Dist. 39, Dubia
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/39/q/bon-sent-II-d39-dubia
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### Doubts concerning the text of the Master.

### Doubt I.

In this section there are questions concerning the text, and first it is asked about what he says, that *to will evil is evil, but to understand evil is not evil.* It is asked whence this is so. And it seems that it is the same in the act of understanding and in the act of willing. For the act receives its denomination from its object: therefore just as to will evil is evil, so also is to understand it. — Likewise, to understand denotes a motion from things to the soul, and to will denotes a motion from the soul to things: therefore it seems that the act of understanding depends more upon the thing understood than the act of willing upon the thing willed: therefore if malice is from the thing willed and understood, the act of understanding ought rather to be depraved than the act of willing.

**I respond:** It must be said that by a malice existing in the object the act of willing is more depraved than the act of understanding. — And the reason for this is taken in two ways: *First reason.* both on the part of the power, because so great is the force of love that it transforms the lover into the beloved; whence he who loves justice becomes just, and he who loves iniquity becomes iniquitous; and on this account it is said of the wicked, that *they became abominable, like the things which they loved*. It is not so with the act of understanding; for although it conforms in some manner, yet it does not transform. And this comes about on account of the greater force of union, which consists in love itself; for as Dionysius says: « We call love a unitive force »; on this account it is said in First Corinthians, chapter six: *He who cleaves to God becomes one spirit.* — *Second reason.* The other reason is on the part of the object. For the good, insofar as it is good, is the object of the affection, not of the intellect. But the object of the intelligence and the memory is the true under the aspect of the true, or the good under the aspect of the true; and hence it is that the intellect, when it understands the false, is false; yet not, when it understands the good, is it good. But the affection is not said to be false because it wills the false, although it is said to be evil because it wills evil, or good when it wills the good; for a power takes its denomination from its proper object.

And by this the response to both objections is clear. But this will appear better below in the forty-first distinction, where the Master inquires whether all sin has its being from the will.

### Doubt II.

Likewise it is asked about what he says, that *the higher spark of reason always wills the good and always hates evil.* But on the contrary: it is impossible for the will to be moved at one and the same time by contrary, or even disparate, motions; but man sometimes wills evil; therefore it does not seem that at that hour he wills the good: he therefore says something false, when he asserts that that spark always wills the good. If you say that the natural and the deliberative will are diverse powers, and so can be moved at once by diverse motions; *on the contrary:* it is held in the preceding text and also in the following, that the will which wills the good, when grace comes, is freed and helped. If therefore the will which is freed and helped by grace is the one in which sin must consist; it seems that it is the same power of the will, by which man naturally wills the good, and by which he sometimes wills evil. — If you say that it is the same will, yet disposed by diverse habits, and according to the diversity of those habits can have diverse motions; it is objected against this, that that power is one and simple: therefore when it turns itself to the act of one habit, it cannot turn itself at one and the same time to the act of another habit, and so it is not moved at one and the same time both well and ill. Therefore it does not always will the good. — But if this be granted, there is a reason to the contrary, that no virtue is deprived of its natural and proper operation, and especially a natural virtue, whose nature it is to be moved uniformly. Therefore it seems that the act of the natural will, which is to seek the good, stands together with the act of the deliberative will, which is to will evil.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as the Master says in the text, there are here two ways of speaking. — *First solution.* For some say that the act by which the will naturally wills the good is not diverse or distinct from that by which the will wills evil deliberatively; but just as to the evil of fault in the exterior act there is subjected the good of nature, whence one and the same act is good by the goodness of nature, and evil by the malice of morals; so they say it is to be understood also in the will, that the will naturally wills the good, insofar as it wills the underlying act; it nonetheless wills evil, insofar as it deforms that act. — *It is not proven.* But it does not suffice to say this, because, when Ambrose says that man naturally wills the good, he does not understand it of the good of nature only, which indeed is an act of the will, but also of morals. For he wills justice and hates injustice by a natural willing.

*Second solution.* And therefore there is another way of speaking, which the Master first sets down in the text, that there are two motions: and one is the motion by which the will naturally seeks the good, and another by which the will deliberatively wills evil. — *Connected question.* But whether they can be at once, the Master does not determine. And concerning this there is a twofold opinion of the doctors. *First opinion.* For some say that they can be at once, on the ground that the deliberative act does not exclude the natural act, and one of these acts belongs to the will as it is moved naturally, and the other as it is moved deliberatively. — *It is objected.* But since the natural and the deliberative will, according asit has been shown, is one power, and the same power, when it is fully moved toward the good or toward evil, cannot be moved at one and the same time by an opposite and even disparate motion on account of the simplicity of the power: *Second opinion.* therefore others have said that the motion of the natural will is not always actually toward the good. And as for what the Master says in the text, that it always wills the good, this is understood habitually; but it is impeded and suffocated by the malice of the deliberative will, so that it does not go forth into act; as is the case in the damned, in whom the synderesis does not instigate toward any good and just thing. — *The author's judgment.* But whatever may be the case about this, whether the motion of the will as it is nature can be at once with the motion of the will as it is deliberative; this nevertheless is true, that the natural will, which seeks the good, is not always in its act, because it does not always think about the good; and even when it thinks, it is frequently in no way affected; and therefore that text is to be expounded thus, that this which I say *always* denotes a continuity as to the *habit* of willing, not as to the *act.* — And as to what is objected, that a virtue is not deprived of its proper operation; it must be said that this is understood of the substantial operation, which regards the being of the thing; but of the consequent operation, which is in respect of something extrinsic, it is not always true that it is not deprived of action. For we see almost all the virtues receive interruption in their acts; nor yet on this account do we say that they are idle, or deprived of their proper operation, since they are by nature apt to go forth into their proper acts in their place and time.

### Doubt III.

Likewise it is asked about what he says: *Before grace, although man naturally wills the good, yet it need not be granted that he has a good will.* And it seems that on the contrary he does, because what belongs to someone naturally belongs to him in a truer manner than what belongs accidentally: therefore just as it follows, if he deliberatively wills the good, that he has a good will, so it follows that if he naturally wills the good, he has a good will. — Likewise, « what is natural is not accustomed to the contrary »: therefore if man naturally wills the good, he is never accustomed to will evil: he therefore says something false, when he asserts that man naturally wills the good; or if he speaks truly, it seems that, through this, that man naturally wills the good, he is simply good.

**I respond:** *To be noted.* It must be said that the goodness of the will is begun in the natural appetite and consummated in the deliberative virtue; nor is the will simply good and right, unless it is right insofar as it is moved deliberatively, and insofar as it is moved naturally. And therefore just as that argument is not valid, but rather there is in it a *qualified* and a *simple*: this man is chaste naturally, therefore he is chaste; so this does not follow: this man wills the good naturally, therefore he has a good will.

To that which is objected, that what belongs naturally belongs in a truer manner, etc.; it must be said that this comparison holds true when that which belongs accidentally does not presuppose that which belongs naturally; but when it does presuppose it, then it does not hold true. For as « it is better to live well than to live », and to live well presupposes to live; so better is the will which is rightly moved both naturally and deliberatively, than naturally only.

To that which is objected, that what is natural is not accustomed to the contrary; it must be said that this is true of that which is simply natural, namely of that which is begun and consummated by nature; but this is not true in that which is begun by nature and consummated by custom, or even by grace; and such is to will the good. — And by this are made clear the things which are said in the text on this point.

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