Lull's Book of Propositions

bullet1 4 - The Practice of this Art
bullet2 1 - Propositions

bullet3 1 - Figure T

For a clear and orderly perception of the propositions of T., note that as T. is divided into five triangles and each angle into three terms, so are its propositions distinctly divided. There are three propositions for each principle of an angle, and as each principle is further subdivided into three terms, each term has three propositions. Thus, each angle contains four times three, or twelve propositions and consequently each triangle contains thirty six propositions, and as there are five triangles in the figure, this makes one hundred and eighty propositions in all. This part deals with the said propositions, beginning with the propositions of the first and most noble principle, followed by the other principles in sequence.


A.  GOD

1.  God is an incessant being and has all of whatever He wants.

2.  As God exists, wholeness has some concordance with majority and nothingness with minority.

3.  Because God exists, so does all that is and no sin is anything at all.

4.  Because there is one God, there is infinite being.

5.  Because essential infinity and eternity exist, just one God is sufficient.

6.  As God is one, no unity wants to be separated.

7.  Everything in the divine essence is God.

8.  There is no difference between divine essence and being.

9.  Everything in the divine essence is infinite and eternal.

10.   No divine dignity is inactive.

11.  All divine dignities produce their acts in each other.

12.  Since the divine dignities all exist within each other, they are God.


B.  Creature

1.  Because likenesses of God can be made, He created creatures.

2.  Without being and nothingness creation is impossible.

3.  Every creature is a mirror of God where likenesses and unlikenesses of God appear.

4.  All sensible creatures are subject to an intellectual purpose.

5.  Sensibility is the essence of all sensual creation.

6.  All physical creatures exist in subtle physical form before having a body.

7.  Because God can be loved and understood, powers of intellect and will are produced in creatures.

8.  No intellect is ever created without will.

9.  Intellect and will are differently related in every creature.

10. Animal essence is totally subject to created form and matter and all animal beings are subject to animal essence.

11.  If species had not been created, no animal would reproduce its own species.

12.  All animal beings are creatures.


C. Operation

1.  Because there is intrinsic operation in God, intrinsic operations are always nobler than extrinsic ones.

2.  Every operation has a purpose.

3.  All extrinsic operations are influenced by intrinsic operations.

4.  Operations can be optimized and desired as they are understood.

5.  Every intellectual power operates by producing likenesses of itself .

6.  The intellect influences the will with its light just as the will influences the intellect with charity.

7.  No natural operation works against itself.

8.  All natural operations proceed within substance and influence accidents.

9.  All natural operations proceed continuously from universals to particulars.

10.  Whatever God does outside of himself, He does artificially.

11.  God artificially creates work and man puts it to use.

12.  No human being can produce an artificial form from nothingness.


D. Difference

1.  Because difference is really universal in nature, it exists in particulars.

2.  Because there is a difference in concordance without any contrariety at all, difference has greater magnitude than contrariety.

3.  Major difference can give rise to greater concordance than minor difference can.

4.  In the sensitive power, difference and species are so closely related that they both at once differentiate and specify it.

5.  Since God can be understood and loved, the difference between intellect and will is greater than any difference between one sense and another.

6.  Difference is a power that the elements use to produce their likenesses.

7.  The intellect cannot differ from the senses without some likenesses and unlikenesses.

8.  Since the soul specifies its subject more than the body does, there is greater difference in the soul than in the body.

9.  The rational animal is a great mirror where the great difference between spirit and body appears.

10. Intellect is always different from will (and conversely) in understanding and willing because their essences are different.

11.  There is more difference between understanding and willing if they differentiate what is understood and willed than if they do not.

12.  Without the difference between intellect and will, no human life can exist.


E.  Concordance

1.  Great concordance is always more desirable than small concordance.

2.  Any concordance can be removed from contrariety further by a major difference than by a minor difference.

3.  Concordance cannot occur without distinction.

4.  Any concordance between one sensitive being and another is due to their similarity.

5.  Without unity and plurality, there can be no natural concordance.

6.  Concordance between one sensitive being and another never occurs without some contrariety.

7.  Because there is concordance in God, the concordance between the intellect and the senses is greater than any concordance between one sense and another.

8.  Every particular concordance in nature is subject to one universal concordance in the totality of nature.

9.  From the utmost concordance produced in man between one substance and another, a further substance is produced.

10.  Without essential concordance, intellect cannot be an act of its essence.

11.  The concordance between the soul and its powers is entirely substantial, but any concordance among the powers is accidental.

