Dist. 8, Part 1, 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/8/q/bon-sent-I-d8-p1-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether God alone is unchangeable.*

Secondly, it is asked whether unchangeability is a property of the divine essence, in such a way that it belongs to no creature. And that it is so, seems [evident].

1. In the last [chapter] of First Timothy it is said of God that He alone has immortality. And Augustine says against Maximinus: «In every changeable nature change itself is a certain death»: therefore if God alone has immortality, He alone has unchangeability.

2. Likewise, everything turnable is changeable; but every creature is turnable; whence Damascene: «Everything that begins from a turning, tends toward a turning»: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything which, left to itself, slips into nothing, is of itself changeable: but every creature is of this sort: whence Gregory: «All things would tend into nothing, unless the hand of the Creator held them back»: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, no accident has stability of itself; but being is accidental to every creature, as Hilary says and as is contained in the *littera*, because it comes from another: therefore every creature is unstable as to being.

5. Likewise, every vain thing is subject to variability; but every creature is vain, since it is from nothing; whence Romans 8: *The creature is made subject to vanity*, etc.: therefore if every creature is vain, none is unchangeable.

6. Likewise, everything changed has changeability in itself; but every creature has been made: therefore every creature has been changed, therefore none is unchangeable.

**On the contrary:** Unchangeability is said only in three ways. For unchangeability is said either as invariability, or as incorruptibility, or as inconvertibility.

1. Now it is shown that invariability belongs to creatures, namely as principles. For Augustine shows in the twelfth book of the *Confessions* that unformed matter is invariable; because what lacks form, lacks order, and what lacks order, lacks alternation, therefore variation. And the author of the *Six Principles* says this of form, «which consists in a simple and invariable essence».

2. Likewise, it seems that invariability belongs to the Blessed, because where there is perfect blessedness, there is no loss, and where this [is the case], no variation.

3. Likewise, variation is attended to, as Augustine says in *On Genesis according to the Letter*, either according to place, or according to time; but some creature lacks a determined place and time, such as the universal, which is always and everywhere, and the empyrean heaven, which is outside time and place: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if unchangeability is taken as incorruptibility, the same is shown. «For all natural corruption comes from contrariety», as the Philosopher says in the book *On Death and Life*; but many creatures lack contrariety: therefore [they lack] also corruptibility.

5. Likewise, all corruption is into something prior to itself, because natural corruption is into something; but principles do not have anything prior, as matter: therefore they are incorruptible.

6. Likewise, every perpetual thing is incorruptible; but some creature is naturally perpetual: therefore etc. The minor can be proved thus: perpetuity belongs to the account of an image; whence Augustine: «The soul would not be an image, if it were enclosed by the term of death»; since therefore the soul is naturally an image, therefore it is naturally immortal or perpetual.

7. Likewise, it is shown that the creature is inconvertible, thus: turnability is into non-being; but there is nothing which can turn any creature into non-being, since it is not turned by itself, because nothing corrupts itself; nor by another, because the action of a creature terminates in that from which it begins; but no creature's action begins from non-being: therefore etc. Furthermore, there is an infinite distance between the being of a creature and nothing; but between extremes infinitely distant change cannot occur by a finite power: therefore nothing can slip into nothing, except by God's doing.

8. Likewise, turnability is said by corruption into non-being altogether; but nothing which is corrupted withdraws altogether into non-being: therefore no corruptible [thing] is turnable. If you say that the creature does not have inconvertibility by nature, but only through grace; on the contrary: what belongs to all is natural, since grace is something special; but the natural is what is the same in all; but nearly every creature is inconvertible, because none is reduced to nothing: therefore this is natural.

9. Likewise, it is shown that neither [is it] through grace; because grace is the perfection of nature: therefore what is repugnant to nature is not given through grace: therefore if inconvertibility is contrary to the creature's nature, therefore it is not given through grace.

10. Likewise, it is objected concerning that grace, that if it is a creature, it is turnable; if then inconvertibility belongs to it, it must be through another grace; and so there will be a going on to infinity. If therefore one must stop, it is clear that [it is] not through grace. If you say that that grace is not called a habit, but God graciously conserving; this is nothing, because without God working no creature operates: therefore just as no creature is inconvertible except through grace, so no creature operates except through grace: therefore no operation is natural, which is foolish to say.

> **Conclusion.** Unchangeability, taken as invariability, is proper to God alone; taken as incorruptibility or inconvertibility, it is communicated by God to some creatures either through nature or through grace.

**I respond:** It must be said that unchangeability is said by the privation of changeability. Now change is said in three ways: in one way, from being into being; and this is change according to accident and is called *variation*; in another way, from being simply into being in potency or in a qualified sense; and this is change according to form and is called *corruption*; in another way change is from being into simply non-being; and this is according to the whole substance of the thing and is called *conversion*. According to this it must be understood that unchangeability is said in three ways: in one way as invariability, in another way as incorruptibility, and in a third way as inconvertibility.

If, then, unchangeability is said as invariability, thus I say that it exists in no creature at all neither through nature nor through grace; for everything created either is an accident or has accidents, and so is variable; and this is properly proper to God Himself.

