Dist. 4, 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/4/q/bon-sent-I-d4-dubia
----------------------------------------
### Dub. I.

In this part concerning the text, a question is raised about what he says: *God from God, light from light*; for since the preposition *de* ("from") signifies transition and thus diversity and distinction, it seems that by parallel reasoning and from an equipollent expression these are true: God is other than God, God is distinguished from God.

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a twofold way of conveying distinction or diversity, namely as a mode or as a thing, or as exercised or as conceived. Since therefore prepositions convey distinction as exercised, and there is distinction in divine things with respect to the supposits, *de* makes the term stand for the diverse supposits. Since therefore it places a mode about that around which it exercises distinction, and such are the persons: therefore it is a true expression. But because this name *alius* ("other") conveys distinction as conceived, and likewise the verb *distinguere* ("to distinguish"): therefore it simply places distinction about the term by reason of its form; therefore they are false.

### Dub. II.

Likewise a question is raised about the response which the Master gives, there: *But as to what is added: Therefore he begot himself God* etc., because the Master resolves it by overturning the conclusion and seems not to resolve it correctly. For since the same and the diverse sufficiently divide *being*, it seems necessarily to follow: he begot God: therefore [he begot] himself, or another.

**I respond:** It must be said that the Master, by upholding the first [premise] and overturning the conclusion, indicates that the conclusion does not follow from the premises: and that it does not follow, he shows by bringing an instance against that disjunct.

But to that which is objected, that the same and the diverse *sufficiently divide* being; it must be said that, simply speaking, this is false. For a part is neither altogether the same as the whole nor simply diverse from it. It has truth nevertheless according to the same [respect]. Whence: «if it is not the same as another, it is diverse», is true according to that respect according to which it is not the same. But the Son is not the same as the Father in person, and therefore in person other; nor however does it follow: another God, because otherness is signified in essence.

### Dub. III.

Likewise a question is raised about this distinction which the Master sets forth concerning this predicate *Deus Pater* ("God the Father"), namely that it can be an appositive and immediate construction, or a mediate one. For first it seems that this distinction is not intelligible, since [terms] which on the same side are intransitively constructed seem only to be immediately constructed. Likewise it seems that he does not resolve [the difficulty], because a correct solution is one whose opposite he who grants cannot resolve; but with this distinction removed, the sophism still remains, if in place of *Deus Pater* there be set only *Pater*: therefore etc.

**I respond:** It must be said that the Master's distinction is good and according to art. For as Priscian wishes, between an adjective and a substantive there is understood a mediating copula *est* ("is") or *quod est ens* ("which is being"). And since this *est* or *quod est Pater* can be taken implicatively; and so it is restricted and holds the place of an appositive construction and is equivalent to one term: therefore it is said that it can be taken or constructed immediately; and so *Deus Pater* is nothing other than the Father himself. Or the relative itself can be understood relatively, and thus at a certain distance; and then it is not restricted, and the sense is: *Deus Pater*, that is, *Deus, qui est Pater* ("God, who is the Father"); which amounts to: *est Deus, et ille est Pater* ("there is God, and that one is the Father"). Now this solution of the Master indeed resolves the sophism with respect to one deception, and therefore is good. But again another deception falls there concerning the relative, and therefore it is still necessary to resolve [it], not against that deception, but against another. Therefore Praepositivus resolves this argument in another way: therefore [he begot] God who is the Father, or who is not the Father, and he says that it does not follow, nor are they contradictories, because the supposition of this relative is not the same. For in the affirmative it supposits for the begotten God, because it is not confounded; in the negative, however, simply. Whence as these do not contradict, but both are false: *No man is Peter, John is Peter*, so he says in the matter at hand, because the negation confounds. Whence these two are both false: *God the Son is the Father, God is not the Father*. — But although Praepositivus's solution has place in the matter at hand, because it makes no difference to put the negation before or after the term *Deus*, nevertheless in other [cases] it has no place. For a negation placed after the relative does not confound it.

And therefore the moderns resolve [it] otherwise by distinguishing, that this relative *qui* can effect a simple or a personal relation. If simple, the affirmative is true, the negative false; if personal, conversely the negative is true, the affirmative false. Which is plain, because this is false: *the person of the Son is the Father*, and this is true: «*the person of the Son is not the Father*».

