Dist. 38
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXXVIII.

### Chap. I. *On the will and its end.*

After the foregoing, we must treat of the will and its end. It must be known, therefore, that from its end, as Augustine says, the will is recognized, whether it be right or perverse. And the end of a good will is beatitude, eternal life, God himself. But the end of an evil will is something else, namely an evil delight, or something else, in which the will ought not to rest. The Prophet intimates the good end, saying: *I have seen an end of all perfection* etc. Charity, therefore, whose commandment is broad, is the end of all perfection, that is, of every good will and action, to which every precept is to be referred. Hence Augustine in the *Enchiridion*: «All the divine precepts are referred to charity, of which the Apostle says: *The end of the precept is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned*. The end of every precept, therefore, is charity, that is, every precept is referred to charity. But what is done either from fear of punishment, or from some carnal intention, so that it is not referred to charity, which is the love of God and neighbor, is not yet done as it ought to be done, although it may seem to be done». «For then are rightly done the things which God commands and which he advises by counsel, when they are referred to the love of God and neighbor». — By these words it is openly intimated what is the right end of the will, or of the action, namely charity, which is also God, as we showed above.

### Chap. II. *What the good end is, namely charity.*

He, therefore, who sets charity as his end, sets God as his end; whence the Apostle also calls Christ *the end of the law unto justice* *to everyone that believeth*. And rightly is Christ called *the end of the law unto justice*, because, as Augustine says in the book of the *Sentences of Prosper*, «in Christ the law of justice is not consumed, but fulfilled. For all perfection is in him, beyond whom there is nothing to which hope may extend itself». «The end of the faithful is Christ, to whom when the intention of one running has come, it has nowhere it can come further, but it has wherein it ought to remain». — The right and supreme end, therefore, is God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; nor are these three three ends, but one end, because they are not three Gods, but one God.

### Chap. III. *That all good wills have one end, and yet certain ones obtain diverse ends.*

But it is asked whether all good wills have one end only. Concerning this Augustine in the eleventh book *On the Trinity* thus says: «Various wills have their own proper ends, which nevertheless are referred to the end of that will by which we will to live blessedly and to attain that life which is not referred to anything else, but suffices of itself to the one loving it; just as the will of seeing has sight as its end, and the will of seeing a window has the seeing of the window as its end; but there is another will of seeing through the window those passing by, whose end likewise is the sight of those passing by. To which the aforesaid wills are also referred». Likewise: «The wills are right and all bound to one another, if that be good to which they are all referred. But if it be perverse, they are all perverse; and therefore the connection of right wills is a certain road of those ascending to beatitude, which is traversed as it were by fixed steps; but the entanglement of perverse and distorted wills is a chain, by which he who does this will be bound, that he may be cast into the exterior darkness». — By these testimonies of authorities it is evidently shown that there are in the faithful many right wills, having their own and diverse ends, and yet one and the same, because they are all referred to one, which is the end of ends, of which we spoke a little before; and so, conversely, perhaps it is also in evil things.

Nevertheless, to this opinion, by which it has been said that certain faithful right wills obtain diverse ends, and yet are referred to one, there seems to be opposed what Augustine elsewhere advises, namely that we should not set up two ends for ourselves, thus saying in the book *On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount*: «We ought not to evangelize for this reason, that we may eat, but to eat for this reason, that we may evangelize: so that food is not a good which is sought, but a necessity which is added, that it may be fulfilled: *Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you*». He did not say: «*first seek the kingdom of God*, and then: *seek these things*, although they are necessary; but he said: *all these things shall be added unto you*, that is, these will follow, if you seek those; lest, when you seek these things, you be turned away from there, or set up two ends, so that you both seek the kingdom for its own sake, and these necessary things for its sake». «Therefore, for the kingdom of God alone we ought to work all things, not to meditate on temporal reward alone, or together with the kingdom of God». — Behold, here he plainly says that we should not set up two ends for ourselves, but one only, that is, the *kingdom of God*, since above he had said that good wills have various proper ends.

