Dist. 20, Art. 1, Q. 6
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-q6
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### Question VI. *Whether God could have saved the human race in another way.*

In the sixth and last place it is asked whether God could have saved the human race in another way. And that He could, it seems:

1. First, by that which Pope Leo says in a certain sermon on Palm Sunday: "The omnipotence of the Son of God, which on account of the same essence is equal to the Father, could have freed the human race by the sole command of His will, had it not most fully befitted the divine works that the adversity of the hostile wickedness should be overcome by that one whom it had conquered."

2. Likewise, Augustine says this same thing in *On the Trinity*, and it is held in the text: "We say that another mode was possible to God, to whose power all things are subject; but that no other more suited to the healing of our misery existed."

3. Likewise, this same thing is shown more expressly by the authority of Gregory, in the twentieth book of the *Morals*: "He who made us exist out of nothing was able also to recall us without His own death and passion."

4. Likewise, this same thing is shown by a reduction to an unfitting consequence: because, if He could not have freed us in another way, then the divine power would have been limited, and the person of Christ subject to the passion; which is altogether absurd: therefore also that from which it follows.

**On the contrary:** 1. Upon that text to the Hebrews, second chapter: *It was fitting that the author of their salvation be perfected through suffering*; the Gloss: "Unless Christ died, man would not be redeemed, and not being redeemed would perish, and all things made would be in vain": if therefore this is impossible, it remains that the *first* is impossible, namely that Christ not die for the salvation of the human race. And if this was impossible, [it was impossible] for the human race to be freed in another way than through the death of Christ.

2. Likewise, Anselm in the book *Why God Became Man*: "He could not let the cup pass unless He drank it, not because He could not have avoided death, if He wished, but because, as has been said, it was impossible to save the world otherwise": there returns therefore the same as before.

3. Likewise, as Augustine says: "No other mode was more fitting than this one": if therefore "it belongs to the best to bring forth the best things," as it belongs to the good to do good things; it seems that it was necessary for the highest goodness to choose this mode. If therefore it was necessary to choose this mode, it was impossible to be saved in another way.

4. Likewise, God, since He is supremely just, *cannot deny Himself*: therefore if He ought to restore the human race, it is necessary that He restore it through the way of justice; but restoration through the way of justice cannot be except through satisfaction, as was shown above; but to make satisfaction for the whole human race cannot belong to any except one who is God and man; the sufficient mode of making satisfaction cannot be except that soul be paid for soul, and life be given for life: therefore *from the first*, it was impossible that God should restore the human race by another way.

> **Conclusion.** The human race, on the part of God who restores and frees, could have been restored by another way than through the death of Christ; although on the part of the human race that is restored it could not be saved except by this way determined by God.

**I respond:** It must be said that when it is asked whether the human race could have been restored in another way than through the death of Christ, it can be asked either concerning the power of God who restores, or on the part of the human race that is restored. If on the part of God who restores, then without doubt He could have freed and restored the human race otherwise, as the Saints say; and master Hugh of Saint Victor assigns another mode in his Book *On the Sacraments*, and the Master recounts it in the text. For the divine power is not to be limited; nay rather, just as by the mere nod of the mind and the command of the will He was able to create, so also He was able to restore. — But if it is asked concerning the power on the part of the human race that is restored and freed, then it must be said that it was determined for it to have the power for this way; and understanding it in this manner it can be conceded that the human race could not be restored otherwise; just as it is conceded that no man can be saved unless he believes in Christ. For no other way of salvation lies open to us, *nor is there another name under heaven in which it behooves us to be saved*. Yet God could, if He had willed, have given another name in which our salvation would consist. — The arguments for the first part are therefore to be granted, since they show that another mode of our salvation was possible to God, so far as it is on the part of the divine power.

**To the opposing arguments.**
*To 1 and 2.* But to that which is objected to the contrary from the Gloss and from Anselm, it must be said that those authorities are understood so far as it is on *our* part, the divine disposition being presupposed, by which He decreed to free us thus, and not in another way. By this mode also is to be understood the authority of Ambrose, which was set down above in the eighteenth distinction, in the last chapter. "So great," he says, "was our sin, that we could not be saved unless the only-begotten Son of God should die for us, debtors of death"; this, I say, is to be understood as meaning that God did not decree to save us otherwise. By this mode also are similar authorities to be understood.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that it belongs to the best to bring forth the best things; it must be said that there is the best *absolutely* and the best *in its kind*. And the best in its kind can be more and less good; and God brings forth the best in its kind, and so He does the best things in such a way that He can also do better and less good things. Therefore although this mode was more suited to our misery, it nevertheless was not necessary that He so choose this mode that He could not choose another mode.

*To 4.* To that which is objected last, that God cannot act against His own justice, and justice cannot remit guilt apart from satisfaction; it can be answered *by the destruction* of the two propositions which he sets forth: of which the first is this, that the human race could not be freed except through the way of justice, for He was able to free it through the way of mercy; nor in this would prejudice have been done to justice, if He had willed to do this. For He could have blotted out all the demerits and established man in his former state; nor would anything disordered have remained in the universe, nor even anything unpunished. For sin bears with it its own punishment, by which it is set in order; and so if He had freed the human race without satisfaction, He would not on this account have acted against justice. — It can also be answered *by the destruction of that* [proposition], that there was no other mode by which He could make satisfaction except through death. For although this was more fitting, perhaps a slight punishment in so noble a person would have sufficed for the reparation of the human race; but the Lord in freeing us did more than was required, on account of which it is said: *Co-*

*pious is redemption with Him*. Yet granted that He could not have made satisfaction for the human race in another way, nor the human race be redeemed otherwise, as many concede; nevertheless from this it does not follow that He could not have freed it in another way. For concerning the freeing I firmly believe that He could have freed it in another way; but concerning the redemption I neither deny nor dare to affirm, because it is rash, when one treats of the divine power, to set a limit to it. For He can do more than we are able to conceive.