Dist. 39, Art. 1, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Question III.
#### *Whether God can know more things than he knows.*

> The numbered footnotes below correspond to markers in both the Latin body above and the English translation. Each entry gives first the Latin source text (**La.**), then the English rendering (**En.**).

Thirdly it is asked, whether God can know or foreknow more things than he knows. And that he can know more, is shown thus.

1. Nothing is known except being and the true; but many things can be which are not, and many things which are false can be made true: therefore many things can be known by God which nevertheless are not known.

2. Likewise, that he can foreknow more things, seems clear, because foreknowledge is only of future things; but many things can be future which will never come about nor be: therefore many things can be foreknown which are not foreknown: therefore God can foreknow more than he knows.

**On the contrary:**

1. That he cannot know more, seems so, because the knowledge of God is of infinite things, since it is itself infinite, as has been proved above; but more cannot exist than the infinite, nor be thought: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, if he can foreknow more, then either more incomplex things, that is, more things, or more complex things, that is, propositions. Not more incomplex things, because God knows things even though they never exist; for he knows all things that can come about. Similarly not more complex things, because of any contradiction one part is always true, the other false: therefore among complex things there are always as many true as there are false: therefore he who knows all things cannot know more, because more cannot be true.

3. Likewise, that he cannot foreknow more than he foreknows, seems so, because whatever God foreknows he foreknows simultaneously, nor can he foreknow except simultaneously: if therefore he can foreknow more than he foreknows, it must be either simultaneously, or successively. Simultaneously is impossible; therefore so is successively, equally impossible, because in eternity there is no succession: therefore in no way.

4. Likewise, if he can foreknow more, then since the foreknowledge of more is greater, at least extensively, and what can be greater can be increased, therefore divine foreknowledge can be increased; but where there is increase, there is change and variation: therefore divine knowledge can change and vary.

### Conclusion.

> *The knowledge of approbation and of vision can be of more, but not the knowledge of simple intelligence.*

**I respond:** It must be said that when it is asked whether God can foreknow or know more, it must be judged differently of foreknowledge than of knowledge. For, as it has been customary to say, threefold is God's cognition — not as to diversity of cognitions, but of things connoted, namely the cognition of approbation, of vision, and of intelligence. The cognition of approbation is only of those things to which the good pleasure of his will extends, and this is only of the things which come about and are good; and this without doubt can be of more. The cognition called of intelligence is that by which God knows every possible, both for himself and for others, and by this God knows infinite things; and this in no way can be of more. The cognition of vision is of those of which there has been from eternity foreknowing, and this is only of those things which are or have been or will be; and this cognition can be of more than there is. And because the cognition is the same as that of which foreknowledge is, foreknowledge can be of more. — It must therefore be granted that a certain knowledge can be of more, and a certain knowledge cannot. And by this is clear the response to the objections concerning knowledge.

**To the arguments on the opposite side:**

*To 1 and 2.* As to what he objects, that the knowledge of God is of infinite things, and that it connotes nothing about an incomplex; it must be said that this is true of the knowledge of intelligence, but not true of the knowledge of vision. — As to what is objected concerning foreknowledge, it must be granted that it can be of more.

*To 3.* As to what is objected on the opposite side, that if he can know more, either simultaneously or not simultaneously; it must be said that simultaneity can be considered in two ways: either as to the substance of foreknown things, that is, the cognition: thus it is true that simultaneously, because from eternity he foreknew certain things and from eternity could have foreknown more and can have foreknown. But if simultaneity is considered as to the formal character of fewness and plurality; thus it is an entanglement of opposites, and the sense is that simultaneously he foreknows more and fewer. And in the first sense the objection has truth.

*To 4.* As to what is objected, that if he can foreknow more, then foreknowledge can be increased; it must be said that, granted that the foreknown things could be increased, foreknowledge nevertheless would not be increased, because by one and the same God foreknows both many and one, both more and fewer. Yet although the foreknown can be more, they nevertheless cannot be increased, because to be increased is, from being fewer, to become more; but this — *to be able to be more* — has two grounds of truth: either because from being fewer they can become more, or because from the beginning they could have been more; and in the latter sense the proposition is true. And therefore, since it proceeds from many grounds of truth to one, it commits the fallacy of the consequent.