Dist. 42, Art. 1, 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/42/q/bon-sent-I-d42-a1-q3
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### Article unique.
#### *On power (potentia) in comparison to the possibles, [those things] which it can [do].*

### Question III.
#### *Whether God can [do] all those things which are impossible for a created agent.*

Thirdly it is asked, whether the divine power extends to everything which is impossible for any other agent. And that it does so [extend], appears thus.

1. For something is called impossible on account of nature's ordination, as that the blind should be made seeing; something else on account of pre-occurrence (*praeteritio*), as that you should not have been, since you have been; thirdly on account of opposition, as that the same [thing] should be black and white. The first is impossible according to nature, the second according to time or *per accidens*, the third may be called impossible according to discipline [i.e. according to the rules of demonstrative science], since every science supposes that principle, that opposites are not at the same time true of the same thing. — It is shown therefore that God can [do] every such [thing]. For to know any knowable [thing] is *simpliciter* to know; but God [knows] every word; but it is possible to say all things by means of this word: therefore no such [thing] is impossible with God.

2. Likewise, to the Ephesians, chapter three: *To him who is able to do above what we can understand*, therefore God can do more things than our intellect can imagine; but it can imagine every impossible [thing] which it can enunciate: therefore God too can do that [thing].

3. Likewise, Hilary: "It belongs to perfect power, the [power] of him acting can make [be the case] that which the speech of the speaker can signify."

4. Likewise, Basil: "God can do more than you can understand." — Therefore by the authorities of the Canon [of Scripture] and of the Saints it appears that God can [do] every impossible [thing]. 

5. Likewise, by reason it appears, since that is more powerful to which nothing whatever is impossible, than [that] to which something is impossible; but God is most powerful in the highest [degree]: therefore nothing at all is impossible to him.

6. Likewise, if any impossible [thing] is not possible to God, this is either on account of privation, or on account of position [i.e. some positive determination]. If on account of privation; on the contrary: no privation is greater than [that] of utter non-being; but God makes something from nothing: therefore not on account of privation. If on account of position: therefore it appears that there is something which does not lie under the divine power and does not obey it: therefore the power of God has something resisting [it].

7. Likewise, it is shown specifically that he can [do] the impossible according to nature, as to make a calf from a tree-stump. For non-being differs more from being than one being from another; but God makes a being out of non-being: therefore out of one being he can make another.

8. Likewise, that he can [do] the impossible according to time appears [thus], since that is impossible *per accidens* which posits no resistance, since it is not [in being]: therefore if God can [do] the impossible *per se* and that which also has resistance, since that is a greater impossible: therefore he can [do] the impossible *per accidens*.

9. Likewise, that he can [do] the impossible according to discipline appears [thus], since the Creator differs more from the creature than one created being from another; but God could make [it the case] that a creature should be united to the Creator in the same most-simple hypostasis: therefore much more strongly, that opposites should be at the same time in the same [thing], as that something should be at the same time white and black. And this seems to have been done in Christ, since one and the same [person] was eternal and temporal, passible and impassible, visible and invisible, and so on with other things.

10. Likewise, God made a virgin to bear, which is impossible according to nature, since the power of nature is in no way [directed] to this; and it is impossible according to discipline, since opposites are at the same time true of the same; and what is a greater impossible than the impossible *per accidens*, namely to make whole again [a thing] corrupted, or to become a virgin [again]; for birth seems more incompossible with virginity than intercourse: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. That God cannot [do] the impossible according to nature, Augustine seems to say in his book *De Vera Innocentia*: "God," he says, "is so omnipotent that he never tears up the institutes of his reason." Therefore if anything is impossible according to the institution of nature, it is *simpliciter* impossible for God.

2. Likewise, by reason it appears, since God cannot act against the order of right reason, such as to lie and the like: therefore he cannot act against the institution of ordered nature: therefore he cannot [do] the impossible according to nature.

