De causa Dei: Book I, Chapter 5
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 175A–180E; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/1/5/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[175A–175C]
CHAPTER V. That God is not changeable in any way; it has a Corollary of five parts.

Having shown, then, that God is the effective principle of every change and motion, it remains, as a consequence, to show that God is not changeable in any way. This follows evidently from the sixth part of the Corollary of the first of this book [n1]. Although it seems to have been shown sufficiently there, it is nevertheless to be fortified here still further, for good cause, with some arguments and Authorities.

For it is agreed, according to what was set out earlier in the third and fourth of this book, that God makes and moves all things. In every making and moving there is some maker and mover that is unmakable and immovable; otherwise there would be an infinite regress in them, against the second Supposition. Some things set out earlier in the second of this book also attest this. And who is more fittingly such than the first and highest maker and mover? Some things set out earlier in the second, third and fourth of this book seem to attest this too. Many Philosophers and Theologians also bear witness to this conclusion, on account of the reason set out.

Moreover, if God were changeable in any way, he would not be purest act, against the second supposition and the third part of the Corollary of the first of this book. Hence the Philosopher too, Metaphysics 12, 38 [n2]: "But since there is a mover that is itself immovable, being in act, it does not befit this to be otherwise in any way." Where Averroes says: "That which moves the first moved thing, since it is not moved, because it is pure act without any potency, cannot possibly have any disposition different from the one it has."

Again, if God were changed in any way, he would be neither supremely one and simple nor supremely necessary being, against the first supposition, second part, and the other parts of the Corollary of the first of this book, and against the Philosophers and Theologians in many places. Hence the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5, 6, distinguishing the necessary, writes thus: "The first and proper necessary is that which is simple; for it does not befit this to be in more than one way; hence neither in one way and another: for then it would indeed be in more than one way." And in Metaphysics 12, distinguishing the necessary, 38, he says thus: "But this is what cannot be otherwise, but is simple; upon such a principle, therefore, heaven and nature depend." And Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 6: "Necessary being through itself is necessary in all its modes"; and below, in the ninth, no. 1: "Necessary being is necessary being by this, that in all its modes there can be no other future disposition for it that was not there." Again, if God could be changed, why could he not be changed for the worse? And how, moreover, would he in no way need another, against the first Supposition and the parts of the Corollary of the first of this book?

[175D–175E]
Hence Hermes too, at the end of On the Eternal Word: "Nothing is lacking to him, who is himself all things, or in whom are all things" [n3]. And Sixtus the Pythagorean says in his little sentences, "God indeed has need of nothing"; whence also the Prophet: "You are my God, for you have no need of my goods", Ps 15 [16]; and the Apostle: "He, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though in need of anything."

Again, he would then be passible, as is evident of itself, since every being changed is a being acted upon. Averroes argues thus on Metaphysics 5, comment 6: "If it were possible for it to be changed into another species, that is, disposition or mode, then its nature would be of the nature of a possible thing receiving many species, which he reckons impossible." And so it seems, since acting is always more excellent than being acted upon. Hence Aristotle, On the Soul 3, 19: "The agent is always more honorable than the patient, and the principle than the matter"; and Ethics 4, 1: "It belongs more to virtue to act well than to be acted on well." And Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 12, 29: "He who makes," he says, "is in every way more excellent than the thing from which he makes something." He proves the same at length in the sixth book of his On Music; and in Eighty-Three Questions, q. 28: "Everything," he says, "that makes is more than that which is made"; and in On the Immortality of the Soul he says the same.

Again, he would then be changed [by another,] or at least could be, as is clear from Aristotle, Physics 7, and Averroes in the comment, and Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 3, who agree that everything that is moved is moved by another. And so he would be in potency with respect to another, inferior and passive; all of which detract far too much from the first supposition and from the third part of the first Corollary.

