Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1.

1. He shows that there is one principle of things, not several, as some have supposed. — Bede. In recounting the creation of things, Scripture shows at its very beginning that God is the Creator and the beginning of time and of all creatures, visible and invisible, saying: “In the beginning God created” heaven and earth.” For by these words Moses, inspired by the Spirit of God, reports that the world was made by God the Creator in one beginning, refuting the error of certain people who supposed there were several principles without a beginning.

¹ “the prologue of Book II begins” is prefixed in T. 4–6 “Which … let us turn” is transposed to the end of Book I in BCNX. 6 “let us turn”] “the prologue ends” is added in T. 10 Beda in BOT, omitted in the others.]

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2. Strabo: Plato said there were three principles. — Plato indeed thought there were three beginnings: God, the exemplar, and matter; these were uncreated and without beginning, and God was like a craftsman, not a creator.

Chapter 2.

Why God is properly called Creator, and what it means to create and to make. A creator is one who makes something out of nothing, and properly speaking to create is to make something out of nothing. To make, however, means not only to produce something out of nothing, but also to produce it from matter. Thus a human being or an angel is said to make certain things, but not to create them; such a one is called a maker or craftsman, but not a creator. This name properly belongs to God alone, who makes some things from nothing and others from something. He is therefore Creator, Artificer, and Maker. But he reserved the name “creation” properly for himself, while sharing the others with creatures. In Scripture, however, “creator” is often used to mean “maker,” and “to create” to mean “to make,” without distinction of meaning.

Chapter 3.

1. The words “make,” “act,” and the like are not said of God in the same sense in which they are said of creatures. We should know, however, that the words “make,” “create,” “act,” and other such words cannot be said of God in the same sense in which they are said of creatures. When we say that he makes something, we do not understand that any motion in acting or any suffering in laboring is present in him, as usually happens to us. Rather, we signify a new effect of his eternal will: that something begins to exist anew by his eternal will.

2. In what sense God is said to make something. When he is said to make something, it is as if we said that something comes about or exists anew according to, or through, his will: nothing new happens in him, but something new comes to be as it had been in his eternal will, without any motion or change in him. We, by contrast, are said to be changed through working, because we are moved; for we do nothing without motion. — God is therefore said to make or do something because he is the cause of things that newly exist, as new things that did not exist before begin to be by his will, without any activity of his own. Thus an act cannot properly be predicated of him, since every act consists in motion, and there is no motion in God.

3. He explains by comparison. Just as certain things come to be through the sun’s heat, although no motion or change takes place in the sun or in its heat, so new things receive being through God’s will without any change in the Author, who is the one and only principle of all things.

4. Aristotle’s three principles. — Strabo. Aristotle, however, said there were two principles, matter and form, and a third, called the “operative” principle; he also said the world always exists and has always existed.

5. He teaches what is catholic. — Bede. The Holy Spirit, then, dispelling the error of these and similar views and teaching the discipline of truth, “signifies that God created the world at the beginning of time and existed eternally before time,” commending his eternity and omnipotence, for whom to will to make something is to make it, since, as we said above, new things come to exist through his will and goodness. — Augustine in the Enchiridion.

⁴ aestimavit BCLTVWX. 8 The heading is omitted in MRVW. 11 vel] et LNT.]

⁵ caro factum BCX. || Beda is omitted in MRVW.]

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Let us believe, then, that “the cause of created things, heavenly or earthly, visible or invisible, is none other than the goodness of the Creator, who is the one and true God.” His goodness is so great that, though supremely good and eternally blessed with his own beatitude, he willed others to share in it. He saw that it could be shared and yet not diminished at all. Thus, by goodness alone and not by necessity, he willed to communicate to others the good that he himself was and by which he was blessed, because it belongs to the supremely good to will to benefit others, and the almighty cannot be harmed.

Chapter 4.

1. Why a rational creature was made: so that someone might be understood to share in beatitude, and the fuller this is possessed, the fuller the understanding. Since beatitude is of no avail without understanding, and the more understanding one has, the more fully one would understand the highest good and enjoy it by possessing it, God made a rational creature to understand the highest good, to love it by understanding it, to possess it by loving it, and thus to enjoy it. — 2. How the rational creature was divided. He divided it in this way: one part remained in its own purity and was not united to a body, namely the angels; the other part was joined to a body, namely the human soul. Thus the rational creature was divided into incorporeal and corporeal: the incorporeal is called an angel, the corporeal a human being, subsisting from a rational soul and flesh. The first cause of the rational creature’s condition, then, was God’s goodness.

3. Why a human being or an angel was created. If it is asked why a human being or an angel was created, a brief answer can be given: because of God’s goodness. Hence Augustine in On Christian Doctrine: “Because God is good, we exist; and insofar as we exist, we are good.”

4. For what purpose the rational creature was created. If it is asked for what purpose the rational creature was created, the answer is: to praise God, to serve him, and to enjoy him. In these things the creature makes progress, not God. For God is perfect and full of supreme goodness, and can neither increase nor diminish. The fact, then, that the rational creature was made by God must be referred to the Creator’s goodness and the creature’s benefit.

