Dist. 20, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/3/d/20/q/bon-sent-III-d20-a1-q1
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### Article, the Only One. *On the fittingness of our redemption accomplished through the passion of Christ.*
### Question I. *Whether it was fitting for human nature to be repaired by God.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether it was fitting for human nature to be repaired by God. And that it was so seems to be the case from four manifest suppositions, which can be drawn from what Anselm says in the second [book] of *Cur Deus homo*. The first is this: it in no way befits supreme stability to permit its own purpose to be weakened. — The second is this: it in no way befits supreme benignity that for the sin of one man his whole posterity should be damned for ever. — The third is this: it in no way befits supreme wisdom to permit the noblest creature to be universally defrauded of its end. — The fourth is this: it in no way be­

fits supreme power to permit its own servant to be unjustly held by another for ever.

1. *From the first* it is argued thus: if it does not befit that God's purpose be weakened; and God had purposed to lead man through to beatitude, and he cannot be led through so long as he remains in the state of ruin: therefore it is unfitting that man be left in such a state: therefore *from the opposites* it is fitting that he be repaired and raised up.

2. *From the second* it is argued thus: it does not befit that the whole posterity be damned for ever for the sin of one man; but the whole would be damned for ever, unless repair intervened: therefore it was fitting and becoming that God should repair man.

3. *From the third* it is argued thus: it does not befit supreme wisdom to permit the noblest creature to be universally defrauded of its end; but unless repair intervened, all men would be defrauded of their end, and thus *in vain would all the sons of men be constituted*; which does not befit the divine wisdom, which does nothing unfitting: therefore it remains that it was very fitting for the human race to be repaired.

4. *From the fourth* it is argued thus: it does not befit supreme power to permit its servants to be unjustly and violently held by the adversary; but unless repair had intervened, many servants of God and Saints would be held in limbo: therefore it was fitting and becoming that the human race be succored through the benefit of repair.

**On the contrary**, against this it is objected thus: 1. If it had been unfitting that the human race not be repaired, and unbecoming; and « every least unbecoming thing, as Anselm says in the first [book] of *Cur Deus homo*, is impossible for God»: therefore it was impossible for God not to repair the human race. And from this a twofold unbecoming thing is drawn: one, that God did not repair the human race on account of *mercy*, but rather to avoid unbecomingness; the other, that he did not repair it out of *liberality*, but out of necessity. But if this is true, we are not bound to give him so great thanks; which it is impious and most cruel to say.

2. Likewise, an Angel is a nobler creature than man, and was made for the sake of beatitude, just as man; but it did not befit God to raise the angel up from his fall: therefore neither did it befit him to repair the human race.

3. Likewise, just as it befits the divine wisdom and goodness to raise up the one falling, so also it befits to sustain the one standing; but it did not befit God to hold the human race so that it might not fall: therefore it seems that it did not befit him to raise it up after its fall.

4. Likewise, it does not befit God to act against his own justice; but man, when he sinned, deserved to be separated from God for ever: if therefore through repair he is to be joined to God, it seems that it was never fitting for the human race to be repaired.

5. Likewise, just as man through sin deserved the death of the flesh, so also he deserved the death of eternal damnation; but it did not befit God so to repair the human race that it should not die the death of the flesh: therefore it did not befit him so to repair it that it should not die the death of eternal damnation.

6. Likewise, it does not befit God to act against the disposition of his own wisdom; but God had made man such that, if he willed to stand, he would stand, and if he willed to fall, he would fall: therefore just as it does not befit God to make the one standing fall, so it does not befit him to make the one falling rise again: therefore it does not befit him to repair human nature.

### Conclusion.

> That the human race be repaired is fitting and becoming both on the part of God and on the part of man.

**I respond:** It must be said that without doubt it is fitting and becoming that the human race be repaired; fitting, I say, and becoming not only on the part of God, but also on the part of man. On the part of God, because it befits God's wisdom and mercy, as was shown above in the objecting. — On the part of man, however, the fittingness is similar, if one considers the dignity of man as created, and the manner of his falling, and the state of the fallen. — For the dignity of man was so great that for his sake all things were made.

