Dist. 32, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/32/q/bon-sent-I-d32-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the manner of speaking: "The Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit."*
### Question I. *Whether the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit.*

That this manner of speaking is to be admitted is shown from authority and from reason.

1. *First*, by authority thus: Augustine, *On the Trinity* VI: "There is not someone of the two by whom the begotten is loved by the begetter and loves his own begetter": therefore there is someone, and he is not the Father or the Son, therefore he is the Holy Spirit.

2. Likewise, Jerome on Psalm seventeen: "The Holy Spirit is the love of the Father toward the Son and of the Son toward the Father"; but by the love which is of the Father toward the Son, the Father loves the Son, and conversely: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, Bernard *On the Love of God*: "You love yourself, he says, lovable Lord, when from the Father and the Son there proceeds the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father toward the Son, and of the Son toward the Father, and so great a love that it is unity."

4. Likewise, by reason it is shown thus: Master Hugh of St. Victor makes such an argument in a certain letter to Bernard: "If you are rightly said to love by the love which proceeds from you, why are not the Father and the Son rightly said to love by the love which proceeds from them?" — And again in the same place: "If the Holy Spirit were the love of your heart, as he is of the Father and of the Son, who, I ask, could deny that you love yourself by the Holy Spirit, that is, by your love?"

5. Likewise, by another argument it appears thus: as *word* is to *to speak*, so *love* is to *to love*; but the Father by his Word, which proceeds from him, speaks himself and all things, because the Father by his Word, which proceeds from him, makes himself manifest: therefore the Father and the Son, by the love which proceeds from them, love themselves.

6. Likewise, just as a son cannot be produced except by generating, so neither can love except by loving: therefore the Father and the Son, by loving, produce the Holy Spirit, who is personal love: either, then, by loving by the love which is the Holy Spirit, or by [a love] which is not the Holy Spirit. If by a love which is not the Holy Spirit, that love is either essential or personal: not personal, since then there would be two persons in the divine to whom love would belong properly, which is impossible; nor likewise essential, since that [essential love] is the Holy Spirit. And again, if essential, then since it would belong to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit similarly would produce. It remains, therefore, that they produce the Holy Spirit by loving by the love which is the Holy Spirit: either, then, by loving themselves, or by loving something other than themselves. Not something other, since then something other would be required for the production of the Holy Spirit: therefore by loving themselves by the Holy Spirit, they produce the Holy Spirit: therefore the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit.

**On the contrary:**

1. *To love* is the same as *to will the good*, and *to will* is the same as *to be*: therefore since this is false, "the Father and the Son are by the Holy Spirit," this is likewise false: "they love each other by the Holy Spirit."

2. Likewise, as *to know* is to the Father with respect to the Son, so *to love* is to the Father and the Son with respect to the Holy Spirit; but this is false: "the Father is wise by begotten wisdom": therefore that one likewise.

3. Likewise, every plural implies a singular; but this is false: "the Father loves himself by the Holy Spirit": therefore the first one as well. If you say that *to love* is taken notionally; on the contrary: by no notion does it happen that one person is reflected mutually upon another; but according to love there is mutual reflection in the foregoing locution: therefore *to love* is not taken notionally: therefore the same as before.

4. Likewise, no notion belongs to the three; but *to love by the Holy Spirit* belongs to the three. For the Father loves by the Holy Spirit, and the Son loves by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit loves by the Holy Spirit, since [he loves] by himself: therefore it is not taken notionally: therefore the same as before.

5. Likewise, the Father and the Son love themselves and us by the same love; but God's love toward us is essential, since it connotes an effect in the creature: therefore likewise when it is said: "they love each other."

6. Likewise, if it is taken notionally, I ask, for which notion? There is none to give except spiration: either then *actively*, or *passively*. If *actively*: then *they love each other* is the same as *they spirate*; but this is false: *they spirate by the Holy Spirit*, therefore the first one as well. If *passively*; on the contrary: that [passive spiration] is not predicated of the Father and the Son, but of the Holy Spirit alone. If you say that it is predicated denominatively; on the contrary: every property which is predicated of a person in the divine in the concrete is predicated also in the abstract: therefore since procession does not belong to the Father and the Son in the abstract: therefore neither denominatively.

