Dist. 39, Art. 2, 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-a2-q3
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### Article II.
#### *On the divine cognition from the side of the things known.*

### Question III.
#### *Whether God knows all things presentially.*

It is asked thirdly, whether God knows all things presentially. And that He does, is shown.

1. From *Second Peter*, last chapter, on that text, *A thousand years etc.*, the Gloss: «In the recognition of divine truth, things past and present and future are equally present».

2. Likewise, Augustine *on John*: «In the truth which abides, I find no past or future, but only the present, and that incorrupt».

3. Likewise, the more present a thing is, the nobler the cognition, since this contributes to the nobility of cognition; but God knows all things in the noblest way: therefore, whatever He knows, He knows most presentially.

4. Likewise, if He does not know all things presentially, then He does not know them simultaneously; but if simultaneously, then in the same *now* He knows all things, and so presentially. If however He does not know them simultaneously, then one after another; but in every such cognition there is change: therefore in God's cognition there would fall change, which is altogether false and impossible.

**On the contrary:**

1. Foreknowledge is only of the future as future: therefore if God knows all things presentially, He foreknows nothing at all; but He does foreknow, therefore etc. If you say that "to foreknow" is said improperly; against this: in foreknowledge there are only two things, namely knowledge and antecedence with respect to the thing known; but it is established that in God there is properly knowledge, and likewise established that in Him there is properly antecedence, since God properly precedes all other things: therefore if He properly knows things other than Himself, then God foreknows other things: therefore that response is null.

2. Likewise, every present thing, according to the state of its presentiality, is necessary: therefore if God knows all things presentially and always presentially, He knows all things necessarily. As, then, what is present cannot not be, so, if God foreknows something, it is necessary that He has foreknown it, and if He has foreknown it, it will be: therefore it is necessary that it be.

3. Likewise, this is shown by impossibility, for if He knew all things presentially, then several at once; therefore He turns Himself simultaneously to many; but a simple [agent], to whatever it turns itself, turns itself wholly: therefore when He understands one thing, He cannot [turn] to another.

4. Likewise, if He knows all things presentially, then He knows simultaneously two contradictory opposites; but whatever is known is true: therefore two contradictory opposites are simultaneously true.

### Conclusion.

> *God knows all things presentially; nevertheless presentiality is not to be taken on the side of the things known, but of the knower.*

**I respond:** It must be said that "to know all things presentially" can be understood in two ways: either so that presentiality be noted on the side of the things known, and so it is false, since He does not know that all things are true presentially and simultaneously; or in such a way that presentiality be noted on the side of the knower, and thus it has truth.

And again, He turns Himself simultaneously over all those, and so simultaneously and presentially knows. And again, the present of His cognition is the most simple present, which embraces all times.

From these three reasons, joined together, God is said to know all things presentially. — And these reasons all derive from this, that the presentiality of the divine cognition, which indeed is eternity, is *simple* and *infinite*. Because it is simple, therefore it is always present; because it is infinite, therefore all things are present to it. And the example of this is set forth in God's presentiality with respect to the existence of things, according to which God is wholly in one thing, and is in one in such a way that nonetheless He is also in another; and this is because He is simple and infinite. — Therefore God judges that something is to be future, but not future to Him; and He knows all things presentially, and yet none the less He *foreknows*.

**Replies to the arguments on the negative side:**

*To 1, 2.* And by this the first and second are clear, since they proceed insofar as presentiality is the disposition of the thing known in its own nature, not in the divine cognition.

*To 3.* The third also is clear, since this is simple and infinite, and in one thing He knows many; therefore He turns Himself simultaneously upon many.

*To 4.* What is objected concerning opposites is likewise clear, since although He knows opposites simultaneously on His side, nevertheless He knows that one is incompossible with the other, yet that one can succeed to the other.