Dist. 32, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/32/q/bon-sent-III-d32-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether God loves all creatures generally.*

Secondly it is asked whether God loves all things generally. And that he does so, it seems.

1. *Wisdom* eleven: *Thou lovest all things, O Lord, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made.* Nothing can be said more expressly than this.

2. Likewise, *Genesis* one: *God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good;* but the highest Good cannot fail to love good things: therefore God loves every creature.

3. Likewise, everything that has been made has been made by God, and God makes nothing except willingly; but to will the good, this is to love: therefore nothing proceeds from God that is not loved by him: if therefore all things issue from God, it seems that all things are loved by God.

4. Likewise, love is the gift in which all other things are given; but there is no created thing that does not receive an inflowing of the divine generosity: if therefore the communication of an inflowing of this kind is only through love, it seems that the love of God is in respect of every creature.

5. Likewise, all things long for the highest Good, according to what Boethius and Dionysius say; but God is then said to love some creature when he turns it to himself through love — for he is rather said to love by *effect* than by *affect* — therefore it seems that the love of God extends to everything created.

**On the contrary:** 1. Since God is the highest charity, everything that he loves he loves out of charity; but out of charity only three kinds of lovable things are to be loved, namely God and the rational spirit and the human body, according to what Augustine says: therefore it does not seem that God loves *every creature*.

2. Likewise, « love, as Hugh of Saint Victor says, transforms the lover into the beloved »; and the more perfect the love is, the more it conforms the one to the other: since therefore the love of God is most perfect, he loves nothing except what is in itself conformable to him; but this is only the rational creature, which is made to his image: therefore it seems that God does not love every creature, but *only the rational one*.

3. Likewise, it seems that he does *not love every rational one*: for some are reprobate and some elect, some good and some evil; but the impious and the reprobate he does not love, according to what is written in *Malachi* one: *Jacob I loved, but Esau I held in hatred;* and *Wisdom* fourteen: *Alike are the impious man and his impiety abominable to God:* if therefore God does not love impiety, it seems that he does not love the impious: therefore he does not love all and each.

4. Likewise, love is the ground of election, therefore God loves only those whom he chose from eternity; but he did not choose all indifferently: therefore he did not love all generally.

5. Likewise, to love is to will the good, therefore he loves only those for whom he wills the good; but for whomever he wills the good, he does good: therefore God loves only those for whom he does good things. But to the damned he does many evil things: therefore it seems that he rather hates them than loves them: therefore he does not love every creature generally.

### Conclusion.

> The love of God as to the effect of nature is common and general to all, but as to the effect of grace it is special.

**I respond:** For the understanding of this it must be noted that God is not said to love a creature by reason of an affection of the mind, but by reason of the communication of some good, so that the love of God is rather said to be a love of *effect* than of *affect*. But the communication of the divine goodness is regarded in a twofold kind of effect, namely in the effects of nature and the effects of grace; and the effect of nature is common to all, but the effect of grace is not. — Hence it is that the love of God as to the effect of nature is common and general to all; and according to this he is said to love every creature. But as to the effect of grace it is special; and as to this he loves some and hates some, because some have in themselves the effect of grace, some the defect of fault and of punishment. — Therefore all the reasons that are brought forward for the first part and prove that God loves every creature, since they prove concerning the common love, which is regarded as to the communication of the general good, namely of natural goodness, conclude truly; and therefore they are to be conceded.

**Reply to the objections:**

1. To that which is first objected to the contrary, it must be said that this can be understood in two ways: either thus, that this preposition *out of* expresses the relation of a moving and producing principle in respect of the created effect; and thus everything that he loves, he loves out of charity — for the charity of God is the principle of all the effects that he produces — or thus, that it expresses not only the relation of a producing principle, but also of a representing exemplar;

and thus he loves out of charity only those to whom he communicates created charity, of which that highest charity is the exemplar. For uncreated charity is the exemplar of created charity under the formal character of charity; but of other things it is not the exemplar under this formal character. When therefore it is said that only three things are to be loved out of charity; this is not said insofar as *out of* expresses only the relation of a moving and commanding principle, but inasmuch as it expresses the relation of a formal and eliciting [principle]; and thus it cannot be concluded that God does not love every creature by himself, who is the highest charity, from whom proceed all created goods.

2. To that which is objected, that love transforms the lover into the beloved; it must be said that this is true of the love of affection, which makes one tend toward another; but the divine love is not a love of affection inclining toward another, but rather inclining and drawing other things to itself. Hence the divine love rather transforms and conforms the beloved things to the lover himself than the reverse. But inasmuch as there is a twofold conformation of things themselves to God, namely according to the likeness of *vestige* and according to the *expressed* likeness, which is the formal character of *image*; so the love of God can be taken in two ways, as was said before, namely *generally*, and thus it connotes there only a certain general assimilation; and *specially*, and thus it connotes a certain expressed union. And therefore the first love is in respect of every creature; but the second is only of that creature to which God communicates charity, so that through that charity it adheres to God by a most great union, so that thus through charity it remains in God, and God in it.

3. 4. 5. To the three following [objections] that are opposed, by which it is shown that God does not love the evil; there is one reply: because they proceed concerning the special love, not the general. And as to that special love it is true that God does not love the evil and the reprobate, indeed rather hates them, because they do not have in themselves grace, but fault; but as to nature he does not hate, but loves, because *he makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil.* And by this it is possible to reply to the three last.