Dist. 1, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/1/d/1/q/bon-sent-I-d1-a1-q2
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### Article I. Question II. *Whether every created thing is to be used.*

Secondly, having seen what *to use* is per essence, the question is asked about the *useable*, namely whether every created thing is to be used. And that it is so, is shown in this way.

1. *Proverbs* sixteen: *God has worked all things for his own sake*: therefore all things are orderable to God; but whatever is orderable to God can be ordered; but in ordering to God we rightly use the orderable: therefore if all things can be ordered, all things are to be used.

2. Likewise, being and good are convertible, as Dionysius holds; but all things are beings: therefore all things are good. But every good is to be loved: therefore every created thing is to be loved; but it is not to be loved for its own sake: therefore for the sake of another; but this is to use: therefore it can be used in the case of every created thing.

3. Likewise, every virtue can be rightly used: therefore the work of every virtue is right use; but the use of a certain virtue is with respect to the evil of penalty, as patience, of another with respect to the evil of fault, as penitence: therefore all evils, namely of fault and of penalty, can be rightly used: therefore much more strongly, goods: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, «Opposites are naturally to arise about the same thing»; but all things can be misused: therefore all things can be rightly used: therefore every created thing is to be used.

**On the contrary:**

1. Charity is that by which we rightly use, because all things are ordered to the end through charity, whatever things are rightly ordered; but as Augustine says in *On Christian Doctrine*: «Only four things are to be loved out of charity, and only three created, namely ourselves, our neighbor, and our own body»: therefore only three are referred or ordered to the end through charity, since there is no right using except through charity: therefore only three are to be used, therefore not every created thing.

2. Likewise, all things which we use are subject to our will; but there are certain things which are not subject to our will, such as necessary and perpetual things: therefore those are not to be used.

3. Likewise, everything that we rightly use, we do with a good end; but there are certain things which can be done with no good end, such as lying and the like, «which, as soon as named, are conjoined with evil»: therefore such things are not to be used.

4. Likewise, a virtue cannot be ill used, as is clear from its definition: therefore from things opposite to the evil of fault, that is, from vices, one cannot rightly use: therefore not all things other than God are to be used.

### Conclusion.

> Not every created thing can we use as an instrument, nor as a habit, nor as an act; but every thing we can use as an object, yet in fourfold manner: either by operating, or by accepting, or by tolerating, or by spurning.

**I respond:** It must be said that *to use* something is said in four modes: either as an instrument, by which we operate, just as someone uses an instrument or organ; and thus it is not possible to use all things, namely the powers which are purely natural, taking *to use* properly, as Augustine takes it; or as a habit, by which we are regulated, namely virtue; and thus it is not possible to rightly use all things, as the habit of vice, by which rather one can be turned aside; or as an act, by which we are moved; and thus it is not possible to use well every act, such as those

which, as soon as named, are conjoined with evil; or as an object, to which we are inclined; and thus all things can be used and misused. For all things can be taken up into the faculty of the will for approving or spurning; and this is clear from Augustine in the book *On Eighty-Three Questions*: «We use things to-be-taken-up or to-be-spurned for health, things to-be-tolerated for patience, things to-be-ordered for justice».

Likewise, Augustine in book ten *On the Trinity*: «The will grasps the whole intellect, while I use all of that which I understand»; but evils are understood: therefore evils can be used.

Yet otherwise we use goods, and otherwise evils. For the ground of the ordering in goods is not only on the part of the one ordering, but also on the part of the thing ordered, because of themselves goods are useable and orderable, and from their own nature; but in evils the ground of ordering is not on the part of the things ordered, but rather on the part of the one ordering; and therefore evils are not called useable.

Hence note that, since *to use* is to take up something into the faculty of the will, this can be in a fourfold manner: either into the faculty of the operating will, as is the case with those things which properly pertain to human use; or into the faculty of the accepting will, as is the love of neighbor and the like; or into the faculty of the tolerating will, as are the evils of penalty; or into the faculty of the spurning will, and thus evils of fault are taken up and ordered. By the first two modes is understood that saying: «Whose use is good etc.».

**To the opposing arguments:**

1. To that which is objected concerning charity, that only three created things are to be loved; it must be said that for something to be loved out of charity is for it to be ordered to the highest good, which charity loves *per se*. But this happens in two ways: either it is possible to order that which is naturally fitted to come to the end; and thus only three created things are to be loved out of charity; or that through which one comes to the highest good; and because this can be in its own way through every creature, every creature can be loved out of charity, and every creature can be used.

2. To that which is objected, that not all things are subject to the will; it must be said that something is said to be under the dominion of the will in two ways: either as to the being of the thing itself; and thus not all things are subject; or as to the act of the will, which is in spurning the thing itself or approving, and this either for its own sake or for the sake of another; and in such a way all things are subject to our will, namely as to the act of seeking-after or spurning, although not in the first way.

3. 4. To that which is objected, that certain things can be done with no good end, similarly, that we always misuse vices; it must be said that the objection proceeds along the way in which one can use something as a middle act; and thus one cannot use sin; or as a regulating habit, similarly; yet it can be used as an object rightly through the motion of contrition and detestation.