Dist. 37, Part 1, 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/37/q/bon-sent-I-d37-p1-a2-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether being everywhere belongs to God from eternity.*

Secondly it is asked whether being everywhere belongs to God always or eternally. And that it does, it seems:

1. Because, just as "always" stands to time, so "everywhere" stands to place; but before all time God always was: therefore before all place God was everywhere.

2. Likewise, what is proper to God belongs to him more essentially than a proper attribute (*propria passio*) belongs to any subject; but on account of the necessary suitability of the attribute to the subject, the distribution of supposits includes the distribution of times — whence *"to be said of every is what is not in some thus, in some not so, nor at one time so and at another not so,"* but in any whatsoever and always — therefore likewise the term *everywhere* includes everlastingness: therefore *being everywhere* belongs to God always, therefore from eternity.

3. Likewise, *things are in God*, and *God is in things*, but things are in God from eternity: therefore from the relatives, since these are said by way of conversion, God is in things from eternity, but only in all things: therefore etc.

If you say that they are not predicated correlatively: on the contrary: when one says *God is in things*, no relation or dependence of God on things is signified, but rather of things on God: therefore to say "God is in things" is nothing other than to say "things are in God."

4. Likewise, if God was not everywhere from eternity, and now is, therefore he was elsewhere than everywhere; and now he is everywhere: therefore he changed place, therefore change falls in God. But this is false: therefore so too is the first. If you say that the change is in the connoted term; *on the contrary*: when one says *God is in a place*, no effect is noted but only the presence of God: therefore it seems that according to this no change is signified in the connoted term, but only in God himself: it remains then by impossible inference that God is everywhere eternally.

**On the contrary:**

1. *Everywhere* presupposes *where*, and *where* presupposes place; and place is not to be posited except from time: therefore neither is God's being everywhere to be posited except from time.

2. Likewise, the inference is sound: *God is everywhere*, therefore he is in heaven; therefore with the consequent destroyed, the antecedent too is destroyed; but from eternity he was not in heaven: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the inference is sound: *God is everywhere*, therefore in this house; but this house was not except from time and after the beginning of time: therefore neither was *being everywhere*.

### Conclusion.

> *Being everywhere belongs to God from the beginning of things and places that are connoted, not eternally, unless by being everywhere is understood the presentiality of the divine immensity.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *being everywhere* can be taken of God in two ways, just as *being always*. For in one way *always* imports the divine immensity according to duration, and so it is the same as eternity, and belongs to God eternally; in another way it connotes simultaneity with time, and so belongs to him from the beginning of time. Likewise *being everywhere* in one way imports the presentiality of the divine immensity, by

which he is present to everything that is, whether to himself or to another; and so it is the same to say *God is everywhere* as *God is immense*. And in this way it belongs to God eternally, and according to this the first reason proceeds.

In another way, insofar as it connotes a created place or thing; and then it belongs to him from the beginning of things and places on account of the connoted term, and belongs always; and even so it is proper, because it belongs to him alone, and always in one way, although not eternally; just as also in demonstratives. And in this way the second reason proceeds. And this way of taking *God is everywhere* is the more usual, and according to this way it does not belong to him eternally.

3. As to what is objected against this — that it would belong eternally through its converse — it must be said that it is not its converse. For when it is said that *things are in God*, this is understood by reason of exemplarity, and nothing is connoted in act; but when it is said that *God is in things*, something created is connoted. For nothing is in him which is not: therefore if God is in things and places, things and places are; non-being, however, is in itself well in the exemplar as in a principle. Hence this proposition: *God is in things*, is not the converse of this: *things are in God*, but rather this: *God is the exemplar of things* — and both are true eternally. And the converse of *God is in things* is: *things are contained by God and conserved by him*.

4. To that which is objected — that if God was not everywhere, and now is, therefore he is changed — it must be said that this does not follow, because this is not on account of any change of God.

To what is objected, that *everywhere* does not connote an effect, but only presence; it must be said that presence imports a relation to two terms, namely to him who is present, and to that to which he is present; and therefore there can be a beginning by reason of the thing to which he is present, not of any new effect.

What is objected on the opposite side proceeds insofar as *everywhere* connotes a created place.

What is finally objected does not hold; rather, there is here a fallacy of accident, just as in this: *this triangle begins to have three [angles]: therefore not every triangle has always had three* — because the distribution is not made for the parts as now, but absolutely.