Dist. 30, 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/30/q/bon-sent-I-d30-a1-q3
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### Article Unicus. Question III. *Whether the names which are predicated of God in time are predicated according to substance or according to relation.*

Third, it is asked whether those things which are thus predicated of God in time are predicated according to substance or according to relation, which would be a true relation. And that it is according to relation is shown in this way.

1. Just as the Father generates by himself, so he creates by himself; yet, although he generates by himself, generation and paternity are truly said of him according to relation: therefore by the same reasoning, although he creates and exercises lordship by himself [the same would follow].

2. Likewise, names of this sort either predicate purely the divine substance, or they add some respect over and above it. If they predicate purely the divine substance: but substance is eternal and from eternity: therefore [these names] are predicated of God from eternity, which is false. Therefore they add some respect, and therefore a relation. If you say that they do not add a respect according to reality, but according to a mode; on the contrary: either something in reality corresponds to that mode, or nothing. If something in reality: then they are predicated relatively in a real sense; if nothing: then the mode of understanding is false and the mode of speaking is unsuitable.

3. Likewise, some things are relative according to being, others according to predication. But in things relative according to predication there is a mode of respect, while in things relative according to being there is the truth of respect; but lord and servant are relative according to being: therefore both import a respect, not merely according to mode but also according to reality: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, lordship predicated of God signifies a superposition just as well as when predicated of a creature: therefore that superposition is either posited in God or in the creature; not in the creature — that is evident, because then the same thing would be superposed over itself — therefore it is posited in God. But superposition is a true relation: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, when I say *God creates*, a twofold respect is indicated, namely of cause to effect and conversely. Therefore either both are in the creature, or both in God, or one in God and the other in the creature. It is evident that it is impossible for both to be in God, because God is not an effect; and similarly [impossible for both] in the creature, because the creature is not its own cause; therefore it is necessary that one be in God: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, when I say *God creates*, God is most truly a cause: and if the true account of cause posits a true relation, then names of this sort predicated of God posit a true relation.

**On the contrary:**

1. Dionysius: «In causes and caused things we do not accept reciprocation»: therefore, since God is the most perfect cause of the creature, he is not referred to the creature, although conversely the creature is referred to him.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher says that knowledge according to being is referred to the knowable, but not conversely: therefore if God's dependence upon the creature is less than that of the knowable upon knowledge, then there is no relation in him.

3. Likewise, this is shown from reason, because if names of this sort predicate a relation about God, then either that relation is the pure divine essence, or something added over and above it. If it is the pure essence of God, then it is something eternal, and therefore the respect of such names is eternal: therefore they are necessarily predicated from eternity. But if they predicate something added over and above: then there is some composition in God.

4. Likewise, every relation expresses a dependence or at least an order and orientation toward that with respect to which it is predicated; but God is neither ordered nor terminated: therefore nothing is predicated of God relatively with respect to the creature.

### Conclusion.

> The names which are predicated of God in time do not import any relation according to reality in God, but only according to a mode of understanding.

**I respond:** For understanding this, it must be said that to be predicated according to relation is twofold: either according to reality or according to mode. Real relation, moreover, is threefold. For sometimes it is founded upon an accidental property of substance, as similarity in two instances of whiteness; sometimes upon an essential dependence, as the respect or relation of matter to form — for, as the Philosopher says, «matter, this very thing that it is, is toward another» — sometimes upon a natural origin, as effect to cause and children to father.

The first relation cannot be in God, because in God there is no accidental property. The second cannot be in him, because there is no dependence in God. The third is in God, but not with respect to the creature but with respect to the person; for this relation does not express composition nor an inclination of dependence, as the first and second do, but posits distinction and order. And since one person is truly ordered toward another and has an orientation and according to reality relates differently to one than to another, therefore this relation is in a person with respect to a person, but not with respect to the creature. For God toward the creature has no

order, nor does he have one orientation and another orientation. And therefore in no way is there really in God a relation with respect to the creature. — The creature, however, has order and orientation toward God, by means of an accidental property and an essential dependence and a natural origin: therefore according to every mode the creature is referred to God.

Since therefore our intellect, when it understands something as related to something, also understands that thing as compared to that thing: therefore it understands God in the manner of a respect and a relation, to which respect in God nothing corresponds except the divine essence; from the side of the creature something corresponds, and therefore it is not empty. — It must be conceded, therefore, that names of this sort predicated of God do not import a relation in God according to reality, but only according to a mode of understanding. From these considerations the questions are resolved.

**Replies to the arguments on the affirmative side:**

*To 1.* As for what is objected concerning the Father: it must be said that the case is not similar, because the Father's [relation] to the Son is an order and an orientation, and a different orientation toward the Son than toward the Holy Spirit; but God, as the Philosopher says, has no order nor any orientation. For «the first cause relates in the same way to all things, although other things relate to it in one way and another», and in the twelfth [book] of the primary Philosophy he says that the first and highest good is not ordered toward these created things.

*To 2.* As for what is objected — if [these names] do not predicate a relation, then they predicate purely substance — it must be said that about God they purely predicate substance according to reality, but a relation according to a mode of understanding; in the creature, however, [they also predicate relation] according to reality. And as for the objection that the intellect is empty: it must be said that this is false, because the intellect is founded upon something, namely upon the relation of the creature, to which there corresponds a relation according to predication in God.

*To 3.* As for what is objected — that some things are relative according to being, etc. — it must be said that some things are relative according to being from the side of both extremes, as lord and servant in the creature: some only from the side of one, as the knowable and knowledge, and the measurable and the measure; so it is in the present case.

*To 4. 5.* As for what is objected — that lord expresses a superposition, and similarly creator expresses causality — it must be said that the superposition in God is a true superposition, and truly a causality, because God is truly set over another and truly effects. Nevertheless that superposition is not a true relation, nor similarly is causality, but is truly the divine essence, because by itself [God] is set over and effects.

*To 6.* As for what is objected — that there is in this case a respect of cause and effect — it must be said that the respect of effect is there a true respect and a true relation, but the respect of cause is not a respect nor a relation in God according to reality, but according to a mode of understanding; according to reality, however, it is substance or essence.