Dist. 6, Art. 1, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Single Article.
### Question III. *Whether the generation of the Son is according to the account of exemplarity.*

Lastly it is asked whether the generation of the Son from the Father is according to the account of exemplarity. And that it is so seems thus.

1. On that text of the Psalm: *Once has God spoken*, the Gloss: "that is, he begot the Son, in whom he disposed all things"; but eternal disposition expresses the account of an exemplar: therefore if the Son proceeds as a word, he proceeds by way of exemplarity.

2. Likewise, the generation of the Son from the Father is similar to the production of knowledge from the mind; but knowledge proceeds from the mind according to the account of an exemplar, because the exemplar is the ground of knowing: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, that which is "image" in the produced is "exemplar" in the producer; for when the produced expressly represents, it is called an image. Similarly, when the producer expressly represents, it is called an exemplar: therefore since the Son proceeds as image, by the same account he proceeds by way of exemplarity.

4. Likewise, every cognitive principle of a thing to be produced produces according to the account of exemplifying; but the Father is the cognitive principle of the Son: therefore he produces the Son according to the account of an exemplar. If you say that this does not suffice, but rather it is necessary that exemplar and exemplate differ in form and nature, this is nothing, because if a man, while begetting a man, were able to beget such a one as he conceives, then that generation would not only be according to nature, but also according to an exemplar. But the Father wholly produced the Son as he knew and willed: therefore etc. If you say that not even this suffices, but it is necessary that the exemplar precede; it is objected: if God from eternity had created the world per impossibile, nonetheless the world would have been produced according to the account of exemplarity.

**On the contrary:**
1. In lower things an agent acting through nature and one acting through an exemplar are divided as opposites, as nature and intellect: therefore what is produced according to nature is not produced according to the account of an exemplar, but the Son is produced from the Father according to nature: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, everything producing something according to the account of exemplarity produces according to the account of will; but the Father, as has been shown above, does not produce the Son through will: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, of a form there is no form, therefore neither of an exemplar an exemplar; but the Son is the art and exemplar of all things: therefore he does not have an exemplar in the Father: therefore he does not proceed according to the account of exemplarity.

4. Likewise, what is in another according to truth is not in him according to an exemplar; but the Son is in the Father according to truth: therefore not according to an exemplar; but what is not in another according to an exemplar does not proceed according to the account of an exemplar: therefore etc.

> **Conclusion.** The Son proceeds from the Father as the ground of exemplifying, not as an exemplate from an exemplar.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as to proceed by way of will and liberality is twofold — for in one way that which is not liberality, but is brought about or given out of liberality, proceeds by way of liberality; and thus creatures proceed from God; in another way [proceeds] as that which is the ground of liberality, as love; and thus the Holy Spirit proceeds as love, who is the gift in whom all gifts are given — so to proceed by way of exemplarity is twofold. In one way as an exemplate properly; and thus a creature proceeds from God as an exemplate from an exemplar, and thus the exemplar imports formal causality with respect to the exemplate. In another way it is said to proceed by way of exemplarity as the ground of exemplifying. And thus the Son himself seems to proceed, who is called the Word of the Father,

by which the Father not only utters himself, but also disposes the rest. Hence the Son, according to Augustine in the sixth book *On the Trinity*, is called "an art full of all the living rationales." And from this arises that which is wont to be said, namely that he who denies that the ideas exist denies that the Son of God exists. And this manner of proceeding according to exemplarity is not repugnant to natural procession; rather, it cannot but be natural. The other manner, however, is repugnant to natural procession; for it is according to the command of will, so that producer and produced differ as cause and caused, and the one is not in the other according to truth.

Hence the reasons brought forward to this side proceed along this way and according to this way conclude truly; according to the other, none concludes; rather, all are to be solved by interception.

But those which are objected on the contrary all proceed along the other way, because they say that what proceeds by way of exemplarity is the ground of exemplifying; which is plain, because they are taken from the account of eternal disposition, of knowing, and of image. The last reason, however, concludes that he proceeds by way of exemplarity as an exemplate, and therefore is to be solved by interception.

4. To that which is objected, that every principle of a thing to be produced, if it has cognition, produces through an exemplar; it must be said that this is false, unless the account of cognition precedes, in such a way that it has fore-cognition at least according to the account of cause to effect; which ordering requires essential or substantial diversity. For the exemplate, insofar as it is an exemplate, is not in the exemplifier according to truth, but through a likeness; which likeness, I say, since it is the ground of knowing and of exemplifying, is called an exemplar. The Son therefore proceeds according to the account of exemplarity, not as an exemplate through an exemplar, but as the exemplar itself, or the ground of exemplifying the rest. And if you object that the exemplar is common to the whole Trinity, the Auxerrian responds to this in his question *On the archetypal world or on the ideas*, that the idea or archetypal world is not only appropriated to the Son himself, but also proper [to him].

Or otherwise it can be said, that insofar as the exemplar expresses the ground of knowing, it is thus common to the whole Trinity and is appropriated to the Son, as wisdom. But insofar as beyond this it expresses the ground of emanating, it is thus proper to the Son; and thus it is imported by this name *Word*, as will better appear below.