Dist. 23, 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/2/d/23/q/bon-sent-II-d23-a1-q2
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### Article I. *On the permission of the first temptation.*
### Question II. *Whether God ought to have permitted that man be assailed.*

Secondly it is asked whether God ought to have permitted that man be assailed. And that He ought, it seems:

1. By that which the Master says in the text: "It would not be praiseworthy to live well, unless there were someone who urged living badly": therefore if He ought to have permitted everything that contributed to enlarging human praise, He ought therefore to have permitted that man be assailed through diabolical suggestion.

2. Likewise, according to the right judgment of reason and the testimony of the Apostle, second to Timothy, chapter two: *He shall not be crowned, unless he strive lawfully*: if therefore man was to be led to the crown of glory, it seems from right order that he ought to have been set in the conflict of temptation and battle.

3. Likewise, it befits God so to administer things and to provide for them, that the law be preserved which He implanted in them from their first condition, according to that of Augustine in the seventh book of the City of God: "God so administers the things which He has founded, that He allows them to perform their own motions"; but God made, and ought to have made, man in the changeableness of free choice *and to leave him in the hand of his own counsel*, and likewise Lucifer: therefore if the devil willed to vex man, and man willed to consent to him, God ought to have hindered neither of them.

4. Likewise, it was easier for man to conquer his adversary than for the devil to conquer man; for man could not be conquered except willingly: therefore that battle was of itself more ordered to the victory of man than to the victory of the devil: therefore more to good than to evil. If therefore God ought to permit what is directly ordered to the good of man, it seems that the adversary was not to be kept away from the temptation of the first man.

**On the contrary:**
1. He would be an impious father who permitted his son to engage in a war in which he knew he would be overcome by another; but God knew that Adam would be overcome by that temptation: therefore it seems that He did not bear Himself as a loving father when He permitted him to be overcome by the devil.

2. Likewise, he is not a good prelate nor a shepherd who permits a sheep to be bitten and carried off by a wolf, when he can repel and ward him off; but God was the prelate and shepherd of man: therefore since He saw the wolf fiercely pressing on, it seems that He ought not to have permitted man to be assailed by the adversary or attacked by the wolf.

3. Likewise, he is not a right judge who establishes a battle between those who are not equally strong; but the devil was by nature much stronger in powers than man, since *there is no power upon earth that can be compared to him*. He was also much more obstinate in malice than man was confirmed in grace. If therefore God is an equitable judge, He ought not to have permitted them to clash with one another.

4. Likewise, he is not a strong possessor who permits another to invade his court: for *when the strong man armed keeps his court, those things are in peace which he possesses*. Since therefore man in his first state was the court and temple of God, and the Lord Himself kept it; either God was not the strong man armed and the keeper, or He ought not to have permitted the adversary to vex and invade man through the conflict and battle of temptation.

### Conclusion.

> For several reasons it was fitting that God permit man to be assailed.

**I respond:** To the foregoing it must be said that, although God could have forbidden the adversary to tempt man, it was nonetheless fitting that He permit him. — And the ground of fittingness can be had from the reasons already assigned in the preceding problem, in which it was shown that God ought to have made man in the liberty of free choice.

But beyond these reasons a reason can be assigned, first, from the order which is regarded in the comparison of *virtue to its proper act*. "For God so administers all things, that He allows them to perform their own motions"; and therefore He constituted both man and the devil in liberty of choice *and left them in the hand of their own counsel*, and permitted each to do what he willed, whether the one in tempting, or the other in consenting. For this belonged to His governance in the preservation of order, which is regarded in the comparison of virtue to its proper act.

Secondly, a reason is taken from the order which is regarded through the comparison of *good to its opposite*, in which virtue is shown more glorious and more praiseworthy, whether from that aforesaid comparison, on account of which it shines forth and appears the more, or from the attainment of a certain noble triumph, on account of which it is fortified and invigorated. Therefore, that the virtue of man might shine forth and advance, it was fitting that God permit him to be assailed by the adversary; because either then, or afterward, from the very impulse of the temptation the fortitude and eminence of charity was to be made manifest, of which the Apostle says that *neither death nor life nor principalities nor powers shall be able to separate from it*, to the Romans, chapter eight.

Thirdly, a reason can be taken from the order which is regarded from the comparison of *disease to its remedy*. For because the sin of man ought not to lack a remedy, on account of this, that the whole human nature was in him; God thus ought to permit man to sin, in such a way that it would befit Him to furnish to that same man a Redeemer. And therefore God rather disposed to permit that man sin with another suggesting and impelling, than by his own will bending him, by which bending man perhaps would have fallen, even if the adversary had never suggested anything pestilential.

A fourth reason can be taken from the order which is regarded through the comparison of *merit to reward*. For because no one is worthy to be crowned except him who strives lawfully; therefore it was fitting that God should first examine man, His soldier, in the field of combat, before exalting him in glory; and because examination consists in conflict and battle, He ought to have permitted man to be assailed by the devil. — There are also other reasons which can be given concerning this very matter; but for the present let these suffice.

**To the objections:**

1. To that which is first objected on the contrary side concerning paternal piety, it must be said that, although God is a loving father, He is nonetheless an equitable judge; and therefore it so befitted God to show paternal piety toward man, that He should nonetheless not omit the office of judiciary power; and therefore, whatever He had foreknown concerning man, He ought to sustain that he be attacked by the adversary in the war of temptation.

2. To that which is objected concerning the goodness of prelacy, it must be said that a prelate ought to snatch a sheep from the bite of the wolf, either because he is bound to this by the law of charity, or because out of an evil he *does not know how*, and therefore *cannot* elicit a good of greater usefulness. The opposite of each of these is found in God, if one attends to it; and therefore that reason does not compel in the matter at hand.

3. To that which is objected concerning the rectitude of the judge, it must be said that, although the devil was stronger and more cunning than man, yet in the battle of temptation he was not stronger, but indeed much weaker, whether from the general law of temptation, by which no one is conquered except willingly, or from the fidelity of God, *who does not permit anyone to be tempted beyond what he can bear, but indeed makes with the temptation an outcome*. And therefore the impulse of the first temptation, when it occurred, the fidelity of God and the law of temptation being preserved, was not against the order of judiciary power.

4. To that which is objected concerning the fortitude of the armed keeper, it must be said that, although God kept man strongly, He did not, however, keep him unwilling or involuntary, because God does not accept coerced service, but free and voluntary service. And therefore, if man had willed to stand with God, no one could violently have carried him off from the hand of God; but because he himself withdrew from His keeping, therefore God denied him His keeping, and from this the adversary invaded him — indeed, not from a defect of God the keeper, but from the ingratitude of man the kept.

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