Dist. 36, Art. 3, 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-a3-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether imperfect things are in God.*

Secondly it is asked whether imperfect things, as such, are in God. And it appears that they are not:

1. Because evils as evils cannot have a likeness with the highest good: therefore by parity of reasoning, since imperfect things do not have a likeness with the most perfect, they will not be in God.

2. Likewise, those alone are in God which can be from God and through God; but imperfect things from God

are not, since it is said in Deuteronomy 32: *The works of God are perfect*.

3. Likewise, it is specially objected concerning matter and passion, diversity and composition. For since the exemplar, under the account of exemplar, is form, is pure act, and so altogether simple, it appears that the accounts of matter and of passion and of diversity and of composition are repugnant to the exemplar; and if so, since nothing is said to be in God except by reason of the exemplar, it is clear etc.

4. Likewise, just as truth and goodness is a general condition of beings, so also is unity; but the opposite of truth has no idea in God, and likewise [the opposite] of goodness: therefore by parity of reasoning [neither has] the opposite of unity. But the opposite of unity is multitude: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine to Nebridius: "He who founded the whole could not but have also the accounts of the parts": therefore since the parts under the account of parts are imperfect, it is clear that he has the accounts of imperfect things.

2. Likewise, every divine knowing is *a priori*: since therefore in every creature the account of the imperfect falls before that of the perfect — as of matter before form, of principles before what is principled, of parts before the whole — therefore God knows these prior. Therefore if perfect things have an idea in God, it is necessary that imperfect things have one as well.

3. Likewise, the divine exemplar expresses the thing according to the whole, otherwise it would not perfectly know it; therefore whatever is of the thing has an exemplar; but matter is of the thing's constitution, and the imperfect [is] of the constitution of the perfect: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, every effect is assimilated to its cause by some assimilation; but the least assimilation suffices for the account of an exemplar: therefore everything which is from God has an idea in God, through which, before it comes to be, it is in God. But matter is from God, and passion and composition and diversity, since all of them state being: therefore all are in God.

### Conclusion.

> *Imperfect things are in God, not by reason of the imperfection (which states a privation), but by reason of that which underlies the imperfection.*

**I respond:** To this some have said that imperfect things are not in God, nor are they known by God through any proper idea, but through the idea of their opposites — as matter through the idea of form, passion through the idea of act, multitude through the idea of unity. — But this cannot stand. For since all things state some entity and so [some] truth, of necessity they have some assimilation to the first truth, and so [have] the account of exemplarity; and therefore they are necessarily in God.

For this reason it must be understood that when it is asked whether imperfect things have an idea in God, this can be understood in two ways: either by reason of that which underlies, or by reason of the imperfection. If by reason of the imperfection, since imperfection is a privation, and a privation states neither being nor anything from God nor anything assimilable, in this way it has no idea. But if by reason of that which underlies — as matter is called something imperfect, and matter states some essence — in this way it has an idea, yet not an imperfect one, but a perfect one; since, just as the idea of non-living things is a living [idea], and that of bodily things [is] a spiritual [idea], so [the idea] of temporal things [is] eternal, and [the idea] of imperfect things [is] perfect.

Yet there is no good idea of evils. Whence it must be noted that *idea*, as was said above in the question on ideas, states an assimilation outside [any] genus. The first assimilation, however, is in the account of entity in God. Therefore everything which of itself states the account of entity — whether it be composite, or imperfect, or material, or passible, or in act, or in potency — can be assimilated to God and produced; and therefore it has being in God. But what states a privation, by that very fact loses the account of a true effect and the account of assimilation; and therefore falsity and malice have no idea, nor are they in God nor from God. — From these things it is clear that imperfect things are in God; the things asked are also clear.

**To the arguments of the negative side:**

*To 1.* As to what is objected concerning evil, the reply is clear, since evil states simply a privation in that which it is evil — not so the imperfect.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that imperfect things are not from God; it must be said that imperfect things, according to that which they are, are from God, although the imperfection does not remain in them, since God perfects [them].

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that they have no assimilation; it must be said that although they do not have it in their special conditions, they nevertheless have it in their general [conditions]; and this suffices. For all things have the account of the good and the beautiful and of being.

*To 4.* To that which is objected concerning the opposite of unity, it must be said that it is not similar. For unity is preserved in multitude — not so goodness in malice, nor truth in falsity, since those are privations; but the privation of unity is not multitude in this way; and so the whole is clear.