Dist. 40, Art. 1, 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/40/q/bon-sent-I-d40-a1-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether predestination is God's knowledge or [his] will.*

Secondly it is asked what predestination is, namely whether it is God's knowledge or [his] will. And given that it states something which is in both genera — for it is, as Augustine says, *the foreknowledge of benefits*, and *the proposal of having mercy* — it is asked which of these it imports more principally and by way of completion. And that it imports knowledge seems [to be the case]:

1. Because a compound takes its signified from its components; but *destinatio* (sending-fixing), since it is said both as *missio* (sending) and *ordinatio* (ordering), is taken in the *ratio* of predestination as *ordinatio* — for, as Augustine says, to predestinate is the same as to pre-ordain — but a craftsman, although he pre-ordains willingly and knowingly, nevertheless does not ordain inasmuch as he wills, but inasmuch as he knows: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, knowledge is not divided according to the *ratio* of taking [it] into virtues or into things which belong to the will, but into things which belong to cognition: but we divide divine knowledge into predestination and reprobation: therefore predestination, as such, pertains to knowledge.

**On the contrary:**

1. Predestination is the cause of grace and glory; but grace and glory are immediately from the will: therefore predestination of itself states something in the genus of will. If you say that from the force of the name it does not import that causality; on the contrary: suppose that God foreknew that someone would have grace and glory from elsewhere than from himself, he would not be said to predestinate: therefore of itself it states causality.

2. Likewise, predestination imports knowledge and will; but as often as these two are imported in something, the will is related by way of consequent and as adding to knowledge; but what is consequent and adds, is related by way of difference and completion, and from such is the thing to be denominated: it seems therefore that it imports the will more completely, and so the Master places [it] badly.

### Conclusion.

> *Predestination, which is the cause of grace and glory, imports both knowledge and power and will, but is more principally in the genus of will.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, since predestination signifies the divine essence as cause of grace and glory, and this according to the ordained distribution of grace and glory, of itself it imports not only knowledge, but also will and power. But since the causality of grace and glory is properly attributed to the will as efficient [cause], to knowledge as disposing, and to power as executing; therefore, although predestination imports those three, yet it is more principally in the genus of will. And therefore predestination is defined by Augustine through those three: first, through that which regards power, in the book *On Faith to Peter*: «*Predestination is the preparation of a gratuitous gift*»; secondly, through that which regards *knowledge*, in the book *On the Gift of Perseverance*: «*Predestination is the foreknowledge of God's benefits*»; thirdly, through that which regards the will and most properly, in the book *On the Predestination of the Saints*: «*Predestination*», he says there, «*is the proposal of having mercy*».

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected — that it states an order; it must be said that order is twofold: one, the disposition of things in the universe, and this is appropriated to knowledge; the other, the directing toward an end, and this is appropriated to goodness or the will, and in this way it belongs to the *ratio* of predestination.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that it is a part of foreknowledge; it must be said that just as faith and prudence are in the genus of cognition, yet add something above cognition which draws [them] into the genus of virtue, which regards the will; in this way [the matter] is also to be understood in the matter at hand. And since *knowledge* is not only taken for simple notice, but also, as frequently [happens], for practical [knowledge], and in this way it embraces knowledge together with will, and the Master takes [it] thus generally; therefore he enumerates predestination among the things that belong to knowledge. — Some, however, have wished to say that it is more principally in the genus of knowledge, on this account that in the *ratio* of predestination knowledge falls in the direct case (*in recto*), but the will in the oblique (*in obliquo*); for predestination is the *knowledge of [God's] good-pleasure*. Either mode of speaking is sufficiently probable, but the first more so.