Dist. 46, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/46/q/bon-sent-I-d46-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether that evils come about is true.*

Fourthly it is asked whether *evils come about* is true. And that it is, is shown:

1. « Because of anything, affirmation or negation [is] true »; but this [proposition] is false, *no evils come about*: therefore the opposite is simply true, namely *evils come about*.

2. Likewise, « truth is the adequation of thing and intellect »: therefore whenever a man understands [the matter] as it is in the thing, both intellect and intellected have truth. But he who understands *evils come about* truly understands: therefore if he truly understands, the intellected [object] is true: therefore *evils come about* is true.

3. Likewise, the truth of a proposition asserts truth in what is said — whence if Socrates runs, *that Socrates is running* is true — therefore if evil comes about, *that evil comes about* is true; but it is established that evil does come about: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, the truthfulness of the speaker posits truth in what is said; but God, who is not a liar, says that evils come about, *Matthew* 9: *Why do you think evils in your hearts?* — therefore it is true that evils are thought; by the same reasoning it is true that they come about.

**On the contrary:**

1. The true and the good are convertible; but *evils come about* is not a good, as has been proved above: therefore *evils come about* is not true. Should you perhaps say that *true* is [predicated] of the truth of the incomplex [object], it is shown

[that this holds] of every truth, since every truth is a kind of entity; and everything that shares in the account of being, shares in the account of the good: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, every truth is from the first truth: therefore every true [thing] also is from the first true [being]; if therefore *evils come about* is true, *evils come about* is from God; but this has been refuted above: therefore, etc. Should you say that this is true of the truth *of the thing*, not of the sign, this is nothing, since just as things are from God, so also are signs; and Ambrose says that « every truth is from the Holy Spirit, by whomever it be spoken »; he therefore speaks of truth in discourse, and so of the truth of complexion or of the sign.

3. Likewise, every truth of sign or of complexion has its cause and origin from the truth of incomplexion; therefore the truth of this — *that this man steals* — has its origin from the truth of the theft; but theft does not name a true action, but rather a defective one: therefore by the same reasoning *that this man steals* is not simply true. Should you say that the truth of complexion is threefold, namely *of position*, *of privation*, and *of negation*, and the first is caused by the truth of the thing, but the second and the third are not caused; on the contrary: the Philosopher says generally that « from the [fact] that the thing is or is not, speech is called true or false »: therefore this is true everywhere.

4. Likewise, everything which is now true in the present, was true from eternity in the future: therefore if this evil is now true, it was true from eternity. But nothing was eternally true unless [it] were God or [were] in God as in [its] cause: therefore if *that evil will be* was true and was not God, it was in God as in [its] cause, therefore from God; but this is false: therefore, etc.

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** *Evils come about* is simply true.

**I respond:** It must be said that, without distinction, it must be conceded that *evils come about* is true: for it is truly enunciated and is truly understood. For *true* said of the complex [object] regards composition, as the Philosopher says, because truth and falsity consist in [a] composition; and so it speaks of the truth of the sign. The *sign* is true when it signifies the thing to be as it is; for then it is said to be adequated. And so, since the thing is in [reality] just as the sign expresses [it], simply speaking it is true that *evils come about*.

**Replies to the arguments on the contrary:**

*Ad 1.* To that which is objected — that true and good are convertible: it must be said that they are true [as said] *of the same [subject]*. Hence if a thing is true, it is good, and if a sign is true, it is good; but it does not follow that if a sign is true, the signified or the thing is good. And so there is here the fallacy of accident: *every true [thing] is good; but that this man steals is true: therefore that this man steals is good* — by [an illicit] variation of the minor extreme. For *true* is predicated of that said [object] by reason of composition, since it is a modal expression, but *good* by reason of attribution; and this objection the Master makes in his text. A similar mode of arguing is this: *I hear angels singing*; but *that angels sing* is true: therefore *I hear true*. The same mode of arguing is in this reasoning: *every true [thing] is from God*; *that this man steals* is true: therefore, etc.; and so it must be solved similarly.

*Ad 3.* To that which is objected — that the truth of the sign is from the truth of the thing: it must be said that this is false. For then a sign is true when it signifies a thing not to be, which is not [the case]; and that it does not have truth, when that [thing] does not have [truth]. For just as something imperfect is perfectly equated to another imperfect [thing], so a defective thing can be fully signified. Whence the Philosopher did not say: « From the [fact] that the thing *only* is », but: *is* or *is not*. And the sense is: from the [fact] that the thing is, the discourse is true which signifies it to be, and from the [fact] that [the thing] is not, the [discourse] is false which signifies [it] to be; conversely it is to be understood in the thing which is not. Hence although theft is a being according-to-something, yet the discourse which signifies that someone steals is simply true. Yet it is true that every complex truth is founded on something; but it is not necessary [that it be founded] on the *thing understood*, but on the *one understanding*, in whom the discourse has [its] being. And so that is plain.

It could however be said that [the complex truth] is founded on a *being according-to-something* by reason of its deformity; and yet *true* is simply [predicated] on account of an adequation which is simple.

Note however that concerning the foundation of the truth of a proposition diverse [authors] hold diverse views.

*Some*, then, distinguish — as has been touched on — three kinds of truth of speech, namely *of position*, as when it is said: *Caesar is a man*; *of privation*, as when it is said: *Caesar is a dead man*; *of negation*, as when it is said: *Caesar is not*. The first they say is founded on *being simply*, the second on *being according-to-something*, and the third they say is not founded on anything, because such a discourse posits nothing. — But this does not seem to suffice, because, when it is said: *this discourse is true*, *true* predicates some condition of being: therefore [the discourse] must necessarily be founded on something which is.

And so *others* say that [the discourse] is founded on the *principles of Caesar*. — But this does not suffice, because, granted that Caesar is altogether corrupted both as to matter and as to form, yet that [discourse] is still true: *Caesar was* or *Caesar is not*.

And so *others* say that [the discourse] is founded on the *one understanding*. — But this still does not seem sufficient, because, granted that no one is understanding [it] in act, still that discourse is true, [if] written on a wall: *Caesar was*.

Therefore it must be said that, since the truth of speech is the truth of a *sign*, and the truth of a sign does not say an absolute quality — just as neither does the necessity of consequence — but a *relative* [quality], as does *sign*; since everything which it happens [we] signify, it can happen [we] signify truly, and also falsely; just as for the account of signifying it is not necessary that the thing be in being [*entem*], but [only] knowable, so neither [is it necessary] for the account of true signification. And since everything which the intellect grasps is either a being, or [it] grasps or imagines [it] by comparison to a being; therefore every signification and truth of significative speech either is founded simply on being, as if one says: *Peter is*, or in [an] ordering to being. Whence a proposition concerning the past is founded on its ordering to the present; likewise a proposition concerning the future, as a negative proposition, e.g. if one says: *Caesar is not*; for there is some being which is not Caesar, and so of the others; likewise if one says: *the chimera is not a goat-stag*.

*Ad 4.* To that which is objected last — that *malice will be* was true from eternity: it must be said that, for something to be true, it is not necessary that it be in God as in [its] cause, but it suffices that it be in God's foreknowledge, which is only of the true. But for something to be in God's foreknowledge, it suffices that itself, or its cause, or its opposite, be in God as in [its] cause, as has been said above concerning God's cognition.