Dist. 23, 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/23/q/bon-sent-II-d23-dubia
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## DOUBTS CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I.

In this part there are doubts concerning the text, and first it is asked about that which he says in the first chapter: *It would not be praiseworthy for a man to live well, if no one were urging him to live badly.* But on the contrary: for if this is true, then it seems that our life in glory will not be praiseworthy, where no one will urge us to live badly. — Likewise, suppose that the devil had persuaded a man to nothing, nonetheless he could have merited; but if he merited, he would be worthy of praise: therefore, etc.

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a certain praise which regards the worthiness of a voluntary work, inasmuch as that work is noble: and this could exist in a man even if no one had tempted him. But there is a certain praise which regards not only a voluntary work, but also a strenuous and arduous work, which consists in the vanquishing of an adversary and the carrying-off of the triumph; and of this the *Apostle* speaks, in the second [letter] to Timothy, second [chapter]: *He will not be crowned, unless he has lawfully striven.* And the Master understands [it] of this praise. — And thus those two objections are made plain, because they proceed concerning praise according to the first mode.

### Doubt II.

Likewise it is asked about that which is said: *It is more glorious not to consent to sin than to be unable to be tempted.* But on the contrary: God cannot be tempted; but man can: therefore man is more glorious than God. — Likewise, in the state of glory a man will not be able to be tempted; in the state of the way he can: therefore the state of the way is more glorious than that of the fatherland; and if this is true, misery is more glorious than glory.

**I respond:** It must be said that the word of the Master must be understood concerning him who is made glorious from the merit of his own works; and therefore that which he objects concerning God does not hold. — Likewise, the intensity of glory is to be understood in the proposed statement not with respect to the substantial reward, but with respect to some accidental praise, by which a just man is praised, in Ecclesiasticus, thirty-first [chapter]: *Who could transgress, and has not transgressed*, etc.; and therefore that which is objected in the second place does not hold.

### Doubt III.

Likewise it is asked about that which he says, that *man did not lose the knowledge of created things, and therefore he is not instructed concerning it in Scripture.* For each [statement] seems to be false. For it is plain that we, who are the sons of Adam, are ignorant of the natures of things and are born ignorant and cannot know them, unless we learn with great difficulty. — Likewise, the second [statement] seems to be false, because in sacred Scripture there is [an account] concerning the production of all things in the works of the six days, and how they were produced and also how they were distinguished.

**I respond:** It must be said that although man, by the desert of the first sin, has been blinded and made ignorant both in the knowledge of the universe created on account of himself, and also in the knowledge of the way of his own salvation; nevertheless he has been more blinded in the second than in the first. For toward the knowledge of natural things he can advance much by his own study and natural endowment, but in the knowledge of the manner of arriving at life he by himself fails more than he advances, unless he is directed by the instruction of divine revelation. And therefore Scripture has rather been given to us, revealed divinely and through the Holy Spirit, in the knowledge of faith and morals, than in the knowledge of natural things, although all truth is in some manner said to be from the Holy Spirit. And to this extent it must be understood that the word proposed earlier by the Master was spoken.

That, therefore, which is objected concerning the loss of knowledge, it is true that he lost the habit, yet he did not lose the natural faculty of judgment. — But to that which is objected, that Scripture intimates the production of things; it must be said that it does not there determine the special natures and causes of things; but it explains this, which sound faith holds, namely that the divine will is the first and highest cause of all things, and that all things were made through the Word and repaired through the Word.

### Doubt IV.

Likewise it is asked about that which he says, that *man did not have foreknowledge of those things which were to come.* For if this were true, since we foreknow many things concerning the future — and the holy Fathers foreknew the coming of Christ, and the Prophets likewise — it seems that Adam was not as wise as we are today. If you say that this is not unfitting on account of the gratuitous revelation which is in us and in the Prophets, that we should know something which Adam was ignorant of; it is objected against this: that, as the Saints expound, Adam in that sleep was rapt and is said to have been led to the heavenly court; and the text intimates this, that immediately after his awakening he spoke prophetically: *This now is bone* etc. If, therefore, he truly spoke prophetically, he foreknew what the joining of woman and man signified, and the formation of woman from the side of man. But the first signifies the incarnation of Christ; the second, the passion: therefore he foreknew that Christ was to be incarnate and that Christ was to suffer; but redemption and reparation presuppose the fall: therefore Adam foreknew his own future fall and its remedy.

**I respond:** It must be said that the Master does not speak of any whatsoever future things, but of those which pertained to his own state, such as the fall and the confirmation. For he could not foreknow the confirmation, because he was not going to remain; but he ought not to know the fall; and the reasons have been assigned above, when this was asked concerning the Angel.

When, therefore, it is objected that he foreknew the incarnation; it is answered in two ways: in one way, that this is false; for although he knew that woman was made, in order that she might be joined to him through the Sacrament of marriage, nevertheless it was not necessary that he should know the incarnation and the passion, for the reason that marriage in the time of innocence did not signify the joining of Christ and the Church with respect to the joining of natures, but through charity and love. — There is another way of responding, that just as Joseph foreknew his own princely rule, yet did not foreknow his own being-sold, and this was antecedent to that; so Adam was able to know something which pertained to this exaltation of nature, such as the incarnation of Christ was, yet in such a way that he was ignorant of the fall of his posterity through his own transgression, either because God did not reveal it, or because he himself did not consider it.

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