But if unchangeability is said as incorruptibility, thus I say that it is in some creatures: in some through nature, as for example in simples; in some through grace, as for example in glorified bodies. Nor in this way is it properly proper to the divine essence.

But if unchangeability is said in the third way, thus it is in all creatures through grace, but in none through nature except in God alone. For that is inconvertible by nature, which has from itself that it can stand; and this is that in which there is no vanity, and in which there is no change of essence whatsoever, neither toward being nor toward non-being; and this alone is eternal. Therefore this inconvertibility is in God alone and is properly proper to Him. But inconvertibility through grace is in all or in many creatures, because God by His gratuitous goodness contains the rest, lest they slip into nothing; and I speak of creatures which signify something complete and per se.

Therefore it is to be conceded that unchangeability, insofar as it removes variation according to accident as to act and potency, is God's alone. Likewise, insofar as it removes change into non-being according to act and potency, as far as concerns nature, it is God's alone, although through grace it belongs to many creatures; and thus the arguments to the first part proceed, whence they are to be conceded.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**

1. To that which is objected to the contrary, that the principles of things are invariable; it must be said that this is true, if they are considered according to their abstract essence; but if they are considered according to their natural being, thus they necessarily have accidents conjoined and can be varied; and accidental variation regards being.

2. To that which is objected, that in the Blessed there cannot be variation; it must be said that this is true as to the substance of the reward or as to the substantial reward; yet it falls [otherwise] as to conversion to what is below, both as to affections, as is plain in the Angels, and as to actions. Whence the Blessed will be agile and will be able to be moved.

3. To that which is objected concerning the universal and the empyrean, it must be said that each receives variation; but the universal by reason of that in which it is; because, «we being moved, those things which are in us are moved»; but the empyrean by reason of what it contains. For something can contain that which it does not contain, and something not contain that which it contains.

4. 5. 6. To that which is objected concerning incorruptibility, it must be said, as has already been touched, that it belongs to creatures; for some creatures are so simple and so well joined together, that no contrariety befalls them, nor is there a greater ground of corruption in them than in principles. Whence just as principles are not resolvable into anything, yet would slip into nothing, if they were left to themselves; so it is to be understood in some substances. Whence it is not to be said that it is true that every composite is resolvable in reality; but as Anselm says, «it is resolvable in reality, or in understanding». Whence the arguments adduced to this point are to be conceded.

7. 8. To that which is objected concerning turnability, it must be said that every creature is turnable by nature, if it is left to itself.

If the cause of this is asked, it must be said that of this conversion, since it is a pure defect, an efficient cause or one reducing into non-being is not to be assigned, but only a deficient one. On account of which it must be noted that *nature* is called *natural origin*. Now the origin of the creature is both from nothing and from its [own] principles: according to this, something is said to be natural to the creature in two ways, either because it belongs to it from the fact that it is from nothing, or because it belongs to it from the fact that it is from its principles. And because nothing is the efficient cause of nothing, but [only] a deficient one, therefore the properties which belong to the creature by reason of its being from nothing are not positings, but defects, nor are they from power, but from defect of power, nor do they have an efficient cause, but a deficient one: and such are vanity, instability, turnability. If, then, it be asked by what the creature is turnable, I say that [it is] not by anything efficient, but through a defect in itself. But according as the natural is called that which belongs to a thing through its proper and intrinsic principles, thus privations or defects are not said to belong naturally, but [only] aptitudes: and therefore taking *natural* in this way, no creature is turnable into non-being; nor yet is it said to be inconvertible naturally, because the natural is that which nature can [reach]; but the principles of a thing cannot effect the conservation of the thing nor the conservation of themselves; and therefore inconvertibility is not natural in this manner. Yet neither is it contrary to nature, but rather consonant with it; because every nature desires to be preserved, although it cannot by itself, and especially that creature which desires to be beatified, and this is that which has been made to the image of God. And because the desire of nature is not in vain, where nature falls short, the gratuitous influence of God supplies. And thus it is plain that turnability belongs through nature, but inconvertibility through grace.

9. To that which is objected concerning the comparison of grace to nature, it must be understood that grace is called a help coming from above, with respect to that which is beyond the power of nature. Now this help is twofold: either with respect to being simply, or with respect to being perfected.

If with respect to being simply, namely the conservation of being, since no principles, being vain, can preserve themselves of themselves, in this way it is not by means of any infused or given habit. Because it regards being, and because being is common to all, therefore this grace is common to all. Whence this is grace having the mode of nature, and this is the grace by which the rest are said to be inconvertible.

In another way grace is called a help with respect to perfected being, and because the perfection of being is in those things which are ordered to beatitude, it regards well-being and [is] that which is not of all. Therefore this is a special habit of some, not of all, and this is grace by the mode of grace. From these things is clear what is objected concerning grace: for he objects according as grace is a special habit divided against nature, since thus it signifies something newly created; but grace in the aforesaid manner is not so.

10. And from this the last objection is clear: because grace is called a help with respect to that which is above the power of nature; and because the conservation of principles is above the power of nature, but not the issuing forth of actions, but rather below it, therefore [the matter] is clear, etc.