Dist. 12, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/12/q/bon-sent-I-d12-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether the generation of the Son is prior to the spiration of the Holy Spirit in the order of understanding.*

Fourthly and last it is asked, which of these two emanations — namely *generation* and *procession* — is prior in the order of understanding. And that [it is] *the generation of the Son* is shown thus.

**Foundations:**

1. In the *created image*, it is so that according to the order of understanding the emanation of *cognition* from the mind is prior to that of *love*, as Augustine intends: «because we cannot love what is unknown», as Augustine says in *De Trin.* X: therefore if the order in the image is observed by conformity to the *uncreated Trinity*, then in the order of understanding the procession of the *Word* is prior to that of *Love* in the divine being — especially since through the created image we understand the uncreated Trinity.

2. Likewise, as the Philosopher intends, «will is that whose principle is in the very one cognizing the singulars», therefore will *as will* presupposes cognition: therefore the emanation of Love [presupposes] the emanation of the Word.

3. Likewise, every principle is prior in the order of understanding to what is principiated by it; but the Son is principle of the Holy Spirit: therefore in the order of understanding the Son must be pre-understood to the Holy Spirit: therefore generation, which is the emanation of the Son, [is prior] to procession, which is [the emanation] of the Holy Spirit.

4. Likewise, in every nature acting both *by mode of nature* and *by mode of will*, production by mode of nature is understood before production by will: therefore since the Father is intellectual nature, producing the Son connatural and by mode of nature, and the Holy Spirit by mode of will, as was touched on above: therefore the emanation of the Son is prior in the order of understanding to the emanation of the Holy Spirit.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine, *De Trin.* IX: «The birth of the mind is preceded by appetite, by which, in seeking what we will to know, the offspring itself, [namely] cognition, is born»: therefore in the created image appetite is before the offspring [which is] cognition, therefore love before word: therefore also procession before generation.

2. Likewise, no one seeing a thing knows it unless the intention of the will applies the cognitive power to the cognizable [thing] itself, as is plain in a man going along a road who, when he has gone and was thinking elsewhere, does not perfectly know where he passed, as Augustine says in *De Trin.* XI. Therefore will precedes cognition itself, therefore love [precedes] word in creatures: therefore by parity of reasoning in God, at least in the [order of] understanding.

3. Likewise, as the Philosopher intends, *first* and *immediate* are the same. Hence in the *Posterior [Analytics]*, defining the *immediate proposition*, he says that «*an immediate proposition is one which has no other prior*»; but the Holy Spirit proceeds equally immediately from the Father as the Son does, therefore equally first: therefore neither in reality nor in the order of understanding does the generation of the Son precede the procession of the Holy Spirit.

4. Likewise, the more common a thing is, the prior it is in the order of understanding; but *common spiration* is more common than *generation*, because it belongs to the Father and the Son, but generation only to the Father: therefore spiration is prior in the order of understanding to generation.

> **Conclusion.** *In the order of understanding the generation of the Son is prior to the spiration of the Holy Spirit, which is proved on three grounds.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, whatever the case may be in the *real* order, of which more below, yet in the order of understanding the emanation of the Word is prior — *both* because the Word is principle of the Holy Spirit, *and* because the Word proceeds by mode of nature, while the Holy Spirit by mode of *liberal will*, *and* because we understand the emanations in the [divine] persons through the emanations found in the [created] image. In the image, however, it is established that cognition and understanding precede love and will. I do not, however, mean to say that in the divine being there is an emanation thus *posterior in nature* to [another] emanation, as we find in the created image.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected to the contrary — that appetite precedes the birth of the mind — it must be said that appetite, according to a twofold *state*, is to be considered in two ways: in one way according to the formal character of *yearning [for]* before cognition is had; in another way according to the formal character of *embracing*, and this is after cognition is had; and in the first state it is of imperfection, but in the second of perfection. And therefore, because we posit in God what is of perfection, not what is of imperfection, therefore appetite in the second mode is likened to the Holy Spirit, and here it holds the formal character of a *third*. And that the first is of imperfection is plain, because it is of one ignorant and desiring to acquire knowledge — which does not befit God.

*To 2.* To what is objected, that intention is required prior to cognition; it must be said that this is true for cognition *to be acquired*; but cognition, insofar as it is in being acquired, has no likeness to that *Word*, as Augustine intends in *De Trin.* XV.

*To 3.* To what is objected, that the Holy Spirit proceeds equally immediately; it must be said that this is true; but yet the Holy Spirit so proceeds immediately, that He also [proceeds] with the Son as medium; and so on this account the emanation of the Son must be pre-understood.

*To 4.* To what is objected, that the more common, the prior; it must be said that this is true *in absolute* [terms], but does not hold *in respective* [terms], as is plain in *generation* and *creation*. — Yet it can be said that this is understood of what is common by the *commonness of predication*; but common spiration is common by a commonness not only of *predication* — because it is said of the Father and the Son — but also of *a certain concord and connection*; and such a common, according to the formal character of concord and friendship, *presupposes* the concordant and connected, [and] *does not precede* [them]: and so that [point] is plain.