Liber Quintus, Caput VI. Principii et essentiae rationem proprie soli Deo convenire.
The Name That Is Pure Being
Bernard opens by identifying God as the one who simply 'is,' drawing on the divine name revealed to Moses and showing that every attribute of God resolves into pure being.
Now, if you can say with the bride, 'A little while after I passed by them, I found whom my soul loves.' Who is he? Nothing better occurs than 'He who is.' This is what he wanted to be answered about himself; this is what he taught, when Moses spoke to the people, with him indeed commanding: 'I AM has sent me to you.' Indeed, it is deserved. Nothing is more fitting than eternity, which is God. If you say good, if great, if blessed, if wise, or whatever else you say about God; in this word is established what is, 'He is.' Indeed, this is and is to be, that all these things are.
Beyond All Addition and Subtraction
Bernard reflects that no description adds to or subtracts from God's being, and that whatever falls short of him is more truly not-being than being.
Even if you were to add a hundred things like these, you still wouldn't have moved beyond being itself. If you say these things, you've added nothing; if you don't say them, you've taken nothing away. Now if you've seen that this is so singular, so supremely what it is to be — don't you judge that, compared to it, whatever falls short of it is more truly not-being than being? What then is God? Without whom nothing is. There is as little that can exist without him as he himself can exist without himself. He is to himself, and he is to all things. And in this way he alone, in a sense, is the one who belongs to himself and is the being of all things. What is God?
The True Beginning That Never Began
Bernard reasons that the true beginning cannot itself have begun, since nothing begins from itself, and therefore everything began from the one who never began.
"Beginning": that's the answer he himself gave concerning himself. Many things in creation are called beginnings, but only in relation to what comes after them. Otherwise, if you look back to something preceding it, you'll call that the beginning instead. So if you're looking for the true and simple beginning, you'll have to find one that never had a beginning of its own. The one from which everything began certainly did not itself begin. Because if it began, it must have begun from somewhere else. Nothing, after all, began from itself. Unless perhaps someone has supposed that what did not yet exist could have given itself the ability to come into being, or that it was something before it existed. Since reason allows neither of these two options, it's clear that nothing has existed as a beginning to itself. But if another had a beginning first, then it wasn't the first. Therefore the true beginning by no means began; rather, everything began from it.
From Whom, Through Whom, In Whom
Bernard unfolds the apostolic formula from:36, showing that God is the source, agent, and sustaining power of all things without needing matter or place.
What is God? The ages neither approach him nor depart from him; yet they are not coeternal with him. What is God? From whom all things come, through whom all things exist, in whom all things are.✦ From whom all things come — creatively, not by sowing. Through whom all things exist — so don't think of one author and another maker. In whom all things exist — not as in a place, but as in power. From whom all things come, as from one principle, the author of all things.
Created Out of Nothing
Bernard insists that God made all things out of nothing, not from pre-existing matter or his own substance, and needed no workshop or craftsman.
Through whom all things exist — and this, so that no other principle or maker might be brought in. In which all things exist — and this, so that no third thing, place itself, might be brought in. Out of which all things exist — not in the sense of 'out of which,' because God is not matter: he is the efficient cause, not the material cause. The philosophers look for matter in vain; God had no need of matter. For he sought neither workshop nor craftsman. He himself, through himself, made all things. From where? Out of nothing. For if he had made all things out of something, then he did not make that something, and by that very fact, not all things.
Neither Contained Nor Excluded
Bernard explores the paradox that God is nowhere enclosed by place and yet nowhere excluded, being both incomprehensible and omnipresent.
It should be far from our minds to think that He made so many things from His own incorrupt and incorruptible substance; even if they are good, they are still corruptible. You ask whether all things are in Him, and where He Himself is. I find nothing at all. Who could contain a place? You ask where He is not. I would not say this indeed. Who is there without God? God is incomprehensible; but you've grasped quite a bit if you've understood that He is nowhere — who is not enclosed by place — and that He is nowhere — who is not excluded by place.
In All Things and In Himself
Bernard concludes that God is in all things and all things are in him, and that before the world existed he was simply in himself.
Yet in that sublime and incomprehensible way of his, just as all things exist in him, so he himself is present in all things. In short, as the evangelist says, he was in the world.✦ At another time, indeed — where he was before the world came into being — he is there.✦ There's no reason to press further and ask where he was; there was nothing besides himself. Therefore he was in himself.
