Dist. 27, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/27/q/bon-sent-I-d27-p1-a1-q3
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### QUESTION III. *Whether the properties may be abstracted from the divine persons.*

Thirdly it is asked whether the properties may be abstracted. And that they may not, [it is shown] thus:

1. Because every abstraction presupposes concretion; but properly speaking concretion is found only in those things in which there is denominative predication: therefore if this is [found] in accidents only, it seems that wherever one posits an abstractable property, one posits an accidental property. But no such [accidental property] is in any way posited in divine things: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, wherever there is abstraction, the abstract is simpler than the concrete — and this admits no instance against it — but in divine things there is no greater and lesser simplicity, since everything that is there is most simple and is at the limit of all simplicity: therefore in divine things abstraction does not occur.

3. Likewise, every abstraction is either of the universal from the particular, or of form from matter; but in divine things there is neither universal nor particular, neither form nor matter: therefore in divine things there is no abstraction.

4. Likewise, whenever something is abstracted from something, what remains is less than was [there] before the abstraction, since each [item] is something — for nothing is not abstracted from something, nor nothing from nothing, but something from something — therefore if paternity is abstractable from the person or hypostasis, then [the hypostasis] would have less of entity than [it had] with paternity. But on the contrary: with paternity abstracted, the hypostasis is understood to be God: therefore if it had less of entity than [it had] with paternity, God would be understood not to have supreme being.

**On the contrary:** 1. The Master says in the *littera*: «Paternity, filiation, [and] procession signify only the relations themselves»: either therefore something corresponds to this in reality, or nothing. If nothing: therefore they signify falsely and emptily; if something: therefore it seems that they are abstractable on the side of the thing.

2. Likewise, with the Son not being understood, nevertheless the hypostasis of the Father can be understood to be; but with the Son not being understood, paternity cannot be understood: therefore with the property abstracted, the hypostasis whose property it was can still be understood to be. But whenever any two [items] so stand to one another that one can be understood without the other, the one can be abstracted from the other: therefore the property can truly be understood to be abstracted from the hypostasis.

3. Likewise, when I say *person*, I understand [one] having a nature with an incommunicable property; but it is established that this whole is not understood all at once — therefore [I understand] one [item] first, the other afterward: therefore I understand the nature first, then [the one] having [it], and thirdly the incommunicable property: therefore each [item] is intelligible per se, therefore the property too without a subject: therefore it is abstractable from it. If you say to me that it can be abstracted on the side of the intellect, but not on the side of the thing; on the contrary: then according to this, if the abstraction is on the side of the mode of understanding, then notion and person do not differ except by the mode of speaking alone; and this has been disproved above.

4. Likewise, relation in divine things is true relation, since, as Boethius says: «God is not without being related by relation»; but where there is truly quantity and a quantum, there is true abstraction, not only on the side of the intellect, but also of the thing: therefore by parity of reason, where there is true relation and [something] truly related, there is true abstraction.

5. Likewise, whenever some property is distinguished from another according to the thing, from which it is not distinguished according to the supposit, there is abstraction not only on the side of the intellect, but also on the side of the thing; but paternity differs from unbegottenness, while the Father does not differ from the Unbegotten: therefore truly and properly the property or notion is abstractable from the person not only on our side, but also on the side of the thing.

> **CONCLUSION.** *The abstraction of the properties is not in the divine persons on the side of the thing, but on the side of our intellect.*

**I respond:** It must be said that to abstract something from something is twofold. In one mode the abstraction is one which has its origin from the nature of the thing; and thus the universal is abstracted from the particular, and form from matter, since in either case there is composition and diversity. In another mode there is abstraction which has its origin from our intellect. For our intellect, when it understands something complete, of necessity understands [it] in two ways or under a twofold account, namely by way of the *quod est* itself and of the *quo* itself. For always when it understands something, it considers the intelligible itself through some account, by which it also grasps it; and so our intellect is resolvable into the understanding of the *quod est* itself and of the *quo* itself, since the composition was about [the thing] itself.

Since therefore real abstraction presupposes composition, which is in no way in God, neither as to essence nor as to person; therefore in no way is there in him abstraction on the side of the thing. Again, since we understand God according to the capacity of our intellect, therefore our intellect understands God by way of the *quod* itself and of the *quo* itself; and our intellect is resolvable, and because resolvable, also composite, although the thing is not composite. As to [the intellect] itself there can be abstraction and separation, so that it understands the *quo est* itself, which is to understand non-[whole]. And since the mode of signifying follows the mode of understanding, therefore it happens that the *quo* itself is signified in abstraction, and this on the side of the communicable, as when one says *deity*; and on the side of the incommunicable, as when one says *paternity*.

I concede therefore, as the first reasons make plain, that there is no real abstraction there.

1. 2. 3. To that which is objected on the contrary about signification, it must be said that something corresponds [to the abstract term] on the side of our intellect; nor is it required that an abstraction [in reality] correspond. For just as our intellect, although it is composite, truly understands the simple by way of the composite, since it places that composition about itself, not about the thing understood; so also is it altogether to be understood concerning abstraction. And through this the two following [arguments] are plain, which are taken from the account of understanding.

To that which is objected, that then they differ only by the mode of speaking; it must be said that, as was touched in the preceding distinction, relation passes over according to the comparison to the subject, [but] according to the comparison to the object or term it remains; and this is, because abstraction is of the form from the subject, not from the term, since paternity is abstracted from the Father, not from the Son; and as to the comparison to the subject it is altogether the same, [and] therefore in no way is it abstractable on the side of the thing. Nevertheless it can in some way differ through the comparison to the object, and this difference is taken on the side of the thing; but just as that difference contributes nothing to composition, so it contributes nothing to abstraction.

4. 3. And so the two following [arguments] are plain, since the relation remains and is distinguished from another; but this is through the comparison to the object, not to the subject.