Dist. 8, Part 2, Art. 1, 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-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether supreme simplicity belongs to God alone.*

Secondly it is asked, whether simplicity is proper to God. And that it is so, is seen in this way.

1. No creature is pure act, because in every creature, as Boethius says, *that by which it is* (*quo est*) differs from *that which is* (*quod est*); therefore in every creature there is act together with the possible; but everything of this sort has in itself multiformity and lacks simplicity: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, every creature has finite and limited being: therefore it has a constrained being; but wherever there is limited being, there is there something that contracts and something that is contracted, and in everything of this sort there is composition and difference: therefore every creature is composed: therefore none is simple.

3. Likewise, every creature has being given from elsewhere, therefore it has being received from elsewhere, therefore no creature is its own being, therefore in every creature there is dependence or difference; but nothing of this sort is simply simple: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything that is after the first unity falls short of it, therefore it falls forthwith into duality, as Dionysius says, that *after the monad there is the dyad*: but every creature is from the first unity: therefore every creature falls short of it: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. «From one there proceeds only one» and from the true there proceeds only the true; but unity and simplicity have the same account in God: therefore just as from one [comes] one, so from the simple [comes] the simple.

2. Likewise, it seems especially that simplicity is in creatures, because the simple is that which has no part; but the point has no part, since it is so defined: *a point is that of which there is no part*: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, every thing before which there is no other is simple; for if it is composite, it necessarily has another before it; but being is first, as the author *of [the book] On Causes* says: «The first of created things is being»: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything is simple in which resolution comes to a halt; but resolution halts in principles, which are matter and form, because matter is not further resolved, since it is the terminus among causes, otherwise one would have to proceed to infinity: therefore since resolution halts in the created, something created is simple. If you say that the principles do not have simplicity in every mode, because, although they are not composed from others, yet they are composed with others; on the contrary: this does not seem to militate against simplicity, that something is composed with another. For that something not be composable with another does not make for any simplicity, since this property belongs to complete individuals, which are most of all composite: therefore this which I call composable-with-others does not take simplicity away from them, and so on.

> **Conclusion.** *That God alone is supremely simple is proved in a twofold way.*

**I respond:** It must be said that simplicity of essence negates composition and negates essential difference or multiplicity. Hence the simple is that which has neither composition of parts nor multiplicity of actions or of forms. But in God alone is there negation of composition and of difference or of multiplicity: therefore simplicity is essentially in God alone.

Hence it should be noted that composition is manifold. One composition is from essential parts; and this is in all *beings per se*; another is from integral parts; and this is in all bodies; the third is from dissimilar or contrary parts; and this is in all animate and living things. Hence in every substance that is a being per se, which properly is called a creature, there is composition, since every creature is either bodily, or spiritual, or composed of both.

Similarly, a threefold difference is to be considered in creatures. The first is of substance, power, and operation, or of substance and accident; the second is the difference of supposit and essence; the third is the difference of being (*ens*) and to-be (*esse*). The first difference belongs to a thing insofar as it is an agent; the second, insofar as it is a being in a genus; the third, insofar as it is a being in itself. The first difference is in every subject, since every subject has a mixed being; therefore it does not act by its whole self, and therefore there differ in it *that by which it acts* and *that which acts*, and the action or subject and property. The second difference is in every individual, because every individual has a limited being; and therefore it agrees with another in something and differs from another in something, and therefore in every individual essence and supposit differ; for essence is multiplied in supposits. The third difference is in everything created and con-created: for because everything that is besides God receives its being from elsewhere, whether it be a principle or be principled: therefore nothing is its own being, just as light is not its own act-of-shining.

If, therefore, simplicity be spoken of by way of negation of composition, then it is proper to God alone in the order of substance, because there is no other substance which does not have composition out of the possible and the actual at least.

If, however, simplicity speaks the negation of essential difference and of dependence, so that in the essence there be no diversity nor dependence, it is proper to God in the order of being, because there is no other being in which some diversity or dependence does not fall.

It must therefore be conceded that simplicity is proper to God, as has been seen. Creatures, however, are composed and not truly simple, because they have a being mixed of act and potency, because they have a limited being, and so contracted by addition into genus and species, because they have a being given from elsewhere, because they have a being after the one God, from whom they fall short; and thus they fall into composition.

Otherwise it can be said and more briefly, that the simple is so called by way of negation of composition. But it must be noted that composition is spoken of in two ways: in one way, of some thing out of certain [components]; in another way, by which some thing is said to be composed with another. If, therefore, simplicity negate composition out of others, then it pertains also to created things, namely to first principles, which are not composed out of others. If, however, it negate composition both *with* others and *out of* others, then it belongs to God alone. For every creature either is a being per se and in itself, and thus is composed out of others; or is a being with another and in another, and thus is composed *with* another. And again every created thing either is a principle, and thus composable with another; or is principled, and thus composed out of others; and so simplicity is taken, insofar as it is a property of a thing, by way of negation, namely of either kind of composition.

**Replies to the arguments and to the opposing arguments:**

*To 1.* To what is objected, that *from one there is only one* etc., it must be said that *simple* is not a general condition of being as *one* is. For

simplicity bespeaks the most noble mode of unity, which God communicates to no creature; because the creature cannot receive [it], since its being is limited, is mixed, is also a being dependent and given from elsewhere.

*To 2, 3, 4.* To what is objected concerning the simplicity of the point, of being, and of a principle, it must be said that there is there simplicity by way of negation of composition out of others, but not insofar as simplicity bespeaks an utterly all-round indifference. For in all those, as has been said, some difference and dependence falls: for although they are not composed, yet their being depends on a composite, or on composition.

Hence what was said last must rightly be conceded, that what derogates from the simplicity of a thing is that it be composable with another, inasmuch as simplicity negates multiplicity and difference in the simple thing, although it does not derogate inasmuch as it negates composition out of others. For every dependence makes the very thing that depends to recede from supreme simplicity and indifference. But God alone is independent. All other things, however, are dependent — whether by comparison to the principles from which they are, or whether one composing principle be folded together with another, or whether [as] a dependent being by comparison to God or [as flowing] from God himself. But nothing that depends is its own dependence: therefore nothing of that sort is supremely simple, because everything most simple is most absolute.