Dist. 41, 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/41/q/bon-sent-I-d41-a2-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether the enuntiabilia which God once knows, he always knows.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the *enuntiabilia* or *complexa* which God once knows, he always knows or has knowledge of. And that [he does] so, it seems:

1. Because God does not know an *enuntiabile* except by reason of [its] truth; but the truth of an *enuntiabile* which once was, always was and is and will be: therefore the *enuntiabile* which he once knows, he always knows. The proof of the minor: every truth of a complex thing is founded upon a non-complex thing; but the same thing is first future,

then present, then past, [and is] one and the same: therefore one and the same truth is in it according to all these modes. But it is necessary that it always be under some [one] of these modes: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, this same point seems [evident] from another reason: because whatever God knows, he knows immutably — otherwise, since the knowing of God is his being, if his knowing were changed, [his] being [would be changed], which is impossible — but everything which has immutability has eternity, because, if it ceases, it is changed: therefore what God once knows, he always knows.

3. Likewise, what is written in that book cannot be deleted; but God knows not by looking outside, but by reading in the book of his foreknowledge: therefore what he once knows, he always knows. The major is plain, because upon that [verse] of *Exodus* 32: *"Blot me out of thy book"* etc., the Gloss [says]: «*He says this securely, because it will not be blotted out*». And the same [Gloss] says [the like] upon the Psalm.

4. Likewise, what ceases or is lost upon something [else] ceasing, depends of necessity upon that [other thing]; but divine cognition does not depend upon the truth to-be-created: therefore although an *enuntiabile* should cease to be true, yet God does not cease to know it; and if this: therefore what he once knows, he also [knows] always.

**On the contrary:**

1. Just as *praescire* (foreknowing) stands with respect to a future thing, insofar as it is future, so *scire* (knowing) [stands] with respect to a true thing — for if it is known in act, it is true in act — but, as the Master says, God ceases to foreknow a thing when the thing of-the-future becomes present: therefore likewise he ceases to know [it], when from a true [thing] it becomes false.

2. Likewise, just as divine acceptation regards goodness, so vision [regards] truth; but God ceases to accept a man, when he loses [his] goodness: therefore he ceases to know the thing or *enuntiabile*, when it loses [its] truth.

3. Likewise, this same point is shown by [arguing to the] impossible, because, if whatever *enuntiabile* he knew, he now knows, and he knew Christ to-be-about-to-die, therefore he also now knows [it]; but whatever is known is true: therefore Christ-to-be-about-to-die is true, which is against the faith.

4. Likewise, if whatever he knew, he now knows; but at some time he knew that you were not [yet], when you were not: therefore he knows you not-to-be, and [also] he knows you to-be, because [each] is true: therefore he knows at the same time two contradictorily opposed [things]; therefore two contradictorily opposed [things] are simultaneously true, which is false and impossible.

### Conclusion.

> *Insofar as* scire *says bare understanding, whatever God once knows, he always knows; but insofar as* scire *connotes truth in an object, by reason of the connotatum (which is variable), God does not [in this sense] always know whatever he once knew.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *scire* is said in two ways: in one way, insofar as it is reflected upon itself; and in this sense [the meaning] is: this one *knows* this, that is, has cognition of this; and in this mode it must be said that *scire* connotes nothing in the actual side of the known-thing — neither truth nor presence. For God has perfect cognition of every enunciation [as to] whether it is a complete and congruous enunciation, whether it is true, and other like [questions]. In another way *scire* is said insofar as it is a *prohaeretic* word (i.e. one importing election or assent) and passes outward into act, and thus connotes truth in the object; then therefore *to know* some *enuntiabile* is the same as to know that it is itself true. Whence «*I know you to sit*» is to say: I not only have cognition of this, but I also know that it itself is true. — In the first mode *scire* imports *bare* understanding; in the second mode, understanding with assent.

If therefore *scire* is taken in the first mode, then I say that whatever is, and every *enuntiabile*, and everything which he heretofore knew, [this] he [still] knows and has cognition of, because of everything which is and which can be, he has cognition. Nor does it follow: he knows this, therefore it is true; on the contrary, there is here a consequent [fallacy]. — If however *scire* is taken in the second mode, insofar as it connotes truth

concerning an *enuntiabile*, thus there have been some who would say that he ceases to know some *enuntiabile*; because [some] *enuntiabile* which is true can be false.

