine matters differ really, and not only according to account, it seems that those are really diverse. The *minor* is manifest, because although goodness, wisdom and power differ in account, they are nevertheless predicated of one another.

16. Again, *A* is not the likeness of the ass, nor *B* the likeness of man: therefore *A* in some way approaches man more than the ass; but this would not be unless in some way *A* agreed more with man than *B*; and this could not be unless in some way it had a real difference: therefore etc.

17. Again, if those ideal accounts are made many in account, either *something* corresponds to the account, or *nothing*. If *nothing*: therefore it is empty; if *something*: therefore it is necessary in some way that in those accounts there be a real difference.

18. Again, those accounts either differ by the account of the *connoted*, or by the account of *themselves*. If by the account of the *connoted*: therefore, since that is temporal, it will be the cause of the eternal; if by the account of *themselves*; but those things which are distinguished by themselves differ really: therefore those accounts are really diversified.

19. Again, if they differ by the account of the *connoted*: therefore, since the word connotes the effect more than the account or the idea — because, as is said in the *Eighty-three Questions*, « The Word says an operative power » — it seems therefore that if this were the cause, several words would be said to be in divine matters; but it is agreed that this is false: therefore for this, that several accounts be spoken of, a difference of *connoted things* does not suffice.

20. Again, things are caused by the accounts and not conversely: therefore the plurality of accounts is also prior to the plurality of connoted things: therefore if they are made many, a difference of *connoted things* does not do this; it is necessary therefore that they be really distinguished by themselves.

21. Again, the plurality of persons is greater than the plurality of species or accounts; but a real difference of persons is not repugnant to the divine simplicity: therefore neither is a real plurality of ideal accounts. If therefore the Saints say that they are many, it seems that it must be confessed that they really differ.

**But on the contrary:** 1. Dionysius, in the fifth chapter of *On the Divine Names*, speaking of God says thus: « He has all things beforehand in himself according to one excellence of simplicity, refusing all duplicity ». If therefore God has things beforehand in himself through the accounts of things, and those flee all duplicity: therefore they have no real diversity.

2. Again, in the same place: « Of many participants the one sun takes up the causes beforehand in itself uniformly; much more strongly must it be conceded that in the cause of itself and of all things there pre-exist the exemplars of all existing things according to a supersubstantial union »; but this would not be if those accounts were really distinct: therefore they have no real diversity.

3. Again, Augustine, in the sixth of *On the Trinity*, chapter ten: « The Son is the art of the omnipotent, full of all living accounts, and all things in him are one »; but this would not be if those accounts were really diverse: therefore they are necessarily really undistinguished.

4. Again, this same thing Dionysius shows, in *On the Divine Names*, chapter five, by this reasoning: all lines are originally in the point, and all numbers in unity; and yet from this no real diversity is posited in the point and in unity in the creature: therefore neither in the supreme cause.

5. Again, there is no stopping-place except in one; but in every genus of cause it is necessary to posit a stopping-place: therefore if God is the exemplary cause, in which is the stopping-place of all formal causes, it is necessary therefore that he have unity in every way according to the thing.

6. Again, what is more perfect is to be attributed to God; but it is more perfect to know many things by one than many by many: therefore etc.

7. Again, the divine cognition is infinite, therefore it is in no way narrowed nor limited: therefore neither is the account of knowing in God in any way limited; but if for knowing many things many really differing accounts were required, then it would be in some way limited and narrowed: therefore if it is impossible to posit this, it is impossible that those accounts be really diverse.

8. Again, the account of knowing in divine matters names something essential, because common to the three persons; but

those things which are essential in divine matters are in no way made many according to the thing, because, if they were really made many, there would be in divine matters several essences; but this is impossible: therefore it is impossible that those accounts really differ.