5. The briefest answer when one asks why or for what purpose the rational creature was made. When, then, it is asked why or for what purpose the rational creature was made, the briefest answer is: because of God’s goodness and for its own benefit. For it is beneficial to serve God and enjoy him. An angel or a human being is therefore said to have been made for God—not because God, the Creator and supremely blessed one, needed the service of either, since he has no need of our goods—but so that the creature might serve and enjoy him, for serving him is to reign. In this the servant benefits, not the one who is served.

6. Just as the human being was made to serve God, so the world was made to serve the human being. Just as the human being was made for God, that is, to serve him, so the world was made for the human being, namely to serve him. The human being was therefore placed in the middle, so that service would be rendered to him and he himself would serve; that he might receive from both sides, and all things might contribute to his good: both the service he receives and the service he renders. God willed the human being to serve him in such a way that this service would help the human servant, not God; and he willed the world to serve the human being, so that the human being might likewise benefit from it.

7. How all things are ours. All the good of the human being consisted both in what was made for him and in the purpose for which he himself was made. — Augustine. For, as the Apostle says, all things are ours: things above, equal to us, and below us. The things above are ours for enjoyment, namely God the Trinity; those equal to us are ours for companionship, namely the angels, who, though now superior to us, will be equal in the future. They are ours even now, because they are for our use, just as the property of masters is said to belong to servants—not as their possession, but because it is for their use. Angels are also said in certain passages of Scripture to serve us, since they are sent out to minister on our behalf.

⁹ videt BCX, videri OP, corrected by P. 7 alii] aliis CRTV. 8 noceri] CMOPT, nocere alii transposed in P, posse OP. 13 et²] ac MNRVW. 15 The heading is omitted in MRW. 24 bonitatem eius transposed in OPR. || eius] dei LT.]

¹⁰ ipsius P, illi N, omitted in M. || ipsi est transposed in CLRT. || Factus] est added in MOT, but deleted in MO. 8 dicitur esse is omitted in T. 12 Deo serviret transposed in BCX. || ut² is omitted in OP. 22 scilicet] et added in LRW.]

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Chapter 5.

How Scripture sometimes says that the human being was made to repair the fall of the angels. Scripture also sometimes says that the human being was made to repair the angelic fall. This should not be understood as though the human being would not have been made had the angel not sinned; rather, this was one among several chief causes. — The things above and equal to us are therefore ours; the things below are ours as well, because they were made to serve us.

Chapter 6.

1. Why the soul is united to the body. It is also customary to ask why the soul was united to the body, since it would seem to be of greater dignity if it had remained apart from the body.

2. First reason. A first answer is that God willed it, and no cause of his will should be sought.

3. Second reason. A second answer is that God willed it to be united to the body so that, in the human condition, he might show a new example of the blessed union between God and the spirit, in which God is loved “with one’s whole heart” and seen “face to face.” For the creature might think it could not be united to its Creator so closely as to love and know him with its whole mind, unless it saw a spirit—the most excellent creature—joined in such great love to what is lowest, namely flesh from the earth, that it would not be compelled to wish to leave it, as the Apostle shows, saying: “We do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed.” This shows that the created spirit is united to the uncreated Spirit by an ineffable love.

4. As an example, then, of the future fellowship that was to be perfected in the glorification of the rational spirit with God, he joined the soul to bodily clothing and earthly dwelling places, and made the clayey substance quicken with the sense of life. Thus the human being might know that if God could join the very different natures of body and soul in one bond and such friendship, it would certainly not be impossible for him to raise the lowliness of the rational creature, though far inferior, to share in his glory. — Since, then, the rational spirit was humbled in part, as an example, to share in an earthly body, divine providence added that later it should be raised with that same body, now glorified, to the fellowship of those who had remained in their purity. Thus what the created being had received to a lesser degree through the dispensation of its Creator, it would later receive through his grace when glorified. Accordingly, God the Creator, arranging rational spirits by varied lots according to the choice of his will, established a dwelling in heaven above for those he had left in their purity, and a dwelling on earth below for those he had joined to earthly bodies. He set before both the rule of obedience, so that the former would not fall from where they were, and the latter would ascend from where they were to where they were not. God therefore made the human being from a twofold substance, fashioning the body from earth and making the soul from nothing.

5. Third reason. The souls were also united to bodies so that, serving God in them, they might merit a greater crown.

6. After treating the mystery of the Trinity, we must treat the threefold creation, beginning with the nobler part, namely the angelic. From what has been said it is clear that the rational creature was divided into angelic and human: one is wholly spiritual, namely the angelic; the other is partly spiritual and partly corporeal, namely the human. — Since, then, we must treat these things—that is, spiritual and corporeal creation, rational and nonrational—we should first discuss what is rational and spiritual, namely the angels, so that our reason may turn from contemplating the Creator to knowing the noblest creature; then it may descend to consider corporeal creation, both that which is rational and that which is not, so that the mystery of the uncreated Trinity may be followed by instruction about the threefold creation and what is joined to it and contingent.

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4. The Glossa ordinaria on Gen. II, question 33 (PL 35, 1348); Glossa ordinaria on this passage (Lyra VI, 20a). De diligendo Deo (possibly by Alcher of Clairvaux), chs. 2–3 (PL 40, 849f.).

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