Read the original Latin
Nunc jam transi spiritus istos, si forte cum sponsa dicere possis et tu: Paululum cum pertransissem eos, inveni quem diligit anima mea. Quis est? Non sane occurrit melius, quam Qui est. Hoc ipse de se voluit responderi, hoc docuit, dicente Moyse ad populum, ipso quidem injungente: Qui est, misit me ad vos. Merito quidem. Nil competentius aeternitati, quae Deus est. Si bonum, si magnum, si beatum, si sapientem, vel quidquid tale de Deo dixeris; in hoc verbo instauratur, quod est, Est. Nempe hoc est et esse, quod haec omnia esse.
Si et centum talia addas, non recessisti ab esse. Si ea dixeris, nihil addidisti: si non dixeris, nihil minuisti. Jam si vidisti hoc tam singulare, tam summum esse; nonne in comparatione hujus quidquid hoc non est, judicas potius non esse, quam esse? Quid item Deus? Sine quo nihil est. Tam nihil esse sine ipso, quam nec ipse sine se potest. Ipse sibi, ipse omnibus est. Ac per hoc quodammodo ipse solus est, qui suum ipsius est, et omnium esse Quid est Deus?
Principium: et hoc ipse de se responsum dedit. Multa in rebus dicuntur principia, sed respectu posteriorum. Alioquin si ad aliquid praecedens respicias, ipsum potius principium dabis. Quamobrem si quaeras verum simplexque principium, invenias oportet quod principium non habuerit. Ex quo universum coepit, ipsum profecto minime coepit. Nam si coepit, aliunde coeperit necesse est. A se enim coepit nihil. Nisi forte quis putaverit, quod non erat, dare sibi potuisse, ut esse inciperet; aut fuisse aliquid, antequam esset.
Quod utrumque quia ratio non consentit, constat nihil sibimet extitisse principium. Quod vero aliud principium habuit, primum non fuit. Verum ergo principium nequaquam coepit, sed totum ab ipso coepit.
Quid est Deus? Cui saecula nec accesserunt, nec decesserunt; nec coaeterna tamen. Quid est Deus? Ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia. Ex quo omnia, creabiliter, non seminabiliter. Per quem omnia, ne alium auctorem atque alium opificem arbitreris. In quo omnia, non quasi in loco, sed quasi in virtute. Ex quo omnia, tanquam uno principio, auctore omnium.
Per quem omnia, ne alterum inducatur principium artifex. In quo omnia, ne tertium inducatur, locus. Ex quo omnia, non de quo, quia non est materia Deus: efficiens causa est, non materialis. Frustra philosophi materiam quaerunt: non eguit materia Deus. Non enim officinam quaesivit, non artificem. Ipse per se omnia fecit. Unde? De nihilo: nam si ex aliquo fecit, illud non fecit, ac per hoc nec omnia.
Absit ut de sua incorrupta incorruptibilique substantia tam multa fecerit; etsi bona, corruptibilia tamen. Quaeris si in ipso omnia, ipse ubi? Nihil minus invenio. Quis capiat locus? Quaeris ubi non sit? Nec hoc quidem dixerim. Quis sine Deo locus? Incomprehensibilis est Deus: sed non parum apprehendisti, si hoc tibi de eo compertum est, quod nusquam sit, qui non clauditur loco; et nusquam non sit, qui non excluditur loco.
Suo autem illo sublimi atque incomprehensibili modo, sicut omnia in ipso, sic ipse in omnibus est. Denique sicut ait evangelista, in mundo erat. Alias vero, ubi erat antequam mundus fieret, ibi est. Non est quod quaeras ultra ubi erat; praeter ipsum nihil erat. Ergo in se ipso erat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.11.36 — For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
- ↩John.1.10 — He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.
- ↩John.1.1-John.1.2 — In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John.1.2 — He was in the beginning with God.
De consideratione (On Consideration) companion
Make consideration a daily appointment
Bernard told Eugene to set aside time every day. Chosen Portion holds that time for you, free.
Bernard's core prescription — a fixed daily time reserved for examining the soul — is exactly the habit Chosen Portion installs with its daily devotional portion.
- One 10-minute daily portion for self-examination and prayer
- Reflection prompts drawn from historic texts, not improvised journaling
- A visible streak that protects the daily interval Bernard insisted on