Dist. 23, 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/23/q/bon-sent-I-d23-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.

#### *Whether in divine matters the names substance and subsistence are to be fittingly used.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the name *substance* — or also *subsistence* — ought to be said in divine matters. And that [it] so [should be], it seems:

1. Augustine, in book five *On the Trinity*: «God is without any doubt called *substance*, or, if it be more rightly called, *essence*».

2. Likewise, both Boethius and Augustine *On the Trinity* say that the genera of the other names — such as

magnitude, goodness, etc. — pass over into substance: if therefore substance does not pass over into another, it is established that the name *substance* is properly said [of God]; for if [it were] not properly [said], it would equally well be said that substance passes over into the others, just as conversely.

3. Likewise, the account of substance according to the Philosopher is "that which is being-through-itself"; but God alone is most properly *being-through-itself*: therefore the name *substance* is most properly in God.

4. Likewise, the account of substance according to Augustine is "to be said in relation to itself and absolutely"; but it is properly said "in relation to itself" there, where there is no dependence: therefore if this is in God, therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in the seventh [book] *On the Trinity*: «It is unfitting to say of God, that he stands under (*substet*) his goodness»; but if [unfitting] of goodness, by the same reasoning [it is unfitting] also of any property whatever: therefore, simply speaking, it is unfitting to say that he himself is a substance.

2. Likewise, Boethius in the book *On the Trinity*: «God is not a substance, but above every substance»: therefore this name *substance* is properly in creatures and not in God.

3. Likewise, this same [point] is seen by reason: since everything which substands has something inhering [in it]; but in God there is neither anything inhering nor inherence: therefore neither [is there] substance.

4. Likewise, everything which substands another is composed with it; therefore where there is neither composition nor the name of composition, there [is] neither the name of substance: therefore since in divine matters there is no composition, it is clear etc.

> **Conclusion.** *Substance, insofar as it signifies "to stand through itself, not through another", is properly said in divine matters; insofar as it signifies "to substand an inhering accident", it is not admitted; insofar as it signifies "to substand either another distinguishing [property] or another perfecting [nature]", it is received, but more on account of the imperfection of our intellect than according to a property of the divine being.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the name *substance* can be said from a twofold property, namely from "standing through itself, not through another"; and thus it is properly in divine matters, and even more properly than in creatures; or from "substanding another or others", and this in three ways: either [substanding] an inhering [accident], and so [the name] is falsely and improperly said in divine matters, since the properties in divine matters are neither accidents nor inhering; or [substanding] another distinguishing [property], and so it is said in divine matters not altogether improperly nor altogether properly, since that property does not inhere, but distinguishes, and therefore it does not make [the divine] *subsist* or *substand*, as it were "to stand under another", but [rather to] *exist*, as it were "to be from another" — and hence it is that Richard says in the book *On the Trinity*, that «*existentia* is better said than *substantia*» — or because [the supposit] substands another as a perfecting [nature], and so the *thing of nature* (*res naturae*) is said to substand with respect to the essence. And this mode is more about our understanding than about the divine being, since, as will be clear in the following problem, this manner of speaking arises from our intellect, not from a property of the divine being.