But that these do not contradict one another, he perceives who attends carefully with a simple eye to the foregoing words. For he who said that we should not set up two ends for ourselves, but do all things for the kingdom of God, himself premised that we ought to eat that we may evangelize. But when we do this thus, we set up the *Gospel* as the end of that action, but we also refer this end to the kingdom of God. For we eat for the sake of the Gospel, and we eat and evangelize for the sake of the kingdom of God. We therefore set up two ends for ourselves in eating; but doing these things, do we sin? By no means. For he himself advises us to do so, if we carefully examine his words. When therefore he says that we should not set up two ends for ourselves, he meant ends tending in diverse directions to be understood, namely, of which one is not referred to the other; so also when he says that all things are to be done for the kingdom of God alone, and that temporal reward is not to be meditated on together with it; it is thus to be understood, that we do not by seeking meditate on temporal reward together with the kingdom, so that not for the kingdom, but for itself, namely that we should seek the kingdom for its own sake, and these things for its sake, as he himself teaches. For if we ask for eternal life and also ask for temporal things from God; if we ask for them on account of eternal life, we do not offend, nor then does the left know what the right does, because we meditate on temporal reward not for its own sake, but for the kingdom of God, that the *left may be under the head* and the *right in the embrace*. Otherwise, if we seek these temporal things for their own sake, like the eternal, the left is mingled with the right. And therefore, since the Lord said: *Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them*; he says elsewhere: *So let your good works shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven*. — For the sake of God, therefore, all things are to be done, that all the things we do, and the ends of all, we may refer to him.

### Chap. IV. *On the difference of will and intention and end.*

It is also wont to be asked what distinction there is between will and intention and end. — To which it can be said that between will and end there is a distinction in a certain and evident manner, because will is that by which we will something; but the end of the will is either that which we will, by which the will itself is fulfilled, or rather something else, on account of which we will that. But *intention* is sometimes taken for the will, sometimes for the end of the will, which the diligent and pious reader should strive to discern in Scripture, where these things occur. And the end of the will is a good or evil delight, to which each one strives to attain. Hence Augustine, on that passage of the Psalm: *Searching the hearts and reins*, thus says: «God alone searches the hearts, that is, what each one thinks, and the reins, that is, what delights each one; because the end of care and thought is delight, to which by care and thought each one strives to attain». And a little after: «Our works, which are in words and deeds, men can see, but with what mind they are done and whither they desire to come, God alone sees; who when he sees the heart to be in heaven, and that we delight not in the flesh, but in the Lord, that is, when the thoughts and their ends are good, directs the just man». The same author, on the passage of another Psalm, namely: *In this snare which they have hidden, their foot has been caught*, says: «The foot of the soul is love, which, if it be depraved, is called cupidity or lust; if right, is called charity. By it the soul is moved, as it were to a place to which it tends, that is, to a good or evil delight, where it rejoices to have arrived through love». The end of the will, therefore, as has been premised, is said to be both that which we will, and that on account of which we will, and intention looks to that on account of which we will, and will to that which we will; as for example, if I will to refresh a hungry man, that I may have eternal life, the will is that by which I will to refresh the hungry man, whose end is the refreshment of the hungry man; but the intention is that by which I thus will to attain to life; and the supreme *end* is life itself, to which the other end also is referred.

But it is asked whether such an intention is a will, and if it is a will, whether in this work there is one and the same will, by which I will to have eternal life, and by which I will to refresh the hungry man. For such an intention seems indeed to be a will, for as it is a will by which I will to refresh the poor man, so also it is a will by which through this I will to have life. And there seems indeed to be one will, by which I will to have life, and another, by which I will to succor the poor man. But that is referred to this. «For although this so pleases, that in it the will rests with some delight, nevertheless it is not yet that to which it tends, but this is referred to that, so that that may be reckoned as the homeland of the citizen, but this as the refreshment or lodging of the wayfarer». And these wills are affections or motions of the mind, by which, as it were by gait or steps, one tends to the homeland. Just as

therefore there is one will of seeing the windows, as above, with Augustine teaching, we have learned, and another, which is knit from this, namely the will of seeing through the windows those passing by; so to some it seems that there is one will of giving alms to the poor man, and another will of having life. But others think that the will is one both here and there, but on account of the multiplicity of the objects a diversity of wills is spoken of. But whichever of these be true, it comes into doubt for no one that the will is weighed from its end, whether it be right or perverse, sin or grace, and that by the name of intention sometimes the *end*, sometimes the *will* is understood.

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