And this seems to be the reason of Algazel, Metaphysics 2, dictum 9: "Necessary being," he says, "cannot be changed, because it cannot be changed by another, nor by itself, [n4] since no thing acts upon anything in itself in any way." Aristotle too, On the Heavens 1, 110, comprehending many of these arguments briefly in his usual way, says: "In the Enkidian philosophical discourses on things divine it has often been made clear by arguments that it is necessary that the divine, everything first and highest, be unchangeable [n5]. For what is so disposed is attested by what is said; nor is there anything better that will move it (for that would be more divine), nor does it have anything base, nor does it lack any of the goods that are its own."

[176A–176B]
Many Philosophical and Theological Authorities attest this same thing. Hence Hermes, in On the Eternal Word, having shown at 33 that God moves all things, celestial and terrestrial, higher and lower, and temporal things by divine reason, written down by law [n6], says at 34: "Since all things, then, stand thus, nothing is stable, nothing fixed, nothing immovable, neither among things being born, nor among celestial things, nor among earthly things; but God alone, and rightly alone. For he is in himself and from himself; and around himself he is wholly full and perfect, and he is his own firm stability. He cannot be moved by anyone's impulse, or from a place, since in him are all things, and in all things he alone is."

So too Aristotle, Metaphysics 12, 51: "God is not changed; for change toward what is less worthy, and a certain sort of motion, is a thing of that kind" [n7]. And Metaphysics 9, 2: "Passibility is toward the worse and toward corruption"; where Averroes says: "Everything that undergoes, either undergoes for the worse or undergoes toward corruption." And in Physics 8, 36 and following, the Philosopher shows at length that the first mover is not moved at all, since he is moved neither essentially nor accidentally in any way; where also at 37 he cites Anaxagoras, positing that intellect, which is the first principle, is necessarily impassible, unmixed, and immovable.

Boethius too, Consolation of Philosophy 3, last prose, cites from Parmenides: "The form of the divine substance turns the mobile orb of things, while it keeps itself immobile." Hence also in the twenty-four definitions of God by the twenty-four Philosophers, the nineteenth says thus [n8]: "God is always a mover, immobile." Avicenna, Algazel, Ammonius, Averroes and many other Philosophers attest this same thing again and again.

Sacred Authority teaches this also. Hence Ps 43 [44]: "You yourself are my King, and my God"; where Augustine says: "You are the same, for you have not been changed; I see times changed, the Creator of times is not changed." And Exod 3: "I am who I am"; and Ps 101 [102]: "You will change them and they will be changed, but you are the same." The Gloss: "But you who said 'I am who I am' are the same, that is, immutable and omnipotent; for these things are from you, through you, and in you; yet they are not what you yourself are, who are changing without being changed, making without being made, moving yet remaining." Hence also Num 23: "God is not as a son of man, that he should be changed"; Mal 3: "I am the Lord, and I am not changed"; Jas 2 [1:17] [n9]: "With whom there is no change, nor shadow of variation";

[176C–176E]
and 1 Tim, last chapter: "who alone has immortality," that is, immutability. Hence blessed Augustine, On the Trinity 1, 1, says thus: "It was said to Moses, 'I am who I am; and he who is has sent me to you'; but since both body and soul are said in some way to be, unless he meant it to be understood in some proper sense, he would surely not have said that. And as for what the Apostle says, 'who alone has immortality,' since the soul also is said, and is, in some way immortal, he would not have said 'alone has' unless true immortality is immutability, which no creature can have, since it belongs to the Creator alone."

James says this too: "Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of a moment's shifting." David also: "You will change them and they will be changed, but you are the same." Therefore it is difficult to behold and fully to know the substance of God making changeable things without any change of itself, and creating temporal things without any temporal motion of its own. And in On the Trinity 5, 2, he teaches the same more briefly, where he holds that God alone cannot be changed at all; and he adds: "What is changed does not preserve being itself; and what can be changed, even if it is not changed, can fail to be what it had been; and therefore not only that which is not changed, but that which cannot be changed at all, is what occurs to us without hesitation as that which may most truly be said to be."

