Dist. 37, 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/37/q/bon-sent-II-d37-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether the conservation of every thing is from God.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the conservation of every thing is from God. And that it is, it seems:

*Fundamenta.*

1. *First*, through Gregory: « All things would fall back into nothing, did not the hand of the Creator hold them together »: therefore all things that are conserved are conserved by God.

2. Likewise, *to-be* is the act of a being, and *to-live* of a living being: but there is no act which is not immediately from God: therefore no *to-be* and no *to-live*. If therefore a creature continuously is, and continuation in *being* is nothing other than duration, since its *being* cannot be except from God, the conservation of every thing is from God.

3. Likewise, nothing mutable subsists or is preserved in *being* except through what is immutable and fixed; but every created *being* is mutable and variable, at least from past to future — for as Jerome says: « For God alone is he who knows not past or future » — therefore nothing can subsist except with God conserving it.

4. Likewise, the more an effect receives from a cause, the more it depends on it, and the more it depends on it, the less it can endure or subsist without it; but every created thing, both what it *is* and what it *has*, has from God: therefore it is impossible that anything be conserved in *being* even for a moment, except with God conserving it.

5. Likewise, as *essence* stands to the first essence, and *wisdom* to the first wisdom, so *duration* stands to the first duration; but every *essence* is from the first essence, and every *wisdom* from the first wisdom: therefore every *duration* is produced from the first duration as from a principle: therefore nothing is conserved in *being* except through God.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine, in the book *On the Nature of the Good*, treating that which is said in Ecclesiastes, eighth [chapter]: *His word is full of power*, says that « his *saying* is his *making* ». But at once, when God made the creature, together with this he disposed how long the creature ought to endure: therefore it seems that he at once gave it the power of continuing itself in *being*: therefore it does not seem that God further conserves it immediately. And if you say that the power given to the creature still needs the divine power cooperating at the same time; *on the contrary:* if his *saying* is his *making*, and *saying* cannot be successive, then neither [can] *making*; but the conservation of a creature is with succession: therefore it does not seem that that conservation is from God as from a conserver.

2. Likewise, it belongs to the nobility of a created agent that it can make a work stable of itself, not needing the artificer himself continually to sustain it; but God is an artificer much nobler and much more powerful: therefore it seems that he gives to his works such a *being* that they do not need him conserving them continually: therefore the conservation of things does not seem to be immediately from God.

3. Likewise, the same is the principle of being and of conserving; but form sufficiently gives to each thing its *being*: therefore it seems that for the conservation of each thing the power of its own form suffices. And if you say that the form cannot conserve its own matter; it is plain that this is false in the soul, which has a power vegetative and governing of the body.

4. Likewise, if every thing is conserved by God immediately; since the divine power cannot fail of itself nor can be overcome by another, it seems that no operation of a creature, neither through its own defect nor through the action of a contrary, could ever be terminated; for duration never fails without a defect of the conserving power. And it is plain that the action of many things is terminated: therefore it seems that the conservation of such things is not from God as from an immediate principle.

5. Likewise, suppose that a creature be left to itself; either it is conserved in *being*, or it is corrupted. If it is conserved in *being*, I have my point, namely, that not every conservation is from God. If it is corrupted; this is either by an alien action, or by its own inclination. Not by an alien action, since no creature can reduce another to nothing. Not by its own inclination, since « nature always desires what is better », and form seeks to be united to matter and matter to form: therefore if motion follows inclination and appetite, [the creature] will always endure and never fail: therefore the same returns as before, namely, that not every conservation is from God.

### Conclusion.

> The conservation of every thing is from God as from an immediate principle, yet not as from a total cause.

**I respond:** It must be said that not only every action, but also every conservation, must be from God. *(Conclusion 1.)*

