Dist. 21, Art. 2, Q. 1
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/21/q/bon-sent-I-d21-a2-q1
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### ARTICLE II.

#### *On exclusive words added to a relative term.*

Consequently, in the second place, the question is concerning the second article of the question, namely whether an exclusive word can be added to a relative term. And concerning this two things are asked.

First it is asked whether the exclusive word is added to a personal term with respect to its proper predicate.

Secondly, whether it is truly added to a personal term with respect to a common predicate, as when it is truly said: *the Father alone is God*.

### QUESTION I.

#### *Whether the exclusive word* solus *is truly added to a personal term with respect to its proper predicate.*

That with respect to the proper predicate it is truly added, namely so that this is true: *the Father alone is Father*, is seen:

1. Through Augustine, *On the Trinity*, book six: «In that Trinity the Father alone is called Father, because no one but he himself is there Father».

2. Likewise, this is seen by exposition, because the person of the Father is Father, and no other is Father: therefore this is true: *the Father alone is Father*.

3. Likewise, nothing is more proper to anyone than what is the same with itself in reality and in account; but the Father is the same with himself in reality and in account: therefore he is most properly said of himself; but what properly belongs to anyone, belongs to him alone: therefore *Father* is said of the Father alone.

**On the contrary:** 1. «*Alone*, as the Philosopher will have it, is the same as *not with another*»; but it is impossible that the Father not be with another: therefore always, when [*alone*] is added to this term *Father* or to another personal term, the locution is false.

2. Likewise, *alone* excludes *another*; but it is by one [feature] that he is God, by another that he is Father: therefore added to this term *Father* it excludes God: therefore if this is true: *the Father alone is Father*, then this likewise: *God is not Father*; and if this is false: therefore so also is the first.

3. Likewise, *alone* excludes this relative *another*; but *another* is so a relative of diversity that it nonetheless implies some identity: whence it follows: this man goes with another man, therefore this man is a man. If therefore [*alone*] excludes another from this which is *Father*, either it [excludes] another Father, or another God; but in whatever way it is said, the locution is false and an implication of the false: therefore etc.

### CONCLUSION.

> The term *alone* in the divine is rightly said with respect to the proper predicate, inasmuch as it excludes association both with respect to the form of the subject term and with respect to the predicate, whether in participating or in co-participating.

**I respond:** It must be said that, insofar as this word *alone* is taken syncategorematically, it imports the privation of association; and the locution is simply true, that sense being excluded by which it imports solitude, because in this way it is not received in the divine, as has been said above.

For insofar as it imports the privation of association, [the locution] is true, because, since it can import [association] in three ways, in any sense the locution is true. For this word *alone* can import the privation of association with respect to the form of the subject term, so that it is said *the Father alone*, that is, he who is the only Father; and thus without doubt it has truth: *the Father alone is Father*. Or it can import the privation of association with respect to the predicate, and this in two ways: either in participating, in that it does not belong to another; and still it is true, because this predicate which is *Father* belongs to the person of the Father alone; for that property belongs to the Father, in such a way that to no other; or it can import the privation of association in co-participating, as when it is said: Peter eats alone, or goes to Rome alone — not because another does not go to Rome, or does not eat, but because no one co-participates with him, although he [or another] participates; and thus still the locution is true, because the person of the Father does not participate or co-participate with another in the property of paternity. And therefore, insofar as *alone* is taken exclusively, the locution is judged true.

**To 1.** Therefore to that which is objected, that *alone* is the same as *not with another*; it must be said that that negation does not simply exclude another in co-existing, but excludes another with respect to the form of the subject or of the predicate, as has been seen. And although the Father exists with another and cannot be without another, nevertheless because he does not communicate the property of paternity with another, therefore the locution simply has truth.

**To 2.** To that which is objected, that it is by one [feature] that he is God, by another that he is Father; it must be said that, as has often been said, *another* expresses diversity according to the manner of speaking or of understanding in the proposed term; but in the exposition of this word *alone*, [*another*] expresses diversity or distinction in the supposit. And because *God* in supposit does not differ from the Father, indeed it stands for the Father; therefore it does not follow that an exclusive word added to the Father excludes God.

**To 3.** To that which is objected, that *another* implies some form according to which [the things compared] agree; it must be said that this is not necessary, that that be a form imported through the term — for it is truly said: *a man is other than an ass* — except when [*another*] is joined to that term immediately, as when it is said *another ass*, agreement in a common nature is included. But when it is said: *the Father alone*, it is not [a matter of] saying, *Father and not another Father*, but, *Father and not another from the Father*; and therefore agreement in the form of the property of paternity together with otherness is not imported, but it suffices

that there be another person — for the Father is a person — or even another essence: and that excludes this which is *alone*; and so that [argument] is plain.