Dist. 36, Art. 2, 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/36/q/bon-sent-I-d36-a2-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether things have truer being in God than in their proper genus.*

Secondly it is asked, whether things are in God more truly than in the universe, that is, in their proper genus. And that they are more truly in God, appears thus:

1. Through Augustine, *On Genesis according to the Letter*, book five: "All things, before they came to be, were in the knowledge of the Maker, and surely there better, where eternal, where truer and unchangeable."

2. Likewise, "each thing as it stands toward being, so [it stands] toward knowing"; but creatures are known more truly in God than in their proper genus: therefore they also are more truly in God.

3. Likewise, "everything which is in something is in it after the manner of that in which it is"; but God is infinitely nobler than the world: therefore in an infinitely nobler and truer manner are things in God than in the universe.

4. Likewise, the being of a living thing is nobler and truer than [that] of a non-living thing; but all things live in God, as has been shown above, yet not in their proper genus: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. A thing is more truly where it is simply, than where it is only in a certain respect; but in God it is said to be only in a certain respect — for it does not follow: *the ass is in God, therefore the ass is* — but in its proper genus simply: therefore there [it is] more truly.

2. Likewise, a thing is more truly where it is according to its intrinsic and proximate principles, than where it is in an extrinsic and remote principle; but things in the world are according to intrinsic principles, in God however as in an extrinsic principle: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, a thing is more truly where it is according to its proper entity, than where [it is] only according to a likeness; but in God a man and a stone and other things are according to a likeness: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> *Things, if they are compared to themselves according to a diverse mode of existing, have truer being in their proper genus than in the knower; but if they are compared with their likeness, which is in God, then the likeness has truer being than the thing itself in the world.*

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a threefold existence of things, namely in the eternal exemplar, and in the created intellect, and in the world itself. In the eternal exemplar and in the created intellect things are according to a likeness; in the world itself, according to their proper entity. — When therefore it is asked in which they are more truly, this can be asked in two ways: either in such a way that a comparison is made of the same thing to itself according to a diverse mode of existing, that the sense be: where does a stone have truer being, whether when it is in the knower or producer, or when it is in itself; and in this mode it must be conceded that any thing is more truly in its proper genus than in God, as the reasons brought forward for this prove. In another mode the comparison can be made of a thing to its likeness, that the sense of the question be: which has truer and nobler being, whether the thing itself, or its likeness? And in this mode simply

it must be conceded that the likeness of a thing has truer and nobler being in God than the thing itself in the world, by reason of that which it is; since it is God himself. And the reasons brought forward for this are to be conceded.

Furthermore the likenesses of things in the created intellect have truer and nobler being than things in the universe, as Augustine says *On the Trinity*, not by reason of that which they are, but by reason of that in which [they are], since the likenesses are in a nobler and spiritual manner in the knowing intellect, than are the things themselves contained in the world. And thus the reasons on each side stand.

2. Yet to that argument which is made about the comparison of being to knowing; it must be said that what is generally understood [in the dictum], that a thing is more truly there where it is more truly known, does not have [the] truth. For it happens that one knows what is not: and therefore just as upon being-known being does not follow, so neither upon being-known-truly being-truly, nor upon being-known-more-truly being-more-truly. When therefore it is said that *each thing as it stands toward being, so [it stands] toward knowing*, this is understood [thus], because the same principles which are principles of being are principles of knowing; yet however the principles of being confer being through themselves, but they do not confer knowing through themselves, but through their likenesses.

3. To that which is objected, that things are represented in that exemplar as they are; it must be said that this is true; yet it is not necessary that the account of representation be wholly such as that which is represented is, as has been shown above: and therefore just as the idea of bodily things is spiritual, so [the idea] of non-living things [is] living.

4. To that which is asked lastly, why things are said to be in God *life* more than [under] other [titles]; it must be said that, although the foresaid word — by which it is said: *That which was made, in him was life* — has many expositions, nevertheless specially concerning this word the truth of the saying and the ground of the saying must be considered. The truth of the saying, as Augustine says, is that all things made by God or even possible to be made have grounds in God through which they are understood; which grounds indeed are said to live, since they are in a living substance, according to that it is living, and they are also a ground of understanding, which is an act of life.