Quaest. 5, Art. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/9/d/5/q/bon-qmt-q5-a2
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### Article II. *Whether trinity and eternity stand together.*

Next it is asked whether trinity and eternity stand together. And that they are incompossible seems thus.

1. Wherever there is eternity, there is simultaneity in every mode; but where there is simultaneity in every mode, there is no order; where there is no order, there is no emanation; where there is no emanation, there cannot be a personal plurification: therefore *from the first*, if in the divine *being* there is supreme and true eternity, it is impossible that there be a true trinity or plurality of persons.

2. Likewise, "a cause is that whose being another follows," namely the effect; but it is agreed that the effect follows the cause not by reason of diversity, since these can be together: therefore by reason of production. Where, then, there is production, there is antecedence and consequence; but where these are, there is not true eternity: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, if three persons are in the Trinity, either *they are equally first*, or *they are not equally first*. If *equally first*: therefore one is not from another, and through this they cannot be in the same nature. But if *they are not equally first*: therefore neither are they simply and equally coeternal; therefore the same as before.

4. Likewise, every corruption necessarily posits a final term, therefore every production or emanation an initial one; but there cannot be a trinity without emanation or production; therefore neither without the inchoation of something. But this cannot stand together with eternity: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, eternity is an interminable duration: therefore if in the divine things there is an eternal trinity, therefore also an interminable production or emanation of the persons; but a production or emanation that is unterminated is never perfect, because it is never in *the state of having been produced*: either therefore the trinity is not perfect, or it is not eternal.

6. Likewise, in God *to be* and *to endure* are altogether the same, therefore to have a principle of being and of enduring is the same; but there cannot be a true trinity unless some person have there a principle of existing through production: therefore it cannot be but that it have a principle of enduring. But this is not compatible with eternity: therefore etc.

7. Likewise, a person is not of greater power nor of greater actuality than the essence; but the divine essence cannot produce another essence coeternal with itself: therefore neither can a person produce a person; either therefore in the divine essence there is not a trinity of persons, or there is not there supreme eternity.

8. Likewise, every being is either created or uncreated; likewise every being is either from itself or from another; but every created thing is a being from another: therefore every uncreated thing is a being from itself. But everything eternal is uncreated: therefore everything eternal is from itself, and so nothing is eternal that is from another. But there cannot be a trinity unless some person proceed from some other: therefore where there is a trinity, there is not eternity.

9. Likewise, as often as any power, whether finite or infinite, puts itself forth into some act according to the whole totality of its potency, it is impossible that it put itself forth at once and at one time into another; but the paternal power in generating puts forth altogether the immensity of its whole power, since the Son is as great as the Father is: therefore at once and at one time it cannot produce another person. If therefore it produces a third, this will be either before or after; but this is not in eternity in every mode: either therefore in the divine things there is not a trinity, or there is not true eternity.

10. Likewise, wherever there is production, there is a receiving from another; but nothing receives what it already has: therefore if the Son is produced by the Father, He receives *being* from the Father: therefore that *being* He did not previously have. But what receives *being* not previously had receives a beginning of enduring; and nothing of that kind is eternal: therefore eternity does not stand together with production, therefore neither with the trinity.

11. Likewise, eternity says the present; whence the eternal is always present according to its own proper account; but the emanations in the divine things, and especially generation, are more properly intimated by the past than by the present, since it is better said *always begotten, always born*, than that it be said *to be generated and to be born*: therefore it seems that these two cannot stand together. If, then, there cannot be a trinity without true production, it cannot therefore stand together with eternity.

Bᴜᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ this there are *authorities* innumerable both in the old and in the new law; but it is shown also *by reason*.

1. "For relatives are together by nature"; the Father and the Son are truly relatives, and the Spirator and the Spirit; therefore they are together by nature: if therefore any of the persons is eternal, since the others are together with it by nature, it is necessary that all be eternal. And that this follows is manifest, because in God a relation cannot be an accident nor something coming from elsewhere, on account of supreme simplicity: it is necessary therefore that they have simultaneity in every mode.

2. Likewise, the paternal mind at once was and understood, because its *being* is its *understanding*, and neither precedes by nature nor by any duration; but in the mind *to understand* is to take a word from itself: therefore at once it was and begot the Word. But a word cannot be unless it be pleasing and loved; therefore also connected with the lover: therefore if the divine *understanding* stands together with eternity, therefore also eternity with the trinity.

3. Likewise, it belongs to the nobility of a power to produce quickly; whence some things produce in an imperceptible time, some suddenly, some together in duration, though later by nature; and all these things are to be found in the creature: if therefore the divine power is most powerful, altogether exceeding created power; therefore it will be *able to produce* in such a way, and will produce, that the product be together by nature with the producer.

4. Likewise, the Father can communicate to the Son deity and omnipotence, otherwise He would not be the Son; but deity is eternity itself, nor can He be God unless He be eternal: therefore the first person can communicate eternity to the others: therefore trinity and eternity can stand together.

5. Likewise, the uncreated light is more powerful for producing its own splendour than the created light; but the created light is never without splendour, therefore neither is the uncreated light: therefore if the splendour is a produced person, it is plain, etc.

