Dist. 38, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/38/q/bon-sent-II-d38-a1-q3
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### Article I.
### Question III. *Whether a good will has one sole end, or whether there can be several.*

Thirdly it is asked whether a good will has one sole end, or whether there can be several. And that there is one sole end seems [to be the case].

1. Deuteronomy 6: *Thou shalt love the Lord thy God* etc.; the Gloss: «God does not will to divide His love, so that together with Him we should love something else»: therefore whoever sets up for himself diverse ends does not do what God wills; and if he does not do what God wills, he does not have a good will.

2. Likewise, upon that text of Philippians 1: *Whether by occasion, or by good will;* the Gloss: «Whoever seeks from God something other than God does not love chastely»; but no will is good except that which loves Him chastely: therefore no will is good which seeks something other than God.

3. Likewise, just as there is a resting-place in the first principle, so also in the last end; but the first principle, in which there is a resting-place, is but one: therefore if the end ought to correspond to the principle, it seems that for a good will there ought to be set up but one end: therefore if the will sets up for itself several ends, it does not do what it ought: therefore it is not good.

4. Likewise, whoever intends diverse ends has his heart divided; but he who divides his heart does not love God with his whole heart, nor seek God with his whole heart; and whoever is such does not please God, who commands that He be loved with the whole heart, and wills to possess the whole heart: therefore it does not seem that there can be a good will which sets up for itself diverse ends.

**On the contrary:** 1. Upon that text of First Corinthians 9: *For he that plougheth ought to plough in hope* etc., the Gloss: «The preacher, who opens hearts to faith, ought to plough in hope of temporal stipends»: therefore it seems that a good will can set for itself not only a spiritual end, but also a temporal one: therefore it seems that it can have diverse ends.

2. Likewise, Luke 15: *How many hired servants in my father's house;* there Ambrose says that «there are many hired servants who abound in hope, faith, and charity»; but a hired servant sets up for himself a created end, namely some reward, which is a created beatitude. For if he set up for himself only the uncreated end, he would no longer be a hired servant, but a son: therefore if it happens that there are good hired servants, it happens that a good will has diverse ends.

3. Likewise, good added to good makes a greater good: therefore if one good end makes the will good, then much more several good ends: therefore it seems that the will is the better in proportion as it sets up for itself the more good ends: therefore it is not necessary that a good will have one sole end.

4. Likewise, just as the concupiscible [power] seeks sweetness, so the irascible seeks loftiness, and the rational seeks beauty. If therefore beauty is not only the end of the rational [power], but also a perfection, and so of the others, and of several perfectibles there are several perfections; since there are in us three diverse powers by which we are turned upward, namely the rational, the concupiscible, and the irascible: it seems that in every good action and will there is to be assigned diverse ends.

> **Conclusion.** A good will has one sole principal end, under which there can be other, non-principal ends.

**I respond:** It must be said that a good will has one sole principal end. On account of which it must be understood that to set up several ends can be in three ways. In one way, so that the end is under an end and for the sake of an end; in another way, so that one is the principal end, the other non-principal, yet in such wise that the non-principal end is not actually referred to the principal; in a third way, so that each is a principal end. — But an example of this can be assigned in that which frequently happens, namely, when someone goes to church to receive the distributions. For he can do this in three ways: either so that he principally intends the honor and glory of God, when he goes there to sing praises; and together with this he intends to obtain money, that he may distribute it to the poor or convert it to other lawful uses for the honor of God. In another way someone can go to church, intending to please God, and together with this to acquire money, yet in such wise that he does not refer its acquisition to God, nor does he set up the money itself as a principal end, for the reason that he does not love it for its own sake. In a third way someone goes to church with a doubled intention, so that he wills to please God, and wills to obtain money, which like a miser he seeks to acquire, that he may enlarge his treasure and delight in it for its own sake. — In the first way, to set up diverse ends is good and meritorious and pertains to a good will. In the second way, to set up diverse ends does not belong to a good will, formally speaking; yet it is not so repugnant that it cannot stand with it; for there is here a venial sin, not a mortal one. And this is what Augustine wishes to say in the book of the Confessions, when he says: «He loves Thee less who loves something together with Thee, which he does not love for Thy sake». But in the third way, to set up diverse ends does not belong

to a good will, nay rather is against a good will; for such a one wills to serve two masters; and this is impossible, as is said in Matthew 6. For when one thus principally intends two ends, that prophetic [word] is verified: *The bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and the short covering cannot cover both;* and such is the will of hypocrites, against whom Scripture threatens the woe of eternal damnation, for the reason that they enter the earth by two ways. And therefore it is said in Ecclesiasticus 1: *Come not to him with a double heart; for he who comes in heart and heart is a hypocrite:* and because the joy of the hypocrite is as the size of a point, therefore it is said in Hosea 10: *Their heart is divided, now they shall perish.*

Thus therefore from what has been said it is gathered that a good will can have several ends, so that one is the principal end, and the other non-principal or an end under an end. But to set up several principal ends is repugnant to a good will, as the reasons show which are adduced for the first part. For since there is but one supreme and true good which quiets human desire, it is necessary that a good will, in order to be right, set up for itself one sole end.

1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that he who ploughs ought to plough in hope; it must be said that the Gloss itself dissolves that objection, while it manifests itself in what follows; for it lays stress on this, that it is said *in hope,* not *for the sake of hope.* For *for the sake of* denotes a principal end; *in,* however, does not only denote a principal end, but rather an end which is contained beneath an end. And therefore from that word it does not follow that one can set up for himself several principal ends, nay, if it be rightly understood, rather the opposite follows.

2. To that which is objected, that the hired servant sets up for himself a created end; it must be said that there is a good hired servant and a bad one; and the bad hired servant differs from the good in two respects. First indeed, because the bad hired servant sets up for himself a created end, which being had, God is not necessarily had; but the good hired servant sets up for himself a created end which to have is nothing other than to have God, namely the very fruition of God. Secondly he differs in this, that the bad hired servant sets up for himself a created end as a principal one; but the good hired servant sets up for himself a created end as an end under an end; for he does not love God for the sake of the fruition, but the fruition for the sake of God. And therefore from this it is not had that the end of a good will is multiplied.

3. To that which is objected, that good added to good makes a greater good; it must be said that this is true when the addition of good to good is made with the order preserved. For since goodness necessarily posits order, if the addition of good to good takes away the order, it does not increase the good, but rather destroys it. Since therefore a plurality of principal ends does not preserve order, because according to right order the resting-place ought to be in one, and the last [end] ought to be one; hence it is that a plurality of principal ends does not augment the goodness of the will, but rather depraves the will itself, because, while it wills to please one, it displeases another, and while it wills to attain one, it loses the other.

4. To that which is objected, that the rational [power] seeks its own beauty, and the concupiscible sweetness etc.; it must be said that beauty and sweetness can be taken in two ways: either as it is perfective and informative of the virtue of the soul, or as it is motive of the soul itself. In the first way it holds the character of an end under an end, and so can be multiplied according to the diversity of the soul's endowments; in the second way, namely as it holds the character of object and motive, thus it has unity. For in God beauty, loftiness, and sweetness are the same; and so it holds the character of a principal end. — And so it is clear that although it may happen that several non-principal ends be set up, yet, in order that the will be good, it is necessary that one sole end be principal. For otherwise God is not loved with the whole heart.