Dist. 27, Part 2, 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/27/q/bon-sent-I-d27-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the eternal Word connotes anything on the side of the creature.*

Secondly, inquiry is made concerning the connotation of the eternal Word, and the question is whether the eternal Word connotes anything on the side of the creature. And that it does, is shown:

1. First, by the authority of the Psalm: *He spoke and they were made*; and from the first chapter of Genesis: *God said: Let it be made, and it was made*: therefore, since to say is nothing other than to utter a word, and since making follows upon saying, and the thing made follows upon making, therefore the thing made follows upon the word: therefore it seems that the Word connotes something created. If you say that this is not said of saying as it is taken eternally and corresponds to the eternal Word, but as it is taken temporally and corresponds to the created word; on the contrary: Augustine in the eleventh book of the *Confessions*: «By a Word coeternal with thee thou sayest whatever thou sayest, and whatever thou sayest comes to be, nor in any other way than by speaking dost thou make»: therefore it seems that this is to be understood of the eternal Word.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the book *On the Eighty-three Questions*, treating that text of the Gospel: *In the beginning was the Word*, says: «Better in this place do we interpret *Word*, so that there is signified not only relation to the Father, but also operative power toward those things which have been made»: therefore the Word signifies relation to things made. But it is clear that he is speaking of the eternal Word, namely that which was in the beginning.

3. Likewise, on that text of the Psalm: *God hath spoken once*, Augustine says: that is, He begot the Son, in whom He disposed all things. If therefore the Word imports not only generation, but also the disposition of all things, then it bears a relation to all things.

4. Likewise, Anselm in the *Monologion*: «When the supreme Spirit speaks Himself, He speaks all things which have been made»: therefore by the same Word He speaks Himself and creatures. But the Word bears a relation to that which is spoken through the Word: therefore not only to the Father, but also to those things which have been made does it bear a relation: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Everything which connotes a temporal thing is said temporally; but the Word is not said temporally in divine matters, because *in the beginning was the Word*: therefore the Word does not connote anything temporal, since every creature or created thing temporally begins, taking *time* broadly: therefore the Word connotes nothing in relation to creatures. If you say that it connotes in

habit, not in act, like the eternal disposition and predestination; on the contrary: if nothing were ever made or to be made, the Father would still speak Himself, and so would conceive the Word in His mind: therefore the Word would be, even if no creature were ever to be future or present: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, to speak the Word is necessary, since, as was proved in what precedes, in distinction six, the production of a Person is necessary; but the production of a creature is voluntary, whence when He produces it, He could not produce it. If therefore the simply necessary does not include in itself the contingent, the Word does not bear any relation to the creature.

3. Likewise, the Creator and the creature are most distant, therefore in nothing do they share; if therefore the Word of the Father is one, and supremely one, then by that Word, since God the Father is spoken, it is impossible for a creature to be spoken. Therefore if a creature is not spoken by that Word, then it does not bear a relation to the creature.

4. Likewise, if the Word bears a relation to the creature, then it could be called the Word of the creature; which Anselm expressly denies in the *Monologion*: «The Word by which He speaks the creature is in no way the Word of the creature». If you say to me that it bears a relation principally to the speaker, and so cannot be called anything but the Word of the Father; for the same reason, since the Spirit bears a relation principally to the spirator, it could not be said: the spirit of Moses, or the spirit of Elias; which is contrary to Scripture.

5. Likewise, if it bears a relation to the creature, since every name bearing a relation to the creature is essential, not personal; the Word would in no way be said personally; which is contrary to what has been determined above.

> **CONCLUSION.** *The eternal Word also imports a relation to the creature by way of dispositive exemplarity and operative power.*

**I respond:** It must be said, as Anselm says, that a word is then spoken or generated, when in the mind a likeness or image of some knowable thing is conceived; and that word looks toward what the conceived likeness looks toward. Since therefore our mind does not see itself and other things together, nor by one and the same act, it speaks itself by one word, and other things by another, indeed by others: for there are as many words in it as things understood. But the supreme Spirit in the Father knows Himself and all things by one and the same gaze; and when He understands Himself and other things, He knows Himself as the principle of others. And because in Him the conceiving power conceives a likeness embracing all things under one intuition or gaze, He conceives or generates one Word, which is the imitative likeness of the Father and the exemplative likeness of things and the operative likeness; and so it holds, as it were, a middle place, and the Father is said to operate through the Word; and further it is attributed to the Word itself that it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

And so it is clear that the divine Word bears a relation to the Father, who speaks it, by whom it is generated, in all things like Him. It also bears a relation to the creature by way of dispositive exemplarity and operative power. And because these do not bespeak relation in act, but only in habit, I say that, just as exemplar bespeaks relation in habit, and so does power — because God knows and can do many things which He does not — so also the eternal Word. Hence as was said above of the Gift, so likewise it is now to be understood of the Word.