And in On Christian Doctrine 1, next to last sentence, 37: "That one most highly and primarily is, who is wholly unchangeable." He holds the same in City of God 12, 1, 2, 3, and in many other places. Hence blessed Gregory too, Moralia 18, 31, on that of Job 28, "They shall not be remembered in comparison with it," says: "The Prophet, contemplating the same unchangeableness of essence, says: 'All things will grow old like a garment, and like a covering you will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail.' Hence it is said to Moses, 'I am who I am,' and, 'You shall say to the children of Israel, "He who is has sent me to you."' For he alone truly is, who alone remains unchangeably. For everything that is now thus, now otherwise, is next to non-being; for it cannot remain in its own state, and in some way one goes toward not being, while from what it had been it is always led, through moments of time, to something else." Peter [Lombard] shows the same in his Sentences 1, dist. 8 and dist. 37, citing the Authorities of the Saints more copiously.

[177A–177E]
First, that God is, of necessity, in essence and in presence everywhere, not only in the world and in all its parts: (1) [n10]
but even outside the world, in an infinite imaginary location [n11] or void. (2)
Whence he can truly be called both immense and uncircumscribed. (3)
Whence too there seems to lie open a reply to the old questions of Gentiles and Heretics: "Where is your God?" and "Where was God before the world?" (4)
Whence likewise it is clearly evident that a void can be void of body, but void of God in no way. (5)

From these things, then, plausibly (if Truth itself truly knows), it seems to be inferred by way of corollary that God is in essence and in presence everywhere, not only in the world and in all its parts, but even outside the world in an infinite imaginary location or void. Whence he can truly be called immense and uncircumscribed, although he is called immense and uncircumscribed also for another reason. Hence there seems to lie open a certain clear reply to the old questions of the Gentiles and heretics, which they kept putting to the faithful: "Where is your God?" and "Where was God before the world?" One of these was asked in verse thus:

Say where he would then be, when besides him there was nothing?

Whence likewise it is clearly evident that a void can be void of body, but void of God in no way.

That God is necessarily everywhere in the world follows manifestly. For suppose he is not in some place of it, yet can be in it, since by the seventh part of the first he is omnipotent. He can do this through motion, and not through the motion of a creature, since a creature is now there and continuously was there before, which creature, by the same reasoning by which another creature suffices and sufficed for God's existence there, nor through a motion of himself, as the chapter showed [n12]. The same is shown evidently from the Corollary of the second of this book and its demonstration.

To prove the second part, I suppose that A is the fixed imaginary location of this world, and B an imaginary location likewise outside the world and distant from A, and that God moves the world from A to B, locating it in B. Then, by the first part of this, and by the Corollary of the second of this book and its demonstration, God is now in B; so either he was there earlier or he was not. If he was, then by the same reasoning he was there earlier, and now is, everywhere imaginarily outside the world. If he was not, then by the same reasoning he now is not in A but in B: God, therefore, was earlier in A and not in B, and now is not in A but in B, which is wholly distant. Therefore he withdrew from A and approached B, and so he was moved locally or positionally, just as our soul too is moved with the motion of our body.

Here some who follow the Philosopher, On the Heavens 1, reply. They suppose that every local motion is necessarily upward or downward, or circular, that is, from the middle, to the middle, or around the middle; but that this motion, if it were posited, would be none of the aforesaid; and therefore they say it is not possible for the world to be moved thus. But these gravely mutilate and truncate the divine power, indeed the omnipotence. God could also in the beginning have created this world in B; why then can he not now place it in B? He can even now create another world in B; why then can he not place this world in B? This reply is also condemned by Stephen, Bishop of Paris, in these words: "That God cannot move the heaven with rectilinear motion; and the reason is that a void would then be left" [n13]. Nor does this reply avoid the difficulty: for suppose that God, without local motion, creates another world in B and annihilates this world in A, and the difficulty returns.

