Dist. 1, Part 1, Dubia
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/2/d/1/q/bon-sent-II-d1-p1-dubia
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### Doubts on the text of the Master.

### Dub. I.

In this part are doubts on the *littera*, and the question is asked first about the order of this book in relation to the preceding. For since we know the Creator through creatures — for *we see through a mirror* — and «knowledge ought to begin from what is more known to us»: therefore [the Master] ought to have treated of creatures before the Creator: therefore this book should be the first, not the second.

**I respond:** It must be said that above, when the Creator was treated, the creatures too were treated, insofar as they are a way of arriving at the knowledge of the Creator; but now things are treated according to that aspect under which knowledge of the Creator aids it, because the topic is *the foundation and the fall*. But the foundation cannot be known unless its principle is first known; and the principle of this foundation is God alone: therefore the teaching of this book must follow the teaching of the preceding one; and the objection is plain.

### Dub. II.

Likewise the question is asked about what he says: *He relates that the world was made by God the Creator in one principle.* I ask what the term *principle* stands for: either for something created, or for something uncreated. Not for something uncreated, because prepositions are transitive. Not for something created, because nothing created existed in which it could come to be.

Likewise, from eternity things were *in their principle*, namely God: therefore if production regards a going-out from God, in no way can *in principle* stand for an uncreated principle; nor for a created one, because nothing yet was; therefore etc.

**I respond:** It must be said that a preposition together with its case-noun can be taken in three ways. In one way, so as to say purely *order* — as *to do in the beginning* is the same as *to do before other things*, in such a way that it connotes a privation with respect to some prior temporal thing, and connotes the position of what is posterior. In another way, it can import *the relation of measure*; and then *in the beginning* is the same as *in the first instant of time*. In a third way, it can import *the relation of cause*; and then the sense is *in the beginning*, that is, *in the Son*. For God is said to have created in the Son, according to what is said in the Psalm: *Thou hast made all things in wisdom, O Lord*, so as to indicate not only the efficient cause but also the exemplar.

All these expositions are true and catholic, and by them three errors concerning the production of the world are knocked down. By the first is knocked down the error of certain modern philosophizers, who said that the world was made *in time*, but by the mediation of an Intelligence, so that God first made the Angels and with them founded the world; against whom the first exposition stands. For if God *in the beginning of the foundation* created the world, then [he did] not [create it] *after the Angels* or *Intelligences*, such that he founded the world through them; and this error has its rise from the word *Let us make man in our image and likeness*, as if God were speaking to the Angels. — By the second exposition the error of the Aristotelians is knocked down, who said that the world was founded *from eternity*. For if it was made *in the first instant of time* from nothing, then it was not without a beginning; and this error has its rise from the fact that they could not see how the world began, and why then and not before. — By the third exposition the third error of the Platonists is knocked down, who said that there are three eternal principles of the world: namely God, matter, and the exemplar. For if God in the Son, as through an eternal exemplar, founded the world from nothing, then no second principle (which is the exemplar) is required, nor a third (which would be matter); and this error has its rise from the fact that they could not understand at all how anything can come-to-be from nothing. — From all of these the error of the Manichaeans is knocked down, who posited two effective principles of the world; and this is knocked down by the subject of the said utterance: *God created heaven and earth*, light and darkness; and this error is the basest of all.

And they stand in a gradient. For the first errs only *in the by whom*. The second errs *in the from what* and *when*, because [it says] *from something* and *from eternity*. The third errs *in the from what*, because it says [the world] was made from matter, not from nothing; and *in the through which* — namely about the exemplar, which it posited as other than God, as appears; and *in the when*, because it posited matter as imperfect from eternity. And this error is much baser than the error of Aristotle, who posited that from eternity matter was perfect in its form. The fourth error, that of the Manichaeans, is the most abominable of all, because it fails *in the first principle*, on which the philosophers commonly agreed, positing two first principles, and through this taking away the order and beauty of the universe, and the goodness and power of God. And this error among the rest, I believe, was invented not by human malice but by diabolical cunning, that [the devil] might persuade the minds of sinners that he is a second God.

From what has been said, then, it is plain what this name *principle* stands for. For it can stand for the Son, and *God* for the Father; and from the mode of construction such an appropriation comes about. It can also stand for a creature, namely for the beginning of time; but then it does not say order, but a concomitance of measure with the measured — namely that heaven and earth began to be along with the beginning of time. And so that is plain.

### Dub. III.

Likewise the question is asked about what he says: *Aristotle posited three principles, two etc.*, why does he distinguish those two from the third? And again, this does not seem true to one searching the books of the Philosopher, because he does not posit anything but these three — *matter, form, and privation* — at the beginning of the new *Metaphysics* and in the first book of the *Physics*: therefore not those which the Master posits.

**I respond:** It must be said that he distinguishes the two from the third for this reason: that two are intrinsic, like elements, and one is extrinsic. Where the Philosopher posits these three, if it be asked, is expressly found in the second book *On Generation*, near the end.

But then there is a question, because he seems not to have sufficiently assigned principles in the *Physics*; indeed, if there he assigned three besides the *operatory* [principle], then there are four. — And it must be said to this that *privation does not differ from form* or from matter. For whether privation names the appetite of form along with the lack of it, or names the very essence of form insofar as it is in matter in potency, it does not differ from these two — namely matter and species. For appetite is reduced to matter and is nothing else; and the essence of form to species, according to reality. And these two principles he determines in the first [book]. Afterward he adjoins a third, the *operatory*, when he reduces all things to a first mover, in the eighth. And so it is plain that the Master speaks truly and properly.

### Dub. IV.

Likewise the question is asked about what he says: *He created the world in the beginning of times*. For if time began with the first movable, and that began on the second day, then [it was created] not *in the beginning of time* but before.

**I respond:** It must be said that *time* is said in three ways: *most commonly*, *commonly*, and *properly*. Most commonly it is said to be the measure of the going-out from non-being into being. Commonly time is said to be the measure of any mutation whatever — especially of that which was before the first movable. In the third way it is said properly to be the measure of the motion of the first movable, as it is commonly distinguished. And because in the first sense it was called the *first* of all, and in it the age was founded: therefore he says *in the beginning of times*.

### Dub. V.

Likewise the question is asked about what he says: *It belongs to the most omnipotent not to be able to do harm.*

To the contrary: Every penalty afflicts and injures, and if it injures, it harms: therefore if God cannot harm, he cannot punish.

**I respond:** It must be said that as evil is twofold, namely *of fault* and *of penalty*, so likewise harm is twofold. When therefore it is said that he cannot harm, it is not understood with regard to the harm which makes the evil of *penalty*, but to that which makes the evil of *fault*.

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