6. Likewise, the trinity stands together with immensity, and immensity necessarily posits eternity: therefore *from the first*, a true and perfect trinity is together where there is a true and perfect eternity: therefore they have no repugnance.

7. Likewise, the trinity stands together with supreme equality; but equality is not only according to power, but also according to duration, in which nothing can be made equal to the eternal unless it be coeternal with it: if therefore it stands with supreme equality, therefore also with eternity.

8. Likewise, wherever potency and act are the same, if the potency can be eternal, the act also can, especially when nothing extrinsic nor created is connoted; but in the person of the Father *to be able to generate* and *to generate* are the same; the like is true of the potency of spirating: if therefore it is necessary that the Father was eternally able to generate, therefore it is necessarily posited that He eternally begot.

9. Likewise, where *to be* and *to be referred* are altogether the same, it is necessary that they be measured by the same measure; but in the Father *to be* and *to be referred* to the Son are altogether the same, and conversely, because there is no composition there: if therefore the *being* is eternal, therefore also the mutual regard of the persons.

10. Likewise, in the created image the essence and the potency are together, and each of the three potencies is coeval with the other, as manifestly appears in the soul: therefore since there is a greater agreement among the divine persons, much more strongly will one be coeternal with the other — for as *perpetuity* is to the image, so is *eternity* to the creating trinity; whence "from the perpetuity of things the eternal Founder is manifestly shown" — therefore from the perpetuity of the image the eternity of the trinity is inferred and shown.

Cᴏɴᴄʟᴜsɪᴏ.

*The trinity of persons necessarily stands together with eternity.*

Rᴇsᴘᴏɴᴅᴇᴏ: It must be said that trinity and eternity necessarily stand together; and this indeed is gathered from the side of the *essential conditions*, and from the side of the *original emanations*, and from the side of the *personal relations*.

From the side, I say, of the *essential conditions*: because the trinity stands together with the supreme *unity, simplicity* and *immensity* of the essence, as has been shown in the preceding; whence the divine persons have a *being one, most simple* and *immense*; but eternity regards the *being* itself, which in the trinity has neither *to be numbered* nor *to be composed* nor *to be limited*; it remains, therefore, that in the three persons there be an eternity that is *true* on account of immensity, an eternity that is *supreme* on account of simplicity in every mode, an eternity that is *unique* on account of the unity of the essence; eternity therefore does not exclude the trinity, because the trinity necessarily includes eternity.

From the side also of the *original emanations* the same thing is gathered, both by reason of the *producer*, and by reason of the *product*, and by reason of the *mode of producing*. For the *producer* is in an actuality of power in every mode, on account of supreme perfection; the *product* in an equality in every mode, on account of supreme assimilation; the *production* in a necessity in every mode, on account of

natural diffusion or communication. If therefore the *producing* person is eternal, it is necessary that the *act of producing* be eternal, and the *product* itself, and the *mode of producing*. It is plain, therefore, that eternity and trinity not only are not repugnant, but wonderfully harmonize and necessarily stand together.

But from the side of the *personal relations* this same thing is gathered. For the divine persons are distinguished by their relations — by relations, I say, not extrinsic but *intrinsic*; not adventitious but *abiding*; not diminished but *most complete*. But since an *intrinsic* relation, not adventitious but perfect, coexists together with its supposit; and a relation and its correlation are together by nature: necessarily relations of this kind posit in the divine persons the highest simultaneity, and do not introduce terminability, because they stand together with supreme infinity. Since, therefore, for eternity nothing more is required than simultaneity with interminability in every mode, and supreme interminability with simultaneity in every mode; necessarily the trinity stands together with eternity, and eternity with the trinity, because the trinity does not exclude but includes eternity. Whence Augustine, in the eleventh book *On the City of God*, chapter twenty-eight: "God, to whose image we are created, is true eternity, eternal truth, eternal and true charity; and He Himself is the eternal and true and dear Trinity." As therefore eternity is not repugnant to charity and to truth, so neither is it repugnant to the trinity, nor conversely. — And therefore the reasons which show this are to be conceded.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected first on the contrary, that where there is eternity, there is simultaneity in every mode; it must be said that the simultaneity of eternity excludes the order of prior and posterior, but not however the order of origin. But when it is said that the trinity posits an order, this is not understood of the order of priority and posteriority, but of the order of origin and of natural emanation, according to what Augustine says, that "there is there an order, not whereby one is prior and another posterior, but whereby one is from the other."

2. To that which is objected, that the effect follows the cause not by reason of diversity but of production; it must be said that neither of those is the *whole* sufficient and perfect cause, but the one with the other; for the effect follows the cause because it flows from it, in such a way that it differs from it according to essence; and on account of this it is neither so noble as the cause, nor is it equalled to it in duration nor in power by an equality in every mode. But it is otherwise in the divine production, where the producer and He who is produced have one and the same essence, and through this an equality in every mode in duration alike and in power.