9. Again, whatever things are really distinguished are distinguished either by *origin* or by *quality*, as Richard says; but those accounts cannot be distinguished by *quality*, because such a distinction does not fall in divine matters; nor by *origin*, because one does not flow from another: therefore it is impossible that they be really diverse.

10. Again, those eternal accounts are productive of things; either therefore *producing only*, or *producing and produced*. If *producing and produced*: therefore, since the producer and the produced are really distinguished, those accounts would be really distinguished from God, since there is nothing else to be assigned by which they are produced: therefore they would not be God himself, nor would God know things by himself; which is impossible. If they are *producing only*: therefore they hold the account of a principle alone; but such a principle is a first principle, and a first principle is not except uniquely one: therefore it is impossible that those accounts be really distinguished.

11. Again, an exemplary account names that through which a thing is known; but that by which a thing is known is nothing but a form: therefore if God knew things through exemplary accounts really differing, it would be necessary that the divine *being* itself be multiform. But this is altogether impossible: therefore so is the first.

12. Again, if they are really distinguished; since they are things which are to be enjoyed, and things which are to be enjoyed make us blessed, no one would be blessed unless he knew all the exemplary accounts, just as no one is blessed to whom the knowledge of one of the three persons is lacking. But this is false and absurd: therefore so is the first.

13. Again, an ideal account in God does not say something inhering, but rather something standing through itself, just as the Word does: therefore if there were several accounts really differing, as many as there are accounts there would be substances standing through themselves: therefore there would be as many divine persons, or essences, as there are ideas. But this is false and against the faith: therefore it is erroneous to say that they really differ.

14. Again, if they really differ, either as *absolute things* or as *respects*; but not as *respects*, because no respect is reckoned by the name of that to which it is referred, especially in a relation of superposition; but the *account of man* is called man himself: in God, therefore, the ideal account is not imposed from a real respect. If therefore they are really made many, they are made many as *absolute forms*; therefore if this is impossible, it is impossible that those accounts really differ.

15. Again, if they are really distinguished as diverse *real respects*; since in a real respect the correlatives are simultaneous in nature, the idea and the ideated would be simultaneous in nature, and therefore the Creator and the creature; but this is altogether absurd: therefore it is impossible that those accounts be diversified as diverse *real respects*; nor as diverse *absolute things*; this is agreed: therefore they have no real diversity.

16. Again, every real diversity makes either *one thing and another thing*, or *one person and another person*, or *one other and another other*; but in none of these ways is it to be posited concerning those eternal accounts, because there is there neither an essential diversity nor a personal nor an accidental one: therefore in no way is there a real distinction or difference.

> **Conclusion.**
>
> *God knows things by himself as by a likeness expressive of all things, so that the ideal accounts are not made many in God according to the thing, but only according to account.*

**I answer:** For the understanding of the foregoing it is to be noted that without doubt God knows things; and that he knows by himself; and that he knows by himself as by a likeness; and that that likeness by which he knows is not a likeness received from without, nor a likeness by agreement in some third nature, but that likeness is nothing other than an expressive truth, as was shown in the preceding question. To say, therefore, that God knows things by himself as by a likeness is nothing other than to say that God knows things by himself as by a truth, or as by the highest light expressing all other things. And since the divine truth is most powerful for expressing all things totally, just as the divine power is for making all things totally, therefore God knows by himself as by a truth expressing things in many modes and totally. Now the divine truth, although it is one, is able to express all things by way of an exemplary likeness, because it is altogether *outside a genus* and narrowed to nothing; it is also pure act, while all else in comparison with it is material and possible. Since therefore what is one according to form can be assimilated to many according to matter, as

is plain of whiteness in a man and in a stone; since that truth itself is indifferently related to all things, and all else is material to it, it, as pure act, can be a likeness expressive of all things.

