Breviloquium

Part III. On the Corruption of Sin

99 PART III PART III ON THE CORRUPTION OF SIN CHAPTER 1 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL IN GENERAL 1. Having briefly established certain points about the Trinity of God and the creation of the world, we now must touch upon about the corruption [of that creation] by sin. What we must maintain concerning this may be summarized as follows: that sin is not any kind of essence, but a defect and corruptive influence, which contaminates measure , form, and order in the created will.1 Hence the corruption of sin is opposed to the good as such; yet it has no existence except in something good and no source except from a good – which is the will’s capacity for free choice. For the will is not thoroughly evil, since it can choose the good; nor is it perfectly good, since it can fall into evil. 2.This should be understood as follows. Since the First Principle exists of itself, and not from another, it must exist for its own sake; as such, it is the supreme good, lacking 1 Adhering closely to Augustine’s language, Bonaventure attacks here the Manichean belief in an intrinsically evil principle, hostile to God. See Augustine, De civ. Dei, 11.9: “For evil has no nature of its own. Rather, it is the absence of good which has received the name ‘evil’” (PL 41: 325 [Dyson, 461]; De natura boni: “ Evil is nothing else than the corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or of the order, that belong to nature” (PL 42: 553). Cf. In 2 Sent., 25.2.3, 34-35 (II, 613-15, 802-39). 99 PART III PART III ON THE CORRUPTION OF SIN CHAPTER 1 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL IN GENERAL 1. Having briefly established certain points about the Trinity of God and the creation of the world, we now must touch upon about the corruption [of that creation] by sin. What we must maintain concerning this may be summarized as follows: that sin is not any kind of essence, but a defect and corruptive influence, which contaminates measure , form, and order in the created will.1 Hence the corruption of sin is opposed to the good as such; yet it has no existence except in something good and no source except from a good – which is the will’s capacity for free choice. For the will is not thoroughly evil, since it can choose the good; nor is it perfectly good, since it can fall into evil. 2.This should be understood as follows. Since the First Principle exists of itself, and not from another, it must exist for its own sake; as such, it is the supreme good, lacking 1 Adhering closely to Augustine’s language, Bonaventure attacks here the Manichean belief in an intrinsically evil principle, hostile to God. See Augustine, De civ. Dei, 11.9: “For evil has no nature of its own. Rather, it is the absence of good which has received the name ‘evil’” (PL 41: 325 [Dyson, 461]; De natura boni: “ Evil is nothing else than the corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or of the order, that belong to nature” (PL 42: 553). Cf. In 2 Sent., 25.2.3, 34-35 (II, 613-15, 802-39). 100 ST. BONAVENTURE’S BREVILOQUIUM nothing. Therefore, there can be no such thing as a first and absolute evil principle, because the First Principle implies complete fullness and the greatest evil implies utter deficiency. Since the First Principle, as the supreme and perfect being, cannot be deficient either in what it is or what it does, it cannot be supreme evil, nor possess evil in any respect, nor cause evil in any way. Since the First Principle is all-powerful, it is able to bring something good into being from non-being,even without any pre-existent matter. This is precisely what it did when it fashioned the creature to which it granted existence , life, intelligence, and choice. Thus it was fitting that this creature, proceeding from the supreme good and inwardly conformed to that triune cause,2 should have in its substance and in its will measure, form, and order. It was meant to accomplish its works with God as their source, in accordance with God’s norms, and with God as their end. 3. But because this creature was made from nothing and thus imperfect by nature, it...