### Conclusion.

> *This manner of speaking is false, if it is taken essentially; but true, if it is taken notionally.*

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that some have simply denied the foregoing locution and have said that all such [locutions] were retracted by blessed Augustine in another similar to this one, namely: "the Father is wise by begotten wisdom". — But this solution cannot stand, since not only does Augustine speak it, but also other Saints, whose statements Augustine does not retract.

Therefore there were others who simply conceded it, saying that this locution must be understood by *appropriation*, not by *property*, so that the sense is: the Father and the Son love each other by the love which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit. — But this solution cannot stand either, since then this likewise would have to be conceded: "the Father and the Son are good by the Holy Spirit"; since goodness is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, which nevertheless is in no way conceded. Therefore the first opinion cannot stand, which simply denies such locutions, since manifold authority asserts them; likewise the next, which simply concedes them, cannot stand, since manifold reason contradicts.

It remains, therefore, to choose a middle opinion, namely that in one way it is true, in another way false. For *to love* can be taken *essentially* or *notionally*. According as it is taken essentially, so it expresses the complacency of the will, which is common to the three. According as it is taken notionally, so it expresses the fecundity of the will toward producing a person from itself, which fecundity indeed is only in the two, although the will is in the three. If, then, it is taken essentially, the locution is false, since then it follows that the Father and the Son are by the Holy Spirit. And in this sense the pronoun is construed reciprocally with the verb. But if notionally, it is true, as the reasons for the opposite prove. And in this sense the pronoun is construed retransitively with the verb. Whence the sense is: the Father and the Son love each other, that is, the Father loves the Son and the Son the Father; and then the locution is true, since the love which is the Holy Spirit is the love connecting the Father with the Son and conversely; and then it is not permitted to infer: therefore the Father loves himself by the Holy Spirit.

**To the arguments on the affirmative side:**

From this the first three are clear. For the first, second, third proceed according as *to love* is taken essentially; the *second* likewise, since *to know* is not said notionally as *to love* is, but is either common or appropriated; the *third* likewise, since it proceeds according as the oblique is construed reciprocally, and then *to love* is taken essentially.

*To that which is objected*, that it cannot be taken notionally; it must be understood that just as generation can be signified in two ways — in one way, as it expresses *emanation*, in another way, as it expresses the *mode of emanating* with a superadded expression: and in the first way by this verb *to generate*, in the second way by this verb *to speak* — so spiration likewise can be signified in two ways. In the first way by this verb which is *to spirate*; in the second way by this verb which is *to love*. For just as *to speak* imports generation and further a certain expression with respect to a person, so also *to love*. Whence as *to speak* imports the act of generating and of declaring or expressing, and by reason of the act of declaring it is said: the Father speaks himself by the Word, that is, by declaring or expressing himself he generates the Word, or by generating the Word he expresses himself by the Word; so also in the case proposed *to love* imports the act of connecting or harmonizing and of spirating, and by reason of the act of connecting it is said: the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, that is, by mutually harmonizing they spirate the Holy Spirit, or by spirating the Holy Spirit they are mutually connected. From these the [other] objections are clear.

*To that which is objected concerning mutual reflection*, the response is clear, since this is by reason of an essential act co-understood [therein].

*To that which is objected*, that *to love by the Holy Spirit* belongs to the three and is said with respect to the creature; it must be said that it does not belong to the three by reason of the spiration which it imports; and therefore, although it be said with respect to the creature, nevertheless it is not said wholly essentially, but connotes something essential; yet it expresses a notion by reason of the relation which it imports to a person, as was said above of the Word and the Gift.

*To that which is objected last*, for which notion it stands: it is clear that it stands for common spiration; nevertheless it is not allowed to substitute for it the verb *to spirate*, since that imports the same notion in another way. Whence just as this is conceded: *the Father speaks by the Word*, but not this: *the Father generates by the Son*, although *to speak* imports generation itself; so it must be understood in the case proposed.