Dist. 44
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/44/q/bon-sent-I-d44-littera
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### DISTINCTION XLIV.

### Chapter I.

#### *Whether God can make anything better than he makes [it], or in another or a better way.*

Now this remains to be discussed, whether God can make anything better than he makes. For those searchers are wont to say that the things which God makes, he cannot make better, because if he could make [them better] and did not do so, he would not be supremely good, but envious. And this they strive to establish *from a similar case*. For Augustine in the book *Of the Eighty-three Questions* says: « God, whom he begot, since he could not generate one better than himself — for nothing is better than God — he had to generate an equal. For if he willed and could not, he is weak; if he could and would not, he is envious. From which it is concluded that he begot an equal Son. » By a similar [reasoning] they wish to say that if God can make a thing better than he makes it, he is envious. — But the inference of this similitude does not hold, because he begot the Son from his own substance; and therefore, if he could have begotten an equal and did not, he would have been envious. But the other things, which he does not make from his own substance, he can make better.

But here I demand a response from them: why do they say that any thing, or even the totality of things, in which a greater perfection has been expressed, cannot be better than it is — either because it is supremely good, so that no perfection of good is altogether lacking to it; or because the greater good which is lacking to it, it cannot receive? But if it is said to be supremely good in such a way that no perfection of good is lacking to it, then the creature is equated to the Creator. But if it cannot be better because the greater good which is lacking to it, it cannot receive — then this very *not-being-able* is of defect, not of perfection; and it can be better, if it is made capable of a better good, which he himself who made it can [do]. Therefore God can make a better thing than he makes. Whence Augustine on Genesis: « God could have made man such, that he should be unable and unwilling to sin; and if he had made him such, who doubts that he would have been better »? — From the foregoing it is established that God can both make other [things] than he makes, and can make those which he makes better than he makes them.

After this it must be considered, whether in another or better way than he does, he can make those things which he makes. If the manner of operation is referred to the wisdom of the operator, it can neither be other nor better. For he cannot do anything otherwise or better than he does — that is, with another wisdom or with greater wisdom; for he cannot do anything more wisely than he does. But if the manner is referred to the thing itself which God makes, we say that the manner can be both other and better. And according to this it can be conceded that the things he makes, he can make better and otherwise than he makes them, because he can grant to some a better mode of existing, and to others another. Whence Augustine in the thirteenth book *On the Trinity*: that there was another mode of our liberation possible to God, who can do all things; but no other was more fitting for the healing of our misery. Therefore God can make some of the things he makes in another and better way, some in another way equally good, and some even in a less good way than he makes them; provided, however, that the mode be referred to the quality of the creature, not to the wisdom of the Creator.

### Chapter II.

#### *Whether God always has the power to do everything he once could do.*

Furthermore, it is wont to be asked whether God can always [do] everything he once could do. To some it does not seem so, who say: God could become incarnate, and could die and rise again, and other things of this kind, which now he cannot. Therefore he could [do] things which now he cannot, and so he had a power which now he does not have. Whence his power seems to have been diminished. — To which we say that, just as he always knows all things which at some time he knew, and always wills [those] which at some time he willed, nor ever loses any knowledge nor changes a will which he had; so he can always [do] all the things which at some time he could, nor is he ever deprived of any of his power. Therefore he is not deprived of the power of becoming incarnate or of rising again, although he cannot now become incarnate or rise. For as he once could become incarnate, so even now he can have-been incarnate, in which the power of the same thing is shown. For as he once knew that he was going to rise, and now knows that he has risen — nor is it another knowledge to have once known that, and now to know this, but altogether the same; and as he once willed to rise, and [now wills] now to have risen, in which the will of one [and the same] thing is expressed — so he could once be born and rise, and now can have-been-born and have-risen; and it is the power of the same thing. For if he could now be born and rise, it would not be the same power. For the words of different tenses, uttered at different times and joined with different adverbs, make the same sense: as speaking now we say: *this one can read today*, but tomorrow we shall say: *this one can have-read*, or *he could read yesterday*, where  the power of one [and the same] thing is shown. But if, speaking at different times, we use words and adverbs of the same tense — saying today: *this one can read today*, and saying tomorrow: *this one can read today* — we do not say that he can [do] the same, but different things. Let us confess therefore that God can always [do] whatever he once could — that is, [he can] have every power which he once had, and the power of every thing of which he once had [the power]; but not that he can always do everything which he at some time could do; he can indeed do, or have done, that which at some time he could. Similarly, whatever he willed, he also wills — that is, [he has] every will which he had, and now has; and of whatever thing he had the will, he now also has it; nevertheless he does not will every [thing] which at some time he willed to be or to come-to-be, [now] to be or to come-to-be, but he wills it to have-been or to have-come-to-be. And so it must be said also of God's knowledge.

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