Dist. 31, Art. 2, 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/3/d/31/q/bon-sent-III-d31-a2-q3
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### Question III. *Whether the habit of knowledge is voided in the fatherland.*

Thirdly it is asked about the voiding of knowledge, and the question is whether the habit of knowledge is voided in the fatherland. And that it is seems true:

1. By the authority of the Apostle in the first to the Corinthians, 13: *Whether prophecies, they shall be made void; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be destroyed*; but what is destroyed is simply voided: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, according to what Master Hugh of St. Victor holds in the *Didascalicon*: "The sciences were invented for supplying the wants and necessities on the part of the soul, or on the part of the body"; if therefore in the fatherland every want is taken away, it seems that all knowledge is voided.

3. Likewise, the blessed soul knows all things in the Word, both openly and continuously, in such a way that it cannot be separated from that gazing: therefore it seems that no other habit of cognition, or gaze, befits the blessed soul: it seems therefore that the habit of cognition which is on the way is simply taken away in the fatherland, otherwise it will be there in vain.

4. Likewise, that which has more of light and truth is less voidable; but in the habit of faith there is more of the character of truth and light than in the habit of acquired knowledge — for faith itself leans upon the first Truth for its own sake, and in it too there is the light of grace divinely given and infused into it — therefore much

less voidable is the habit of faith than the habit of knowledge. If therefore the habit of faith will be voided in the state of the fatherland, it seems likewise that the habit of knowledge also will be.

5. Likewise, the habit of knowledge is by the bringing of cause to effect and by a certain reasoning and discursion; but it is impossible in the fatherland to find a discursion of this kind: therefore it is necessary that the habit of knowledge be simply taken away and voided.

**On the contrary:** 1. Anselm in the book *On Likenesses*: "Then the just shall know all things which God has made to be known; there all shall be known by each single one, there each single one by all, nor shall it ever be wholly hidden by what fatherland, by what people, by what stock anyone was born": if therefore the knowledge of such things will remain, much more strongly will knowledge remain, which is a cognitive habit of universals: therefore it does not seem that philosophical knowledge is to be voided in the fatherland.

2. Likewise, as the Philosopher says: "Knowledge is not destroyed except either by corruption on the part of the knowable, or on the part of the medium, or by forgetfulness on the part of the knower"; but none of these will be in the fatherland: therefore in no way does it seem that knowledge is there destroyed and voided.

3. Likewise, Christ was a comprehensor, and yet none the less had knowledge befitting the state of the way; the Angels too are comprehensors, and yet none the less have a habit of knowledge by which they know things in their proper genus: therefore glory is compatible with knowledge: therefore it neither destroys nor voids it.

4. Likewise, it is of greater dignity to know how to syllogize and to demonstrate something, than to be able to be moved locally and to range about; but agility for motion will not be taken away from the Blessed themselves: therefore neither the habit disposing to syllogizing and to knowing something demonstratively: therefore it does not seem that knowledge is voided.

5. Likewise, if knowledge were voided and taken away in the passage from this life, then it would have to be reckoned among transitory goods: therefore just as those are reprehensible and foolish who labor to be rich, so all seem to be foolish who labor to be knowing, since the old woman and one little rustic are of equal condition with one great clerk; but if this be said less fittingly, it seems that knowledge is not voided.

### Conclusion.

> Knowledge in the fatherland, as to habit, is not lost, but completed; as to use, however, it is changed; and as to mode, it is wholly taken away.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that here there is a threefold manner of speaking. — For to some it seems that the habit of these acquired sciences, whether of the liberal or of the others, are wholly voided and simply destroyed. For this habit has an imperfection inseparably joined to it; and therefore there will succeed to it another, far more perfect habit, not only that by which one will know all things in the Word limpidly and openly, but also a habit which will be by the species and likenesses of the universal order of the causes of the world; which was given to the angelic spirits themselves and will be given to all the glorified, by which they will know the rest, even those very things which they now know, far more excellently and nobly. Otherwise, if there were not given to them another habit, new, besides this one, there would not be in the Blessed a perfect cognition of created things according to their proper genus; which is against the truth and against Anselm. And so they grant that in the fatherland that habit of knowledge is taken away on account of the nobler habit supervening. — And although this knowledge be destroyed, nevertheless he who acquires it does not labor in vain, since by it a man is led by the hand to the cognition of God and to the advancement of faith, and so to the increase of merit and consequently to the completion of the reward. And therefore, just as one does not believe in vain, although faith be voided in the fatherland; so also one does not learn in vain, although there, as they say, this knowledge be simply voided.