12.  In every intellect there is concordance between essence and being.


F. Contrariety

1. Contrariety is never infinite.

2. Every contrary act involves privation.

3. Contrariety cannot occur without accidents.

4. Any absence of concordance is contrariety.

5. All contrariety is either extrinsic or intrinsic.

6. Since all sentient beings have similarities, no contrariety can be found among them without some concordance.

7.  Between sense and intellect, concordance naturally occurs before contrariety.

8.  The senses defy intellect with minor power and intellect defies the senses with major power.

9.  Any sense contradicting the intellect contradicts itself and not vice versa.

10.  Truth always contradicts falsehood more strongly than vice versa.

11.  No intellect can contradict another more than itself.

12.  A human soul can contradict God more strongly than it can contradict anyone else.


G.  Beginning

1.  No beginning is greater than the one equal to its end.

2.  All particular principles of nature exist under universal principles of nature.

3.  No principle can be without an end.

4.  Without nothingness time cannot be initiated.

5.  Time cannot begin within time.

6.  Any principle involved in time is close to nothingness.

7.  There are many principles in the diversification of universal quantity.

8.  Every principle is nobler in quantity of form than in quantity of matter.

9.  Every natural principle occurs in universality before becoming particular.

10.  Every principle is closer to cause than to effect.

11.  Every natural principle is simple in form and compound in matter.

12.  All principles exist for one single end.


H.  Middle

1.  There is no middle without beginning and end.

2.  The greatness of the middle resides entirely in the greatness of the beginning and end.

3.  An end never contradicts its means.

4.  Every medium is diversified in the diversity of its extremes.

5.  Between reality and intellectual reasoning there is a medium.

6.  There are many media between universals and particulars.

7.  All movement is a medium between extremes.

8.  Habit is a medium between potential and act.

9.  Between predestination and free will, the justice and mercy of God are one equal medium.

10.  Every medium that joins the beginning to the end is perfect.

11.  Man is a medium between soul and body.

12.  Any medium is more simply made from essential than from integral parts.


I.  End

1.  The Supreme End is the one sought by all other ends.

2.  God alone has his own end in Himself.

3.  An end is not perfect in itself if it is meant for some other end.

4.  All ends and all beginnings are really related.

5.  The end is the objective of everything that moves.

6.  Since the end of all matter is passivity, all matter is subject to something else.

7.  Every termination is terminated somewhere between a cause and an effect.

8.  All ends are terminated in the Supreme End.

9.  All outer ends are terminated in an inner End.

10.  As the end is lovable, its privation is hateful.

11.  Deviation in the middle leads to privation in the end.

12.  Every major end is further removed from privation than a minor one.


K.  Majority

1.  Since God's goodness is great, a great majority is always more loved than a small one.

2.  Major action is always more desirable than minor action.

3.  Supreme Majority is the one without any minority.

4.  Majority is always greater in universality than in particulars.

5.  Any substance is further removed from privation by major acts than by minor ones.

6.  Substance is always greater in form than in matter.

7.  Majority is always greater in substance than by accident.

8.  Since majority agrees with being and minority with non being, majority is in substance and minority in accidents.

9.  Majority always occurs in substance before minority does in accidents.

10.  Majority is greater in the concordance of accidents than in their contrariety.

11.  No corporeal quantity is greater than virtual quantity.

12.  Every accident closer to substance is greater than other accidents.


L.  Equality

1.  As in God there is equality and not majority, equality offers greater possibility than does majority.

2.  Since relation cannot include majority without minority, power can empower things more in equality than in majority.

3.  As God is good, every good equation signifies being while its opposite signifies non being.

4.  Supreme equality is the one produced essentially without accident by an essence within itself.

5.  Inequality between one substance and another never occurs without accidents.

6.  Substances always find equality in concordance, and unequality in contrariety.

7.  In human substance there is a greater equation between soul and body than among accidents.

8.  Any equation produced substantially by substance is greater than one produced between accidents and substance.

9.  Since equality agrees with being and inequality with non being, there is greater equality in substance than in accidents.

10.  Equality among accidental forms can never be as great as equality among substantial forms.

11.  Relation can hold greater equality than can all the other accidents.

12.  As accidents seek out equality, substance is constituted.


M.  Minority

1.  Any universal minority contradicts being.

2.  Any minority produced through successive minorities is greater than other minorities.

3.  As minority increases it moves further away from composition.

4.  All minor substance is subject to major substance.

5.  The substance produced by intellect in its rational universality is less than that produced by nature in real universality.

6.  In lesser virtue there is lesser substance.

7.  Minority between substance and accidents can never be without some imperfection.

8.  Minority never occurs in substance before accidents.

9.  From accident to substance, minority is transposed to majority.

10.  Any accident further away from the end is less than the other accidents.

11.  The greatest minority is in the accident in which substantial virtue has the least influence.

12.  Every minor act produces minor accidents.


N.  Affirmation

1.  Because God exists, affirmation implies majority and negation implies minority

2.  The object of affirmation is truth and the object of negation is falsehood.

3.  Affirmation means willingness and negation means unwillingness.

4.  There is no being that can be more strongly affirmed than God.

5.  Because God exists, affirmation implies being and negation implies non being.

6.  The nobler a being is, the more it is to be affirmed.

7.  All affirmations contradict non being with negation.

8.  Affirmation and non being are accidentally related.

9.  Affirmation and intellectual light both contradict non being.

10.  The object of affirmation is possibility.

11.  Affirmation and negation are divergent through impossibility.

12.  Affirmation and negation are in concordance or opposition through possibility and impossibility.


O.  Doubt

1.  Doubt and supposition are principles of investigation.

2.  All doubt exists for the sake of either affirmation or negation.

3.  Major doubt gives rise to major affirmation or negation.

4.  All doubt participates in being and non being.

5.  In doubt, the intellect begins to produce its likeness from non being into being.

6.  All doubt is a being aggregated from understanding and ignorance.

7.  Non being produces its likenesses in doubt.

8.  Because doubt involves non being, doubt begins in privation and is consumed in being.

9.  Because doubt is an inclination of the intellectual act toward being and non being, it is a medium through which affirmation and negation oppose one another.

10.  Doubt cannot exist equally in both being and non being.

11.  Doubt cannot be destroyed as vehemently with faith as through demonstration.

12.  Doubt cannot exist without passion.


P.  Negation

1.  There is no use in denying God.

2.  Whatever contradicts reason is an object of negation.

3.  Major negation gives rise to major affirmation and vice versa.

4.  Without affirmation there is no negation.

5.  All negation has an accidental inclination toward being.

6.  All negation that contradicts being can be destroyed.

7.  God can be denied more strongly than nothingness.

8.  All negation is a mirror displaying likenesses of non being.

9.  Because non being is subject to being, all negation is subject to affirmation.

10.  The orderly process of negation begins with impossibility.

11.  Truth cannot be denied without some intermediary.

12.  Negation and impossibility are absolutely opposed to affirmation and possibly.