And the reason of this is the necessity and neediness on the part of the creature. *(Reason.)* For every creature is from nothing, and has its *being* from elsewhere. Because it is from nothing, it is therefore in a certain manner *vain* and *subject to vanity*; but because it has its *being* from elsewhere, therefore *being* is to it in a certain manner *accidental*. The contrary manner is in God; whence Hilary, in the seventh [book] *On the Trinity*: « Being is not an accident to God, but a subsisting truth and an abiding cause and a natural property of his kind ». As therefore the *vain* cannot be propped up except by the true and stable, and the *accident* cannot be propped up except by a subject; so the *being* of a creature cannot be conserved without the munificence of the creative essence. Whence, just as a creature has *essence* and *action*, so also it has *duration*; and on account of this, although a creature cannot be actually infinite, nonetheless it is posited as infinite in duration. For infinity of duration does not posit in a creature any actual infinity. *(To be noted.)* — And the reason of this is that the power by which a creature endures is not only of the creature itself, but indeed also of the creative essence. For it is true that in a creature there is some power to endure; but that is not wholly in act, but rather is in potency in a certain manner with respect to that power which is infinite in act. *(Conclusion 2.)* And this is what the Philosopher means to say in the book *On Causes*, that « all infinite powers that are dependent are [so] through one first infinite, which is the power of powers ». — Therefore the reasons are to be granted which show that the conservation of every thing is from God as from an immediate principle; yet it is not from him as from a *total* cause. For just as in a creature there is some created operative power, so also there is some conservative power.

*Solution of the opposing [arguments].*

1. To that therefore which is first objected, that his *saying* is his *making*; it must be said that this is not said *immediately*, on the ground that the *making* follows upon the *saying*; for God said from eternity

and made in time; but this is said because there is no new operation on the part of God, the *making* itself being superadded to the *saying*, as happens in the operation of a creature. — Nor is it valid what is *objected*, that *saying* is not successive. For it must be said that neither the *saying* of God nor [his] *making* is successive according to *that which it is*, since the *saying* and the *making* of God is God and an eternal *what-it-is*. *(To be noted.)* Nevertheless, just as from the eternal the temporal can proceed, so from the divine *saying*, in which there is no succession, a successive duration can proceed, which indeed is successive not by reason of an exigency on the part of God conserving, but on the part of the thing conserved.

2. To that which is objected, that a created artificer can make a work stable of itself; it must be said that it is not similar, on the ground that a created artificer so makes a thing that he does not make its intrinsic principles; for he has no power over the whole substance of the thing. And therefore the thing made can be conserved in its own principles, which do not depend on the power of the artificer. But it is not so in the work of God. For every work which God makes, he makes according to the whole of it; and therefore it depends totally on him and cannot be conserved without his aid.

3. To that which is objected, that the same is the principle of being and of conserving; it must be said that it is true in the genus of *formal* cause; and likewise it is true in the genus of *efficient* cause. *(To be noted.)* Although therefore *being* in a creature is from the created form as from that which informs it, nonetheless it is from God as from the efficient [cause]. Therefore, just as for the conservation of a thing the power of the *completing form* is necessary, so also the aid of the *first and immediate efficient* is necessary.

4. To that which is objected, that if God conserved things, nothing would be corrupted; it must be said that that argument fails in two ways. First indeed, because God conserves *voluntarily*; and therefore he conserves only as much as pleases him, and according to the disposition of his wisdom. — Furthermore, the conservation of a thing is not from God as from a *total cause*, but there is required on the part of the creature an aptitude for conservation, and a power in a certain manner conservative, upon whose swifter or slower defect follows a longer or less long duration of the creature; and when there is an aptitude in the creature for enduring in perpetuity, such as simplicity, God continues its *being* eternally. *(To be noted.)*

5. To that which is asked, whether, if a creature were left to itself, it would be corrupted; I say that it would. — And if he should *ask* whether [it would be corrupted] by some agent, or not; I say that by no agent, but on account of a defect in itself. For such a corruption, which is annihilation, denotes a pure defect; and therefore it requires not an efficient cause, but a deficient one; and this is in a creature from this, that it is from nothing. — And if he should *object* that the natural inclination of every thing is to endure in *being*, and that motion follows inclination; it must be said that this is true of the inclination of motion stating a position. *(To be noted.)* It is also true of the principles of a thing preserved in *being*, upon which that inclination is founded. But if a creature were left to itself, the principles of the thing would not be preserved in *being*, but rather would fail in themselves; and therefore the inclination to *being* would perish. — It could also be said *otherwise*, that when it is posited that a creature is left to itself, it is posited that the divine power withdraws itself; and when it is posited that the divine power withdraws itself, consequently the annihilation of the creature is posited. *(Otherwise.)* For just as through the operation of the infinite power there can be an eduction from nothing into *being*, so also through withdrawal there can be an annihilation; and to this extent Hugh says that annihilation of a creature is possible to the divine power alone. Nevertheless that statement must be understood soundly, since it is very open to cavil.