3. Likewise, that he cannot [do] the impossible *per accidens*. Jerome: "Although God can [do] the rest, he cannot make a virgin out of one corrupted"; but it is established that this is not said because he cannot repair the [bodily] enclosures, but because, for her who is corrupted, it is impossible *not to have been* corrupted: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, Augustine in the twenty-sixth book *contra Faustum*: "This judgment, by which we say [that] a past [thing] has been, God cannot make false." And he gives the reason: "For if he did this, this would be to make [it the case] that those [things] which are true should, by the very fact that they are true, be false, and so he would be contrary to truth."

5. Likewise, that he cannot [do] the impossible according to discipline, namely that two opposites be at the same time in the same [thing], appears [thus]: since as opposites stand toward union, so [things] united [stand] toward division; but God cannot make [it the case] that two and three are not five, since Augustine says that this is true with the truth which does not begin and does not cease: therefore by parity of reasoning he cannot make [it the case] that opposites be at the same time [in the same].

6. Likewise, God cannot act against the truth of justice. Second to Timothy, chapter two: *He [Christ] remains faithful, he cannot deny himself*, therefore he cannot act against the order of wisdom: but to confound opposites is to act against the order of wisdom: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> *God can [do] everything which is judged to be impossible for a created agent, both on account of the limitation of natural power and on account of the limitation of our understanding; but he cannot [do] what is impossible in itself, whether this be according to accident or according to discipline, that is, the order of the divine wisdom.*

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing, it must be noted that we judge something to be impossible for four causes.

In one mode, through the limitation of natural power, as that from a stump a calf should come to be, or that a virgin should bear; for a woman cannot conceive naturally without seed. Likewise birth, with the door closed, cannot come out through corporeality; similarly nature cannot at once convert a stump into a calf, since it has a limited power.

In a second mode something is called impossible not on account of the limitation of [created] power, but on account of the limitation of our understanding, as that two bodies should be in the same place, or the same body in different [places], or a larger body in a smaller place, since we can in no way grasp [this], as our imagination always says the opposite. Hence also, when God thus acts in the Sacrament of the altar, it is necessary that reason raise itself against itself in order to believe. 

In a third mode something is called impossible on account of the privation of all existence according to every comparison, namely [comparison] to a beginning, to a middle, and to an ultimate [term], as that a past thing should not have been past. For every power which is understood to make something regards being either in the account of beginning, or of term, or in both modes. Hence from a being it can make a non-being, and conversely, and from one [thing] another; but to make non-being from non-being belongs to no power whatever. Hence although God can make [it the case] that any created being should not be, whether [a being] of speech or of [the] thing [itself], nevertheless concerning that which has been and is not, to make [it the case] that it should not have been, this is utterly impossible to God, since to do this is to do nothing, as will become better clear presently.

In a fourth mode something is called impossible according to the illumination of the eternal truth and the order of the divine wisdom, as for example, that two opposites be in the same and according to the same — this the eternal truth itself, by the very fact that it is truth, indicates and illuminates as judging [it] to be impossible, as also this: that two and three are not five.

When therefore it is argued whether every impossible is possible for God; it must be said concerning the impossible which is impossible on account of the limitation of [created] power, or on account of the limitation of [created] understanding, that this is possible for God, because his power is not limited, but infinite; and therefore he can [reach] above nature and above [created] understanding, both of which are restricted. But that impossible which is impossible on account of the privation of all existence, and that [which is so] on account of the illumination of the eternal truth, he cannot [do] at all. The first he cannot, since to be able to do that is to be able to do nothing. The second he cannot, since that is to be able [to act] disorderedly and to be able [to act] against the order of wisdom. And since God is so omnipotent that he can do nothing except what is fitting to his power and does not derange his wisdom: therefore he cannot [do] these impossibles.