Others said the contrary, since they laid down that an *enuntiabile* which is once true, is always true, and so is always known. And that it may be more clearly evident, their position and the reason of [their] position must be seen. There have been some who said that *albus, alba, album* ("white" [in masc., fem., neut.]), although they are three utterances and have three modes of signifying, nevertheless, because they convey the same signification, are one name. By this same mode they said that the unity of an *enuntiabile* is to be taken not from the side of the utterance or of the mode of signifying, but [from the side] of the thing signified; but it is the [same] thing which is first future, then present, third past: therefore to enunciate that this thing is first future, then present, third past, will not make a diversity of *enuntiabilia*, but [only] of utterances. — Again, since the same time is first future, then present, third past — time, namely, which is the measure of the thing, which is *signified* by the utterance —, although *esse* or *fuisse* or *fore* ("to-be, to-have-been, to-be-about-to-be") consignify three times, by reason of the consignified they do not diversify the *enuntiabile*, but [the *enuntiabile*] is varied only on the side of the time signified. Hence if I once say: *Socrates is running today*, and tomorrow I shall say: *he ran*; although this verb gives [us] to understand another time, and so another action, the *enuntiabile* is not [therefore] different, however much the signification has been changed. And because, the same signification being retained, the *enuntiabile* is always true, and is not the same, except when the same signification is retained, therefore they said that what is once true, is always true. And therefore, since God forgets nothing, they say that every *enuntiabile* which God knew, he [still] knows. — And they reply to that reasoning [thus]: every *enuntiabile* which he knew, he knows; but he knew you-to-be-about-to-be-born, or you-to-be: therefore etc.; it ought not to be inferred thus: therefore he can be [said to] know, you-to-be, but thus: therefore he knows, you-to-have-been. Otherwise there is in that [argument] a *fallacy of speech* (*figura dictionis*), because it proceeds from identity in the mode of signifying to identity of the thing. — And in this way the Master solves [it]. And this was the opinion of the Nominales, who were called Nominales, because they founded their position upon the unity of the name.

But this position was against the Philosopher, who plainly says in the *Categories* that the same sentence is first true, then false. It was also against the common position. It was also against the truth. And the reason for this is that it has neither a good foundation, nor a good adaptation.

For first, if one asks whether *albus, alba, album* are three names, the answer is: either you are speaking grammatically or logically. If grammatically, since the grammarian considers the imposition of the name and the principal mode of signifying substance with quality, thus he will say [it] is one name. If logically, since the logician considers the name insofar as it is a *signifying utterance* — whence he defines name, verb, and sentence by *utterance* as by genus —; and when the superior [genus] is multiplied, the inferior [species] must of necessity be multiplied: if there are many signifying utterances, there are of necessity many names. And therefore it is plain that they wrongly took the unity of the name, according to what is congruent to the matter at issue.

The adaptation was also bad, because an *enuntiabile* does not signify a *thing*, but a *mode of being*; and since by the verb of the present, past, and future is signified that the thing is in another mode of being: it is plain of necessity that *te esse nasciturum* ("you to-be-about-to-be-born") and *te esse natum* ("you to-have-been-born") are different *enuntiabilia*. — Again, they were deficient in the last point, because, just as *homo* ("man") does not signify this man

or that one, so *verbum praesentis temporis* ("verb of the present tense") does not signify this or that present, but the present in general — whether it couples [the predicate to the subject] or consignifies. And hence it is that, just as *homo* does not have another signification, nor is it another name, nor equivocal, if it supposits now for Peter, now for Paul; so neither does *verbum praesentis temporis*, whether it is pronounced today or tomorrow, have another signification, and therefore [it] does not make a different *enuntiabile*. And therefore it is plain that, at whatever time it is pronounced, *te esse nasciturum* — which is the same *enuntiabile* which was previously true — is now false. Therefore according as *scire* connotes truth concerning an *enuntiabile*, that known [object] which he knew, he now does not know — with no change made in the divine knowledge, but only in the connotatum. — It must be granted therefore that in the second acceptation [of *scire*] not everything which he knows, he always knows.

1. To that, then, which is objected, that *truth* is one in present, past, and future; it must be said that, although it is reducible to one truth of the thing — as accident to subject, and mode of being to entity — yet, since the mode of being has its own truth, and there are three modes of being, therefore there are three truths.

2. 3. 4. To that which is objected concerning indelibility and immutability and independence, it must be said that it has already been solved, because no transmutation comes about in God's cognition, nor does he cease to know the *enuntiabile* on account of a change in itself, but in the connotatum.