Dist. 35, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/35/q/bon-sent-I-d35-a1-q3
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### Question III.
#### *Whether there is plurality according to reason in the ideas.*

It is asked thirdly whether there is plurality according to reason in the ideas. And that there is, is shown in this way.

1. Augustine, in the book of *Eighty-Three Questions*: "By one account man was made, by another the horse": therefore if *idea* names the very account of knowing, it is necessary that it be plurified according to reason.

2. Likewise, this same point is shown from the mode of speaking and defining, since Augustine speaks in the plural and defines the ideas themselves in the plural, saying that they are *forms*: therefore they are plurified either *in the thing*, or *in reason*; but not in the thing; therefore in reason.

3. Likewise, *idea* names a likeness to the thing known, and likeness, although in God it is something absolute, has a mode of speaking-toward-another, that is, a respect; but the plurification of a relative likeness is from the thing to which it is assimilated: therefore since the things ideated are many, the ideas are many according to the reason of speaking.

4. Likewise, God, before he produces things, knows them distinctly and in act; but there is no distinction in God knowing nor in the [thing] known: therefore it is necessary that it be in the account of knowing.

**On the contrary:**

1. If there is a plurification according to reason, since there is none in the thing, then it seems that that plurality is nothing other than vanity.

2. Likewise, if there is in this name *idea* a plurality, [it is] either by reason of that *which it is*, or by reason of that *to which it is*: not by reason of that *which it is*, since it is the divine essence; if by reason of that *to which it is*, then since *word* and *exemplar* and *art* name a respect to the creature, they ought, at least according to the name, to be plurified, which however is false.

3. Likewise, if the ideas are many, not on account of the signified, but on account of the connoted, then I ask: that connoted [thing] is either *eternal* or *temporal*: if *eternal*, then it seems that many things are from eternity; if *temporal*, then it seems that *idea* is not said of God except from time, just as neither *Lord* nor *Creator* are said [of him] except from time.

4. Likewise, the ideas, if they are many on account of the things ideated, [are so] either according to the *being* which the things ideated have in God, or [the being they have] in their *proper genus*. If on account of the *being* which they have in *God*; on the contrary: in God they are one, therefore by reason of that *being* they cannot be called many. If on account of the *being* which they have in their *proper genus*; but this they do not have except from time: therefore either the ideas are not many except from time, or the temporal is the cause of the eternal; either of which is unfitting.

5. Likewise, *idea* names either *something* or *nothing*: if *nothing*, then it has neither plurality nor unity; if it names *something*, then if there are many ideas, there are many things: therefore if many ideas are from eternity, many things are from eternity; but not many things personally, since *idea* does not name something personal: therefore [many] essentially.

### Conclusion.

> *The ideas in God are one according to the thing, but many according to the reason of understanding.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, as is clear from what has been said in the thirtieth distinction, although in God there is no respect to the creature on the side of the thing, nevertheless it happens that the essence itself is signified in respect to the creature by many names. Nor however is the name or word vain. It must therefore be understood that this name *idea* signifies the divine essence in comparison or in respect to the creature. For *idea* is a likeness of the thing known, which, although in God it is something absolute, nevertheless according to the mode of understanding names a respect midway between knower and known. And although that respect according to the thing holds itself more on the side of the knower, since it is God himself, nevertheless according to the reason of understanding or of speaking the likeness holds itself more on the side of the known. And since the knower is one, and the known are many; therefore all the ideas in God are one according to the thing, but nevertheless many according to the reason of understanding or of speaking. Whence it must be conceded that all the accounts in God are one something, but not one *idea* or account, but many.

1. *To that therefore which is objected*, that nothing underlies that account on the side of the thing; it must be said that this is false, since under the respect there underlies, on God's side, the essence, not a respect; on the creature's side, however, there underlies a true respect, and therefore that signified respect does not introduce falsity. Thus, although the plurality of respects is not undergirded by a plurality on God's side, it is yet undergirded on the side of the connoted [terms]; whence that respect, thus plurified, has neither falsity nor vanity.

2. *To that which is objected*, that *word* and *art* name a respect; it must be said that they do, but otherwise than *idea* or *account [ratio]*. For *idea* or *account of knowing* holds itself more, according to the reason of understanding, on the side of the known. For *likeness*, considered as such, does not name a respect to that *in which* it is, but [to that] *whose* it is; but *word* holds itself more on the side of the speaker, and likewise *art* and *exemplar* on the side of the producer: and since the known are many, and the knower is one, therefore *ideas* are many, and *art* only one. — Or alternatively, *account* and *idea* name a respect to things insofar as they are distinct; the other words do not so [name].

3. *To that which is objected*, that the connoted [terms] are not many from eternity; it must be said that the plurality is in the ideas by reason of the connoted [terms]. But of the connoted [terms] one may speak in two ways: either *insofar as they are*, or *insofar as they are connoted*. *Insofar as they are*, thus they are only from time; but *insofar as they are connoted*, they can be connoted both *eternally* and *temporally*: eternally, when the respect is borne as in habit, as by this name *predestination* — therefore predestination is eternal, since it connotes the effect not in act, but in habit — but temporally, when the respect is borne in act, as by this verb *to create*. Since therefore the temporal [things] are thus connoted, as they are future, and many things are future; therefore they are connoted as many. Yet thus connoted, although they be connoted from eternity, they are not from eternity, but from time; and so the multitude of the connoted, although it be said [to be] from eternity, nevertheless does not posit a real multitude except from time.

4. *To that which is asked*, whether according to the *being* of the things ideated the ideas are many; it must be said, that

according to the *being* which the things ideated are to have in their proper genus. And although they have it only from time, nevertheless from eternity they were going to have it: and the ideas are of things as they are future: therefore they are understood as many not only from time, but also from eternity. Thus it differs to understand that predestination has been from eternity and reprobation, not by reason of that which has been from eternity, but by reason of that which was going to be from time.

5. *To that which is objected*: if many ideas, therefore many things; it must be said that *idea* does not name only *that which is*, but a respect *to that which is to be in the future*, or also can be: and by reason of that respect it receives plurification. And since that [respect] posits nothing in act, but only in potency, hence it is that the eternal plurality of ideas does not posit any actual plurality; just as none is posited if it is said that [God] can make many things. But this name *thing* names what it imports absolutely; and therefore when it is said that there are many *things*, plurality is posited in act; and therefore that argument does not hold; rather, there is a [fallacy] *secundum quid et simpliciter* [i.e., from a qualified to an unqualified sense], as if one were to say: many things are possible to God, or many things are known [by him]: therefore many things are. So neither does it hold: many ideas are: therefore many things are; since the ideas are not many by reason of that *which they are*, but by reason of that *to which they are*.