Dist. 17, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/17/q/bon-sent-I-d17-p1-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether charity in general can be known also by one not having it.*

Fourthly it is asked whether charity is knowable by one not having it; and that it is not, seems to be the case:

1. Because everything that is known is known either through essence or through likeness. But not through essence, since it is not essentially in the soul of a sinner: if therefore it is known, this is through likeness. But on the contrary: on Second *Corinthians*, twelve, the Gloss says: «The third kind of vision, by which intellective love is beheld, contains those things which do not have images like themselves, which are not themselves»: therefore the likeness of charity is nothing other than charity: therefore if anyone lacks charity, he lacks also the likeness of it, and so he never knows charity.

2. Likewise, if one not having charity knows it, then either through an innate species, or through an acquired one, or through an effect, or through the first light. Not through an innate species, since the soul is created as a blank tablet; not through an acquired species, since every acquired species is acquired by means of sense and imagination, but the species of charity does not fall within sense or imagination. Likewise not through an effect, since no one knows anything through an effect unless he knows that it is the effect of that thing. Whence no one knows the eclipse through the interposition of the earth, unless he knows that the interposition is the cause of it. If therefore he knows through an effect, it is necessary that he know beforehand that charity is the cause of it; and so he foreknows charity; therefore not through an effect. If you say that he knows in that eternal truth, this will be either *effectively* or *formally*. If effectively, then in this way all things that are known are known in it, since it makes one know whatever is known; but if formally, that is, exemplarily, then it seems that either it impresses some species in the intellect, or it is necessary that the truth itself or the exemplar be beheld; of which the one was disproved above, but the other is manifestly false.

**On the contrary:**

1. Sinners desire charity; but no one desires what he does not know, since unknown things cannot be loved, as Augustine says: therefore they themselves know charity.

2. Likewise, someone having charity can have knowledge of it; but everything that falls within the apprehending intellect can be preserved in the memory; suppose then that this knowledge is impressed upon the memory, and that finally one falls from charity; it is established that one fallen from charity has retained the memory of it: therefore he still knows it; therefore charity can be known by one not having it.

3. Likewise, if charity is known by one having it, this is either through essence or through likeness. But I prove that it is through likeness, since the intellect knows nothing unless it be informed by it; but charity is a habit of the affective part, therefore as to its essence it does not pass over into it: therefore if it is united to the intellect and informs it, this is through likeness; but a likeness can be had by one not having charity: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, Augustine says, in the *eleventh book On the Trinity*, that for the intellect to understand what is in the memory, it is necessary that the gaze of the intellect be informed: therefore much more strongly, for it to understand what is in the will: therefore if it understands charity, the intellect is informed by something; not by the substance of charity: therefore by a likeness, therefore the same as before.

> **Conclusio.** *Charity even by one not having it can be known, not by experimental knowledge, but by speculative knowledge, and indeed not through a likeness abstracted from the senses, but through a certain truth innate to the soul.*

**I respond:** It must be said that by the knowledge of experience charity is not known except by one having it; but by the knowledge of speculation it is certain that charity is known also by one not having it. The mode, however, of this knowledge cannot be through the essence of charity nor through a likeness acquired from the senses: therefore it is necessary that it be through a likeness either infused or innate. Both kinds, however, that are thus known by man, are said by Augustine to be known *in the eternal Truth*, either because the Truth infuses the knowledge, as to the Prophets, or because it impresses [it] from creation, according to that text: *The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is sealed upon us* etc. But charity is not known by sinners through an infused species: therefore it must be that it is known through an innate one.

But an innate species can be in two ways: either a likeness only, like the species of a stone, or a likeness in such a way that it is also a certain truth in itself. The first species is like a picture; and of this the soul has been created bare. The second species is some impression of the highest truth on the soul, as for example to the soul there has been given from its very condition a certain directive light and a certain natural direction; there has also been given to it an affection of the will. The soul therefore knows what rectitude is, and what affection is, and so what the rectitude of affection is; and since charity is this, it knows charity through a certain truth, which truth nevertheless is the likeness of charity; and then it rightly has the character of *likeness*, insofar as it is received by the intellect; yet it has the character of *truth*, insofar as it is in the soul.

Whence what Augustine says, that habits of this sort are known in the truth itself and through likenesses which are the same as those things themselves, he does not say this because no species comes to be in the intellect of the knower, but because in the soul there is not a pure species, but a certain truth impressed by the truth itself; and so the response to the objections is plain.