But to others it seems that it should be said otherwise, namely that knowledge is not wholly voided. For there is here to consider habit and use. In the fatherland, however, it is taken away as to use, which is of imperfection, and it remains as to habit, which makes for the comeliness and beauty of the soul itself. For if there will remain there the scars of wounds and the marks of thoughts for the commendation of merit and the adorning of those who merit; it seems more reasonable that there should remain there the habits of the sciences, which make for the comeliness and ornament of the soul itself.

The third, however, it seems should be said otherwise, that since there are three things to consider in knowledge itself, namely habit and use and mode; knowledge as to habit remains and is completed; but as to use it is changed, but not taken away; as to mode, however, it is simply voided and destroyed. — For the habit is not taken away, because it is not repugnant to perfection. For these two are not repugnant: to see God, and to know the propositions and conclusions and principles of geometry and of any other science. — But use is not wholly taken away, because, if there were a habit without use and act, it would be incomplete or less complete, which in no way befits that most perfect and most complete state; it is changed, however, on account of the annexed imperfection. — But mode, which is observed in discursion and inquiry and a certain successive reasoning and collation, is simply destroyed, for the reason that in the fatherland the mode of knowing will be by a simple gaze, since there a deiform intellect is had through the completion of glory. And so according to this opinion knowledge is in a certain manner saved, and in a certain manner changed, and in a certain manner destroyed and voided. — Now this third manner of speaking accords more with the Gloss itself, on the first to the Corinthians 13, and with the authority of the Master, accords more also with right reason; therefore it ought rather to be held and more commonly maintained. — Therefore according to this manner of speaking there can be granted the reasons which show that knowledge is not wholly voided. For it remains, as they show, as to habit according to a more perfect state, it remains also as to act, namely as to the simple gaze.

1. But to that which is objected first to the contrary from the authority of the Apostle, the response is now plain: because knowledge is said to be destroyed, not because the habit is destroyed and voided, but because there is taken away and destroyed that mode of knowing which, as has been said, comes about through discursion.

2. To that which is objected concerning Hugh, that the sciences were invented on account of want; it must be said that Hugh does not assign the whole cause, but assigns the cause which moved men according to the state of the present life to the invention of knowledge. For although men were moved on account of removing wants, habits of this kind have rather to be ordered to the perfecting of our understandings; which indeed belongs not only to the state of the way, but also of the fatherland.

3. To that which is objected, that the soul knows all things in the Word in act, etc.; it must be said that, just as was said of Christ, that the soul of Christ not only had a cognition of things in the Word, but also in itself by a habit innate to it; and the same befits the blessed Angels on account of the perfection of cognition, not only in respect of the diversity of the knowable, but also as to the varied mode of knowing: so also it is to be understood to be in the Blessed, because the cognition of things in the Word and in their proper genus can be compatible together both as to habit and as to act, because the one is ordered to the other.

4. To that which is objected, that faith has more of truth and light than the habit of knowledge; it must be said that, although that may be granted, nevertheless from this it does not follow that it should be voided, because the light of faith, inasmuch as it is such, has inseparably joined to it something which is not compossible with the state of glory, as was shown in the preceding. But it is not so with the habit of knowledge, which, as far as is of its own character, is the more perfect the more certain and clearer it is; therefore it is not to be taken away as to habit in the way that faith is at the presence of glory.

5. To that which is objected, that knowledge is by the bringing of cause to effect and by a certain collative discursion; it must be said that he argues of knowledge as to the mode which it has in the present, of which it has been said, by reason of which it was granted that knowledge is voided, and by reason of which the Apostle asserts that it is to be destroyed in the future.