Dist. 43, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/43/q/bon-sent-I-d43-a1-q1
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### Article Unique. *On the infinity of the divine power.*
### Question I. *Whether the power of God, considered as such, is infinite.*

First, then, it is asked whether the power of God is infinite; and that this power, considered as such, is infinite is shown thus.

**Fundamenta (arguments for).**

1. The infinite is said to be that which does not have a terminus; but the divine power, as to its capacity, does not have a terminus: therefore etc. The first [premise] is manifest; the second is clear from Chrysostom in a certain Homily: "He is called omnipotent because his power-to-do does not encounter inability"; therefore, if he always finds [a] power-to-do, the quantity of his power always lies beyond what those who measure it can receive: therefore it is infinite.

2. Likewise, every active power that can produce infinite effects is actually infinite; the divine power is of this kind: therefore etc. Proof of the first [premise]: if a power is purely in act, then it has actually whatever it can have: therefore if it has the whole actually, and nothing can accrue to it nor anything be given to it anew, and the power as having-the-power was extending itself to infinities: therefore it actually has in itself infinity. The minor [premise] is clear, because the divine power can never produce so many effects that it cannot still produce more: therefore it is manifest that it is infinite.

3. Likewise, every power that can [extend] to an infinite act, if it is wholly in act, is simply infinite; but the divine power is of this kind: therefore etc. The major is clear thus: as power is to power, so act to act; but infinite act exceeds finite in infinity, therefore power also [exceeds] power:

ergo if a power is wholly in act, it is infinite. The minor is clear, because God is said to endure unto infinity and can preserve a creature unto infinity: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, every power that can [extend] over extremes infinitely distant is infinite; but the divine power is of this kind, because it makes something from nothing, and between something and nothing is an infinite distance: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, every power that is wholly indifferent from its essence is infinite; but the divine power is of this kind: therefore etc. Proof of the first [premise]: whenever any two things are wholly without distance, wherever the one is, there too the other: therefore if power is wholly indifferent from essence, wherever power is, there too essence. But where essence is, there is the center of the power: therefore wherever such a power can act, it can [act] as if at the center: therefore since no power is limited within its own center but can do more, either the divine power can do nothing, or it can do as much as it wills, and so unto infinity: therefore, as far as itself is concerned, that power can operate upon infinities. But that power is wholly indifferent and simple: therefore *factive* and *intensive* are the same there: therefore if it is infinite extensively, also intensively: therefore it is wholly infinite. And this is what the Philosopher says in the book *On Causes*, that "the more a power is unified, the more it is infinite." Since therefore the divine power is most unified, because it is wholly the same as its origin, everywhere it can act as if in its own origin: therefore it never encounters inability.

**On the contrary:**

1. Everything is finite in which a stopping-point can be found; but in the divine power a stopping-point can be found, because it is possible to point out something it cannot do, as was shown above, such as corporeal acts and deformed acts: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, what is exceeded by something is finite, because the infinite is in no way exceeded; but knowledge exceeds power as regards more knowables; for there is more knowledge than power: for [God] knows evils, and cannot [do them]: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, we see in created powers that infinity is from matter, but finitude from form: therefore since the power of God is wholly form or formal, having nothing at all of possibility, therefore it is simply finite and in no way infinite.

4. Likewise, between contradictorily opposed things is an infinite distance; but the virtue of a creature reduces one finite to another, as it makes a non-runner run, and yet it is finite: therefore.

5. Likewise, I see that the soul has a power wholly indifferent from its essence, such as the power of vivifying the body; it also has a power for an infinite act, such as for enduring or persisting in infinity; it nonetheless has a power for infinite acts; and yet that power is itself finite in itself: therefore the same seems by parity of reason about the divine power, since the soul is the express image of God. Hence the aforesaid arguments seem to be of no value.

> **Conclusion.** The divine power is infinite in act and in habit.

**I respond:** It must be said that the divine power must be posited as wholly infinite both in act and in habit; as was proved by effect *a posteriori*, because it has an effect infinite in duration and infinite [effects] by addition, to which it is compared as pure act and as the whole cause. And therefore it is having in itself the full and perfect actuality with respect to infinities; and it is necessary, since it has the whole that it ever will have, and has it from itself, that it itself be infinite.

Another reasoning shows this as it were *a priori*. On account of the supreme indivision of [the divine] power from [the divine] essence, and on account of the supreme unity of that power itself, wherever it can act, it acts wholly, and as much at the extremity of the world as in the middle, and as much in the highest as in the lowest, and in every mode of infinity.