Others also, following the Philosopher, as it seems, reply by saying that there is no location or void outside the world, and therefore neither is God there, nor can he move the world thither. But these must say, consequently, that God by his omnipotence could in no way have made the world larger in any respect, nor smaller, which would restrict his omnipotence too much and constrain it overmuch. They must also say that God necessarily made the world in the location A, and that before the world the location A was, and no other. But why that one and no other? Why so great, neither greater nor smaller? For either this was from God, or of itself, not from him. If from God, it could also have been from him that the location be greater, and another, and another without end, because of his infinite power. If instead of itself, not from him, what power, what reason, what nature has inviolably set for it this precise and uncrossable limit? For that imaginary location has no positive nature, as no one is unaware; otherwise there would be some positive nature which would be neither God nor from God, the opposite of which the second and third of this book teach; and it would be coeternal with God, which no Christian accepts. Hence also Stephen, Bishop of Paris, condemned the article asserting that many things are eternal, and that God could not destroy them even if he wished, whereby he would also be deprived of omnipotence. The reasoning of these men also tells against them: [n14]

[178A–178E]
for if, according to the Philosopher and according to their own supposition, a void cannot exist, nor an imaginary location not filled by body, then the world is eternal, which is heretical, and which they also deny; or else, before its creation, its imaginary location was empty, not occupied by body. The article cited also condemns this reply and its irrational reasoning. With these things in no way standing in the way, therefore, the reasoning set out appears to proceed without hindrance.

Again, God, creating the world in the beginning, and every part of it, was at once with the world and with every part of it. For as is clear from Physics 7, 9 and following, and On the Soul 2, 74, in every motion and in every action the mover and agent is together with the moved and the patient. Hence Augustine too, Homily 2, on that of John 1, "He was in the world, and the world was made through him": "How," he says, "was he in the world?" And he answers: "As an Artificer governing what he made. For he did not make as a craftsman makes: the craftsman stands outside, beside the chest he makes, and it is placed in another place while it is being built; and although he be near, he who builds sits in another place, and is external to that which he builds. But God, poured into the world, builds; placed everywhere, he builds, and does not withdraw anywhere, nor does he externally turn over, as it were, the mass he builds. By the presence of majesty he makes what he makes; by his presence he governs what he made. So he was in the world as the one through whom the world was made."

Either, then, God was there prior by nature to his creating there and to a creature's being there, or the reverse. If he was there prior by nature, this was not through a creature, nor through creating, but through himself, and not newly, because then he would be newly changed through himself. He was therefore there eternally through himself; and so by the same reasoning he was eternally, through himself, everywhere in the void or infinite imaginary location, and still is likewise everywhere outside the world. Nor can anyone say the contrary: that it is prior by nature for a creature to be created than for it to be here or there; and that it is prior by nature for God to create there than for a creature to be created there. For this is the cause of that [n15]; and yet it is still prior by nature for God to be there than to create there, just as he is prior by nature to his creating, as is any other agent. For it is not because God, or any other agent, acts that he therefore is; nor because he acts there is he therefore there, but rather the reverse.

To the same point: with the world created in this location, God was here; either, then, newly or eternally. If newly, this was through some change or motion in God or in another, say the world. But it was not through a change in God, as the fifth shows; nor through a change in the world, since God was there prior by nature to the world's being created or changed in any way, as the foregoing makes manifest. God, then, was not newly made to be there, but was there eternally; so by the same reasoning he eternally was, is, and will be everywhere in the infinite imaginary location.

In a similar way, and perhaps more plainly, the same can be shown by supposing that God creates something, say A, at some distance outside the heaven, as is clear from what was set out earlier that he can. For he can move the world to another, distant location, and could have created the world in a distant location, so that he can still create there. Let him therefore create A there; then God acts immediately there upon A, and conserves it, as the foregoing here and the Corollary of the second of this book show. God is therefore there immediately and essentially through himself; so he is there either prior by nature to A's being there, or the reverse, etc., as before. To the same point: A having been created there, God is there; either, then, newly or eternally, etc., as above.

