Dist. 3, Part 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/3/q/bon-sent-I-d3-p1-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether God is knowable through creatures.*

Secondly it is asked, whether God is knowable through creatures. And it seems that he is not.

1. Because a way to error is not a way to knowledge; but knowledge through a creature is a way of error: therefore etc. Proof of the minor: Wisdom 14: *The creatures of God are made for deception and for hatred and for a snare to the feet of the foolish.* Likewise, Augustine *On Free Choice* speaks of those who are occupied with creatures: "Turning their backs to Thee, they are fixed in bodily work as in their own shadow."

2. Likewise, darkness or what is dark is not a way to knowing the luminous or light; but a creature is darkness, while God is light: therefore God is not knowable through a creature.

3. Likewise, the middle term, through which something is known or proved concerning an extreme, must share in something with that which is to be known; but Creator and creature have nothing in common: therefore God is not known through creatures.

4. Likewise, every middle by which one ascends to an extreme is distant from it by finite degrees; but every creature, however noble, is distant from God by infinite degrees, because however much it be doubled, it will never arrive at his nobility: therefore through a creature one does not ascend to the knowledge of God.

**On the contrary:**

1. Wisdom 13: *From the greatness of the beauty and of the creature, the Creator of these can knowably be seen.* Whence Isidore *On the Highest Good*: "From the beauty of the circumscribed creature, God makes his own beauty, which cannot be circumscribed, to be understood."

2. Likewise, by reason it is shown thus: it happens that not only is the effect known through the cause, but also the cause through the effect: therefore if God is the cause operating according to his nobility, and the creature the effect, God can be known through the creature.

3. Likewise, the sensible is the way of knowing the intelligible; but the creature is sensible, God intelligible: therefore through the creature one arrives at the knowledge of the Creator.

4. Likewise, it happens that like is known through like; but every creature is like God either as a vestige, or as an image: therefore through every creature it happens that God is known.

It is asked therefore what difference there is between vestige and image; and since in every creature there is a vestige, it is asked why not likewise an image, and according to what the vestige is to be attended to.

### Conclusion.

> *God can be known through creatures by the natural light of reason.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, because the cause shines forth in the effect, and the wisdom of the artisan is manifested in the work, therefore God, who is the artisan and the cause of the creature, is known through it.

And for this there is a twofold reason, one is on account of fittingness, the other on account of need: on account of fittingness, because every creature leads more to God than to anything else; on account of need, because, since God as supremely spiritual light cannot be known in his spirituality by an intellect that is, as it were, material, the soul needs to know him through a creature.

**Replies:**

1. To that which is objected, that the knowledge of a creature is a way to error; it must be said that it is twofold to know a creature: either as to its special properties and those which are of imperfection, or as to its general conditions, which are of completion; if, however, as to its special and imperfect conditions: either by attributing them to God, or by removing them. In the first way it is a way of error, in the second way a way of knowledge; and so God is known by way of removal.

If, however, it be known as to the conditions of perfection, this can be in two ways, just as a picture is known in two ways: either as a picture, or as an image; whence either one halts in the beauty of the creature, or through it one is borne to another. If in the first way, then it is a way of deviation; whence Augustine in the book *On Free Choice*: "Woe to those who love thy signs in place of Thee, and wander among thy traces and forsake Thee as leader." If in the second way, insofar as it is a way to another, then this is the manner of knowing by way of supereminence, because every noble property in a creature is to be attributed to God in the highest degree; and so that is clear.

2. To that which is objected, that a dark middle is not a way of knowing light; it must be said that there is the well-disposed eye and the bleared eye. Of the well-disposed eye it is true, but not of the bleared, for which the cloud covering or the earth receiving the brightness of light is a means of seeing the sun; so it is for our intellect, which is related as the eye of the owl to the most manifest things of nature.

3. To that which is objected concerning the defect of community, it must be said that it is not common by univocation, yet it is common by analogy, which expresses the relation of two to two, as in the sailor and the teacher, or of one to one, as of exemplar to exemplate.

4. To that which is objected, that there are always infinite degrees; it must be said that the ascent to God can be in two ways: either as to the aspect of presence; and thus every creature is fit to lead to God, nor are there in this way infinite degrees; or as to the equality of correspondence; and thus it is true that there are infinite, because the created good, however much doubled, is never made equal to the uncreated.

The first degree, however, of ascent to the aspect of presence is in the consideration of visible things, the second in the consideration of invisible things, such as the soul or another spiritual substance; the third is from the soul to God, because "the image is formed by Truth itself and is immediately joined to God".

To that which is finally asked concerning the difference of vestige and image, some assign that vestige is in sensible things, image in spiritual. But this distinction and position is not valid, because vestige is also in spiritual things. For unity, truth, goodness, in which vestige consists, are conditions most universal and intelligible.

Others say that vestige is so called because it represents according to a part, but image according to the whole. But again this difference is not valid, because, since God is simple, he does not have one representing him according to a part; since again he is infinite, by no creature at all, not even by the whole world, can he be represented according to the whole.

And therefore it must be understood that, since the creature leads into the knowledge of God by way of shadow, by way of vestige, and by way of image, the better-known difference among them, from which they are also named, is taken according to the mode of representing. For shadow is so called inasmuch as it represents at a certain distance and in a certain confusion; vestige, inasmuch as in distance, but with distinction; image, however, inasmuch as in nearness and distinction.

From this difference a second is gathered, which is according to the conditions in which these are considered. For creatures are called shadow as to those properties which regard God in some genus of cause according to an indeterminate notion; vestige as to a property which regards God under the notion of a threefold cause — efficient, formal, and final — as are one, true, and good; image as to those conditions which regard God not only under the notion of cause, but also of object, which are memory, understanding, and will.

From these are concluded two further differences: as to those things to which they lead; for the creature as shadow leads to the knowledge of common things as common; vestige to the knowledge of common things as appropriated; image to the knowledge of proper things as proper.

Another difference is according to the things in which they are found. For since every creature is compared to God both under the notion of cause and under the notion of a threefold cause, therefore every creature is a shadow or a vestige. But since only the rational creature is compared to God as to an object, because it alone is capable of God through knowledge and love, therefore it alone is image.