But someone will object that this is false, namely that the impossible *per accidens* is impossible on account of the privation of all existence. For a proposition about a past [thing] is true, and that truth is not founded upon nothing nor upon an uncreated being, since it begins to be true, therefore upon a created being; and this [created being] is the past [thing]: therefore the past [thing] says in some way being; but every created [thing], however little of being it has, God can make perish, if he wills: therefore God can make [it the case] that that which has been should not have been. — And again, when I say "this is past," either I say something or nothing. If something: therefore the [foregoing] response is null; if I say nothing: therefore it can be said that a chimera is past, and that a not-past, which is nothing, is past, which is manifestly false: therefore [past] does not denote the privation of all existence. — Moreover, that [namely, that the past should not have been] does not seem to be withdrawn from being subject to the divine power. For "future" does not say being, and yet God can make [it the case] that what is future according to truth should never be future. — Similarly, "not-present" says no entity at all; and God can make [it the case] that what is never present should ever be present. — Nor yet does it seem possible to escape [thus]: for one can ask whether God can make [the] present out of [the] past; and it is established that in one extreme [of the comparison] a being is posited: if therefore he can make [it the case] that the past should be present — and [since] what is present is not past — he can make [it the case] concerning a past [thing] that it should not be past.

On account of these and similar [arguments] there was the opinion of Gilbert of Poitiers, that God can [act] upon the impossible *per accidens*; for he can make [it the case] that a past [thing] should never have been. And the [saying] of blessed Jerome those who follow him expound, that he cannot make a virgin out of one corrupted, that is, he does not show himself able [to do this], since he has never done it. And similarly that [saying] from Augustine, that God cannot make false a judgment about the past — this is understood, the thing being kept [unchanged]. 

But certainly such expositions are exceedingly foreign [to the truth]. For if Jerome says that he cannot make a virgin out of one corrupted, that is, he does not show [it], similarly he cannot make a calf out of a stump, since he does not show [it]; therefore he is not speaking rightly [when he says]: "although God can [do] the rest" etc. — And again, if the saying of Augustine is understood [to mean] that God cannot make false that judgment, the past [event] being granted [as past], similarly he cannot [do this] with the judgment about the future, the futurition being kept [unchanged].

And on account of this, since the authorities of the great doctors do say this, that God cannot make [it the case] concerning that which has been, that it should not have been; and the intellect in nothing says the contrary; and faith neither moves nor compels us to this: as more reasonable and more safe it must be said with the Saints that God cannot make [it the case] concerning that which has been, that it should not have been. — And of this reason at present I know no other than that which has been said; unless perhaps it be said [that] this is on account of utter indivision, so that, just as he cannot unite opposites, [the opposites] remaining opposites, so neither can he divide the same from itself; and therefore what has been for the time at which it was, is utterly united [with itself], and similarly the present [is utterly united with itself] in the time in which it is, that is, in [its] instant. Hence this would be to divide the same from itself, namely to make [it the case] that the past not have been past: and this is repugnant to the order of the divine wisdom, as [it would be to make it the case] that there should be a triangle and not a figure; and this encloses in itself two contradictorily opposed [things].

Yet the aforesaid reason is sufficiently fitting, if one understands [it] rightly. For when it is said [that] the past lacks existence, I do not mean on account of this, that when it is said that something "has been," [we mean] that [it is] utterly nothing, but on account of this, that something is true *to have been*, which once had being, even if of its being nothing at all has remained. Hence if Caesar in his entirety should pass into nothing, it is [still] true that Caesar has been. And this Anselm says, that if all created [things] should utterly pass into nothing, it is [still] true that the world has been. 

For another reason also is the past said to lack existence, since it neither is nor is ordered to [the] present. Hence the truth of a proposition about a past [thing] does not denote, on the side of the thing, sheer nothing nor a being truly in act, but that which has been and is not; and this indeed does not denote some neuter thing which *is*, but [something] which *has been*. If then God be said able [to do] something concerning this — that it should not have been — either [this will be] by his being-quiet, that is, by his doing nothing, or by his doing something, or by his destroying. If he is quiet and does nothing, on account of this nonetheless this thing has gone-by [as past] and does not cease to have been: since, as it is neither in act nor in potency, it neither needs anything conserving [it] nor anything producing [it]. It is not so with the future, since the future is ordered to being, [and] therefore needs something producing [it]: and therefore, if God does not will to make a future [thing], it does not come to be, and it will not be future [to itself]. — If therefore he can [do] something, in order that he may make [it the case] that what was should not have been; either this will be by [his] doing or by [his] destroying. But to make [it the case] that it should not have been is to do nothing, since "not-to-have-been" does not say being: therefore God by doing does nothing, which is an imperfection and an implication of contradiction. — Similarly to destroy is not [to destroy] something, since "has-been" does not say something to be: therefore if he does this by destroying, by destroying he would destroy nothing, which is a similar incongruity. Therefore he cannot [do this] by no acting, nor by doing, nor by destroying: therefore concerning the past, [namely] that it not have been past, he cannot do [it].