Further, God is in the location of the World; either, then, in order to be there he necessarily needs the creature, as a kind of leaning or reclining support, or a foundation sustaining him lest he fall, flow away, or rather vanish; or he does not so need the creature. The first cannot be said, on account of what has been set out. For God is in the location of any creature prior by nature to the creature itself, as was shown above; nor is he himself sustained or borne by a creature, nor does he in any way lean on a creature [n16], but the reverse, as the second of this book shows. God was also in some location before any creature; for the opposite would conflict too greatly [n17] with his infinite perfection and sufficiency, which the first supposition with the following parts gave him.

God is therefore a foundation without foundation, founded, that is, on nothing prior, but the first and original foundation of all other things, on which all other things, being unstable of themselves, lean as on a foundation fixed, stable and immovable through itself, and by which they are also constantly sustained and continually supported, as the second of this book showed in many ways; not therefore the reverse. God can therefore be in whatever location he wishes, without need of a creature, and not newly, because not by a motion of himself, as the fifth showed; therefore by resting eternally. God, therefore, essentially, through himself, abides in every location everywhere, eternally and immovably.

Moreover, it is more perfect to be everywhere in some location, and in many locations at once, than in a single location only. For this reason a spirit which can do this is more perfect than a body which cannot. But God is a spirit infinitely perfect, as the first Supposition and its demonstration make plain; this therefore befits him infinitely, and this without need of a creature, as was shown above, and without any changeability whatever. God is therefore necessarily, eternally, infinitely everywhere in the infinite imaginary location;

[179A–179E]
hence he can truly be called omnipresent just as he is omnipotent. By similar reasoning he can also be called in a way infinite, infinitely great, or of infinite magnitude, and even, in a way, though metaphysically and improperly, as extended; for he is infinitely extended, inextensibly and without dimension. To infinite magnitude and imaginary extension, and to any part of it, he coexists wholly at once and fully; so it can likewise be said. For "immense" means "unmeasured", not measurable by any measure; and "uncircumscribed", because he is not encircled in full by anything surrounding him, nor can he thus be circumscribed by anything, but he himself circumscribes, contains and encircles all things. Hence Sixtus the Pythagorean says in his little sentences: "You will not find the greatness of God, even if you could fly on wings." To this sentence the second of the twenty-four definitions of God, laid down by twenty-four Philosophers, bears witness; it says: "God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." And the eighteenth, saying: "God is a sphere which has as many circumferences as points"; and the tenth, saying thus: "God is he whose power is not counted [n18], whose being is not enclosed, whose goodness is not bounded."

Theological Authorities also seem to attest this sentence. For Solomon, speaking to God, says: "Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you," 3 Kgs [1 Kgs] 8; and 2 Par [2 Chr] 6: "Heaven and the heaven of heavens do not hold you." With which the Church also agrees, singing thus: "Holy mother of God, who deservedly merited to conceive him whom the whole world could not comprehend," etc.; and again:

Virgin mother of God, whom the whole world does not contain,
In your womb he enclosed himself, made man.

Hence Jerome too, to Marcella, on five questions, Epistle 96, replying to the last: "You will not doubt," he says, "that God the Word so dwelt in the Lord's body that he was also in the Father, and enclosed the circle of heaven, and was poured into all things and poured around them, so that, the same one, he might penetrate all things from within and contain them from without." It is foolish, then, that his power be confined by the smallness of a single little body, he whom heaven does not contain, and who, being everywhere, was also wholly in the Son of man.

