Dist. 48, 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/48/q/bon-sent-I-d48-a1-q1
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### Article Unique. *On the conformity of our will to the divine.*
### Question I. *Whether it is possible for our will to be conformed to the divine will.*

That it is not possible for our will to be conformed to the divine is shown as follows.

1. *Isaiah* fifty-five: *As the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts*. But as it is in ways and thoughts, so also in wills: therefore if heaven and earth have no conformity, but rather difformity, it seems likewise that neither do our will and the divine will. If you say that the authority is to be understood and speaks of the wicked; on the contrary: on that text of the Psalm, *Rejoice, ye just*, the Gloss: « As far as God is distant from man, so far is the will of God distant from the will of man »: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, of things infinitely distant there is no conformity; but God and man are distant infinitely, since the one is finite and the other infinite: therefore there is no conformity of wills.

3. Likewise, if our will is conformed to the divine, then either by itself or in a third. If in a third: then the divine will and the human agree in something common; and if so, then they have something simpler than themselves; which is unfitting, especially in the divine will. It remains, therefore, that if it is conformed, it is conformed by itself: therefore the will is conformity itself. But conformity cannot be difform: therefore our will cannot disagree from the divine, which is manifestly false.

4. Likewise, if our will is conformed to the divine, either this belongs to it essentially or by participation. If essentially, the same returns as before; if by participation, I ask concerning that, by the participation of which the will is conformed, whether it is itself conformed. If not, it cannot conform [anything]; if yes, then either essentially or participatively: therefore either there will be an infinite regress, or one must stop at some created thing which is conformed to God by essence, or the will is conformed to God by something uncreated. But there is no infinite regress, nor can it be posited that God is the conformity of the human will to God: therefore some created thing is essentially conformed. But what is essentially conformed to something essentially agrees with it, and what essentially agrees is of the same essence: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. First to the *Corinthians*, sixth: *He who cleaves to God is one spirit*; but he is not one spirit through unity of nature: therefore he is one through conformity of will.

2. Likewise, *Matthew* twelve: *Everyone who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister*, etc.; but it is not true that he is a brother through nearness of blood: therefore he is a brother through conformity of will and love.

3. Likewise, whatever wills can will the same thing and will opposite things can be conformed and difformed or made contrary; but the divine and human wills are of this kind: this is plain, therefore etc.

4. Likewise, whatever wills can be ordered to one another through perfect rulership and obedience can be conformed to one another; but the human will can in all things be subject and obey the divine: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** The human will can be conformed to the divine will by a similar relation to act, to object, and to end.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that one thing can be conformed to another in two ways: either as to likeness, or as to relation.

As to likeness it can happen in three ways: either when two things participate in a third, in which they are made alike, as a swan and snow in whiteness; or when two things are so related that one is the likeness of the other, as the species of a color or an image (*idolum*) is made like, or conformed, to the color; or when something participates in the likeness, as a mirror or an eye is made like or conformed to the body that is its object.

In the first way it is not possible for any creature to be conformed to God. In the second way some creature is conformed to God, as for example grace, which is called the likeness of God, or glory, which is deiformity. In the third way the soul which has grace and glory is made like and conformed [to God]. Of this conformity, nothing at present.

In another way something can be conformed to another according to a like relation or comparison, which can be called *proportion*, when it is of things of the same genus, and *proportionality*, when it is of things of diverse genera, or of things not having communication, that emphasis may be put on the word. But, broadly speaking, both can be called proportion; and this posits nothing common, because it is by the comparison of two things to two, and it can be and is between things most distant.

And it is according to this [latter] that our will can be conformed to the divine, namely, by a like relation to act, so that, as God wills what he wills liberally and charitably, so also does man; and by a like comparison to object, so that what God wills, man may will; and by the same end by which God wills, man wills. All this is possible to be, and all is possible not to be; and therefore it is possible for our will to be conformed to and difformed from the divine. — And the reasons brought for this are to be conceded.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1, 2.* To that which is objected, that God is distant from man, and the human will from the divine, infinitely; the response is now plain: because this does not impede the conformity of comparison, although it impedes the conformity of equality and univocation.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, whether it is conformed by itself or in a third; it must be said that not by itself, unless we speak of remote conformity, which is observed in the image. But if we speak of proximate conformity, which consists in likeness, then it is not conformed by itself, but by the mediation of grace, which is not as a third participated by both, but is as the likeness of the one and the property of the other. Whence grace is essentially a likeness; nor yet is it necessary that they agree essentially in a third, because likeness agrees by itself with that of which it is the likeness; and so both objections are clear.

Likewise, if we speak of conformity as to relation, we shall say that the will is not conformed by itself, but by comparison to another, which yet is not of the essence of the divine will, nor of the human, nor as a third participated by both. And so that is plain.

*To 4.* To that which is asked last, whether it is conformed by essence or by participation; it must be said, that neither thus nor thus, but it is conformed by proportion or by a like relation. And so that is plain.