### Dub. IV.

Likewise a question is raised about what he says, that *one God is three persons*. But on the contrary: Whatever things are predicated of one and the same are predicated of one another: therefore if one God is the Father and the Son: therefore the Father is the Son. If you say, that this is true when they are predicated of one singular, but is not true when they are predicated of one common [thing]; on the contrary: nothing is subjected to two [predicates] in one supposition, although it be common to them. Whence this is false: *man is Socrates and Plato*: therefore likewise in the matter at hand.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as is plain, concerning the supposition of this name *Deus* it is otherwise than concerning the supposition of any other term. For because it has the nature of a common and a discrete term, therefore it stands at once for many, just as for one: and therefore it does not follow: *God is the Father and the Son*: therefore *God the Father is the Son*, or conversely. Likewise neither is it permitted to infer from this, that the Father is the Son. And it must be noted that such predication is by identity: therefore the supposit of the formal term is truly predicated.

### Dub. V.

Likewise a question is raised about what the Master says: *That one only true God is the Trinity*; for it seems to be against what he says below, namely that *trinitas* is a collective name, *unus* and *solus* a partitive and discretive name: therefore as this is false: *one sole man is every man*, so also this.

**I respond:** It must be said that this name *trinitas* is collective of the persons; but *unus* and *solus*, added to this term *Deus*, do not signify the distinction of person, but of nature from others. Whence one

sole God is said [to be] one sole nature; and since in divine things the nature and the *res naturae* ("thing of the nature") or supposit are the same, therefore by predication through identity *Trinitas* is predicated of God. Nor is it like in the case of *every man* and *one sole man*. For this term *homo* is a term which can be confounded and multiplied, and therefore this is true: *every man is a man*, nor does it stand at once for many unless it is confounded; and therefore this is false: *man is every man*, because neither is it true by reason of supposition, nor by identity, nor is the nature and the *res naturae* the same in man.

### Dub. VI.

Likewise a question is raised about what he says: *It is enough for a Christian [to believe that] the cause of created things* etc. For he seems to say something false, since either he says *enough* with respect to faith; and so it is false, because many other things must be believed; or *enough* with respect to knowledge; and that likewise is false, because the cause of a thing is never sufficiently known from this.

**I respond:** It must be said that *enough* is understood with respect to knowledge, not any whatever, but [knowledge] necessary for salvation.

### Dub. VII.

Likewise a question is raised about what he says, that *the Father begot another self*. For he seems to conjoin those two badly, since *se* ("self") signifies altogether identity, and *alterum* ("another") diversity, and thus they are opposites, and thus opposites are implicated. If you say, that one diminishes from the other, I ask: what, and of what?

**I respond:** It must be said that direct opposition is always understood concerning the same. Since therefore in divine things there is at once identity in nature and otherness in supposit, and this without opposition; therefore the names of identity and of otherness in speech are joined without opposition, indeed for the expression of a singular mode.

### Dub. VIII.

Likewise a question is raised about what he says: *That the Father might have a Son, he did not diminish himself*, for he seems to say something false; because that argument holds: whoever begets one son, in such a way that he can no longer beget, his power is diminished; but so it is in the Father: therefore etc.

**I respond:** That this is true, if to beget another belongs to power; but that, with one having been begotten, he should be able to beget another, signifies an imperfection of power in begetting, because by this it is shown that he did not give the whole to one.

### Dub. IX.

Likewise a question is raised about what he says: *Of himself he begot another self, but not another god, but another person*, whether *alterum* or *alium* is more properly said; and it seems that *alterum*, because it signifies a lesser diversity, since Socrates is called *alter* from himself; but in divine things diversity is least. But on the contrary: accidental differences cause [things] to be called *alterum*; but in divine things there is no accident: therefore it ought not to be called *alterum*.

Likewise it seems that neither is well said. For if substantial differences cause [things] to be called *aliud*, and accidental [ones] *alterum*, since neither falls in divine things, neither seems fit to be said.

**I respond:** It must be said that because the Father differs from the Son both in supposit and in property, therefore he can be called *alius*, and he can be called *alter*. But since that property is not accidental to the person, therefore he is more properly called *alius*. And because *alius* regards the supposit, *aliud* the essence: therefore, although *alius* in the masculine be received there, nevertheless not *aliud* in the neuter.

---