Dist. 37
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXXVII.

#### Chapter I.

#### *That certain men hold that evil acts are in no way from God.*

But there are also very many others, who think far otherwise concerning sin and concerning the act; for they assert that the evil will and the evil act are sins and in no respect good, nor are from God as author according to any account, because they come to be without God. For without Him, as the Evangelist says, *was made nothing,* that is, sin, which is said to be nothing, not because it is not an action, or an evil will, which is something, but because it separates men from true being and draws them toward evil, and thus leads them to *non-being.* "For those who recede from participation in the highest good, which alone truly and properly *is,* are deservedly said *not to be*." And therefore Augustine says, on John, that "sin is nothing, and that men become nothing when they sin." By this reasoning, therefore, they maintain that sin is nothing, because it estranges man from *true being;* and they say that the evil will and the action, or evil speech, is sin, because these are transgression and disobedience and come to be against the law of God; which nevertheless *are,* but from man, or from the devil, not from God. For in no way do they say that these are from God, whether insofar as they are, or in any other way.

Those words also of Augustine, by which he says that everything that is, insofar as it is, is good and has God as author, they hand down as to be taken only of *nature* or of *substances.* And by the name of *substance* and of *nature* they say that there are signified the substances themselves, and the things which they have naturally, namely those which are con-created with them, as the soul naturally has intellect and natural disposition and will and the like; which is gathered from the words of Augustine premised above, where he calls a *good* man a *good nature,* and an evil man an *evil nature.* — According to this assertion, therefore, or acceptation, evil acts are not natures or substances, nor are good acts either; which indeed Augustine seems to suggest in the first book of Retractations, distinguishing between *substances* or natures, and good *actions* or evil ones. For in disclosing how a certain thing handed down by him in the book On True Religion is to be understood, he says: "This was said of *substances* and natures. For it was being disputed thence, not of good *actions* and sins." — Here he plainly seems to divide between *natures* or substances, and *actions* or sins. And therefore the aforesaid doctors assert that actions interior or exterior are not natures or substances, which, if they are evil, are sins and are not from God. But that evil *acts* are not *natures,* Augustine seems to note in the first response against the Pelagians, saying thus: "The works of the devil, which are called *vices,* are *acts,* not *things.*" The same one in the fourth response: "Every evil is not *nature,* but an *act, accidental* to something from a defect of good. Wherefore what is not *nature* God did not make, because nature is everything that He made." Likewise: "Everything that is by nature good, God made out of nothing, not the devil."

From which it is gathered that there are certain things which are not from God, and by which men are evil. Which nevertheless they themselves also concede, relying on the words of Augustine set down above, who in the Enchiridion, in determining those words of the Prophet, *Woe to those who call good evil,* says that "this is to be understood of the very things by which men are evil, not of the men." There are, therefore, certain things by which men are evil. But that by which a man becomes worse is not from God, because, as Augustine says in the book of the Eighty-three Questions, "with God as author a man does not become worse." God, therefore, is not the author of the things by which a man becomes worse; but there are certain things, as has been said, by which men become evil: there are, therefore, certain things which are not from God, because they themselves are sins. And therefore Scripture testifies in many places that God is not the author of evils, that is, of those things which are sins.

#### Chapter II.

#### *In what sense it is said: God is not the author of evil.*

But to this saying of the opinion of the foregoing there are rightly opposed those who say that God is not the author of the things which are evil, insofar as they are evil, but insofar as they are; and insofar as they are evil, they say that they are nothing. What wonder, therefore, if God is said not to be the author of them, insofar as they are nothing, since no one can exist as the author of nothing? And therefore, when God is said to be the author of all things which are, these men wish *good things* to be understood. And they say that those things are *good* which *naturally* are; but those things they say to be naturally, not only those which are substances, or con-created with substances, in the way they took it above, but also all things which do not deprive nature of good. And so according to the same men there comes to be a manifold understanding in the Scriptures, where there occurs speech concerning nature or substance, or concerning those things which naturally are. But on that passage of the Psalm: *There is no substance,* Augustine thus discoursed concerning *substance,* so that he seems to consent to the aforesaid opinion, saying: "*Substance* is understood to be that which we are, whatever we are, man, beast, earth, sun; all these are *substances,* by the very fact that they are. The natures themselves are called substances; for what is no substance is nothing at all: substance therefore is *to be something.*" "God made man a substance, but through iniquity man fell away from the substance in which he was made; for iniquity itself is not a substance. For iniquity is not a nature, which God formed, but iniquity is a perversion, which man made." "All natures were made through Him; iniquity was not made through Him, because iniquity is not a substance. In that hymn of the three boys every creature praising God is commemorated. For all things praise God, but the things which God made. The serpent there praises God, but not avarice. All creeping things are there named, but not any vices. For vices we have from ourselves and from our own will, and vices are not a substance." — Let the asserters of the aforesaid opinions attend diligently to these words, and they will be able to perceive the reason and the cause of the things said, where Scripture makes mention of *nature* or *substance.* — But the judgment of those opinions we leave to the discretion of the prudent reader, to whom

we have fully given the knowledge of each opinion, hastening on to those things which still remain to us to be treated.

Since, therefore, in this all the catholic treaters agree, namely that God is not the author of evils; yet it must be guarded against, lest under the name of *evils* you generally include *penalties,* as you do *sins.* For of penalties God is the author, as He Himself says through the Prophet: *There is no evil in the city, which the Lord has not done.* Likewise elsewhere He says in His own person: *I am God, creating evil and making good.* — Behold, here He is said to have created and made evil; but by the name of *evil* a penalty is understood, not sin; just as, conversely, when God is said not to be the author of evils, by the name of *evil* sins are understood. And therefore Augustine, who had said in the book of the Eighty-three Questions that God is not the author of evil, in the first book of Retractations discloses how this is to be understood, saying: "It must be seen that what I said be not ill understood: God is not the author of evil, who is also the author of all things which are, because insofar as they are, so far they are good; and lest from this it be thought that the penalty of the wicked is not from Him, which assuredly is an evil to those who are punished. But I said this thus, as it is said: *God did not make death,* although it is written elsewhere: *Death and life are from the Lord.* The penalty therefore of the wicked, which is from God, is indeed an evil to the evil, but it is among the good works of God, since it is just that the evil be punished; and assuredly everything that is just is good." — Thus, therefore, God is said not to have made death, because He did not make that on account of which death is inflicted, that is, sin. You have heard, reader, the cause of the things said, from which a sound understanding is confirmed, when it is said: *God is not the author of evil,* and: *God did not make death.*

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