Dist. 38, Dubia
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/38/q/bon-sent-I-d38-dubia
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### DOUBTS CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

#### DOUBT I.

In this part there are doubts concerning the text, and first concerning what Augustine says: *Not otherwise [did He know things] as already created than as about to be created.* For he seems to speak ill, because a thing, if it is truly known, is known as it is; but [things] were otherwise when they were about to be created than when they were created — for first the things were in [their] cause and *secundum quid*, [and] afterwards in [their] proper genus and simply — therefore either God does not truly know, or He has known otherwise.

Likewise, an Angel knows things in the Word, and also knows them in [their] proper genus, and there is one mode of knowing here, [and] another there: therefore since what an Angel knows cannot lie hidden from God, it seems that God [too] knows in both modes, and so [knows things] otherwise and otherwise.

**I respond:** It must be said that when I say *to be otherwise known*, it can be understood in two ways: either so that the adverb states an otherness with respect to the *cognition*, or [an otherness] with respect to the *being of the thing known*. If [it is taken] with respect to the *being of the thing known*, thus it is true, and the sense is: God knows that this thing is otherwise, or holds itself otherwise, than it has held itself before; and thus Augustine does not [intend it]. But if it states an otherness with respect to the *cognition*, thus it is false; and the sense is: God knows a thing once made otherwise than as He had previously known it as needing to be made; and this is false, because thus the divine cognition is signified as altered, and as having received something from a thing outside. And by this the first objection is plain.

What is objected, that God knows things in their proper genus, as the Angel does; it must be said that *to know things in their proper genus* is understood in two ways: either so that this says that what is in the proper genus, is known [in that genus], and this is of perfection, and does not lie hidden from God, and thus [it] does not state a new mode of knowing [different] from the cognition in the Word; or so that the gaze of the intelligence or cognitive power is bent over

a thing as it is in its proper genus, and this is of imperfection, namely because then the knower goes outside himself; and this can in no way be put in God, and so it makes another mode of knowing in the Angel. And so that is plain.

#### DOUBT II.

Likewise it is asked concerning what he says: *Then of that which is eternal, some cause would have to exist* etc. For he wishes to say that *praescientia* (foreknowledge) says something eternal; but this seems false, because foreknowledge says a respect to a future creature; but nothing is future according to the being which it has in God, but [only] in its proper genus: therefore it connotes something temporal, therefore it seems that it is known *from time*. — Furthermore, that respect says nothing on the side of God except only our mode of understanding: therefore that respect began when our intellect began, therefore it was not from eternity.

**I respond:** As the Master says, *praescientia* says something eternal and from eternity. For since it imports nothing but two things, namely antecession and knowledge, and the antecession of every creature is before every creature, and knowledge naturally [is so], it is plain that praescientia says something eternal. — As to what is objected, that it imports the *futurition* of a thing; it must be said that *futurition* in one way imports a *succession* of time, and so it is not of the account of foreknowledge; for in this way the future began with time. In another way the future imports an *order* of the temporal to the eternal according to *consecution*, just as foreknowledge [imports] *antecession*; and since this order requires only the first extreme in act, and that was from eternity, therefore both *futurition* and *praescientia* [are from eternity].

As to what is objected, that that respect on the side of God says nothing according to the thing; it must be said that this is false, because that respect is the divine essence; but it is true that it says nothing relative or dependent except only according to the mode of understanding; and therefore it did not begin according to the thing, but only the mode of signifying began. And when the Master says that *praescientia* says something eternal, he is not speaking of the account of naming, but of that which is signified through the name.

#### DOUBT III.

Likewise it is asked concerning what he says: *That science or foreknowledge is not a cause* etc., if we refer *science* to bare cognition. But if under the name of *science* there is included [divine] good-pleasure and disposition, it can rightly be said. For he seems to speak ill, because either *science*, said in this way and in that, says the same mode of knowing, or another; if the same, then if [it is a cause] in one way, [it is so] in the other; if another mode, then in God there is a manifold mode of knowing, therefore not uniform through all things. — Likewise, the science of *simplex notitia* (simple cognition) is God; and God is the cause of all things: therefore that science is the cause of all things.

**I respond:** It must be said that in us simple cognition and the cognition of [divine] good-pleasure say diverse cognitions and diverse modes of knowing, and consequently they connote diverse things: but in God there is one cognition only, but that one God makes [to do] what we [do] with many; and therefore that one [cognition] can be signified in two ways. And when it is signified by way of approbation, it connotes the effect and the goodness; but when by way of *simplex notitia*, only the event. And since to be the cause of something connotes an effect or respect — although on the side of the principal signified the science or wisdom is the same — therefore it is said that this one is the cause of those things which it foreknows, and that [other] is not. And this is said, not because the thing signified is not the cause, but because, as so signified, it is not signified by way of cause, since it is compared to those things which are in no way from God. And so that is plain.

#### DOUBT IV.

Likewise it is asked concerning this saying of Augustine: *God through the Prophet foretold the unbelief of the Jews;* because, since the saying of the Prophet was certainly true, it seems that God revealed to the Jews their fall or damnation; which is against [Augustine] himself in *On Genesis to the Letter*, who says that [it] ought to be revealed to no one, lest he be driven to despair.

**I respond:** It must be said that a fall can be fore-

told; but not on this account is it revealed, either because the speaker is not believed, or because the saying is understood of a [conditional] condition, or [because] the one understanding understands [it] of another, not of himself. And since the word of Isaiah the Prophet was uttered minatorily and generally, and to men in part already unbelieving and not heeding, it could be understood in all these ways, so as to be a prediction, not a revelation.

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