Baruch 3 says too: "O Israel, how great is the house of the Lord, and how vast the place of his possession; great and without end, lofty and immense." Hence the Prophet: "Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end," Ps 144 [145]. And Job 11, speaking of God, says thus: "He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? deeper than hell, and whence will you know? longer than the earth is his measure, and broader than the sea." On which Gregory, Moralia 10, 8, says that God by transcending all things encloses them; who also below, in book 16, number 12, on that of Job 23, "If I go to the east, he does not appear," etc., says: "The Creator of all things is not in part, because he is everywhere, and he is then found less when he who is wholly everywhere is sought in a part. For the uncircumscribed spirit has all things within himself, which yet by filling he surrounds, and by surrounding he fills, and by sustaining he transcends, and by transcending he sustains." Augustine too, in 9, On the Essence of the Divinity of God [n19], says that God alone is uncircumscribed, immutable and immense; and he adds, of whose immensity it is written in the book of blessed Job: "He is higher than heaven," etc., recited above.

The same Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 8, 33, says that God exists through no interval or space of places; by unchangeable and surpassing power he is both more inward than every thing, because in him are all things, and more outward than every thing, because he himself is above all things. Is this not also what the Prophet, though obscurely, seems to suggest when he says: "Who has measured the waters in his fist, and weighed the heavens with his palm?" (Is 40), as if to say: "Is it not God?" And the Lord through the Prophet: "Heaven is my seat, and the earth is the footstool of my feet," Isaiah, last chapter. Hence Gregory too, in the second [book] on Ezekiel, fifth homily [n20]: "God," he says, "is everywhere, and is everywhere whole. For he says, 'Heaven is my seat, and the earth is the footstool of my feet'; and of him it is written, 'who measures heaven with a palm, and encloses the earth in a fist.' From which it is necessary that he who presides over heaven as over a seat is above and within; and he who measures heaven with a palm, and encloses the earth in a fist, is outside, above and below. So that almighty God might show that he is inner and higher than all things, he declared heaven to be his seat; but that he might show that he encircles all things, he asserts that he measures heaven with a palm, and encloses the earth in a fist."

Blessed Augustine, moreover, Confessions 7, 5, comparing the whole creation with the Creator, says thus: "I made one great mass, distinguished by kinds of bodies, your creation [n21], whether those that really were bodies, or those which I myself had imagined in place of spirits; and I made it great, not as great as it was (which I could not know), but as great as I pleased, on every side, yet certainly finite; but you, Lord, surrounding it on every side and penetrating it, yet everywhere infinite. It was as if the sea were everywhere and on every side, through immensities, an infinite sea alone, and had within itself some sponge, however large, yet finite; that sponge would be full on every side, in every part, from the immense sea. Thus I thought your creation finite, full of you the infinite, and I said: Behold, God,

[180A–180E]
and behold what God has created, and God is good, and far more excellent, most mightily and by very far; yet being good he created good things; and behold how he surrounds and fills them." Nor ought it to stand in the way that the Authorities of Scripture set out above are often expounded in another sense. For who does not know that sacred Scripture, made pregnant by the manifold power of the Holy Spirit, contains manifold understanding and brings forth many senses? With these parts of this Corollary made plain, the remaining ones will become plain.

If anyone, however, objects, against the possibility of a motion of the whole world in a straight line, which was touched on above, the Philosopher's sentence mentioned earlier, namely that every motion is from the middle, to the middle, or around the middle of this world, it must be said that he is speaking of the species of natural motions of natural bodies and of the parts of this world. And if anyone still objects to him as rejecting the void, it must be said that perhaps he means that a void is not necessarily and naturally to be posited in the world, nor even outside the world. This is on account of the effects for which the Pythagoreans, Democritus and Leucippus, and many more ancient Philosophers posit it: namely, on account of local motion; on account of the motion of increase and decrease, condensation and rarefaction; on account of the motion of alteration; and on account of the distinction of beings, lest they be one; or on account of the breathing of the heaven from the infinite void outside it. This is clear in Physics 4, 3, and On the Heavens and the World 4, On the Soul 2, and other places too.

