Dist. 5, Art. 2, 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/5/q/bon-sent-I-d5-a2-q1
----------------------------------------
### Article II

*On the comparison of generation to essence in the account of term.*

Next, concerning the second article of this question — which is by the comparison of generation to essence in the account of term — two questions are asked.

*First*: whether substance or essence is begotten.

*Second*: whether through generation it is communicated.

### Question I

*Whether substance or essence is begotten.*

That substance is begotten is objected thus:

**1.** Generation in inferior beings is a motion to substance; what is motion, this belongs to imperfection; what is toward substance, this belongs to perfection; if therefore what belongs to perfection is to be transferred to the divine: therefore generation also is terminated at essence.

**2.** Likewise, generation in God is terminated: either, therefore, at substance, or at accident, since every being is substance or accident; but in God it is not terminated at an accident, since none is there: therefore at substance. If you say that in God, although there is no accident, there is nevertheless relation, which is distinguished from substance, then it is argued thus: either generation will be terminated at substance, or at relation; but not at relation, since in *ad aliquid* (in relation to something) there is no origin per se, nor is production terminated: therefore it is terminated at substance: therefore substance is begotten.

**3.** Likewise, as the Philosopher says: «When we are moved, the things in us are moved, and when we are corrupted, the things in us are corrupted»; and this is so, because the universal has the same being as the singular: therefore, since substance is much more the same as the person — and substance is in the person — if the person is begotten, so also the substance.

**4.** Likewise, *to beget*, both in God and in creatures, is *to produce a likeness of itself*; but the likeness is not in the person, but in the substance and in the nature: therefore, since generation is terminated at the like insofar as it is like, therefore at the substance, according to which the likeness is observed.

*On the contrary:*

**1.** Whatever is begotten is begotten by another, since nothing begets itself; but the divine substance does not have another, nor is there another in God: therefore it is not begotten.

**2.** Likewise, whatever is begotten has a *principle from which*; but everything that has a principle is principled; and principle and principled are distinguished: if therefore substance is begotten, it is distinguished — either from substance or from a person; but both are impossible: therefore, etc.

**3.** Likewise, whatever is begotten is from the substance of the begetter; if therefore substance is begotten, the substance or essence is from the substance of the begetter; but there is altogether only one substance: therefore the same thing is from itself, which is impossible.

**4.** Likewise, generation is production; but production is a kind of action, and every action of a creature is terminated at singulars: therefore, since generation is a kind of action, in God it will be terminated at the singular or supposit; but such is not substance: therefore it will not be terminated at it.

### Conclusion

> *Since in God generation is terminated only at the first substance, which is a person, not at second substance or essence, it is by no means received that substance is begotten.*

**I respond:** It must be said that generation, by its common account, is terminated at substance. But it should be noted that *substance* is said in two ways: *first*, that which is the individual and hypostasis or person; and *second*, that which is the common. I say therefore that one can speak of the term of generation in two ways: either as to *production*, or as to *intention*. As to production, since it concerns the singular, it is terminated at first substance, and as to intention at the common nature, because the nature producing this man intends to give him the common form.

But since in creatures the common form is numbered in supposits, therefore in them the common form is produced and corrupted; and therefore in creatures generation, not only according to intention but also according to production, is terminated at common substance; and so the universal is begotten in the singular, because it is numbered. But since in God substance is not numbered, nor does a new being come to it, therefore generation according to production is terminated only at first substance, which is the person, because a person, according to Boethius, «is the individual substance of a rational nature». And since that alone is properly said to be begotten at which generation is terminated according to the account of producing, therefore the person is begotten, not the substance or essence. And therefore this is not received: *essence is begotten*.

And thus all the objections on either side are clear; for they proceed by different ways.

It is also clear why in God it does not follow that, when the person is begotten, the substance is begotten, as in creatures. Yet it could be put another way: that the common is not begotten except *in this* (i.e. in the singular); and this is true not only in creatures, but also in God. *The common*, however, as *in this* is signified not in abstraction, but in concretion; and therefore, since this name *God* signifies substance in concretion, *God is begotten* and *God begets God*. But because *substance* or *essence* signifies in abstraction, therefore it neither begets nor is begotten; and thus the arguments proceed to the opposite parts.