Dist. 46, Art. 2, 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/46/q/bon-sent-IV-d46-a2-q1
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### Article II. *How mercy and truth regard the same operation.*

Next, as to the second article it is asked how mercy and truth regard the same operation. And concerning this four things are asked.

First it is asked whether in any work of the Lord there are mercy and truth.

Second, whether in the same work of the Lord there are mercy and truth.

And granted that they are in the same work, insofar as mercy and truth are said most broadly, third it is asked whether, insofar as they are taken properly, they concur in the same work.

Fourth, whether mercy and truth can be separated from one another in any work.

### Question I. *Whether in any work of the Lord there are mercy and truth.*

As to the first the procedure is as follows, and it is shown that in *some* work of the Lord there is

1. *Mercy*, Luke six: *Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful*: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, in the Psalm: *Thou wilt render to every man according to his works*; but this belongs to *justice*: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, *these two* adorn a ruler, whence Proverbs twenty: *Mercy and truth preserve the king, and clemency* etc.; but God is the ruler of all things: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, it is seen *by reason*: because these are two virtues in us: therefore they have their exemplars in God; and if this is so: then, since we work justly and mercifully, therefore God likewise.

**On the contrary:**

1. Damascene: « *Mercy* is compassion over another's evils »; but God works nothing out of compassion, because He does not suffer with another: therefore in no work of His does mercy concur.

2. Likewise, there is *justice* when what *ought* to be done is done; but God works nothing out of *debt*, because He is bound to no one: therefore He does nothing justly, and so on.

3. Likewise, if *mercy* and *truth* are a condition of God working; since, then, the condition of the one working shines out in the work, as is plain — for because He is good, therefore the things made are good — therefore by parity of reasoning, because He is just, all things made are just: therefore even a stone is just, and a stone is merciful. But if this is not granted: then neither does God work according to mercy or truth.

4. Likewise, nothing is to be posited in God which ought not to be posited in the highest degree; but justice ought not to be posited in anything in the highest degree, whence Ecclesiastes seven: *Be not overmuch just*.

### Conclusion

> *In the works of God there are mercy and truth.*

**Respondeo:** It must be said that mercy and truth are in the work of the rational creature; and this indeed belongs to nobility: therefore much more strongly and more nobly are they in the works of God.

*Ad 1, 2.* To that, then, which is objected first, that in God there falls neither compassion nor debt; it must be said

that mercy and truth, or justice — since truth is taken here for justice — say two things in the *creature*, namely an *outflow of goodness* upon another according to merits, or above them, and, in him who pours forth, *compassion* or *debt*; and the *first* indeed belongs to *nobility*, but the *second* belongs to *imperfection*. And because everything that belongs to *nobility* is to be attributed to God, whereas what belongs to *imperfection* is not to be attributed to Him; therefore there are in Him mercy and justice as regards the *first*, as the first arguments prove; not as regards the *second*, as the following arguments prove.

*Ad 3.* To that which is objected, that then all the works of God would have to be called *just*; it must be said that there is a condition of the one working which regards him according to *nature*, and there is a condition which regards him according to *act*; « for *the good* regards nature, as Boethius says in the book *On the Hebdomads*, but *the just* bespeaks act ». That condition, therefore, which regards the *nature* of the one working is communicated to the thing produced, as God's nature is good and the nature of what is worked is good. But the condition which regards *act* is communicated not in the nature of *the thing produced*, but to the *production* itself; whence, since God is just, it is not necessary that every *creature* or *thing made* be just, but that the *making* itself be just. And thus that is plain.

And from this is plain that which is customarily asked, why *mercy or truth* is said to be a condition of the divine work rather than *goodness or power*. For I say that the latter regard *nature*, but the former regard *act*; and therefore they are called not only *conditions of the work*, but also *the ways of the Lord* in the Psalm: *All the ways* etc.

*Ad 4.* To that which is objected last concerning the limit, it must be said that a limit at the summit of anything can be regarded on account of *excess*, or on account of *approach to the mean*. And the first is reproved in justice, the second commended; and by reason of this one is called *most just*, not by reason of the first.