The void also seems to be posited in two ways. In one way merely privatively, namely as pure privation, or pure lack of fullness. In another way positively, and this still in two ways: in one way as being only corporeal dimension separated from natural forms, as though it were a mathematical body, or quantity alone separated from other natural things, and so it is sometimes taken in Physics 4; in another way as having also active power, and moving in respect of place, as is clear in On the Heavens 4. A void is also sometimes defined by him as a place not filled, though apt to be filled; but place, according to the same, is the ultimate, namely the ultimate surface of the containing body. Such a void, however, is not outside the Heaven; nor is there a place there, or a location apt to be filled, according to the natures established for natural things.

It is true, however, that his arguments by no means conclude, by irrefragable necessity, that God could not, by his absolute power, make a void where he wished, in the world or outside, indeed even now in fact. Let there be an imaginary location, empty outside the world, empty, I say, of body and of anything else besides God, as the preceding arguments have urged. Those arguments of his, like many others, are some probable subtleties in natural matter, directed more against a man professing the contrary than against the thing itself; which nonetheless is of great value in the search for truth. Hence he himself, On the Heavens 2, 80: "They seem to inquire up to a point, but not as far as where doubt is possible. For in every way it is customary to put the question not with regard to the thing but against the one who says the contrary."

Again it is objected that if there were such an empty location outside this world, it would be possible for another world to be there; this is against the same Philosopher, On the Heavens 1, 76 and following, who rejects it in many ways. But who denies or doubts this conclusion, unless perhaps one who also denies or doubts the omnipotence of God? If anyone does so, he will be corrected with the help of the first Supposition and the seventh part of the Corollary of the first of this book. The Philosopher's arguments on this point are similar to his other subtleties mentioned above.

And if anyone still does not cease to object, saying, "If the foregoing are true, it is necessary that God be in this location, whichever is designated, which seems greatly contrary to his infinite omnipotence and most worthy freedom, indeed to shackle him unwilling in a prison and bind him irremovably," let the objector notice that the same can be objected against him. Given the existence of locations and located things, real places and things placed, it is necessary that God be in whichever of them; it is likewise necessary that God be in the whole imaginary location, and also in some partial location; for otherwise he could be nowhere, and hence also not be. This, then, in God is not of imperfection, illiberality, or any impotence, but of infinite power; as also that he is necessarily pure act, that he necessarily actually thinks and knows everything, however vile, as also he necessarily begets, and this not a daughter but a son, nor another son, nor many, but this one only, necessarily and absolutely.

It belongs, therefore, to infinite perfection and power that God be necessarily everywhere. For otherwise he would not be supremely perfect and powerful, because not supremely in act, or rather supreme act, but potential and mobile; and so also imperfect in some respect, as the fifth of this book showed more fully. Let these things be said and received alike not out of rash assertion, but for the sake of sober inquiry.

