Dist. 1, Art. 1, Q. 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/1/d/1/q/bon-sent-I-d1-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether only a created good is to be used.*

Thirdly, it having been shown whether every created thing is to be used and every other thing besides God, the question is whether only a created good is to be used. And that it is so, seems [the case].

1. «Every good is either an end, or [ordered] to an end»; but use is only of the good which is to an end, since the rational character of the useful is to lead to the end: therefore, since only a created good is to an end, only a created good is to be used.

2. Likewise, every good is either created or uncreated. But if it is possible to use an uncreated good, it is possible to refer it to another: either, therefore, to a created [good], or [to an] uncreated; but not to an uncreated, since there is only one uncreated: therefore to a created. But thus the term is referred to the way, and the cause to the effect; but this is abuse, not use: therefore only a created good or creature is to be used.

3. Likewise, Augustine in the book *On the Eighty-Three Questions* divides the honorable against the useful: therefore no useful thing is honorable, or conversely; but God is the honorable by essence: therefore God is not to be used.

4. Likewise, it seems that not only is God or the uncreated good not to be used, but to use Him is always a mortal sin, since Augustine in the book *On the Eighty-Three Questions* says: «It is the highest perversity to enjoy things to be used and to use things to be enjoyed»; but he who uses an uncreated good, uses a good [meant] for enjoying: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. It is possible to serve God rightly with a view to reward, since there are many good hirelings, as Ambrose says; but it is not possible to serve God except by loving: therefore it is possible to love God rightly with a view to reward; but the one so loving uses God, since he refers [Him] to another: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the highest goodness stands to love as the highest truth stands to cognition; but it is possible to know a created truth more clearly without prejudice to the highest truth and without error: therefore likewise it is possible to love some goodness other than the highest more ardently without prejudice to the highest goodness and without disorder: therefore it is possible by ordered love that another be loved more than God: therefore it is possible that God be loved on account of another in an ordered way, and so to use Him.

3. Likewise, it seems that there is no sin when someone uses God for the sake of his own salvation, since «that whose end is good, is itself good»; but the use of this is good, namely our salvation: therefore the use of God is good: therefore it will not be a sin.

4. Likewise, the use of God either is good — and so God is to be used; or is evil — and so God is evil, since «that whose use is evil, is itself evil»; but if God is good, His use is also good: therefore God is to be used.

> **Conclusion.** Only a created good is to be used, and to use an uncreated good is to abuse.

**I respond:** It must be said that only a created good is to be used, since, if we use an uncreated good, it is always abuse, and such abuse is a mortal sin on account of the perversity toward the end with delectation, and on account of the disorder of the will, which loves less the very thing by which it uses than that on account of which it uses.

**To the arguments:**

1. To that which is objected, that it is possible to serve God rightly with a view to reward; it must be said that that reward is either God Himself, as He said to Abraham, Genesis fifteen: *I am thy reward*; and so the one looking to the reward does not use [Him], since he does not refer [Him] to another; or that reward is something else, and then someone can look to it either as a cause [or "the carnal"] moving [him]; and so he is a bad hireling; or as a reason inducing [him]; and so [he is] good, and in this way he does not use.

2. To that which is objected, that a clearer cognition of the creature does not prejudice the Creator, therefore etc.; it must be said that the case is not similar, since the clarity of cognition is not in our power, but the ardor of affection is in our power; therefore it is required of us that we order this latter, not that former. Some act of cognition, however, is in our power, namely the act of faith, by which if anyone assent to the first truth on account of another, he indeed prejudices the truth, just as to love on account of another [prejudices] goodness.

3. To that which is objected, that the end of the use of God is good; it must be said that the end is called good in two ways: either as to substance, or as to the intention of finalizing; and that proposition is understood as to the intention of finalizing, and this consists in right ordering.

4. To the last it must be said that that proposition is understood of things having ordering to an end, but not of the end itself. — Or it is understood of the natural and proper act of the things themselves, which is most frequently elicited from the thing itself, not of the ordering to an end; and so the proposition is not valid for the matter at hand.