Nor is there a like reasoning in any creature, neither as to the causality of the effect, nor as to the production of act, nor as to unity.

Not as to causality, because no virtue of a creature is purely active in respect of infinite duration; rather it is necessary that it be preserved by divine influence. — Similarly neither as to the production of act, whence it has a passive infinity even in receiving, and therefore none is *actually* infinite, but only *in potency*. And since the infinite in potency depends on the infinite in act, therefore every infinity of created duration and of operation depends on the infinity of the uncreated virtue. And this is what the Philosopher says in the book *On Causes*, that "all infinite virtues are dependent through one first infinite, which is the virtue of virtues." — Similarly the case is not the same as to simplicity or unity. For the divine power is wholly simple in itself and wholly has a simple essence or substance, and is wholly indifferent from it; and therefore by every kind of union it is most unified, and therefore infinite. But of no creature, however noble, is the power wholly simple, because every such power expresses some relation of dependence; nor is it founded in a wholly simple substance; nor is it wholly indifferent, because no creature is its own power, speaking essentially. — And therefore because every creature falls short of the character of supreme simplicity, and consequently of infinity. And thus it is clear that the divine power is infinite, and is the ground of infinity.

And the response is clear to the last argument showing that the aforesaid reasonings are of no value.

**Replies to the contrary arguments:**

*To 1 and 2.* To what is objected, that it finds a terminus, and that it finds an excess; it must be said that the divine power is infinite with respect to those things of which the *can-be* is a *can-do*; with respect to other things, of which the *can-be* is of impotence, it is neither finite nor infinite, because it can do nothing of them. — For when it is said that it finds a terminus or an excess; it must be said that this is false, because the *creature* and the *passible thing* is regarded according to the things to which *the thing extends itself*: and the divine power extends itself only to good things, and as to such things there is never more knowledge than power; nor as to such things does it find a terminus. And so that argument is clear.

It can also be said another way, that there is a twofold way of speaking about power and knowledge: either *in themselves*, or *by comparison to objects*. If *in themselves*, then the one does not exceed the other, because whatever [God] knows, he can know, and whatever he can [do], he knows that he can. Or by comparison to the object, and so there are two ways of speaking, either according to *form* or *species*, or according to *number*. If according to number, then, since power can [extend to] infinities, it is not exceeded by knowledge; if however according to form, then, since the power is with respect to goods only, it is exceeded; nevertheless from this it does not follow that it is not infinite. — And there is an example: if someone should imagine two infinite lines, two are more than one, because the one did not have its infinity according to number, but only according to length; and so two are not greater or longer than one. Similarly is it understood in the matter at hand. For the power is called infinite with respect to objects according to number, but not according to quality, because it cannot [extend] to evils or privative things. — And by this the first and second are clear. For although it finds a terminus with respect to evil, yet not with respect to good, and that terminus or excess contributes rather to infinity, because it is not a *can-do*, but a *non-can-do*; and therefore, although this seems to give a terminus according to the manner of understanding, in truth it does not, because [the fact] that it cannot [do] evil is wholly on account of the immensity of [its] power.

*To 3.* To what is objected, that the infinite is a passion of material power; it must be said that this is true of the infinite by privation of completion or of completed being; but it is not true of the infinite by privation of limitation. For the first is the infinite in passive or receptive potency, and so is primarily

in matter; the second is the infinite in act, and therefore is truly and properly only in that being who is only act and pure and most perfect act.

*To 4.* To what is objected, that a creature can [act] upon things which are supremely distant; it must be said that *being* and *non-being* are not called supremely distant because they are opposed contradictorily, but because they have nothing common neither as to a subject genus nor as to a predicable genus; but resting and moving, or moving and *not-moving*, which is taken for the same thing, have a common [genus] in either mode: and so the distance is not infinite, nor is it a like case.

*To 5.* To what is objected concerning the power of living; it must be said that *to live* in one mode signifies a consequent act, like to be moved; and thus it [proceeds] from the soul through powers different from the essence itself. In another mode *to live* is said, insofar as it is a primary act, and is from the essence of the soul as in the character of form, not in the character of *agent*; and on account of this it is not considered to consist there only in operating, just as whiteness whitens by itself, so that there is not noted there any going-forth of anything, as from an active power. But we are here speaking of power as agent and producing something, and such a power, however much it is the same [as the essence], nevertheless expresses some inclination, and therefore dependence; and therefore strips away simplicity, and through this strips away infinity. But in God it is not so; and therefore that argument has no force, rightly understood.