Dist. 3, Part 1, Art. 1, 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/3/q/bon-sent-I-d3-p1-a1-q1
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### Sole Article. *On the knowability of God.*
### Question I. *Whether God is knowable by a creature.*

Concerning the first, that God is not knowable by a creature, it is shown:

1. By the authority of Dionysius, *On the Divine Names*: "It is possible neither to speak nor to understand God."

2. Likewise it is shown by reason through a fourfold presupposition, which must be present in cognition, namely proportion, union or reception, judgment, and information. For the intellect does not understand except what is proportionable to it, and what is in some way united to it, and concerning which it judges, and by which the edge of intelligence is informed.

From the first presupposition it is argued thus: it is necessary that there be a proportion of the knower to the knowable; but there is no proportion of God to the intellect, because God

is infinite, and the intellect is finite: therefore etc. Moreover, if there is any proportion, it seems that it is not sufficient, because the uncreated truth is more distant from the human intellect than any created intelligible is from sense. But sense, which is perceptive of the sensible, is never elevated to the cognition of a created intelligible: therefore neither will the intellect ever be elevated to the cognition of the uncreated intelligible.

3. Likewise, from the second presupposition thus: it is necessary that there be a union of the knowable to the knower, such that one is in the other; but the knower is not in the knowable, but conversely; but it is impossible that the infinite be grasped by the finite: therefore it is impossible that it be in it: therefore that God be in the intellect is impossible, since He is infinite.

4. Likewise, from the third presupposition thus: for cognition it is necessary that there be in the knower a judgment about the known; but every judging thing has power over the thing judged; but the finite does not have power over the infinite: therefore it does not judge concerning it; but for cognition a judgment was required: therefore the finite intellect does not know the infinite God, over whom it has no power.

5. Likewise, from the fourth thus: it is necessary that the knowing intellect be informed by the thing known; but everything that informs another either informs by essence or by likeness; but God does not inform by essence, because He is united to nothing as form, nor by abstracted likeness, because an abstracted likeness is more spiritual than that from which it is abstracted; but nothing is more spiritual than God, nor can be: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. The rational soul is to the image of God. But as Augustine says in the book *On the Trinity*, and as is in the letter [of the Master] of the present distinction: "The mind is the image of God in this, that it is capable of God and can be partaker [of Him]." But to be capable [of Him] is not according to substance or essence, because thus He is in all creatures: therefore [it is] through cognition and love: therefore God can be known by a creature.

2. Likewise, it is shown by reason thus: every spiritual cognition occurs by reason of light, and by reason of uncreated light, as Augustine says in the *Soliloquies*; but light is most knowable, and God is the highest light: therefore He is most knowable to the soul itself: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, since there is cognition of some things through presence and of others through likeness, those things are more truly known which are known through presence, as Augustine says; but God is united to the soul itself through presence: therefore God is more truly known than other things, which are known through likeness.

4. Likewise, as the highest goodness stands to love, so the highest truth to cognition; but the highest goodness is supremely lovable by affection: therefore the highest truth is supremely knowable by the intellect.

5. Likewise, each thing can more effectively [act] in that to which it is naturally ordered; but our intellect is naturally ordered to the cognition of the highest light:

therefore that [light] is most knowable by the intellect.

> **Conclusion.** God, in Himself supremely knowable, would also be supremely knowable to us, were there no defect on the part of our intellect.

**I respond:** It must be said that God in Himself, as the highest light, is supremely knowable; and as light supremely filling our intellect, and so far as concerns Himself, would be supremely knowable also to us, unless there were some defect on the part of the power of the knower; which indeed is not perfectly taken away except through the deiformity of glory. Therefore the reasons are to be granted, that God is knowable by a creature and also most clearly knowable, so far as concerns Himself, unless there were something impeding or deficient on the part of the intellect, as will afterwards be made clear.

**To the objections to the contrary:**

1. *To the first* it must be said that there is cognition through *comprehension* and through *apprehension*. Cognition through apprehension consists in the manifestation of the truth of the thing known; but cognition of comprehension consists in the inclusion of totality. For the first cognition a proportion of fittingness is required; and such there is in the soul with respect to God, because "in a certain way the soul is all things", through assimilation to all things, since it is born to know all things, and is most capable of God through assimilation, because it is the image and likeness of God. As to the cognition of comprehension, a proportion of equality and parity is required; and such there is not in the soul with respect to God, because the soul is finite, but God is infinite; and therefore [the soul] does not have this; and of this Dionysius understands, and the objection runs concerning this, but concerning the other it does not.

2. *To that which is objected concerning the distance* of the intelligible and the sensible; it must be said that there is distance according to the account of being and according to the account of the knowable. In the first mode there is greater distance; in the second mode not, because each is intelligible, namely God and the soul. It is not so with the intellect and sense; because sense is a determinate power, but the intellect is not.

3. *To that which says that the infinite is not grasped by the finite*; some say that to grasp the infinite is twofold, namely as to essence — and thus it is grasped; and as to power — and thus it is not grasped, just as a point is wholly reached by a line according to substance, but not totally according to power. But this solution does not seem to solve [the matter], because in God essence is the same as power, and each is infinite.

Therefore it must be said that the infinite is twofold: one, which stands by opposition to the simple — and such is not grasped by the finite, as is the infinite of mass; the other is that which has infinity together with simplicity, as God; and such an infinite, since it is simple, is everywhere whole, [and] since it is infinite, is in no thing in such a way that it is not beyond it. So it is to be understood in the cognition of God. And therefore it does not follow that if He is wholly known, He is comprehended, because the intellect does not include His totality, just as neither does a creature [include His] immensity.

4. *To that which is objected:* "The judging thing has power" etc.; it must be said that to judge concerning something is in two ways: in the first mode by discerning whether [a thing] is or is not; and in this mode judgment belongs to every knowing intellect with respect to every object; in the other mode by approving or reproving, whether [a thing] ought so to be; and thus it does not judge concerning truth, but according to it [judges] concerning other things, as Augustine says *On True Religion*, that "the judge does not judge concerning the law, but according to it judges concerning other things." And concerning this mode it is true what Augustine says, that "no one judges concerning that truth, yet no one judges without it." And concerning this second mode it is true what the objection sets forth, that the judging thing has power over the thing judged; but concerning the first it is not true that it has power over it; nevertheless it can be directed as to [its] object by the support of that [truth].

5. *To that which is finally objected concerning information*;

it must be said that God is present to the soul itself and to every intellect through truth; therefore it is not necessary that a likeness be abstracted from Him through which He may be known; nevertheless, while He is known by the intellect, the intellect is informed by a certain notice [*notitia*], which is as it were a certain likeness, not abstracted but impressed, inferior to God because it is in an inferior nature, yet superior to the soul, because it makes it better. And this Augustine says in the ninth [book] *On the Trinity*, chapter eleven: "Just as, when through the senses of bodies we learn bodies, some likeness of them is made in our mind: so when we know God, some likeness of God is made; that notice, however, is inferior, because it is in an inferior nature."