Dist. 14, 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/14/q/bon-sent-II-d14-p1-dubia
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## DOUBTS CONCERNING THE LETTER OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I.

Yet someone could doubt concerning what he says in the letter: *That God by a glacial solidity suspended the waters.* For from this he seems to suppose that those waters are of themselves heavy, and that they are held there by the violence of solidity; which is contrary to the order of the universe.

*Reply.* But it must be said to this that he compares those waters to glacial solidity not on account of weight, but on account of continuity and stability, because they neither flow nor flow back nor descend downward.

### Doubt II.

Likewise someone could doubt concerning this which he says: *That the waters above that heaven emanate in tinier drops and lighter vapors.* For if this is true, then the firmament seems to be *porous,* so that through it drops of water can emanate. That heaven also seems to be *alterable,* if it receives foreign impressions.

*Reply.* But it must be said to this that he does not mean that waters now, through the subtilization of heat, pass through the starry heaven, since they never ascend there; but, through the operation of nature, which now raises waters up above the air, he wishes as it were *from the lesser* to intimate that the divine power was able, without prejudice to nature, to place waters above the firmament, since it was in his power to make a body more and more subtle.

### Doubt III.

Likewise it is asked about that reason which he gives: *It is not said here… God saw that it was good… because the binary is the principle of otherness and the sign of division. On the contrary:* This reason seems to be just as good for the opposite as for the proposition. For the *binary* approaches unity more than any other number.

*Reply.* But it must be answered to this that this reason of the Master is *allegorical,* yet it is true. For although the *binary,* among numbers, departs least from unity, it nevertheless *first* has in itself the character of departure, and on account of this through it division is understood more than through other numbers, and the departure from the unity of virtue and perfection. There is, however, another reason, a *literal* one, which the Master touches in the *Histories*, namely that on the second day a distinction of waters from waters is noted to have been made, which distinction, although it was begun on the second day, was nevertheless consummated on the third, when it is said: *Let the waters be gathered into one place*. And because the divine seeing signifies approbation after perfection, hence it is that Scripture passed over the word "seeing" on the second day.

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