Dist. 6, 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/6/q/bon-sent-I-d6-a1-q2
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### Question II

*Whether the generation in God is according to the account of will.*

Second it is asked whether the generation of the Son is according to the account of will. And that it is not, is shown first by authorities, second by reasons:

**1.** First, it is shown by the authority of Hilary, who says in the book *On the Synods*: «To all creatures *will* gave the substance of God, but to the Son *nature* gave it».

**2.** Likewise, Augustine in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity* rebukes Eunomius, who held that the Son of God is *Son of will*: therefore if he rightly rebukes him, the generation of the Son is not according to the condition of will.

**3.** Likewise, by reasons it is shown thus: Generation, as it is in itself, is a natural going-forth, or by way of nature; but this is another mode of producing than through will: therefore, etc.

**4.** Likewise, the Son is the Father's *Wisdom*: therefore if He proceeds according to the account of will, will is prior to wisdom; but this is incongruous, because cognition according to the natural order of understanding precedes affection or will: therefore, etc.

*On the contrary:*

**1.** In every well-ordered nature, what is naturally placed is subject to the will, or at least is conformed to the will — as is clear in the first man; but in God the nature is most well-ordered: therefore there is nothing from nature or through nature which is not also through will: therefore, etc.

**2.** Likewise, the mode of proceeding is similar in the created image and in the uncreated Trinity; but in the image knowledge arises from the mind by means of the will: therefore so the Son [arises] from the Father by means of the will, or through the will. The minor premise is clear from Augustine, ninth book *On the Trinity*: «The birth of the mind is preceded by appetite, by which — when, by seeking, we find what we wish to know — there is born an offspring, which is knowledge itself».

**3.** Likewise, where there is greater communication, there is greater liberality; but the Father communicates more to the Son than to all creatures: therefore there is greater liberality there: therefore, since creatures proceed by way of liberality, much more so the Son.

**4.** Likewise, in creatures in the act of generation nature and will move at the same time, and nothing of this is detracted from the son: therefore if the Father produces according to His whole self more than the creature does: therefore much more strongly through nature *and* will.

**5.** Likewise, for this is the authority of Hilary in the third [book] *On the Trinity*: «The Father before all time procreated the Son, imparting all that He is as God by *charity* to His birth»; if through *charity*: therefore through will.

**6.** Likewise, Origen, speaking of the divine mind, says: «Bearing the seed of will, He becomes Father of the Word»: therefore it seems that the Son is begotten by the Father through will, and that He is *Son of will*.

### Conclusion

> *The generation of the Son is according to will as in the account of approving — but not as in the account of producing, except insofar as the will is a principle conjoined to nature; and this so that nature produces principally, with the will concomitant.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the will can be considered in two ways with respect to what is willed — namely either as *in the account of approving and loving*; and so it is with respect to every good — whether it be necessary or contingent, whether created or uncreated, or from another (which is what is said: that some things are from nature, others from will); — or as *conjoined*.

The Father wills that He Himself is God. In another way [the will] is considered as in the account of producing. And this in two ways: either as it is a principle distinct from nature — according to which it is said that some things are from nature, others from will — or as it is conjoined.

*If as a distinct principle*, the will is then distinguished in two ways: as *accedent* and *antecedent*. The *accedent* will is by which someone, from non-willing, becomes willing; this is not in God — neither with respect to God nor with respect to creature. For God does not have any new will either with respect to Himself or with respect to another. The *antecedent* will precedes the effect in causality and in duration; this indeed is in God, but not with respect to God — only with respect to creature. For all the divine persons are simultaneous.

*In another way, as the will is considered as a principle conjoined to nature*, it can be in two ways; for then nature and will are the principle: either nature is the principal producer, with will concomitant, or conversely; for both cannot be principal.

If *the will is the principle*, with nature concomitant — so is the procession of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds by way of love, yet similar in nature. If *nature is the first* *principle*, with the will concomitant — so is the generation of the Son, who is produced as wholly similar and by way of nature, yet as *beloved*; and therefore it is said that the Father is well-pleased in Him, and at Colossians 1 He is called *Son of charity*.

**1., 5., 6.** To the objection on the contrary, that generation is by way of will or according to the account of will: it must be said that this is understood either of the will *approving* — as the two authorities of Hilary and Origen show — or of the will *concomitant*, as the reason set down first holds.

**2.** To the objection from the likeness of the image: it must be said that in this respect the created image is unlike the uncreated Trinity itself, as Augustine says in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity* — because there a word is not born by inquiry, as it can be born in us; whence [the argument] avails for the opposite rather than for the proposition.

**3.** To the objection that there is greater communication in the generation of the Son: it must be said that greater or lesser communication does not make the mode of emanation be according to liberality or according to the mode of will, but rather the *mode or account of communicating*. And because the Father communicates to creatures through will (so that His will is the producing cause), and to the Son through the fruitfulness of nature: therefore the Son is not said to be produced through will in the same way as creatures are.

**4.** To the objection that in the generation of a man nature and will move together: it must be said that this is on account of defect rather than completion; because the father by himself cannot generate, but only through conjunction with another distant being — which happens at the command of the will. But God needs no other helper; and therefore it is not similar.