Dist. 8, Part 1, Art. 2, 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/8/q/bon-sent-I-d8-p1-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the immutability of God.*

Consequently, in the second place, there is a question concerning the second property of the divine being, namely immutability. Concerning which two things are asked:

First it is asked, whether immutability is in God.
Second, whether it is a property of God.

### Question I. *Whether God is unchangeable.*

That immutability is in God, is shown in this way.

1. Every change is either according to substance, or according to accident; but God is not changed according to substance, because every such thing is corruptible, but God, or the divine substance, since it has no beginning, is incorruptible: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, nor according to accident, because in God there is no accident: therefore there is no change in him.

3. Likewise, everything that is changed is prior in potency than in act, and in such a thing act differs from potency; but God is pure act: therefore he is in no way changed.

4. Likewise, let Richard's deduction be made: "Every change

is either into a better state, or worse, or equal"; but the divine nature is changed in none of these ways, because not into a better, because it is most truly; not into a worse, because it is from itself; not into an equal, because it is perfect: therefore mutability in no way befits the divine being.

**On the contrary:**

1. Wisdom, chapter seven: *Wisdom is more mobile than all mobile things*: therefore etc. If it be said that wisdom is called mobile by way of cause, in that it makes other things to be moved; on the contrary: nothing gives what it does not have; but God gives motion to all things: therefore motion or change is most of all in God.

2. Likewise, everything which is now something which it was not before, has been changed: but the Son of God is man, and from eternity was not man: therefore he has been changed. If you say that "man" is predicated of the Son of God not by inherence, but by union: and union is a relation, and relation comes about without change, as a coin becomes a price, as Augustine says in the fifth book *On the Trinity*; on the contrary: Ambrose thus argues against the heretic, who held that the Son was begotten by the Father in time, because if so, then the Father was made Father out of non-Father, therefore he is changed: therefore likewise in the case proposed.

3. Likewise, whoever from non-agent becomes agent, is changed by the change which is from rest into act; but God from non-creating became creating: therefore he has been changed. If you say that God from non-agent becomes agent not on account of a change of himself, but on account of a change of the effect produced, just as the sun from non-illuminating becomes illuminating; on the contrary: it is not because the creature is, that therefore God creates, but because God creates, the creature comes to be or is produced. Therefore for God to act is prior to the creature's coming to be: therefore since the posterior is not the cause of the prior, it is not because the creature comes to be from non-being into being, that God comes to be from non-creating into creating, but the converse; and thus the change is by reason of the agent, not of the effect.

4. Likewise, God wills something which he did not previously will, because in time he willed to create, which he did not will from eternity; but whoever wills something which he did not previously, has been changed: therefore etc. If you say that from eternity he willed to create the world at that instant, as I will to hear Mass tomorrow; on the contrary: the will of God is the proximate and immediate cause of things; but when the proximate and immediate cause is posited, the effect is posited: therefore if from eternity he willed, from eternity the world was.

### Conclusion.

> God is wholly unchangeable, both as regards place, because he is immense, and as regards time, because he is eternal, and as regards form, because he is simple; and because he is unchangeable, therefore he moves all things.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Boethius says, "God, remaining stable, gives all things to be moved." Hence the divine essence is unchangeable. For it is not changed in place, because he is everywhere; not in time, because eternity is all at once; not in form, because he is purely act. Hence simplicity removes change according to form, eternity removes it according to time, immensity removes it according to place.

And therefore in God is the highest stability, and thence the causality of all motion; because, as Augustine proves and the Philosopher holds, all motion proceeds from the immobile; as when the hand is moved, the elbow stands still, and the elbow is moved while the shoulder stands. Therefore because the wisdom of God is stable, therefore it moves all things.

**Replies:**

1. To that which is objected concerning wisdom, that it is called mobile; it must be said that "mobile" is said of it actively, because it makes [things] to be moved, not passively, as "sensible" is said of an animal.

And to that which is objected, that nothing gives to another what it does not have; it must be said that something is "had" in three ways, namely formally, exemplarily, causally; and in any of these modes that which one has, one can give. In the first mode God does not have motion, but in the second and third he does.

2. To that which is objected concerning relation, it must be said that relation, when it is said anew, necessarily posits change in one of the extremes, but it is not necessary that in both. Therefore that relation which is of person to person posits change in one of the persons; and one being changed, the other is also changed, because they are the same essence: therefore necessarily, if from non-Father he became Father, he would be changed. But a relation of essence to essence does not necessarily posit change, except in one of the extremes, because since the essences are diverse, one can be changed while the other is not changed: and therefore in the relation toward the creature the change is always understood as made in the creature, not in God. Yet properly speaking, as will appear elsewhere, God is not related to the creature, except according to manner of speaking.

It could however be said otherwise, as was touched on above, that it is not similar: because a personal relation gives existence to the person, whereas a relation to a creature does not so; and therefore it follows: if he begins to be Father, he begins to be; but it does not follow: if God begins to be man, he begins to be. And therefore Ambrose's argument is valid, that if the Father had begun to beget, he would have been changed, because he would have begun to be, not because he would have been changed from one state into another.

3. To that which is objected, when "from non-agent" etc.; it must be said that there is an agent which is its own action, and there is an agent which is not its own action, but the action is from it. The agent which is not its own action so acts that between itself and the effect there falls a medium which disposes it; and such an agent never becomes agent from non-agent without being changed, because something new comes to it. But the agent which is its own action acts by itself; and therefore between itself and the effect there does not fall any medium disposing it; and therefore when from non-agent it becomes agent, because nothing new accrues to it, therefore it is not changed. Such an agent is God.

4. To that which is objected concerning the will, it must be said that "proximate and immediate cause" is said in three ways: either with respect to substance, or to disposition, or to act; with respect to substance, between which and the effect there falls no other substance as mediating cause; with respect to disposition, to which no new disposition is added for producing the effect; with respect to act, when it is joined to the act. I say therefore that the will of God was the proximate and immediate cause from eternity with respect to substance and disposition, but not with respect to act; because the will is not joined to act except for the time in which it wills to act, as is plain, when one says: "I will to read tomorrow," the will is not coupled to the act except for tomorrow's time.

### Scholion.

**I.** Concerning the diverse species of change and immutability, see the following question, and concerning the solution to argument 1, S. Thomas, *Summa* I, q. 9, a. 1, ad 2.

**II.** The immutability of God was already defined in the Council of Nicaea. Cf. Alexander of Hales, *Summa* p. I, q. 4, m. 1, a. 2. — Scotus, here q. 5; *Reportata*, here q. 2; *De rerum principio* q. 5. — S. Thomas, here q. 3, a. 1; *Summa* loc. cit. — B. Albert, here a. 16 ff.; *Summa* p. I, tr. 4, q. 21, m. 1, 2. — Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 4, a. 1. — Aegidius Romanus, here 3. princ. q. 1. — Henry of Ghent, on this and the following question; *Summa* a. 30. — Durandus, on this and the following question; here q. 3. — Dionysius the Carthusian, on this and the following question; here q. 4. — Biel, on this and the following question; here q. 7.

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