**To the opposite arguments:**

The arguments proving that it bears a relation are therefore to be conceded; but it does not connote an effect actually. Hence the first argument, which proves about an actual effect, is to be solved as was touched on in the objection, because there it speaks of saying according as the created word — which is, as it were, an uttered word — corresponds to it; but nevertheless that saying is through the uncreated Word, just as the Father is said to operate through the Son; and this is what Augustine says, «that by an eternal Word thou sayest whatever thou sayest, and whatever thou sayest comes to be». — Yet it can be said that that saying is eternal, and amounts to as much as disposing; but this does not bespeak an effect, but rather relation in habit; and this has been conceded, that the Word bespeaks. And that this is the meaning of Augustine, is clear from the following text:

«And both together and eternally thou sayest. Nor however are they together and eternal whatsoever things thou makest». From this authority is plain the truth of the response, that the Word bespeaks habitual relation.

1. To that which is objected on the contrary, that nothing eternal connotes a temporal thing; it must be said that this is true in act; whence the Word, properly speaking, does not connote an effect, but bespeaks relation not to a creature already existing, or even merely future, but also to one that is possible to be made. And so the response to the instance which is brought against it is plain.

2. To that which is objected, that the production of the Word is necessary and eternal, but that of the creature voluntary; it must be said that, although the actual production of the creature is voluntary, nevertheless the power of producing and the knowledge are necessary. For it is impossible that God should not be able, and impossible that God should not know how to produce creatures.

3. To that which is objected, that they share in nothing; it must be said that this is true of essential community and predication; and in this way they do not share in the Word, because the Word is God, not a creature; nevertheless, according to a certain account, they can have relation to the same thing. For nothing prevents that God should be the principle of one and the same thing, and that the creature should be its effect; and so it is with the eternal Word, which bears a relation to the Father as to a principle, but to the creature as to an effect.

4. To that which is objected, that then it could be called the Word of the creature; it must be said that, as is plain from the meaning of the name, *word* bears a relation as to the producer, because it is *the word of the speaker*; likewise *of the lord*: and because the principal relation imported by the name is said only with respect to the person, therefore neither is the Son called the word of the creature, nor the Holy Spirit the gift of the creature. And if you object concerning this name *spirit*, it must be said that as it is said of the spirit of Elias, it is not taken from a personal act — because the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of the Father and of the Son only — but is taken from the act of breathing, of which John in the third chapter: *The Spirit breathes where He wills*; and this is an essential act. Hence as God is called the God of Elias because He cherishes Elias, or from some other act, so the spirit of Elias, because He breathes upon Elias; thus it could also be said the Holy Spirit of Elias, as is said in Daniel chapter thirteen: *God raised up the holy spirit of the younger boy*. Nor is this against the Master, because he is speaking of the Holy Spirit as it is a name imposed from the personal property. And that total name, which stands for a person, is more determinate than this name *spirit* by itself; therefore we more frequently find a spirit said of some man than a holy spirit of some man. Yet it is found in some places, because, just as the spirit of Elias is so called because He breathes and inspires upon him, so also the Holy Spirit of Elias, because He inspires holy things into him. And therefore perhaps it was said there that He raised up the holy spirit, because it was not for predicting future things, but for retracting an iniquitous judgment.

5. To that which is objected, that a name bearing a relation to the creature is not notional; it must be said that this is true if it bespeaks it purely; but the Word does not only bespeak it, nor does it bespeak it principally, but principally it bespeaks the relation to the Father, as has also been said of the Gift. The Son and the Holy Spirit are however more named by names bespeaking a relation to the creature than the Father, since by the account of understanding and appropriation they are, as it were, a middle between us and God, and by the account of appropriation they are reducing us to God. Whence according to Augustine: «The Father is the principle, to whom we are reduced; the Son the form, whom we follow; and the Holy Spirit the grace, by which we are reconciled». Whence also they themselves are more properly said to be given to us than the Father.