Dist. 34, 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/34/q/bon-sent-I-d34-a1-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether in divine matters person is predicated of nature, and nature of person.*

Second, inquiry is made whether in divine matters predication is to be posited, namely so that the *res naturae* or person is predicated of nature, or conversely. And that it is not so seems to be shown:

1. Boethius in his book *On the Trinity*: «God is form without subject»; but where there is no subject, there is no predicate: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, Dionysius says that «negations concerning God are true, but affirmations are unfitting»; but where there is truly something to be predicated of something, there is also truly to affirm; but in God it does not happen to affirm truly: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, this same thing seems by reason: because wherever there is predication, there is conjunction and composition; but in God there is no conjunction, therefore neither any composition: therefore neither any predication.

4. Likewise, in every predication the subject stands in the manner of matter; but in divine matters there is to be found neither matter nor the manner of matter: therefore neither predication.

5. Likewise, if there is predication there, then either the same is predicated of the same, or another of another. If the same of the same, no other understanding is grasped from this than if there were no predication, as is plain when one says: *man is man*. If another of another: then in divine matters there is one and another, therefore composition.

6. Likewise, if there is predication there, then either *res naturae* is predicated of nature, or conversely. *Res naturae* cannot be predicated of nature, because *res naturae* stands in the manner of a supposit: therefore its [office] is to be the subject, not to be predicated: therefore if it is predicated, then nature is predicated of *res naturae*. But on the contrary: nature is form; but every form is said relatively to that which is informed, and no relative is said of another: therefore nature is not predicated of *res naturae*: therefore there is no predication.

7. Likewise, [things] which have opposite properties, the one is not predicated of the other; but the property of essence or nature is communicability, that of person incommunicability: therefore the one is not predicated of the other, nor is one person predicated of another: it is established, therefore, that there is no predication there.

**On the contrary:**

1. Damascene: «Substance is predicated of the hypostases».

2. Likewise, it seems by reason: because faith has a true object, and has God as its object, therefore it is true to posit [predication] in divine matters; but truth and falsity concern composition — truth, I say, concerning which there is belief or opinion: therefore in divine matters composition is to be posited, therefore also predication.

3. Likewise, wherever there is truly common and proper, there predication is truly to be posited; but in divine matters common and proper are truly to be found, because nature is truly common, and person proper or incommunicable: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, this verb *is* is the mark of identity; but every predication is by means of this verb *is*: therefore every predication is a sign of identity. But where there is truly the signified, there is also truly the sign; but in God there is most properly and most truly identity, as has been proved, because *res naturae* does not add anything beyond nature: therefore most properly predication. And this is what Boethius says: «no predication is truer than that in which the same is predicated of itself»: if therefore this is in divine matters, therefore all predications in divine matters are most true.

### Conclusion.

> *Person is predicated of nature and conversely by predication of identity; but by predication in the mode of inherence only the common is predicated of the proper.*

**I respond:** It must be said that there is predication *by inherence*, and there is predication *by identity*, and both are to be found in God: by inherence, as when one says: *the Father generates*, or *God creates*; by identity, as when one says: *the Father is generation*, or *God is creation*. Predication by identity is to be found in God most properly, on account of the very quality of the thing, because there is the highest identity there: whence all locutions importing unity are there most true. Predication by inherence is to be found there on account of the defectibility of our intellect, because, although the act in divine matters is the very substance of God and the property itself as well, nevertheless, since our intellect understands through inferior things and announces through the words of inferior things, it keeps the manner of announcing which it has concerning inferior things; and therefore it predicates in the mode of inherence, although all the things which are in God really have the mode of substance.

This understanding, however, is not false: for, just as the intellect abstracting a line from matter is not false, because it does not place that mode in the thing, but in its own understanding, similarly our intellect in divine matters does not place conjunction in the thing, but in its own understanding and its own expressing. For although in God there is the highest simplicity, nevertheless it cannot be expressed except through conjunction. And therefore Augustine well says: «that God is more truly than he is thought, and is more truly thought than spoken». For even if the intellect in some way through intelligence ascends to the contemplation of simplicity, nevertheless it cannot express this in a simple voice, but only in a composite one.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected, that in God there is no subject; it must be said that this is true as to the thing; nevertheless it is so [a subject] as to the manner of understanding or announcing.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that affirmations are unfitting; it must be said that this is said because no name expresses the divine essence as it is, altogether. — Or say that in affirmation identity is noted, and this is truly in God on the side of the thing;

and there is composition, and with respect to this there is unfittingness, because there is no real composition there.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning conjunction, it must be said that this conjunction in speech signifies a composition in the intellect, but a unity in the thing.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that the mode of matter does not fall in God; it must be said that this is true, because the mode of matter as *that out of which* does not fall there; but the mode as *that of which* and *that in which* does indeed fall.

*To 5.* To that which is objected: *Either the same is predicated of the same* etc.; it must be said that sometimes [there is] the same as to the thing, but diverse according to the manner of understanding and speaking, as *goodness is substance*; sometimes the same according to substance, but diverse according to the manner of being-toward, as *person is substance*, or *relation is substance*, and *God generates*: and therefore some understanding is grasped from the conjunction which is not grasped from the simple word.

*To 6.* To that which is asked, whether *res naturae* is predicated of nature; it must be said that by predication of identity each is predicated of the other, and there is no composition in the account of form nor in the account of matter; but if by inherence, then the common is predicated of the proper, as *the Father is God*.

That, then, which is objected, that nature is form; the response must be made in two ways: that form in one way is said relatively to that which is informed, and so it is not to be admitted in God; in another way absolutely, that which lacks matter, and so it is in God; and so that point is plain. — Otherwise it can be said that *to be said relatively* is twofold: either according to being, or according to being-said; according to being-said, as *seeing* with respect to *the seen*, and *understanding* with respect to *the understood*, and so the one is predicated of the other; according to being, as the Father with respect to the Son, and so it is not predicated. For nature does not state a relation toward person according to being, but according to being-said; and such a relation is imported when it is said that nature is form with respect to *res naturae*. Hence it is that, by reason of that relation, it is said: *three persons of one essence* or *of one nature*, and *one nature of three persons*; nevertheless it is not said *three persons of one God*. For this name *God* does not import a relation according to being-said toward person, but only toward the creature. Therefore it is said: *the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob*.

*To 7.* To the last [objection] it must be said that communicability and incommunicability are not opposite properties, but they differ thus, as having a property and not having. For because the person has a relative property, therefore it is distinguished and is incommunicable; but because the essence lacks that property, therefore it is common and communicable to many; and therefore they are not distinguished from one another. — Or it can be said that *communicability* is not a distinguishing property even in creatures: whence although *man* is common and *Peter* proper, still it is not prevented that *man* is said in *Peter*; how much more in God. But that proposition is to be understood of properties separating and distinguishing those things in which they are from one another.