Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (188).

1. Whether God can do anything better than he does. It remains now to discuss whether God can do anything better than he does.

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2. They say that God cannot *. For those investigators are accustomed to say that God cannot make the things he does better, because if he could do so and did not, he would be envious and not supremely good. They try to establish this by analogy. Augustine says in the book Eighty-Three Questions: “Since God could not beget one better than the one he begot—for nothing is better than God—he ought to beget an equal. For if he willed to and could not, he would be weak; if he could and did not will to, he would be envious. It follows that he begot an equal Son.” By analogy they wish to say that if God can make a thing better than he makes it, he is envious. — But this analogy does not hold, because he begot the Son from his own substance; and so if he could beget an equal and did not, he would be envious. But he can make other things, which are not from his own substance, better.

3. The question that constrains them. But here I ask them to answer why they say that some thing, or even the whole universe of things in which a greater perfection is expressed, cannot be better than it is: whether because it is supremely good, so that no perfection of goodness is wholly lacking to it, or because it cannot receive a greater good that it lacks. But if it is called supremely good because no perfection of goodness is lacking to it, then a creature is made equal to the Creator. If, however, it cannot be better because it cannot receive a greater good that it lacks, then this inability is a defect, not a perfection; and it can be better if it is made capable of a greater good by the one who made it. Therefore God can make a thing better than he makes it. Hence Augustine, in On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis¹: “God could have made a man such that he neither could nor would sin; and if he had made such a man, who doubts that he would have been better?” From what has been said it is clear that God can both make other things than he makes and make the things he does better than he makes them.

4. Whether he can make what he makes in another or better way. After this we must consider whether he can make the things he makes in another or better way than he does. — Reply *. If the manner of operation is referred to the wisdom of the maker, it cannot be different or better. For he cannot do anything otherwise or better than he does, that is, with another wisdom: nothing can be wiser than the wisdom by which he acts. But if the manner is referred to the thing itself that God makes, we say that it can be different and better. In this sense it can be granted that he can make the things he makes better and otherwise than he does, because he can give some a better mode of existence and others a different one. Hence Augustine says in book XIII of On the Trinity² that another mode of our liberation was possible for God, who can do all things, but no other mode was more fitting for healing our misery. God can therefore make some things he makes in another and better way, some in another way equally good, and some even in a less good way than he does, provided that “mode” refers to the quality of the work, that is, the creature, and not to the wisdom of the Creator.

Chapter 2 (189).

1. Whether God can always do everything he once could. It is also often asked whether God can always do everything he once could. Some think not, saying: God could become incarnate, could die and rise again, and do other such things that he cannot do now. Therefore he could do things he cannot do now, and thus he had a power he no longer has; hence his power seems to have diminished.

2. Reply: as he always knows what he once knew and always wills what he once willed, so he always can do what he once could *. We reply that just as he always knows all that he once knew, and always wills what he once willed, never losing any knowledge or changing any will he had, so he always can do all that he once could, and is never deprived of any power. He is therefore not deprived of the power to become incarnate or rise again, although he cannot now become incarnate or rise again. For just as he once could become incarnate, so now he can be incarnate; in this the power concerning the same thing is shown.

3. For just as he once knew that he would rise again, so now he knows that he has risen; and the knowledge of his having once known this and his knowing it now is not different, but wholly the same. And just as he once willed to rise again, so now he wills to have risen; in this the will concerning one thing is expressed. So too he once could be born and rise again, and now he can have been born and have risen; it is the power concerning the same thing. For if he could now be born and rise again, it would not be the same ability. For words of different tenses, spoken at different times and joined to different adverbs, convey the same sense: speaking now we say, “This person can read today”; tomorrow, however, we shall say, “This person can have read,” or “He could read yesterday”; here the ability concerning one thing is shown. But if, speaking at different times, we use verbs and adverbs referring to the same time, saying today, “This person can read today,” and tomorrow saying, “This person can read today,” we do not say that he can do the same thing, but different things.

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⁴ a MRTX. 7–8 [Conficitur] convincitur T, confitetur M, conficiuntur W. 13 Verum] ergo V. 17 valeat] valet LRVW. 28 faciat] facit OP. Haec] quae BCLMx.]

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4. Let us therefore acknowledge that God can always do, and can do whatever he once could, that is, that he has all the power he once had and the power concerning every thing he once had power over; but that he cannot always do everything he once could do. He can indeed do, or have done, what he once could. Likewise, whatever he willed and wills—that is, every will he had—he has now; and the will concerning anything he once willed, he has now. Yet he does not will to exist or come about everything he once willed to exist or come about; rather, he wills that it have existed or have come about. The same must be said of God's knowledge.