Now in this expression there are three things to understand, namely the *truth* itself, the *expression* itself, and the *thing* itself. The expressing *truth* is one alone both in the thing and in account; but the *things* themselves which are expressed have a multiformity either actual or possible; the *expression*, however, according to that which it *is*, is nothing other than the truth itself; but according to that *to which* it is, it holds itself on the side of the things which are expressed. Whence the expression of one thing and of another thing *in* the divine truth, or *by* the divine truth, according to that which it *is*, is not one thing and another; but according to that *to which* it is, it is said to be made many; because to express man is not to express the ass, just as to predestine Peter is not to predestine Paul, nor is to create a man to create an angel, although the divine act is one. Since therefore the ideal accounts name the very expressions of the divine truth in respect of things, therefore they are said to be made many not according to that *which they signify*, but according to that *which they connote*, not according to that *which* they are, but according to that *to which* they are, or to which they are compared. And because they are to that not according to a *real respect* which is in God, since God is not really referred to anything extrinsic, but only according to the *account of understanding*, to which there corresponds a real respect in act or in aptitude on the side of things: therefore it is to be said that the ideal accounts in God are made many not according to the *thing*, but according to *account*, which account indeed is not only on the side of the one understanding, but also on the side of the thing understood.

A likeness of this is not perfectly found in the creature; but if it were understood, by the impossible, that light were its own illumination and irradiation, we can say that of the same light and lumen there would be several irradiations, because irradiation says the diametral or orthogonal direction of the lumen itself; on account of which, of diverse things illuminated several irradiations would be spoken of, yet in one light and in one lumen. So too in the case proposed it is to be understood, because the divine truth itself is light, and its expressions in respect of things are as it were luminous irradiations, though intrinsic, which determinately lead and direct into that which is expressed. And this is what Dionysius says in the seventh chapter of *On the Divine Names*: « Not by saying beings from beings does the divine understanding know, but from itself and in itself, according to the cause of all things, it has beforehand and preconceives the knowledge and the science and the substance, not letting itself into single things according to an idea; that is, not according to ideas really differing, but knowing and containing all things according to the one excellence of the cause, just as light also, according to the cause, has taken up beforehand in itself the knowledge of darkness, knowing darkness from nowhere else than from the failure of light. Therefore the divine wisdom, in knowing itself, knows all material things immaterially, and divisible things undividedly, and many things singularly, by that one knowing and producing all things ». In which Dionysius manifestly shows that a real plurality does not fall in the account of knowing, because this would derogate from the perfection of the divine cognition; and this same thing he shows more perfectly in the fifth chapter, as was alleged above. And therefore the arguments which were made for that side are to be conceded.

1. To that, then, which is first objected on the contrary out of Augustine, that man was founded by one account, the horse by another, etc.; it is to be said that *otherness* there does not say a real difference, but only one according to account.

2. To that which is objected, that an idea is a form and a thing, etc.; it is to be said that an idea both says a *thing* and says a *mode of the thing* — for it says a form compared to that which is expressed — nor is it made many in so far as it says a *thing*, but in so far as it says a *mode of the thing*; and therefore, when the argument proceeds from a plurality of ideas to a plurality of things in divine matters, it proceeds from a plurality of *mode* to a plurality of *thing*; and therefore it errs according to *accident*, or according to the *figure of speech*.

3. To that which is objected, that according to Dionysius the ideas are substantifying accounts; it is to be said that they are called *substantifying* either because they subsist in themselves, or because they effect the substances of things, or because they express the substances of things, not because they are the substances or essences of the things themselves. And although the essences of the things themselves are multiplied in things, because they are intrinsic to those things, it need not be so of those exemplary accounts, because they do not enter into the constitution of things.

4. To that which is objected, that an agent acting to an exemplar is the form of the thing worked; it is to be said that this is understood of an agent acting to an exemplar which is directed and regulated by the exemplar itself, as a created agent is; nor is it even of that understood *properly* that it is in truth the form of the thing produced, but it has something with itself which holds the likeness of the thing to be produced, as a physician in curing first has health in mind and in art, which afterwards he makes in the work; and so on a twofold side the argument brought forward fails.

