Dist. 39
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXXIX.

#### Chapter I.

*Whether God's science can be increased or diminished or in any way changed.*

Furthermore it is wont to be asked whether God's science can be increased or diminished. For both seem capable of being proved. That divine science can be increased or changed is proved in this way: because God can know what He never knows. For there is someone who is not going to read today, and yet it can be that he reads today; for he can read today. But nothing can come to be which cannot be known by God. Therefore God can know that this man will read today; therefore He can know something which He does not know: therefore His science can be increased or changed. And the same [thing] seems capable of being diminished. For there is someone who is going to read today, whom God knows is going to read. But it can be that he does not read; therefore God can not know that this man is going to read; therefore He can not know something which He does know: therefore His science can be diminished, or changed. — To which we say that God's science is wholly immutable, and cannot be increased or diminished. For, as Augustine says in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*: « God's science is His very wisdom, and [His] wisdom is His very essence or substance; because in the wonderful simplicity of that nature it is not one thing to be wise and another to be, but what it is to be wise, this also is to be ». « And therefore the Word knows all things which the Father knows; but for Him to know is from the Father, just as to be [is from the Father]; for to know and to be are there one. And therefore for the Father, just as to be is not from the Son, so neither [is] to know. Accordingly, as it were saying Himself, the Father has begotten a Word coequal to Himself in all things. For He would not have said Himself entirely and perfectly, if there were anything less or more in His Word than in Himself. This therefore is wholly the Word, that the Father [is], yet [it] is not the Father, because this [one] is the Son, that [one] the Father. Therefore the Father and the Son know each other in turn — but the [Father] by begetting, the [Son] by being born. And all things which are in their science, in their wisdom, in their essence, each of them sees at once — not in piecemeal or one-by-one fashion, as though by an alternating gaze [moving] from here to there, and from there hither and back again, or from there to one thing and another, so that He could not see some things unless not seeing others; but He sees all at once, and there is none of them which He does not always see and know ». « His science therefore is unlosable and unchangeable. But our science is both losable and receptible, because for us to be is not [the same as] to know. For this reason, just as our science is unlike that science of God, so also our word, which is born of our science, is unlike that Word which has been born of the Father by [the divine] science ». — From this authority it is clearly shown that God's science is wholly unchangeable, just as the very essence of God is wholly unchangeable; and that the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit at once know and see all things. As therefore the divine essence cannot be increased or diminished, so neither [can] the divine science. And yet it is conceded that He can know what He does not know, and can not know what He knows; because something could be the subject of His science which is not, and something which is could not be a subject, without any change of the science itself.

#### Chapter II.

*Whether God can know or foreknow anything anew or in time.*

Here it is objected by certain [persons] thus: if God can know or foreknow what He never knew or foreknew, He can therefore know or foreknow something in time. — To which we say: God can indeed know or foreknow everything which He can do, and He can do what will never come to pass. Therefore He can know or foreknow what will never come to pass and is not nor has been. Nor does He know or has known [it], nor does He foreknow or has foreknown [it], because His science is only of those things which are or were or will be; and [His] foreknowledge is only of future things. And although He can know or fore-

know what neither is nor will be; yet He cannot know or foreknow anything in time. He can certainly know or foreknow what neither is nor will be, nor [is] that thing known or foreknown from eternity; yet He cannot begin to know or foreknow it, but He can know or foreknow [it] now in such [a] way as He could have known or foreknown [it] from eternity. For if you should say [that] He can now know or foreknow what from eternity He did not know or foreknow — that is, in such a way that from eternity He did not know or foreknow [it], as though both could be at once — [it is] false. But if you should say [that] He can now know or foreknow what from eternity He did not know or foreknow — that is, [that He has] the power of knowing or foreknowing from eternity and [also] now something — yet [that thing] is neither foreknown nor future — [it is] true. Therefore He cannot know or foreknow anything anew or in time, just as He cannot will anything anew or in time; and yet He can will what He never has willed.

#### Chapter III.

*Whether God can know more [things] than He knows.*

Likewise it is said by certain [persons] that God can know more [things] than He knows, because He can know all things which He knows, and He can do certain things which will never be, and these He can know. For He cannot do anything unknown. But if all things were [there] which now are, and He should make certain other things which neither are nor will be, and should know all those things, He would assuredly know more things than He now knows. And yet His science cannot be increased, because all this could come to pass without any mutability of [His] science. It is established therefore that God's science is wholly immutable, nor can it be increased or diminished, but [only] the things subject to it.

#### Chapter IV.

*That God knows all things both always and at once.*

But to that which has been said before — namely that God always sees all things and at once — there seems to run contrary what Jerome says in [his] exposition of Habakkuk: « It is absurd, he says, to bring down God's majesty to such [a degree] that He should know moment by moment how many gnats are born or how many die, what is the number of fleas and flies, how many fishes swim in the waters, and the like. Let us not be such foolish flatterers of God that, while we drag down His providence even to the lowest things, we should be injurious to ourselves, saying that the providence of irrational and rational [creatures] is the same ». Here Jerome seems to say that God does not have science or providence of those least things. But if this is so, then He does not know all things at once and always. — From such a sense therefore let us understand that saying [to mean]: that He denies God to know those [things] alternately or piecemeal, nor [does He know them] through diverse moments of time as [if] through varied moments of those [things] some perish and some begin. Nor does He provide for those and other irrational [creatures] in the way [He does] for rational ones. For "Is there any care to God for oxen?" as the Apostle says. And as there is no care to God for oxen, so neither for the other irrational [creatures]. Yet Scripture says that to Him is care for all [things]. He has therefore providence and care universally for all [things] which He has founded, so that each may have what is owed and fitting to it. But He has special providence and care for the rational [creatures], to whom He has handed down precepts and prescribed for them a law of right living and promised rewards. This providence and care for the irrational [creatures] He does not have. Therefore the Apostle says that there is no care to God for oxen. Yet He provides for and cares for all [things] — that is, He governs all [things] — He who makes His sun rise upon all and gives rain. God therefore knows what is the multitude of fleas, gnats and flies and fishes, and how many are born, and how many die; but He does not know this moment by moment, nay rather at once and always [knows] all things — nor does He know [them] in such [a] way as to have the same providence of irrational and rational [creatures], that is, so as to provide for the irrational and the rational in entirely the same manner. For to the rational [creatures] He has given precepts and has assigned Angels for [their] custody. So therefore at once and immutably God knows all things which were and are and will be, both good and evil; and He also foreknows all future things, both good and evil.

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