Dist. 37, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/37/q/bon-sent-II-d37-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE I.
### *Whether every action, insofar as it is an action, is from God.*

Concerning the first point three things are asked. First it is asked, whether every action, insofar as it is an action, is from God. Second it is asked, whether every conservation is from God. Third it is asked, whether every composition is from God.

### QUESTION I.
### *Whether every action, insofar as it is an action, is from God.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and it is asked, whether every action, insofar as it is an action, is from God. And that it is, it seems:

1. John, fifteenth [chapter]: *Without me you can do nothing*; but every action is in some way a being, whether it be an action of sin, or another: therefore etc. If you say that this is understood of a good action; *on the contrary*: Isaiah, tenth [chapter]: *Shall the axe be exalted against him that cutteth with it*; the Gloss: « Just as instruments are nothing acting by themselves, so Sennacherib wrought nothing by himself »: if therefore the action of Sennacherib was evil and cruel, and Sennacherib in that action was the instrument of God; it seems therefore that every evil action is from him as from a first principle.

2. Likewise, things which are of the same genus have the same first principles; but to give alms for the sake of God, and to give alms for the sake of vainglory are actions of the same genus in the genus of nature: if therefore that action by which one gives alms for the sake of God is from God; it seems that also that action by which one gives alms for the cause of empty glory is from God.

3. Likewise, the working of miracles is from God alone; but someone in working miracles sins, because he does it for the sake of vainglory: therefore it seems that some action subjected to the deformity of fault is from God: therefore by parity of reasoning so is every other.

4. Likewise, all knowledge is from the Lord God; but someone learns for the sake of avarice: therefore since he cannot learn except with God aiding and cooperating, and that learning is sin; the action subjected to sin is related to God as to a principle.

5. Likewise, someone by committing adultery generates offspring; I ask therefore, whether that action or that coitus is from God, or not. If it is from God, I have what I propose. If it is not from God, therefore the offspring generated is not from God. If therefore it is impossible to posit that there be some human who is not from God: therefore also that [is impossible] from which it follows, namely that the action subjected to sin be not from God.

6. Likewise, the action which is subjected to sin is not altogether nothing, as is manifestly apparent. If therefore it is in some way a being; I ask, from what it is. If it is from the potency of the creature, it is necessary that it be from it according to that which it has of entity: that therefore, insofar as it is an action from that potency, is either from God, or not. If it is from God, since « everything which is the cause of a cause, is the cause of the caused », understood per se — namely, if the *middle* caused is the cause of the *last*, according to that which it has from the *first* — then it follows necessarily that such an action is from God. But if it is not from God, then I ask: it is either *from itself*, or *from another*. If *from another*, then I ask likewise concerning that other: it is either *from itself*, or *from another*: therefore either it will be a going to infinity, or it will be to posit that the creature has something *from itself*, or that it has *from another* than from God, which is a first principle, in which there is a stopping-point. But all these are impossible and follow from this, that some action is posited not to be from God: therefore etc.

*To the opposite.*

**On the contrary:**

1. God does not act against his own prohibition, because then he would be contrary to himself; but God prohibits some action, insofar as it is an action, just as he prohibited Adam not to eat of the apple: therefore it seems that that eating of Adam was not from God. But that that action was prohibited, insofar as it is an action, appears, because to eat of that apple was of itself good, and there was no deformity in it, except after it was prohibited.

2. Likewise, every action which is from a good will, as is one operating through charity, is good with a perfect goodness in the genus of morals; but every action which goes forth from God goes forth from the best will, in which is the highest charity: therefore every action of which God is the principle is good with the goodness of morals. But the action subjected to sin is not good with the goodness of morals: therefore it is not from God.

3. Likewise, all things whatsoever God does, he does with a good end — *for he wrought all things for himself* — but everything which is done with a good end is simply good; but the action subjected to sin is not simply good: therefore it cannot be from God as from a cause.

4. Likewise, whenever the agent is conjoined to the rule in operating, he operates rightly and well; but the rule of free choice is the rectitude itself of the divine will: therefore in every operation in which God cooperates with free choice, when there is a conjoining of the agent to the rule, there is rectitude. If therefore in some operation throughout the whole there is a swerving, it seems that its cooperation is not from God.

5. Likewise, if the operation which is subject to sin is from God and from free choice, either it is wholly from God and wholly from free choice, or part from God and part from free choice. If wholly from God and wholly from free choice: therefore it seems that the whole is at once both good and evil; which is altogether impossible. If part from God and part from free choice; but by whatever reasoning one part is posited to be from free choice, by the same reasoning the other can also be posited: and so it seems that the whole operation is so from free choice that it is not from God.

6. Likewise, if God cooperates with free choice in an action which is subjected to sin; either therefore free choice moves *more principally* than God, or conversely. It is established that free choice in no operation can move either *more principally* or *equally principally* as God, since God, both in moving and in causing — of whatever it be said to be either cause or mover — is understood to be the most principal. If therefore God moves *more principally*, therefore if the principal mover excites and moves the non-principal mover; it seems that in a culpable operation free choice is excited by God: therefore when the adulterer commits lust, and the thief steals, they are excited by God to such actions; which is altogether absurd.

### Conclusion.

> Every action, whether subjected to sin or not, insofar as it is an action, is from God.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as the Master says in the text, concerning this question there were diverse positions of men so great and so reasonable, that not even the Master dared to define which of them contained the more truth. Yet, because through much discussion doubts are led to manifestation, now it is commonly held that that opinion is the truer which says that every action, whether subjected to sin or not, according to that which is action, is from God. — And not without reason, because this must be posited, if the eminence of the divine power and the indigence of the power of the creature be weighed.