5. To that which is objected, that an agent acting from a purpose does not produce things unless it has them with itself; it is to be said that it need not have them by truth, but by a likeness — which likeness indeed need not be in all respects conformed to those things of which it is the likeness; as is plain, because the account or idea of material things is immaterial, of corruptible things incorruptible, and through this it can also be uniform for many things and undivided for differing ones; and therefore it does not follow that, if a plurality is represented by the exemplary accounts themselves, those accounts are really many; just as it does not follow that the accounts of material things are material.

6. To that which is objected, that whatever things have they receive from God; it is to be said that they receive from him as from one who can make something from nothing, not because they receive something which is of his substance; and therefore it does not follow that, if a creature has something in its own genus, it is on that account necessary to find that in the giver *in act*; but it suffices that it be found only according to *the efficient power*, or *the exemplarity representing*.

7. To that which is objected, that of opposite effects the proximate causes acting immediately are opposite, etc.; it is to be said that this holds true in *narrowed causes*, which do not produce many things except through many, and therefore do not produce opposites except through opposites; but not in the *cause of causes*, which has no narrowing or limitation, but complete freedom in respect of the effects to be produced, however greatly differing.

8. To that which is objected, that number was the greatest exemplar in the mind of the Founder; it is to be said that this is said not because number is properly in God, since number is from the aggregation of diverse unities, but because God himself knows the number according to which all the proportions of the things to be created are attended to. — Or, if it be said somewhere that in God there is a number of ideas, that draws away from the account of number *properly* so called, as does also the number of persons, which is not by a making many of unities, but by the replication of the same unity about diverse hypostases; so too the number of ideas or accounts does not say a making many of eternal unities, since that unity is only one, but the comparison of it to the many things to be expressed.

9. To that which is objected, that to know distinctly makes for the perfection of cognition, etc.; it is to be said that the act of knowing regards the knower himself and the thing known: whence *to know distinctly* can be taken in two ways: either on the side of the *knower* himself, or on the side of the *thing known*. Now although to know distinctly on the side of the *thing known* makes for the perfection of cognition, it does not do so on the side of the *knower*, because it is more perfect to know many things by one than by many. — Otherwise it can be said that *to know distinctly* is twofold: either so that it says a distinction according to an *essential diversity*, or so that it says an *exemplary* or cognitive *expression*. In the first way it makes for the perfection of cognition on the side of the *thing known*; in the second way on the side of the *knower*; and in this way God knows most distinctly, because the eternal truth, though one, nevertheless expresses various things most distinctly, no distinction being found in itself on this account.

10. To that which is objected, that God uniformly knows things within and without, etc.; it is to be said that if it is so understood that he does not have cognition of things *from without*, but only *from within*, then the aforesaid statement holds true. But if it is understood that he knows things to be in the same way *within* and *without*, it holds falsehood: because *within himself* he has them under a complete real indifference, and so he knows that he has them; but *without* he knows them to have being under a multiform difference.

11. To that which is objected, that like is known by like; it is to be said that that inference holds in a narrowed likeness, which is in a genus; and therefore it has no place in the case proposed. — Or it is to be said that this is not a likeness according to *agreement*, but only according to an *exemplative expression*; and this likeness or unlikeness does not posit a difference of account to account, or of likeness to likeness, but according to that which it connotes and expresses *outside* itself.

12. To that which is objected, that what is like one opposite is unlike its opposite; it is to be said that this has place in a likeness which is by participation of a common nature, or by a limited expression, such as that which is received from a thing outside.

13. To that which is objected: either that likeness is according to the whole or according to a part; it is to be said that it is according to the *whole*, because it is called a likeness; in so far as it is expressive, it expresses the whole also. — And *if it be objected* that no diverse things can be assimilated to the same thing according to the whole; it is to be said that this is true of that likeness which is by *communication*, not by

*expression.* — And *if it be asked* how that can be understood; it is to be said, as was said above, that this is because that likeness is outside a genus and is pure act, and all else is material in comparison with it.

