Dist. 11, Art. 1, Q. 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/1/d/11/q/bon-sent-I-d11-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son *insofar as they are one*, or *insofar as they are differing*.

1. And that [it is] *insofar as they are one* seems [to follow] from Anselm in his book *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*: «No understanding grasps that the Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son according as the one is Father and the other Son, but rather according as each is the same God».

2. Likewise, by reason it is shown thus: the unity of the effect is from the unity of the act, and the unity of the act from the unity of the power or subject; therefore since the person produced from the Father and the Son is one, He is produced through one act and through one power: therefore they spirate insofar as they are one.

3. Likewise, what is from two, insofar as [they are] two, is either insufficiently from each, or from the other [given] superfluously; but the Holy Spirit is neither insufficiently nor superfluously from any person, because neither befits a perfect nature: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, what is from two insofar as [they are] two is composite, if it is from them consubstantially; therefore since one proceeds from two insofar as [they are] two, that one must have difference; but the Holy Spirit is not composite: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, no one [thing] proceeds from two things alike in nature insofar as [they are] two, unless the one be as an *active* principle, the other as a *passive* principle, or the one as father, the other as mother; but this is not so in the divine being: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. He who proceeds from two, in such a way that from one more principally than from the other, proceeds insofar as they are two; but the Holy Spirit principally proceeds from the Father, as Augustine says and as is found in the following distinction: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, he who proceeds from two insofar as they are distinct, proceeds from two insofar as they are two; but a bond exists only of distinct things: therefore he who proceeds as a bond proceeds from them as from distinct things, and so as from differing things.

3. Likewise, from unity of subject is unity of act, and from plurality of subjects plurality of acts; but the Father and the Son are two: therefore they spirate by a twofold spiration: therefore the Holy Spirit is spirated by them, insofar as they are two: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if they spirate the Holy Spirit insofar as they are one, then either insofar as they are one *in substance*, or *in notion*, or *in person*. If insofar as they are one in substance: then since the Holy Spirit is the same in substance, the Holy Spirit proceeds from Himself. If insofar as they are the same in notion; this is nothing, because they do not spirate because they are spirators, but conversely. Nor [do they spirate] insofar as they are one in person, because they are not united in person.

> **Conclusion.** *The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, not insofar as they are distinct persons, but insofar as in them there is one fecundity of will, or one active spiration.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son insofar as they are one in fecundity of will. Now there is one will in the Father and the Son, because the Father and the Son are one substance; if therefore there is in them fecundity of will, there is one fecundity in them. Now the fecundity of will is in the Father and in the Son, because each is the unprocessible God. For as was said above concerning the number of persons, and as will appear better below when treatment is made of *innascibility*, which in the Father is the same as *primacy*; since *first* and *principle* are the same; the formal character of *primacy* is the formal character of *being-a-principle*, or of *fecundity*. Since therefore the Father is prior to every emanation, namely procession and generation, because He is neither generated nor proceeds, hence it is that He is principle in either mode. But because the Son is prior to the emanation of procession, not of generation — because He is generated, yet is not-spirable — hence it is that He is principle of spirating, not of generating. But because the Holy Spirit is in neither mode, He is in neither mode a principle. Hence it is, therefore, that although the Holy Spirit proceeds from two, yet because He proceeds not as they are differing, but as in them there is one fecundity of will, the Holy Spirit proceeds from them insofar as they are one.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**

*To 1.* To what is objected, that He *principally* proceeds from the Father; it must be said that *principally* can be said in two ways: either with respect to a *secondary*; and so it imports the order of prior and posterior, and so posits diversity, and in this way it is not taken here; in another way, insofar as principality denotes a certain *authority*, just as the Father is said to operate through the Son. Hence every creature is produced by the Father through the Son, insofar as they are one; and so it is to be understood in the case at hand.

*To 2.* To what is objected, that the bond proceeds from many etc.; it must be said that the formal character of bond *begins* from distinction and tends or leads into unity: hence the ultimate and completive formal character is unity. Although therefore a bond is *of two* and *from two*, if it is a perfect bond, it is from them insofar as they are one, not insofar as they are several.

*To 3.* To what is objected, that from unity of subject is unity of act and from plurality plurality; it must be said that this admits no instance according to the mode of speaking, because if there are two terms coupled, the act, [though] numbered, ought to be predicated of them; but in reality a distinction is to be made, because *subject* is said in two ways: either *per se and primarily*, or *not primarily*; and that [maxim] is true of subject *per se* and primarily, not of the other; and taking it thus, the Father and the Son are not one principle, or the primary subject of spiration, because they do not spirate according as they are Father and Son, but according as in them there is one fecundity of will, and so insofar as they are one.

*Another solution.* Or it must be said otherwise, that there is to speak of *act* as *act or* *origin*, and of *act* as *accident*. If we speak of act as accident, of necessity it is numbered to the number of the subject, because there is not one accident in two subjects. But if we speak of act as act, then it is referred to the subject as to a *principle*, and so it is not numbered to the number of the subject as subject, but as principle. Since therefore in the divine being spiration is not an accident, but production or relation: it follows the unity of subject, as it is principle, because the Father and the Son, although they be two persons, yet are one principle, because they spirate by the same power: therefore the act is not numbered in them, therefore they spirate by one spiration, although they are two.

*To 4.* To what is asked last, *whether [they spirate] insofar as [they are] one in substance* etc.; it must be said: insofar as [they are] one *in fecundity of will*, inasmuch as that will is drawn into a notion through fecundity, which fecundity is by reason of *primacy*, which primacy is signified by the fact that [the Father] is *unprocessible*. And this is what Anselm says, that the Father and the Son spirate according as each is the *same God*, not according as [each is] *God simply*, but according as [each is] *God in both*; this is to consider the will *in the persons*.

*Twofold opinion.* If, therefore, you ask whether [they spirate] insofar as [they are] one in substance, or in notion, or in person; it must be said that it can be answered in two ways, according to the two opinions previously laid down concerning the power of generating, in distinction seven: that some say that the power of generating does not differ from generation or paternity except by mode of speaking, and so it denotes a notion, namely a personal property, just as generation does, although in another way. Similarly these say that the fecundity of will, or the spirative power, denotes the same notion as spiration does, although in another way, because the spirative power denotes [it] in the formal character of *aptitude*, but spiration in the formal character of *act*; and so according to these, [Father and Son spirate] insofar as they are one *in notion*. Others say that, just as the power of generating denotes nature in the person, and so essence personally, so the spirative power denotes the will, as the will is in the persons, in which it is fecund; and so the Father and the Son spirate insofar as [they are] one *in essence*, or nature, or will — so that it is said more properly of will considered in the persons. Each of these positions seems to me sufficiently probable.