3. To that which is objected, that either the persons are there equally first, or not; it must be said that as regards the *privation of prior and posterior* they are equally first, but as regards the *order of origin* they are not equally first. But from this it does not follow that they are not equally coeternal, because, as has been shown above, the nobility of those most perfect emanations, by reason of simplicity and of immensity, posits the coeternity of the producers and of the products.

4. To that which is objected concerning corruption, which posits a final term; it must be said that it is not alike: because *corruption* always says a defect and a process from the complete to the incomplete; *generation*, however, is not so: because one kind is through the drawing out of something from potency into act, and so by reason of incompletion it necessarily says an initial term; but another kind is through a most actual communication according to the completion in every mode of the producer and of the product, and of that from which it is produced, and of the mode according to which it is produced. And such a one is posited concerning God, and this one, because it says no incompletion, posits no initial term.

5. To that which is objected, that eternity is an interminable duration; it must be said that the term of production is said in two ways: one *principal*, namely the being produced, the other *coannexed*, namely the now not being produced; and this coannexed one holds good in those things in which being produced and having been produced differ. When, therefore, it is asked whether generation in the divine things is *terminated* or not; it must be said that if it be understood of the term in the first way, it is terminated, because the Father so generates the Son that the Son is begotten; but if in the second way, so it does not hold true, because the Son is always begotten and is always generated, since in Him *to be produced* and *to have been produced* are the same, on account of the perfection of supreme simplicity and actuality.

6. To that which is objected, that in God *to be* and *to endure* are the same; it must be said that a *principle of enduring* is said in two ways: in one way through the production and communication of duration, in another way through the inchoation of duration. If the principle be taken in the first way; as the Father is the principle of being to the Son, so also of enduring; for as He gives Him *to be*, so He gives Him *always to be*. But if it be understood in the second way, so it does not hold true, nor does that reason conclude, on account of the diverse acceptation of *principle*.

7. To that which is objected, that a person is not of greater power nor of greater actuality than the essence; it must be said that it is not alike: because the divine *essence* cannot produce another essence out of itself, nor out of any other coeternal with itself and equally first; and through this it is necessary that it produce out of nothing: and hence it is that it is necessary that that essence so produced have *being* after *non-being*, and begin to be, since it will have proceeded from *non-being* into *being*. But it is otherwise in the production of a *person* from a person: because the producing person and the produced communicate in essence and in nature; therefore it is not required that there be there any inception by reason of the production of one person from another, on account of the unique and undivided essence.

8. To that which is objected, that every being is either created or uncreated, likewise every being is either from itself or from another; it must be said that *to be from another* is said in two ways: either from another *essentially*, or from another *personally*. Taking it in the first way according to *essential* otherness, it corresponds to that other division which is of *being* into created and uncreated, which indeed are extremes essentially differing. In the second way it does not correspond; nay rather, if one proceed from the one to the other, there arises a *figure of speech* from the exchange of the mode of predicating, because *what* is changed into *who*; and such a mode of predicating does not hold in the divine things.

9. To that which is objected, that when an infinite power puts itself forth into some act according to the totality of its potency, it cannot at once and at one time go out into another; it must be said that that holds true when it puts itself forth totally as regards the *producing power* and as regards the *mode of producing*; but then the assumption is false: because, although the Father produces the Son according to His immense power, He nevertheless generates Him and does not spirate Him; and therefore according to another mode of producing, which is by spiration, the production of another person is together with the Son, for the reason that those productions are not repugnant but naturally coannexed. As appears in the mind, that the actual consideration of the understanding does not hinder but rather induces that the affection be borne into the good known and seen; so neither does the generation of the Word proceeding from the mind hinder the spiration of the love embracing both.

10. To that which is objected, that where there is production, there is a receiving from another; it must be said that just as there is *a certain production* in which *to be produced* and *to have been produced* differ, and *a certain one* in which they are altogether the same; so likewise *receiving* is twofold: in one way, in which *to receive* and *to have received* differ, another in which it is altogether the same; the first corresponds to the first production, the second to the second. Of the first what is objected holds true, of the second it does not; and in this way the Son receives *being* from the Father. For He always *has received* and always *receives*, because the Father always generates Him and always has begotten Him, as is manifestly gathered from what has been said.

11. To that which is objected, that eternity says the present, and that generation is better explained by the past; it must be said that that eternal generation is always most actual and most complete; but although the *actuality* of any act is better expressed by the *present*, the *completion* and perfection of an act is most expressed by the *past*. Whence that eternal generation cannot be sufficiently explained by any tense; nay rather it is necessary to use diverse tenses for its expression, for the reason that it is above all time and has in itself whatever of completion can be signified by any tense. Whence by reason of *completion* the *past* belongs to it, by reason of *actuality* the *present* belongs to it, by reason of *continuation* and of not ceasing the *future* belongs to it. — But by that very reason by which all these are one in it, it is sufficiently explained by no word: for it is no wonder if the noise of temporal words does not suffice to explain the most quiet silence of that eternity and of that eternal generation, which is better understood than said; is better believed in the present than understood; will even be better seen in the future than it is now believed: because, as the Saviour says, *this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent*; to which we can in no way attain unless our understanding be more fully raised above the variations of times and above the cloudiness of phantasms into the freedom of the supercelestial rest.

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