Dist. 30, 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/30/q/bon-sent-I-d30-a1-q1
----------------------------------------
### Article Unicus. *On those things that are said of God in time.*
### Question I. *Whether anything is predicated of God in time.*

That certain things are said of God in time is shown as follows.

1. "There is no lord, unless there be a servant", as Augustine says; but God is called lord and did not have a servant from eternity, therefore [he is lord] in time: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, action corresponds to passion, so that they are simultaneous; but God creates, therefore something is created; but nothing is created except in time, therefore [God] does not create except in time: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, it belongs to nothing to be a human being except in time, because being a human being has a beginning; but it belongs to God to be a human being: therefore [it belongs to him] in time.

4. Likewise, as the temporal stands to the temporal, so the eternal [stands] to the eternal: therefore, changing the proportion, as the eternal stands to the temporal, so the temporal [stands] to the eternal. But the eternal stands thus, that it is said of the temporal, as when it is said: Peter is predestined: therefore the temporal also will be able to be said of the eternal.

**On the contrary:**

1. Everything temporal is created, but God is uncreated, and between these there is the greatest distance; but of those things between which there is the greatest distance, one is not predicated of the other: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, everything temporal is mutable and variable; but everything of which the mutable is predicated is itself mutable: since therefore God is not mutable and variable, it is clear etc.

3. Likewise, nothing eternal is [predicated] in time; but everything that is predicated of God is God, and thus eternal: therefore nothing of that kind can be said in time.

4. Likewise, everything that is something in time begins to be something that it was not before; and everything of that kind is mutable: therefore nothing of that kind is in God, therefore etc.

If you say that something is not predicated of God *at once* in time by a predication through essence or inherence, but through cause, which places nothing in God but [only] in the effect; *on the contrary*: when it is said: God is creator, this is said in time, and not at once through cause: therefore that response is of no avail. Proof: Everything that is said of something through cause, is said of something else through essence or inherence; but *creator* is not said of anything other than God either through essence or through inherence: therefore etc.

Likewise, what is said of another through cause can be inferred by way of causal relation, as: the day is the sun shining upon the earth, therefore the day is from the sun: therefore if through cause God is creator, by equal reasoning God [comes] from the creature, or conversely.

Likewise, what is predicated only through cause is not identical with that of which it is predicated; but when it is said: God creates, the action of God is God: therefore it is not predicated through cause.

Likewise, when it is said *God is lord*, *lord* does not express any genus of cause, and yet is said of God: therefore the aforesaid response is not sufficient.

### Conclusion.

> Certain names are said of God in time not by reason of the principal signified, but by reason of what is connoted in the creature.

**I respond:** It must be said that something is said in time in two ways: either because it itself is temporal, or because it expresses a relation to what is temporal.

In the first way nothing is predicated of God through essence or through inherence, as the four reasons adduced for this prove; it is predicated, however, through cause, as if it were said "God is my patience"; or through union, as if it were said: God is man; and this places no change or temporal being around God, but around the creature.

In the other way something is said in time because, by the account of its name, it expresses a comparison to something temporal, as *lord* and *creator*, but it imports *essence* in its principal signification. For *lord* imports lordship, which is the power of constraining subjects; and this is the divine essence. Likewise *creator* imports the divine action, which is the divine essence. Each, however, signifies in relation to the creature, and thus connotes the created and the temporal.

Since, therefore, what in itself implies the contingent and the necessary is denominated wholly contingent; likewise, what [implies] the eternal and the temporal is denominated wholly temporal by reason of the nature of the whole compound, which posits both parts and is falsified with respect to each part and with respect to either; hence it is that such things are said in time not by reason of the principal signified, but by reason of what is connoted in the creature. And through this the following four arguments are made manifest. For it must be conceded that not everything which is said of God in time is said through cause, but it is said either through cause, or through union, or through a certain comparison to what is temporal. And thus all is made manifest.

*1. 2.* To that, therefore, which is objected, that the temporal is created and mutable; it must be said that [this] speaks of the temporal in the first way; and this is not said of God except through cause or through union.

*3.* To that which is objected, that everything that is predicated of God is eternal; it must be said that this is twofold, because *eternal* can be taken adjectively or substantively. If adjectively, it is false in that sense: for something is predicated of God whose duration is not eternal. If substantively, it is true, and is: everything that is predicated of God is something eternal. Nor does it follow: it is eternal; rather there is there a fallacy of accident, as here: creation is God; and God is eternal: therefore creation is eternal; so also in the aforesaid. For something that is eternal by reason of the principal signified, that is, that is something eternal, is said to be temporal by reason of what is connoted.

*4.* To that which is objected, that what is in time begins to be something; it must be said that that does not obtain in God on account of any change made in him, but in the creature: and that was determined above, in the eighth distinction.