Dist. 30, Dubia
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-dubia
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### DOUBTS CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

#### Doubt I.

In this section there are doubts about the text, and first concerning those names — creator, *dominus* (lord), and names of this kind — which the Master says are said of God *from time*. For this seems false, because "lordship (*dominium*), as Boethius says, is the power of coercing subjects," but this is in God from eternity: therefore, etc. — Likewise, "Lord (*Dominus*), as Ambrose says, is a name of nature": therefore, if nature is eternal, so also is lordship. — Likewise, concerning the name *creator*, the objection is raised that one is not called a reader because he actually reads, but because he is able to read; but God is from eternity able to create: therefore, etc.

In connection with this, inquiry is made concerning the signification and connotation of these names, and whence they have the ground of connoting, given that the divine essence is their principal significate.

**I respond:** It must be said that, although the divine essence does not truly have a respect toward the creature, yet it is possible to understand and signify it by the mode of respect; nor is the intellect therefore vain, on account of its placing the whole ground of real respect in the creature. Since, therefore, names of this kind say a respect — by which they are imposed, even though they are imposed upon the essence — they are therefore said according to the exigency of that respect. Therefore it must be understood that certain names say respect alone, as "lord" (*dominus*); certain others say an effect, as "creator" and "just," and both kinds are under a twofold difference, because they either import a respect to a present thing, or to a future thing, whether to a thing in act or in habit. In the first mode, because they posit the creature in act, they say respect alone when the creature begins; in the second mode, from eternity.

According to this, therefore, if "lord" and "creator" import respect in act, they cannot be said from eternity; but if in habit, they can. Yet common usage takes names of this kind as connoting in act; and therefore Augustine says they are said *with time*. — Now, what Boethius is understood to say is that "it is the power of coercing subjects, but of those already subject, and not of those not yet so." — What Ambrose says, it is evident, does not compel, because, even though it is imposed upon nature, yet it is imposed from a property of nature, as it says a respect toward creatures, and therefore connotes something created. — And thus all things are clear, because the ground of connoting is the mode of signifying.

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#### Doubt II.

Likewise, inquiry is made concerning what the Master says, that time did not begin *from time*. For this seems false, because everything that begins is temporal, and every temporal thing is measured by time, and everything such began in time: therefore, etc. If you give an instance in things at their very beginning, the objection is raised that nothing is more variable than time; but everything such is temporal: therefore, etc. — Likewise, time did not begin in time, therefore if it began outside time, therefore there was time outside all time.

**I respond:** It must be said that, insofar as it pertains to the present — because concerning the beginning of time it must be discussed in the second [book] — there is a difference between beginning *from time*, *in time*, and *with time*, because *from* (*ex*) says order and so presupposes time as prior; and therefore nothing began *from time* except what follows upon time. *In time* says the existence of time; but time was not in its own beginning, since it is successive. Therefore, things that are of equal duration with time began neither *from time* nor *in time*, but *with time*, that is, when time began.

If you ask how time began: briefly, it must be said that in none of the aforesaid modes, but it began at its own principle, and therefore did not begin outside time.

*To the objection that the temporal is measured by time:* it must be said that the temporal which

is exceeded by time is measured and begins in time, but that which is not exceeded begins *with time*; and the reason given above holds.

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#### Doubt III.

Likewise, inquiry is made concerning what the Master says, that the coin (*nummus*) has not been changed when it has come to be a price (*pretium*). For this seems false, because being a price is an accident of the coin, and it is present now and was not present before, therefore the coin has been changed.

**I respond:** It must be said that a relation does not predicate something absolute, but predicates order toward another; order, however, regards the disposition of the things ordered. Certain things, therefore, are orderable such that both are in potency; and then the relation is introduced by a change made in both. Certain things are orderable such that one, insofar as it is of itself, is in act, but the other is in potency; as is evident in the case of two things, one of which, being actually white, actually has the property in accordance with which similarity is observed, and therefore, when the other is made white from non-white, perfect similarity comes about. — Therefore it is not necessary that a relation should always bring about a change in both extremes by reason of its corruption or inception; it suffices that it do so in one. And the reason is evident: because it regards a double extreme, and because one can be of itself in act while the other exists in potency — as in the case of the coin, which is in the power of the possessor, such that it is a pledge (*pignus*) or price (*pretium*) or earnest-money (*arrha*) by reason of a change made in him; nor does anything absolute come to the coin, but the order which, on the part of the coin, was in act, comes into act on the part of that which was in potency; and therefore *that* is changed, without the coin being changed.

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#### Doubt IV.

Likewise, inquiry is made concerning what the Master says, that it is an accident in the creature when a relation is the creature's relation to the Creator. For this seems false, because it is possible to understand a thing with its accident removed: therefore, if the relation to the Creator is accidental to the creature, then with it removed, it is possible to understand the created thing to exist, even with the respect to the Creator abstracted away. — Likewise, if the relation by which the creature is referred to the Creator is an accident, since that is a created thing, it is referred, and thus by accident: and so it is with another, and thus it is to proceed to infinity.

It must be said that the creature depends essentially upon the Creator as regards its first being (*esse primum*); and such a relation, which expresses that dependence, is not accidental to the creature but rather essential. But as regards the second being (*esse secundum*) or well-being (*bene esse*), it does not depend essentially, because that well-being is accidental; therefore such a relation is said to be according to accident, as filiation insofar as it says adoption; and of such Augustine speaks.

*To the objection that a relation is referred by another relation:* some wish to say that the creature is referred by itself. — Yet that does not seem to be what should be said, because no creature is its own relation, since it is not supremely simple; indeed, the very fact that it is referred takes away simplicity. — Therefore it must be said that, just as relatives are properly referred — which say a thing underlying with its respect — whereas the relations themselves or respects are not referred, but rather they refer those other things, because they are not beings but of beings: so in the present case it must be said that the relations themselves are not referred *per se*, but together with their subjects, such that one is with another and through another. Therefore one need not seek further for something else by which they are referred.

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#### Doubt V.

Likewise, inquiry is made concerning what the Master says: "And yet we do not say that the Holy Spirit is referred to itself." For it seems it can be referred, because the Holy Spirit is a gift (*donum*), and a gift is referred to the giver; and the Holy Spirit itself is the giver: therefore it is necessarily concluded that it is referred to itself.

**I respond:** It must be said that the name "spirit" (*spiritus*) says a relation according to being (*relatio secundum esse*); and therefore, since by a relation according to being nothing is referred to itself in the same respect, in no way is the Holy Spirit, insofar as it is spirit, referred to itself. But "gift" (*donum*) does not import only a relation according to being — as when it says authority in the giver — but also according to a mode of speaking, as when it says largeness and power in the communicator; and because in this way it can, according to the mode of understanding, be compared to itself as given (*datum*), it is said toward itself insofar as it is given, but not insofar as it is giving. Therefore the Master concedes that the appellation of "that given" or "the gift" (*dati vel donati*) is referred to the Holy Spirit, but not "Holy Spirit" (*spiritus sanctus*) as such.

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