For because God is the most primordial cause, therefore he is of the greatest influence into secondary causes, and of so great influence that not even a little or however small a thing, provided it be in some way a being, proceeds from any created cause, except with the divine omnipotence cooperating. — Also every created potency, so far as is of itself, is defective and is not purely active: therefore however small an operation it makes, it has need to be aided by that potency which is pure act on account of its complete unmixedness with matter, and which alone suffices for itself, in no way needing to be aided by another cause.

And therefore this position, which says that every action is from God, insofar as it is action, is to be held without any ambiguity. Whence Anselm in the book *On the Concord of Predestination and Foreknowledge*: « Every quality and every action and whatever has any essence, is from God, from whom is all justice and no injustice. God therefore does all things which are done by a just or unjust will, that is, good works and evil. In good [works] indeed he does that they are and that they are good; but in evil he does that they are, but not that they are evil ». And again in the same place: « God does all actions and all motions, because

he himself makes the things from which and out of which and through which and in which they are done: and no thing has any power of willing or doing, except by his giving; the willing itself also, which is sometimes just, sometimes unjust, is from God ». « But not-to-be-right is not anything, nor is it from God ». — The reasons therefore adduced for the first part are to be granted.

1. But to that which is objected, that God does not act against his own prohibition; it must be said that it is true. But God, when he prohibits some action, does not prohibit [it] to himself, but to another; nor does he prohibit his own cooperation, which he does not withdraw from the creature, but he prohibits the operation to the creature itself; and therefore, while he cooperates with it, he does not act against his own prohibition. And *if you object to me*, that nonetheless the action prohibited by God is from God; it must be said that in a prohibited action there are two things to consider: both that it is an *action* and that it is *prohibited*; but by him it is done, insofar as it is *action*, but not insofar as *prohibited*; and therefore it does not follow that he acts against himself.

2. To that which is objected, that every action which is from a good will is good; it must be said that this has truth in a *created* will, but it is not necessary that it have truth in an *uncreated* will, speaking of the goodness of *morals*. And the reason for this is this: that, when some action is from a good created will, since the uncreated will, which cooperates with it, is without doubt good, that action is simply good, because its *whole* cause is good. But when the uncreated will is good, which cooperates with the created will, the created will can be disordered, and by reason of that a defect can come about concerning that operation. Whence just as we see that in some operation which is from God and from a created power, from the defect of the *created* power that operation wholly fails; so also from the disorder of the created will it happens that that action is depraved. — Otherwise it could be said that *operation* is spoken of in two ways. In one way operation is called the work *operating*; in another way the work *operated*. And when it is said: if the will is good, the work is good; this is to be understood of the *operating* work, which namely is the act of the will itself, as the willing; and so it does not have an instance in God, because the *willing* of God is God, and the *action* of God is God, in this manner. But if operation be called the work *operated* itself, then it does not follow that such a work be good with *complete* or *meritorious* goodness, but it suffices that it be good with the goodness of *nature*, as is clear. Works which proceed from the will of God are good with the goodness of *nature*, and this goodness the action has which is subjected to malice.

3. But to that which is objected, that God does all things for himself; it must be said that it is true; and it must also be granted that he does for himself the action subjected to malice; for he cooperates with the creature for his own sake. But when it is said that the operation which is done for the sake of God is good with the goodness of *morals*; this is understood of the operation of a rational creature. For it cannot be understood of God, for the reason that God cooperates not only with the rational creature, but also with the irrational; yet that operation is not said to be good with the goodness of *morals*.

4. To that which is objected, that when a created agent is conjoined to the directing rule, he does not err; it must be said that it is true, if he is simply conjoined to it. But then he is conjoined to it *simply*, when he is conjoined both as to the *operation* and as to the *circumstances*. But when he goes out into an operation *deprived of due circumstances*, in this, that he *goes out into the operation*, he is conjoined to it, but in this, that he *deprives it of due circumstances*, he fails and is disjoined from it; and so he is disjoined, not by *acting*, but by *failing*, and by *failing* is the principle of evil; and in this, that he fails, he recedes from God, because that defect is not from God. For although God cooperates with the one operating, yet he does not fail with the one failing.

5. To that which is asked: whether the whole operation is from God etc.; it must be said that it is *wholly* from God, and *wholly from free choice*. For it is not to be understood that God cooperates with free choice as when two carry a stone, one cooperates with the other; but because God is intimately acting in every action, and is intimate to the operating potency itself, so that the potency itself goes out into nothing which is not from him. — And *if one object* that the same action will be wholly good and wholly evil; it must be said that God gives to that action only the goodness of *nature*; but free choice does not deprive it of the goodness of *nature*, but of the goodness of *morals*. And these two do not have opposition, namely, that something have the goodness of *nature* and be deprived of the goodness of *morals*.

6. To that which is objected, that God is the principal mover in such an action; it must be said that it is true; yet it does not follow from this that he *excites* free choice to the doing of that operation. For *excitation* says some effect of grace, *preceding* the will itself. But this is required in meritorious goods; in other works, indifferent or even evil, there is nothing except the sole *cooperation* of the divine power, which existing in the creature potentially, essentially, and presentially, just as it conserves it in being, so it aids it in operating; on account of which it is granted that there is there *cooperation*, yet not *prevention*, or *consequence*.