If therefore man were to lack his end, then all things would be defrauded of their end. — But the *manner of falling* was this, that human nature fell totally, with *another sinning* and *another suggesting*; and therefore it was becoming that it be raised up by *another*, so that, just as the sons sinned in the *parent*, and the parent sinned at the *devil's* suggestion, so also man should be repaired with the *Lord* raising him up. — The *state* also of *fallen* man befits repair, because in that state there was at once *penitence* together with *misery*; and *penitence* in a certain manner appeased the divine justice, while *misery* provoked mercy.

And thus it is clear that in every manner it was fitting that the human race be repaired, fitting, I say, on the part of the *maker*, and fitting on the part of the *work*. But the fittingness on the part of the *work* is pure fittingness, such that it posits no necessity. The fittingness on the part of the *maker*, however, posits necessity, necessity, I say, not of *inevitability*, which is divided into compulsion and prohibition, but the necessity of *immutability*, which arises from the stability and immutability of the divine disposition. This, however, does not constrain the divine power to the opposite, but determines it to such a purpose. Hence Anselm in the second [book] of *Cur Deus homo*: « When we say that God does something by necessity, it must be understood that he does this by the necessity of *preserving honorableness*, which necessity is nothing other than the *immutability of honorableness*».

From the things that have been said, the response to the proposed question is clear. For if it be asked whether it is fitting that the human race be repaired; it must be conceded *simply* that it is true. But if it be asked whether it is *necessary*; it must not be answered simply, but a distinction must be made. For it is necessary on the part of God, not on our part; and on the part of God not by any necessity whatever, but by the necessity of *immutability*, which is not opposed to the freedom of the will, and through this neither to grace nor to liberality.

1. And through this the response to the first objection is clear; for it does not follow, if God repairs by the necessity of his *immutability*, that on account of this he does not repair out of the liberality of his benignity; for these can stand together at once.

2. *To that* which is objected, that the angelic creature is nobler etc.; it must be said that although the Angel is a nobler creature, nevertheless he is not so suited to repair as man, on account of the *manner of falling* and the *state of fallen man*. For man repented, but the angel was obstinate; man fell *totally*, the angel *partially*; man through *another*, the angel through *himself*; and these are the things that make the angel less suited to repair.

3. *To that* which is objected, that it did not befit God to hold man lest he fall; it must be said that if man had willed to stand, God would never have abandoned him so that he should fall; but because he was unwilling to stand, he ought not to have preserved him against his will; but because man after the fall willed to rise again, therefore it befitted God to stretch out his hand to him, in such a way that this hand extends itself to those who rise willingly, not to those who are unwilling to rise.

4. *To that* which is objected, that it does not befit God to act against his own justice; it must be said that it is true. Yet it does befit him to do something beyond the rigor of justice, because the repair of the human race is not repugnant to the divine justice. For in it mercy and truth concur together, as will be seen below. Hence, as to what is said, that man deserved through sin to be separated from God for ever; this is true so far as it is of itself; yet other merits can intervene which will break that obligation, and in which the order of divine justice will be preserved.

5. *To that* which is objected, that through sin man deserved to be punished with the punishment of eternal damnation just as with the punishment of death; it must be said that it is not alike, because concerning the punishment of death the sentence was passed at once, but concerning the punishment of eternal *damnation* the sentence is still deferred. And because the divine sentence is irrevocable, after it has been *passed* — although a sentence *proclaimed through prophecy* can be changed, as is clear in *Jonah* — before it is passed, a remedy can be found; therefore the human race could be repaired so that it should not incur the punishment of eternal *damnation* in any part of it, although it was not freed so as not to incur the punishment of *death*. — And if you ask why this sentence was passed and that one deferred, since man deserved both of himself; it must be said that the first is the *way* of penitence, but the second *takes away* the place of penitence; therefore the second sentence ought not to be inflicted against man so long as he was in the state of the way.

6. *To that* which is objected, that it did not befit God to act against the order of his own wisdom; it must be said that in repairing the human race he did not act against his own wisdom, because out of his wisdom he had made it repairable, foreseeing its fall. Nor does that which he objects avail: it did not befit him to make the one standing fall: therefore neither did it befit him to make the one falling rise again; because, although « by no wise man is a man made worse », nevertheless by some wise man he can be made better. And although it does not befit God to make evil out of good, nevertheless it does befit him to make good out of evil.