Dist. 45, 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/45/q/bon-sent-I-d45-a2-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether the will of God is the first and immediate cause.*

Secondly, it is asked whether the divine will is the first and immediate cause. And that it is so, appears as follows:

1. Through Augustine in book III *On the Trinity*: « The will of God is the first and highest cause of all species and motions. »

2. Likewise, every cause whose first and proper act is the production of a thing is a first and immediate cause; but the divine will is of this sort: therefore, etc. *Proof of the middle [premise]:* Upon that [verse] of the Psalm: *The Lord is just in all his ways*, the Gloss [says]: « For God, to will is the same as to do, since from his will things have being. »

3. Likewise, by reason it appears [so], because every cause than which there is no other prior is a first and immediate cause; but the divine will is a cause than which there is no other prior, since it is the same as God: therefore the will is a first and immediate cause.

4. Likewise, every cause is a first and immediate cause which [reaches] into the whole effect through its action; but everything that comes to be is from God, and nothing can act without him, since it cannot be preserved in being [without him], and God cooperates with the whole and unto the whole: therefore, etc.

5. Likewise, everyone who knows a thing most certainly and most nobly knows it through its proximate and immediate cause; but he who knows and sees God knows things in him most certainly and most nobly, as in their prior causes, as Augustine says: therefore in God there is the proximate and immediate cause; but [there is] nothing [in him] except his will, therefore, etc.

6. Likewise, what is attributed to God ought to be attributed to him at the highest pitch of nobility: if therefore the character of causality befits him, the most noble causality ought to be attributed to him. But this [most noble causality] is the character of a first and immediate cause: therefore, etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Of one thing there is [only] one immediate cause: therefore if God is the immediate cause of all things, nothing has any cause other than God; and if this is so, every operation ceases, and so power ceases, goodness ceases, and the rest are idle.

2. Likewise, if the divine will is the proximate and immediate cause of all things; but when the proximate and immediate cause is posited, the effect is posited: therefore, since the divine will has been from eternity, the rest are eternal.

3. Likewise, everything which has a proximate and immediate and necessary cause is demonstrable: therefore if the divine will is the first and immediate cause of all things, all things are demonstrable.

4. Likewise, [once] the proximate and immediate cause is known, [there is] no further [reason] to inquire: therefore, given that one knows God wills something, he labors foolishly who seeks another cause. But concerning every good thing that comes to be, we know God to be the cause: therefore no further [cause] is to be sought. Therefore the doctrinal sciences perish and are in vain — indeed, all the sciences.

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** The will [of God] is the immediate cause of things, since it is the first, most universal, and most actual cause.

**I respond:** For the understanding of this [question] it must be noted that, since in creatures there is to be found a universal cause and a particular cause, the universal cause

in one respect contributes more to the effect than the particular [cause], and in another respect less. For as to *intimacy*, the universal cause, because it is a prior agent, contributes more; but as to *actuality* and as to those things which are proper to the thing, it contributes less. And the reason of this is that the universal created cause has only partial actuality, not perfect power; and therefore it cannot attain to the specific form except by accident, namely through the form of the particular agent, which is not from it.

The divine will, however, is the first and most universal and most actual cause; and therefore it is able [to act] upon the whole effect, into the whole substance of the thing, even without the support of any other cause; nor can any [other] cause [do] anything, even slightly, without it. And therefore it is necessary that it itself be the immediate cause in every action and thing. — And the reasons [adduced] for this conclusion are to be granted.

To the objections on the contrary side, it must be understood that, since God is the immediate cause of all things, yet of some he is the entire cause — namely of those things which are created; of others, however, he is the cause together with another particular cause — namely of those things which are from nature and from a particular will. And indeed this [particular] cause concurs not on account of any deficiency of the divine will, but on account of [God's] supreme generosity, which gave to things not only being, but also operation and diffusion, and on account of the order and connection of the universe with itself. Nor does one cause derogate from the other, but the whole effect is from the created cause, and the whole [effect] from the uncreated will.

*Ad 1.* And thus the reply to the first objection is plain: for it objects from the [notion of] immediate cause with respect to another created cause, [arguing] that two created causes are not immediate in the same genus of cause.

*Ad 2.* To that which is objected, that, when the immediate cause is posited, etc.: it must be said that "to be posited as a cause" is twofold — either in being, or in operating. And when the cause is posited, the effect is not posited in act unless [the cause] is posited as operating; and thus [the world] was not [in act] from eternity, but [came to be] in time, in which [God] disposed and willed from eternity to produce the thing.

*Ad 3.* To that which is objected, that all things would be demonstrable: it must be said that this is true if that cause is proper and determined to such [particular] effects.

*Ad 4.* To that which is asked, that another cause should not be sought: it must be said that, if God's will and disposition were known fully in itself, no one would ever desire to know any other cause; he would so fully know [things] in their primordial causes. Nevertheless, because the divine will is not [thus] known, nor does it exclude in acting the operation of the created cause, neither does it exclude [the same] in knowing; and therefore it is good and most useful to be exercised in the consideration of created causes, that we may in some way half-fully come into the knowledge of that supreme cause, which is the end of all knowledge.