NOTES

1. Savile writes an ordinal followed by huius ("the first of this", "in the third of this and the fourth", "the second of this"). It means that chapter of Book I. I keep the form as written (Conventions §5.4) and expand nothing. "The Corollary of the first of this book" is the Corollary of I.1, whose numbered parts (the sixth, the third, the seventh) are cited throughout. "The fifth" (178C, 178E, 180E) is the present chapter, I.5.
2. Savile's second number after an Aristotelian book is, presumably, the text or comment number of the Latin Aristotle printed with Averroes's commentary. I keep these numbers as written. A few can be matched to the modern reference: De anima 3, 19 = III.5, 430a18; Ethics 4, 1 = EN IV.1, 1120a11.
3. The citation of Hermes de verbo aeterno (also 176A) I have not traced. "Sixtus the Pythagorean" is the author of the Sentences of Sextus, which Rufinus's Latin translation ascribed to a Pope Sixtus. Medieval writers therefore cite it under that name.
4. The keyed text places 175E·2 before "since no thing acts…". In the print the margin Aristoteles stands opposite the next sentence, "Aristotle too, On the Heavens…", and evidently labels that citation. I leave the marker where the keyed text has it.
5. "Enkidian" renders Savile's Enkidijs, a Latinization of Aristotle's enkyklioi (De caelo I.9, 279a30), the "encyclical", that is, general or exoteric, philosophical discussions. The Latin is awkward and I follow it closely.
6. temporaria ratione diuina lege conscripta. I construe temporaria as object of mouere (God moves temporal things), ratione diuina as the means, and lege conscripta as agreeing with it ("by divine reason, written down by law"). The Latin allows other constructions.
7. Aristotle's point (Metaph. Λ 9, 1074b) is that a change to the worse is already a kind of motion. The Latin is elliptical (motus quidam tale). Savile's margin offers quidem; the main reading can be construed, so I do not adopt it.
8. The "definitions" of God cited here (also 179A) are those of the pseudo-Hermetic Liber XXIV philosophorum (the Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers). The numbers are Bradwardine's and I keep them as written.
9. Savile (so keyed) has "Iac. 2". The verse is James 1:17, which Bradwardine quotes again below ("Hoc et Iacobus dicit"). That second quotation reads momenti obumbratio; here it reads vicissitudinis obumbratio, so my two renderings differ ("shadow of a moment's shifting" / "shadow of variation").
10. Savile prints the numerals 1–5 flush right beside the five parts of the Corollary. I give them in parentheses at the end of each line.
11. situs is rendered "location" throughout (situs imaginarius "imaginary location"; situaliter "positionally"). It is distinct from locus "place".
12. The sentence is elliptical. The relative clause "which creature, by the same reasoning…" has no verb of its own, and "nor through a motion of himself" hangs from it. The argument is that neither a creature's motion nor God's own motion (excluded earlier in this chapter) can account for his coming to be where a creature already is and has been. Hence the supposition that he is not there is refuted. The print reads hoc potest per motum (the sense may call for non potest). I translate it as it stands.
13. The condemnation of 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, article 49: "That God cannot move the heaven with rectilinear motion; and the reason is that a void would then be left." Bradwardine calls it "the article cited" (Articulus recitatus) below.
14. Where a page turn cuts a sentence between Savile's pages, I keep the sentence whole in the earlier block. So "against them" (177E/178A) ends this block, and the next begins with "for if…". The same is done at 178E/179A ("in the infinite imaginary location;" ends the earlier block and "hence he can truly…" begins the next) and at 179E/180A ("Behold, God," ends the earlier block).
15. Haec enim est causa huius. I take "this" as God's creating there and "that" as the creature's being created there; the concession is then that God's creating is the cause of the creature's being created, yet God's being there is prior to his creating there.
16. The keyed text and print read nec aliquo modo creatura innititur (nominative). The sense requires Deus as subject, "nor does he lean on a creature", that is, the dative creaturae. I translate the sense.
17. Hoc enim … nimium repugnaret is literally "for this would conflict too much with his infinite perfection". That would contradict the sentence before it. The evident sense is that the contrary (that he was in no location before creatures) would conflict. I translate that and do not emend.
18. The variant mensuratur is Savile's alternative for numeratur. The same margin carries two further source entries, Salomon. (at 3 Kgs [1 Kgs] 8) and Paralipom. (at 2 Par [2 Chr] 6). The keyed text lumps them with the variant and gives them no markers of their own.
19. A work De essentia divinitatis circulated under Augustine's name. It is generally held to be spurious. Savile's number "9" is kept as written.
20. Savile (and the keyed text) print Gregorius secundus. The sense is Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel, book 2, homily 5; I read secundus as standing for the second book.
21. Savile (and the keyed text) have Fecit, third person. The sentence cannot be construed that way: the following relative clause is in the first person (finxeram) and Augustine's text has feci. I translate "I made".