Dist. 43, 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/4/d/43/q/bon-sent-IV-d43-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the resurrection.*
### Question I. *Whether the resurrection will be.*

As, then, to the first, the procedure is as follows, and it is shown that the resurrection will be:

1. *First*, by the authority of Job, chapter nineteen: *In the last day I shall rise again out of the earth.*

2. Likewise, in John, chapter eleven, the faithful Martha said: *I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.*

3. Likewise, it appears *by reason*: because the reward corresponds to the merit: therefore if the soul merits in the body, it ought also to be rewarded in the body itself; but God is a just rewarder: therefore it is necessary that the soul take up again the body, and so etc.

4. Likewise, the soul has a natural appetite toward the body; which is evident because it does not will to be separated, even while the body is in misery; but beatitude is the rest of all desires: therefore for the soul to be perfectly beatified, it is necessary that the body be restored to it; and if this, it is evident, etc.

5. Likewise, the form of the composite is more perfect than any part, because the parts are ordered to the form of the composite: therefore the form of humanity is more complete and more perfect than the form itself which is the soul: therefore, since the perfection of grace and glory presupposes the perfection of nature, it is necessary that the whole man, not only the soul, be glorified.

6. Likewise, for the perfection of the universe there is found spiritual substance and corporeal substance and that composed of both: therefore since the universe is incorruptible, and generation will at some time cease, as will be seen below, it is necessary that some composite of soul and body remain. But this is nothing but man: therefore after the consummation of this present state of separation it is necessary that man rise again.

**On the contrary:**
1. Job, chapter fourteen: *Man, when he is fallen asleep, shall not rise again, till the heavens be broken;* but the heaven will never be broken, since it is incorruptible: therefore man will not rise again.

2. Likewise, First Corinthians, chapter fifteen: *Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.*

3. Likewise, it appears *by reason*: because no instrument is rewarded on account of an action done through it; but the body stands to the soul as an instrument: therefore etc. *If you say* that this is not true of a conjoined instrument; *on the contrary:* an Angel takes to himself a body through which he ministers; and yet that body will not rise again: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, nothing which impedes the way of arriving at beatitude ought to be taken up again, once beatitude has been attained; but the body impedes, because it *lusts against the spirit*: therefore it ought not to be taken up again by it.

5. Likewise, «the soul lives to God, as the body lives to the soul»; but by the merit of sin it happens through the divine sentence that the soul is separated from the body in the death of nature, and the soul from God in the death of the damnation to come; but the damned soul is never quickened by the [divine] sentence: therefore neither ought the dead body by the divine sentence to take up life again.

6. Likewise, things that are separated by will are more easily joined together than things separated by necessity; but the evil spirit is separated from God by will, and therefore cannot be united to Him: therefore neither can the soul be united to the body, which is separated from it by necessity.

### Conclusion.

> *By the testimony of faith, there will be a resurrection of our bodies.*

**I respond:** It must be said that right faith declares that the resurrection of our bodies will be. — And to believe this we are helped by the faith *of the resurrection of Christ already accomplished.* For if Christ is the head, and the members ought to be conformed to the head; since Christ has risen again, the consequence is that we too rise again. And that the believer may believe the resurrection of Christ, it is proved to him through many *testimonies* of the Apostles, who also were made certain through many

proofs. The very *piety of faith* also persuades this, which can in no way conceive the body of Christ reduced to ashes. — Upon this foundation of faith is built up the *persuasion of reason*, because the fact that the resurrection will be is demanded by the *reward of divine justice,* which renders to man as he also merited; secondly, by the *consummation of glory,* which will fill or set at rest every appetite of the soul; thirdly, by the *perfection of nature,* which consists in the whole composite, not in one of its parts. And these are the reasons founded upon faith.

1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, it must be said that that wearing-away is understood with respect to figure, not with respect to substance; and figure is taken, according as the Apostle takes it, for the *outward face of a thing.*

2. To that which is objected, that flesh and blood etc.; it must be said that this is not understood of flesh with respect to *substance,* but with respect to *corruption* and malice, as it is taken in Galatians, chapter five.

3. To that which is objected, that an instrument ought not to be rewarded; it must be said that there is an instrument which is *separate,* and an instrument or organ that is *united,* [ordered] not only to the doing of some *operation,* but to the constituting of *one form*; and this is accomplished and agrees with the mover in the unity of the form of the whole, and consequently of the operation; and without such [an organ] the mover never comes to be perfectly completed on account of its bond to it. Therefore it is not similar in the case of a separate instrument, or of a body assumed by an Angel.

4. To that which is objected, that it impedes; it must be said that it does not impede with respect to *substance,* because it is by nature apt to obey, but by reason of *corruption*; and that corruption will not be taken up again, but an incorrupt body.

5. To that which is objected, that the soul lives to God, as the body to the soul, etc.; it must be said that it is not similar, because the sentence of damnation is an eternal sentence, but the sentence of death is not eternal. And the reason for this is merit, because the fault of Adam has been blotted out by the death of Christ, but the fault of the soul after death is indelible, in that in that fault it will live perpetually. *Furthermore,* the sentence of death passed against man was not a definitive sentence, but rather, on account of disobedience, was an *interlocutory* sentence; but the last sentence is *definitive,* from which there can be no appeal, nor can it be retracted.

6. To that which is objected, that things separated by will are more easily joined together than those separated by necessity, etc.; it must be said that some things are separated in such a way that after the separation the one does not have an inclination toward the other; and such things are not apt for rejoining; and since the angelic spirit is in this way separated from God, so that it hates Him, and does not seek Him by satisfaction: therefore it cannot and ought not to be joined to Him. — Some things are separated, yet in such a way that the one has an appetite and inclination toward the other, and such things are fit for renewed conjunction; and such are the soul and the body. — As, then, to what is objected concerning will and necessity, it must be said that this does nothing toward the rejoining, namely the *mode of separating,* but [what does] is the *quality of the things separated,* or rather the *divine judgment.*