Dist. 39, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/39/q/bon-sent-I-d39-a1-q1
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### Article I.
#### *On the perfection of cognition as regards the number of knowables.*

### Question I.
#### *Whether God knows things other than himself.*

That God knows things other than himself is shown by authority and by reason.

1. *By authority* thus: the Psalm: *"He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? or he that formed the eye, shall he not consider?"* — as if to say: it is impossible that he should give to others the power of knowing, and himself not know.

2. Likewise, Ecclesiasticus 23: *"To the Lord God, before they were created, all things were known; thus also after their completion he beholds all"*: therefore if he creates not himself, but another, he knows not only himself, but also another.

3. Likewise, this is proved by ostensive reason thus: every producer of things according to order and freedom produces them by foreknowing them — for if he produces in an ordered way, it is necessary that he produce according to wisdom; again, if according to freedom, it is necessary that [it be] according to his own wisdom, not another's — therefore in him is the cognition of all things.

4. Likewise, in beings there is a stopping-point; therefore by parity of reasoning also in knowables; but the first being, in which there is a stopping-point, is the principle from which is all entity, and without which nothing is, nor is anything except from him: therefore by the same reasoning in the first knower, if there is a stopping-point, it is necessary that from him be all cognition, and that through him all things be known, and without him nothing. If therefore "*on account of which a thing is such, that itself [is so] more*": it is plain etc.

5. Likewise, this same is shown through impossibility, for if he does not know another than himself, [it is] either because he cannot, or because he does not will [to]. Not because he does not will, since in God will does not precede cognition: therefore because he cannot. But every knower who cannot know something which is knowable has a deficient and constricted cognition; which it is impossible to be in God: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, God can [do] nothing except what he knows, otherwise something ignorant could [do something], which is absurd: therefore if he does not know anything other than himself, neither in himself can he [do it]. Since he is not above himself, therefore he can [do] nothing in the whole world: therefore God is most powerless, which is most absurd to say.

**On the contrary:**

1. It is objected according to the reasoning of the Philosopher in *Metaphysics* XII: "*The intelligible is the perfection of the intellect*": therefore if God understands another than himself, his intellect is perfected by another; and if so, then a threefold inconvenience follows: first, that his cognition becomes worthless, since it is perfected by a thing less noble than God is: second, that his cognition or God himself is changed — for everything which is perfected by another has a passive potency, which is the principle of being changed; and the third inconvenience is that God is not his own action, since action is from perfection and God is perfected by another, etc.

2. Likewise, if God knows another than himself, since everything which is in God is the same as God, it is necessary that what he knows be outside God: therefore if he knows another, he knows something outside himself. And from this likewise arises a threefold inconvenience, namely that his cognition is in need of an exterior [object], is also changeable, and that it is other than himself; all of which are inconveniences.

3. Likewise, the same is shown through the *ratio* of knowing, since the *ratio* of knowing is truth itself; but truth is the same as the entity of the thing, as Augustine says: therefore nothing is known by God except being. But God knows nothing except from eternity: therefore nothing is known by him except being which is from eternity; but such is one alone, namely God himself: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, the *ratio* of knowing is assimilation — for where there is cognition, it is necessary that there be assimilation of the knower to the knowable — therefore where [there is] supreme cognition, there [is] supreme assimilation; but God's cognition is supreme and most perfect: therefore it must be attended-to according to supreme assimilation. But nothing is supremely assimilated to God except himself: therefore he knows only himself.

5. Likewise, it seems that there is no necessity to posit that God knows things other than himself, since, just as power is related to production, so understanding [is related] to cognition: but God's power, even if it produces nothing, is no less powerful: therefore if God's understanding knows nothing other than himself, none-the-less he is supremely understanding.

6. Likewise, the goodness of the creature compared to the goodness of the Creator is as a point to a line; therefore similarly truth [is to] truth; but if a point is conceived as removed from a line, the line is not lesser nor more imperfect: therefore if God knows his own truth without the truth of the creature, none-the-less his cognition is perfect.

### Conclusion.

> *God knows another than himself, but not through another, but through himself.*

**I respond:** It must be said that it is pious and necessary to say that God knows another than himself: pious indeed, because every right mind says this — that what our mind knows is not hidden from God; necessary, since the work cannot be hidden from the wisest workman. And therefore to say the opposite is impious and impossible.

And therefore for the understanding of the objections it must be noted that to know another is twofold: either through another distinct from the knower, or through oneself. When the knower knows another and through another, then it is true that he has perfection from elsewhere, and then his intellect is in potency and receives perfection from elsewhere, and therefore [is open to] addition and change; and this is altogether impossible regarding God. There is, again, [another way:] to know another through oneself; and then the knower is act with respect to the knowable, and then he does not receive perfection from the knowable, but rather conversely. And in this way we hold that God knows another than himself through himself.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* And so the first reasoning does not proceed [as objection], but [proceeds] according to the first way [described above], and so the Philosopher understood [it], if he spoke truly.

*To 2.* To that which is objected secondly, that if God knows another than himself, therefore something outside himself; it must be said that to know something outside oneself is in three ways: either through something conceived from outside, and so cognition depends on the extrinsic, and so it is not possible to posit [this] in God; or to know something outside, since the gaze of the knower is bent outward, as the Angel knows; or because that which is other and diverse has its origin from within, and so what is outside is known through that which is wholly intrinsic — and in this way God knows, namely through the exemplar, which is the same as himself, from which things are known. And in this way the objection is of no force.

*To 3.* To that which is objected thirdly, that from eternity there was one being only; it must be said that the being of a thing is twofold, namely in itself and in its cause, that is, in its proper genus, and in [its] exemplar. And for the cognition of a thing, its existence in [its] cause or in [its] exemplar suffices; and since it is represented through the exemplar as it will be in its proper genus, therefore through its existence in the exemplar it is wholly known as it is to-be, nor is it known otherwise after it has been made. As to what is therefore objected, that from eternity there was one being only; it must be said that this is true in the proper genus or in actual being; many things, however, were in [their] cause, and that being was the *ratio* of knowing according to either mode of being.

*To 4.* To that which is objected fourthly concerning assimilation, it must be said, as was said above in the question on ideas, that for cognition assimilation is required, not through agreement in genus or species, but according to the *ratio* of expressing. And since the divine truth, by one and supreme expression, expresses itself and others, therefore [there is] supreme assimilation, not only with respect to itself, but also with respect to other things. And so that [argument] is plain.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that power is called perfect even if it does nothing, therefore etc; it must be said that the case of the act of making with respect to power is not similar to that of knowing with respect to understanding. For making is an act *as act* and *as going-out*, which does not make perfection, but follows and attests [it]: but to know is an act *as habit*, which is signified as perfection of [its] power. Since therefore divine understanding is most perfect, therefore it knows not only some things, but all that can be known — though it does not make all that can be made.

*To 6.* To that which is objected last, that the truth of the creature contributes nothing to the first truth etc; it must be said that this is true, and therefore the first truth was equally noble and perfect before the creation of other truths, as after. Yet to posit that any truth is, and is not from the eternal Truth, is to posit that the first truth is not the supreme; thus to posit that any truth is, and is not known, takes away the *ratio* of perfect truth as it is the *ratio* of knowing. And therefore it is plain that the cognition of the creature pertains to the perfection of supreme truth, as does the power of producing.