14. To that which is objected, that it is either a common likeness or a proper one; it is to be said that whatever is of completeness in the creature is to be attributed to God; and therefore in a certain way it is *common*, because it expresses all things in common; and in a certain way *proper*, because it expresses each thing perfectly and entirely.

15. To that which is objected, that *A* is not *B*; it is to be said that in divine matters, for one thing to be truly denied of another, it is not required that there be there a real distinction according to that which they *are*, but according to that which they *connote*; as is plain, because predestination is not reprobation, and this is because, although the *thing signified* by both is the same, namely the divine essence or will, the *thing connoted* is nevertheless one and another, namely glory and punishment.

16. To that which is objected, that the likeness of man is not the likeness of the ass, etc.; the answer is plain: for this is not by reason of the divine truth, which is equally related to expressing man and the ass, but by reason of the connoted; just as we say that to create a man is not to create an angel.

17. To that which is objected, that if there is there a plurality according to account, either something corresponds to it in the thing or nothing; it is to be said that something corresponds. — *But if it be asked* what that is, I say that on the side of the *divine truth* nothing corresponds except one thing, which is nevertheless more powerful in representing many things than any created multiformity, because, although that truth is simple, it is nevertheless infinite. But on the side of the *connoted things* there corresponds a plurality either actual or potential. For many possible things are many things actually *known*, although they do not actually *exist* in their proper nature.

18. To that which is objected, that if they differ by the account of the connoted, then the temporal is the cause of the eternal; it is to be said that there are two ways of speaking of the connoted: either as regards its *proper being*, or in so far as it is *connoted*. As regards its *proper being* it is true that it is temporal; nevertheless it is eternally connoted, because what is temporal in its *proper being* is eternally known by God.

19. To that which is objected, that then the Word ought likewise to be made many, if the account is made many by the account of the connoted; it is to be said that it is not alike: because the *Word* says the divine operative or expressive power itself, which according to the *thing and the account of understanding* holds itself more on the side of *God*. But the *idea* or account says an expression or likeness, which, although according to the *thing* it holds itself more on the side of God the knower, nevertheless according to the *mode of understanding* it holds itself more on the side of the *thing known*; and therefore, although they have unity in the *thing*, so that many ideas can be called *one truth* and *one Word*, they cannot nevertheless have unity in *account*, so that *many ideas* or accounts can be called one idea or one account.

20. To that which is objected, that things are caused by the accounts, therefore the plurality also, etc.; it is to be said that the plurality of *things* in their proper genus is from the plurality of *accounts*; but the plurality of *accounts* is nothing other than the things themselves, as they are existing in their cause. Whence, although the plurality of ideas or accounts in some way has a plurality of things corresponding to it, it is nevertheless not *caused* by it, because God does not know many things, nor does the divine truth express many things, because many things are to be; but rather conversely, because he knows many, therefore many come to be, as Augustine says in the eleventh of *On the City of God*: « This world could not be known to us unless it were; but to God, unless it were known, it could not be ».

21. To that which is objected, that the plurality of persons is greater than the plurality of species; it is to be said that it is not alike on the one side and the other: because the plurality of persons is on account of origin and on account of the mutual and intrinsic respect of person to person; but one idea or account does not arise from another, nor do they have a mutual or intrinsic respect, nor can they have a real respect to anything outside, because *to have a respect* to something extrinsic in some way imports dependence, and does not permit that about which it is posited to be supremely simple and absolute. And therefore a real plurality of ideas in no way belongs to the divine *being*, which is most simple and most absolute. If therefore a plurality is posited there, it is to be posited according to the account of understanding, as was said before, and as the ancient doctors commonly held. — And by this the solution of the objections is plain.

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