Dist. 4
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION IV.

### *Whether God the Father begot Himself as God.*

Here arises a question sufficiently necessary. For it is settled and irrefragably true that God the Father begot the Son. Therefore it is asked whether it should be conceded that God begot God. For if God begot God, it seems that He begot either Himself as God or another. But if He begot another God, then there is not only one God; whereas if He begot Himself as God, then some thing begot itself.

In response to this we say that it is soundly and catholically conceded that one begot one, and that God begot God, because God the Father begot God the Son. In the Symbol it is also written: « Light from Light, true God from true God ». But as to what is added: therefore He begot Himself as God, or another God — neither, we say, is to be conceded. That He did not beget another God is manifest, because there is only one God. That He did not beget Himself, however, Augustine shows in the first book *On the Trinity*, saying: « Those who think that it belongs to God's power that He should beget Himself, err the more, in that not only is God not so, but neither any spiritual nor corporeal creature. For there is no thing which begets itself, that it may be »; and therefore it is not to be believed or said that God begot Himself.

But still the garrulous reasoners object, saying: if God the Father begot God, He either begot God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father. If He begot God who is not God the Father: therefore there is a God who is not God the Father: therefore there is not only one God. But if He begot God who is God the Father: therefore He begot Himself.

To which we respond by determining this proposition, which they thus propound: if God the Father begot God, He begot either God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father. For this can be understood soundly and perversely; and therefore it must be answered thus: that God the Father begot God who is the Father Himself — this we say to be false; and we concede the other, namely, that He begot God who is not the Father; nor however did He beget another God, nor is He who was begotten another God than the Father, but one God with the Father. But if it is added: He begot God who is not God the Father, here we distinguish, because this can be understood in two ways: He begot God who is not God the Father, namely, God the Son, who as Son is not the Father, who is God; this sense is true. But if it is so understood: He begot God who is not God the Father, that is, who is not God who is the Father — this sense is false. For one and the same God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit; and conversely, Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one God.

### Cap. II.

### *Whether the Trinity is predicated of the one God just as the one God is predicated of the three persons.*

Yet certain adversaries of the truth concede that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, or the three persons, are one God, one substance, but are unwilling to concede that the one God or the one substance is three persons, saying that the divine substance is predicated of the three persons, but not the three persons of the divine substance. The catholic faith, however, holds and preaches both that the three persons are one God, one substance or essence or divine nature, and that the one God or divine essence is three persons. Whence Augustine in the first book *On the Trinity* thus says: « Rightly is God Himself understood as the Trinity, blessed and alone powerful ». Behold, how expressly he said God Himself is the Trinity, in order to show both that God Himself is the Trinity and that the Trinity is God Himself. Likewise in the same: « In those words, he says, of the Apostle, by which, treating of the coming of Christ, he says: Whom the blessed and only powerful, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, will show forth etc., neither was the Father properly named nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit, but the blessed and only powerful, that is, the one and only true God, who is the Trinity itself ». Behold, here too he openly says that the one only true God is the Trinity itself; and if the one God is the Trinity, therefore the one God is three persons. Likewise in the fifth book *On the Trinity*: « We say not three gods, but one God to be that most excellent Trinity itself ». Likewise in the book called *Enchiridion to Laurentius*, chapter nine: « It is enough for the Christian to believe the cause of created things, visible or invisible, to be nothing but the goodness of the Creator, who is the one and true God, and that there is no nature which is not either Himself, or from Him, and that He is the Trinity, namely the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit ». Likewise Augustine in the sermon *On Faith*: « We believe that one God is one

Trinity of the divine name ». The same in the sixth book *On the Trinity*: « We say that God alone is the Trinity itself ». Behold, by these and many other authorities it is evidently shown that it must be said and believed that one God is the Trinity, and one substance is three persons; just as conversely the Trinity is said to be one God, and the three persons are said to be one substance.

Now let us return to the foregoing question, where it was asked whether God the Father begot Himself as God, or another God. To which we say that neither is to be conceded. Yet Augustine says in the *Letter to Maximus* that God the Father begot Himself as another, in these words: « The Father, that He might have a Son from Himself, did not diminish Himself, but so begot from Himself another self, that He remained whole in Himself and was in the Son as great as, and alone ». This can be understood thus, that is, He begot from Himself another from Himself — not indeed another God, but another person; or He begot Himself as another, that is, He begot another, who is the same as He Himself. For although the Father is other than the Son, yet He is not another thing than the Son, but one.

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