Dist. 1, Art. 3, Q. 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/1/d/1/q/bon-sent-I-d1-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the enjoyable.*

Having shown what it is to enjoy through essence, the question concerns the enjoyable, and

*first*, whether God can be enjoyed;

*second*, whether He alone is to be enjoyed.

### Question I. *Whether God is to be enjoyed.*

Concerning the first, that God is to be enjoyed, is shown thus.

**Foundations.**

1. "That is to be enjoyed which makes us blessed," since right enjoyment lies in beatitude; but we are made blessed by God, since He Himself is our beatitude: therefore God is to be enjoyed.

2. Likewise, the good is lovable; therefore the more good is the more lovable, and the supremely good is supremely lovable; but we enjoy that which we love supremely: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the beautiful delights, and the more beautiful delights more; therefore the supremely beautiful delights supremely; but we enjoy that in which we are supremely delighted: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

**To the opposite.**

1. Where there is enjoyment, there is delight; "but delight is the conjunction of the fitting with the fitting"; but there is no fittingness of God to the creature, but rather the greatest distance: therefore no delight, therefore no enjoyment.

2. Likewise, an excelling sensible object corrupts the sense or at least saddens it, since delight lies in middle things: therefore, by parity of reasoning, an excelling intelligible object corrupts or saddens the intellect. But God is the most excelling light: therefore He saddens, He does not delight, therefore etc. If you say that the sensible power is corruptible, the intellect is not; this does not solve the matter, since the intellect, while it is in the flesh, is wearied and impeded in its act, the body being corrupted.

3. Likewise, where enjoyment is, there is rest; but in the infinite there is no rest, "since there is always something beyond to be received": therefore, since God is infinite, in God there is no rest, therefore neither enjoyment.

> **Conclusion.** God is properly to be enjoyed.

**I respond:** It must be said that God is to be enjoyed, in that He alone perfectly terminates and delights the soul itself for His own sake and above all things.

**To the arguments.**

1. To that, then, which is objected, that delight is the conjunction of the fitting etc.; it must be said that there is a fittingness through participation in one nature, or through a common comparison. The first fittingness produces the community of univocation, the second the community of analogy or proportion. And this latter is according to a threefold difference: either according to a similar comparison of two to two, as just as man is to animal, so whiteness is to color; or according to a dissimilar comparison of two to one, as of the animal and food to health; or

according to a comparison of two to each other, as for instance when one is the imitation or likeness of the other. For a likeness does not agree with that-which-is-like it in a third [term], but in itself. So it is in the case at hand, since the soul is the express likeness of God. This fittingness, in the one extreme, posits inclination and indigence, in the other rest and sufficiency, since the one is made for the sake of the other, whence it is ordered to the other. And since, for the rest of the inclination and the supplying of the indigence, where there is sense, there is delight, or [delight] follows, therefore the soul, when it is rested in such a way by God, enjoys Him.

2. To that which is objected, that an excelling sensible object corrupts the sense: therefore etc., it must be said that the case of understanding and sensing is not alike. And for this there is a threefold reason: one is on the part of the apprehending power, another on the part of the apprehended or the object, the third is on the part of the mode of apprehending.

On the part of the apprehending power, since the sense can be corrupted, but the intellect cannot. The reason for this is that the sense depends on an organ, in which there is a certain mean and harmony, which is corrupted not only by the contrary, but by the excelling; but the intellect does not depend on an organ, since it is an immaterial power, and so it is not saddened by an excelling [object].

On the part of the object it is not alike, since an excelling intelligible object aids and strengthens, since the influence of such a knowable proceeds from interior depths and enters the power itself, and therefore strengthens and fortifies it. Just as if a great mountain were to give the power of bearing itself, it would be borne more easily than a small one; so it is in the intelligible, which God is. But the sensible object only stirs from outside, and therefore this corrupts, but that does not.

On the part of the mode of apprehending there is likewise dissimilarity, since the sense, in the apprehension of its object, tends outward, whence by perceiving it, it is scattered outwardly and is not strengthened inwardly, therefore it is weakened. But since the object of the intellect is interior to the intellect itself, in its perception the power is not scattered, but gathered, and the more the power is unified, the stronger it is.

3. To that which is objected concerning the infinite, it must be said that the infinite is said in two ways, namely, by privation of perfection; and thus matter is called infinite, and it is not for such an infinite to terminate, but rather it stands in need of being terminated, insofar as this is possible. In another way the infinite is said by privation of limitation; and that which is infinite in this way properly has [the power] to terminate, since beyond it, since nothing greater can be conceived, nothing else can be sought. Whence such infinity belongs to the last end, which most of all has the character of terminating.