Dist. 39, 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/39/q/bon-sent-I-d39-a2-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether God knows changeable things unchangeably.*

Secondly it is asked whether God knows changeable things unchangeably. And that this is so, is shown:

1. *First* by the authority of Dionysius *On the Divine Names*: "God knows all things — material things immaterially, partite things impartitely, many things uniformly, changeable things unchangeably."

2. Likewise, Augustine in book XV *On the Trinity*: "His knowledge is unlosable and invariable"; but everything of this sort is unchangeable: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, this same point is shown by *reason*, since what is more noble must be attributed to God; but more noble is the cognition by which a thing is known unchangeably than that by which it is known changeably: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, what is in something is in it according to the mode of that in which it is, and this is true most of all in God, in whom everything that is, is himself or God: therefore, since the knowledge of things and the things known themselves are in God, and he is altogether unchangeable: therefore [they are] in God unchangeably.

5. Likewise, to this purpose is the argument of Augustine, *leading to an impossible conclusion*: "For God's knowing is his being, and his knowledge is his essence": if therefore he were to know changeably, he would be changeable, which is altogether impossible in him.

6. Likewise, where there is changeability, there is no certitude; if therefore God were to know things changeably, he would know with uncertainty; but uncertainty is a condition disgracing cognition: therefore the cognition of God would not have perfect nobility.

**On the contrary:** 1. When the thing is present, God knows that it is present; and when past, he knows that it is past; and when it is future, he knows that it is future, not past: therefore it seems that, just as we know things changeably, so also does God know [them].

2. Likewise, in order that knowledge be true, it is necessary that the knowable and the knowledge be proportioned, otherwise it is not true knowledge: since therefore there is no proportion between the changeable and the unchangeable, but between changeable and changeable, therefore God does not know changeable things unchangeably, but changeably; otherwise he would not know truly, as it seems.

3. Likewise, "whatever is known, is true", therefore what is known unchangeably is unchangeably true; but changeable things do not have unchangeable truth: therefore they cannot be known unchangeably.

4. Likewise, since things are contingent, therefore for God to foreknow contingent futures is contingent, as has been shown in the preceding [questions]; therefore since things are changeable, for God to know changeable things is changeable: therefore God knows changeable things changeably. Or if this is not true, I ask why not? And *again*, how can this be understood, that of a changeable thing there is unchangeable knowledge?

### Conclusion.

> *God knows changeable things unchangeably according to the act of knowing, although things, according to the act of being, are changeable.*

**I respond:** It must be said that when it is asked whether God knows things unchangeably, this is twofold: because this disposition *unchangeably* can determine either the *act of God's knowing* or the *act of the things' being*. If [it determines] the *act of God's knowing*, then it is altogether true that he knows unchangeably, since concerning his act and cognition there falls no *transmutation nor shadow of vicissitude*. But if it determines the *act of the things' being*, then it is false in the case of changeable things, since God knows them as changeable and knows their changeability, and knows that he is now otherwise than before; yet nevertheless *he knows unchangeably*.

And the reason for this is that in his cognition there is no *reception*, no *succession*, nor any *forgetting*; and therefore, however much things are changeable, he himself is not changed in cognizing their changeability. And although there is no [perfect] likeness, it can yet be *thought*, if there be understood or imagined an eye fixed in a wall, which by itself would see those passing without reception and at one glance would see all things and all their motions: however much the things are changed, yet neither does the eye change nor its cognition; and so it is in God. An *example* for understanding this can be drawn from the contrary thus. For because *caused knowledge* depends on the knowable, and not vice versa, therefore there can be change concerning *knowledge* through forgetting and error and successive consideration, with no change made in the *knowable*. So in the contrary mode, because *divine knowledge* does not depend on the thing known, there can be change concerning the *knowable*, with no change existing in the divine *knowledge*; and yet that knowledge knows the whole.

**To the arguments for the affirmative side:**

*To 1.* And by this is plain the reply to what was first objected, concerning the fact that he knows it to have been and to be. For it must be said that this expresses change on the side of the *knowable*, not of the *knowledge*.

*To 2.* To that which is objected concerning proportion, it must be said that in special conditions it is not necessary that the caused knowledge also be proportioned, since of a corporeal thing there is spiritual knowledge; but it suffices that there be proportion in truth.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that whatever is known is true; therefore what is known unchangeably is unchangeably true; it must be said that this is *accidental*. For although knowledge has respect to the truth in the known by reason of its general intention, especially knowledge concerning the enunciable; yet knowledge does not always express conformity in unchangeability — most especially divine knowledge, which does not depend on the knowable.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that God does not foreknow the contingent future of necessity; it must be said that the case is not similar, both on the side of the *act of foreknowing* and on the side of the *disposition*. On the side of the *act* it is not similar, because *to foreknow* always notes the event of the thing; but *to know* does not always connote the existence of the thing; for God knows the things which he can do and which he will never do. *Moreover*, it is not similar concerning the *disposition*, because the *mode* of unchangeability respects the *act*, but the *contingent* respects not only the *act* but also the *ordering* toward the future; and the *act* indeed of divine cognition is unchangeable and necessary, but [its] comparison to a contingent future is contingent.