Dist. 20
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/20/q/bon-sent-I-d20-littera
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### DISTINCTION XX.

#### Cap. I. *That none of the persons exceeds another in power.*

It now remains to show how none of these persons excels another in power, so that, just as the magnitude of the three is one and undifferentiated, so also the power of the three may be shown to be one and undifferentiated. It must therefore be known that the Father is not more powerful than the Son, nor the Son or the Father than the Holy Spirit, nor do two or three together have greater power than any one of them; since neither can the Father together with the Son do more than the Holy Spirit alone, nor can these three together do more than any one of them, because the omnipotence which the Father has, the Son also received by being born and the Holy Spirit by proceeding. This Augustine probably establishes by reasonings and authorities in the book *Against Maximinus*, who used to say that the Father was more powerful and better than the Son.

#### Cap. II. *That the Son can no less than the Father.*

"Nothing," he says, "less than the Father has He who says: *All things which the Father has are mine*." "For if He has anything less in power than the Father, then not all things which the Father has are His; but His are all things which the Father has; therefore the Son has as much power as the Father": "He is therefore equal to the Father. For He who has received cannot be unequal to Him who gave."

#### Cap. III. *On heretical objections against this and the Catholic responses.*

"But you understand this concerning power, that the Son is powerful, but the Father is more powerful, so that according to your doctrine a powerful one has been able to beget a powerful one, and not an omnipotent one an omnipotent. The Father therefore has an omnipotence which the Son does not have; but if this is so, false is what the Son says: *All things which the Father has are mine*."

"But, you say, the Father has received power from no one, but the Son from the Father. We too confess that the Son has received power from Him[?] from whom He is born powerful; but to the Father no one gave power, since no one begot Him. For by begetting the Father gave power to the Son, just as all things which He has in His substance, by begetting He gave to Him whom He begot from His own substance."

"But it is asked whether the Father gave the Son as much power as is His own, or less. If as much, the Omnipotent is understood to have begotten not only a powerful one, but also an omnipotent one; but if less, how are all things which the Father has the Son's? If the Father's omnipotence is not the Son's, then without doubt not all things which the Father has are the Son's." But all things are the Son's; therefore the Father's omnipotence is also the Son's: therefore the Father is not more powerful than the Son.

Likewise, in another way he proves the Son equal to the Father against Maximinus, saying thus: "You say that the Father begot the Son lesser than Himself, in which you also detract from the Father, who, if He begot the only-begotten Son lesser, either could not, or did not will to beget Him equal. If you say that He did not will, you have called Him envious; but if He could not, where is the omnipotence of God the Father? Plainly the matter is gathered down to this point, that God the Father either could not, or would not, beget a Son equal to Himself. If He could not, He is found weak; if He would not, envious. But both of these are false: the Son therefore is the true equal of the Father. Therefore the Father begot a Son equal to Himself, and from both proceeds the Holy Spirit equal to both." "For if His form, as Augustine says against the same person, the Father in His only Son could beget full, and yet did not beget full, but lesser, you are forced to call the Father envious." Therefore He begot a full God and one equal to Himself as Son.

This he also demonstrates to be so by a human likeness, saying: "A human father, if he could, would have begotten an equal son. Who therefore would dare to say that the Omnipotent could not do this? I add also that, if a man could, he would beget a son greater and better than himself. But nothing can be greater or better than God." "Why therefore did God not beget, as you say, an equal Son — He for whom no years were necessary through which equality might be filled out, nor did omnipotence fail? Or did He perhaps not will? Then, far be it, He envied; but He did not envy: therefore He begot an equal Son." "Let us therefore believe the Son to be equal to Him."

"But perhaps you will say: by this very fact the Father is greater than the Son, because, begotten of no one, He nevertheless begot an equal. To which I will quickly reply: rather, for this reason the Father is not greater than the Son, because He begot an equal. For the question of origin is this: who is from whom; but the question of equality is: of what sort or how great he is," which is to say: to origin pertains the question by which it is asked, who is from whom; but to equality, that by which it is asked, of what sort or how great anyone is. "Nor when the Son is said to be begotten by the Father is inequality of substance shown, but the order of nature — not by which the one is prior to the other, but by which the one is from the other." Therefore not according to this — that the Father begot, and the Son was begotten, or the Holy Spirit proceeds from both — does equality or inequality there exist, since not according to this is one person said to be equal or unequal to another. Behold, the equality of the Trinity and one and the same substance has been demonstrated, as briefly as we could, in the foregoing — namely, how no one of the three persons excels any of the others in eternity, in magnitude, or in power.

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