The [counter-]instances [raised above] are also plain [in their answer]. For the truth of a proposition about a past [thing] is not necessarily founded upon some created [thing] which *is*, but which *has been*; and therefore it remains, even though that created [thing] be done away with. — It is plain also that "past-ness" (*praeteritio*) does not denote sheer nothing, but denotes something which has been and is not, unless perhaps "past" denote a temporal succession, which assuredly God can destroy; but here *fuisse* ("to have been") is taken in a broader sense. — It is plain also that the [counter-]instance drawn from the future itself [fails], since it is not similar. — It is plain [also] [as to the objection] that a past [thing] can become present. Even granted that this be understood [as you wish], nonetheless it is still understood *to have been*. — It is plain also that God can destroy every proposition and every utterance; but, the proposition being kept and its signification [being kept], he cannot falsify it, since this cannot be unless he should change the thing signified; otherwise he would make speech, by the very fact that it is true, to be false, and this would be against his truth; but he cannot change the thing, and so neither can he falsify the speech.

From these things that have been said the preceding response can be sufficiently corroborated.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**

*To 1, 2, 3, 4.* To that, then, which is objected, that he can [do] every utterable and thinkable [thing]; it must be said that this is understood only of those [things] which are said and thought according to a reason rightly understanding and rightly pronouncing. For nothing rational can be said or thought, which God cannot do, and he can do even more.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that more powerful is that to which all things are possible; it must be said that this is true of those things to be able [which] belongs to a noble power: for if it were able [to do] something which is not of the nobility of power, the more it were able [to do that], the more would adversity and perversity be able [to act] against it, and so the less powerful would it be.

*To 6.* To that which is objected: either on account of privation etc.; it must be said that we distinguish on account of the privation of all existence in both extremes, and on account of privation, and on account of position on the part of God; since the power of God regards something as object of [its] effect, and wisdom regards what is ordered.

*To 7.* To that which is objected, that he can [do] the impossible according to nature; it must be said that this is true.

*To 8.* To that which is objected, that he can [do] the impossible *per accidens*, since it says no resistance; it must be said that this [his not being able to do it] is not on account of resistance, but on account of utter non-existence, on account of which to be able to do that is to be able to do nothing.

*To 9.* To that which is objected concerning the Creator and the creature, it must be said that every creature is material and possible with respect to God, and God is in every creature through the inwardness of [his] substance; not so with the opposite with respect to its opposite. — As to what is objected, that they differ more; this is true as to the difference of [their] natures, since they share in nothing, but it is not true as to a simultaneity of existence.

*To 10.* To that which is objected concerning the fact that a virgin gives birth; it must be said that this is impossible according to nature, but not impossible according to opposition, since "to be a virgin" and "to give birth" are not opposites, similarly nor "to be a virgin" and "to conceive"; but they are judged opposites on account of nature's impotence. But these are opposites: "to be corrupted" and "to be a virgin"; and therefore that [point] is clear.

*To 1 [of the contra].* To that which is objected, that he cannot [do] the impossible according to nature, on account of order; it must be said that there is an order of nature, special and general. The order of special nature can be changed and destroyed, since a thing can be brought back to another differentia, but the general [order] cannot. Thus it must be said that the special order is attended to according to the power of special nature, the general order according to the power of obedience, which is general: against this [general] order he does not act, but against another.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that he cannot [act] against the dictate of right reason; it must be said that this is true, insofar as right reason says that evil is not to be done, since to do this is to fall short; but he does not so fall short by acting against [particular] nature; and the reason for this will be plain below.