Dist. 7, 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/7/q/bon-sent-I-d7-a1-q2
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### Question II

*Whether the power of begetting is in the Son.*

Second it is asked whether the power of begetting is in the Son; and that it is, seems evident by authorities and by reasons.

**1.** First thus: Hilary in the ninth book *On the Trinity* says: «The Son has in Himself naturally a generating nature»: therefore the nature in the Son is naturally suited to generate.

**2.** Likewise, Augustine in the book *Against Maximinus*: «For not that the Son could not generate»; but two negations equal one affirmation: therefore He could generate.

**3.** Likewise, by reasons it is shown thus: *to generate* is more ordered to the *power of generating* than to the *power of spirating*; but the Father, by generating the Son, communicates to Him the power of spirating: therefore much more strongly the power of generating.

**4.** Likewise, the Son is the most express image of the Father: therefore He imitates the Father so perfectly that no greater likeness can be conceived; but if the Son is conceived as generating, He is conceived as imitating still more: therefore if He imitates more than can be conceived, then also in the act of generating.

**5.** Likewise, *by analogy* it seems thus: greater communication and diffusion is in the eternal Light than in created light; but created light gives to its splendor the power of producing another, and so on; and if it were of infinite power, it would produce infinite splendors: therefore, etc.

**6.** Likewise, in carnal generation a father is not said to generate a perfect son unless he gives him the power of generating: therefore by parity of reason — indeed much more strongly — the Son will not be perfect unless He has the power for that which the Father can [do]; therefore for generating. Or if it is not so in divine things, then I ask the reason why concerning the perfection of eternal generation there is not such a communication of the power of generating as in created generation.

*On the contrary:*

**1.** Augustine *Against Maximinus* says, «that it was not fitting that the Son should generate»; but if it was not opportune, then not fitting either; but every unfitting thing in God is impossible: therefore it was impossible that the Son should generate: therefore the Son cannot generate; therefore He does not have the power of generating, because that one is powerful by every power who has it: therefore, etc.

**2.** Likewise, Anselm in the *Proslogion*: «He who can [do] what is not fitting for him — the more he can [do] it, the more adversity and perversity prevail against him»: therefore since generating is not fitting for the Son, if He could [generate], that power would be in Him a misery; but He has no misery: therefore neither the power of generating.

**3.** Likewise, *by reason* the same is proved thus: everything in which any two are necessarily distinguished, if it necessarily belongs to one, it is impossible that it ever belong to the other, as is plain: if Peter and John necessarily differ in whiteness, and whiteness belongs to Peter, it is impossible that it belong to John; but the Father and the Son are personally distinct, so that they must necessarily be distinct, and there is nothing to give in which

they are distinguished except in this, that the one is generating, the other generated: therefore since generating belongs to the Father, it is impossible that it belong to the Son: therefore the Son cannot generate: therefore He does not have the power of generating.

**4.** Likewise, the generation of the Son by the Father is similar in expression to the very generation of a word from the mind; but a generated word does not have the power of generating another word — rather every word must be immediately from the mind: therefore if the uncreated Word is rightly similar [to it], He does not have the power of generating, but the power of generating is in the Father alone.

**5.** Likewise, let the Augustinian argument be made leading to the impossible. If the Son has a power or ability for generating, suppose that He generates; I ask similarly of the second; and if there is no stopping at the first, infinite sons must be posited, because by the same reason that there is no stopping at the first, there is no stopping anywhere: therefore if there is a stop — because this is repugnant to divine completion — but by the same reason that there is a stopping anywhere, there is a stopping at the first: therefore the first does not have the power of generating.

**6.** Likewise, let Richard's argument be made: if the Son were to generate another son: then since a begotten son belongs more to his father than to his grandfather, accordingly there would not there be the supreme and equal connection: therefore neither supreme and equal love: therefore neither perfect beatitude — all of which, as supremely impossible things, pious faith rejects.

### Conclusion

> *The Father does not communicate the power of begetting to the Son, which is proved by two reasons.*

**I respond:** The opinion of some is that the power of begetting is in the Son, but that He does not generate. This, however, is not because He cannot, but because it is not fitting for Him. And they posit a similar case in the production of creatures or in creation: God can produce infinite creatures; but that He does not produce [them] is not from impotence, but because it is not fitting for Him; so also in the matter at hand.

*But on the contrary:* Suppose, then, that the power that is in the Son for generating is brought into act; it is plain that the Son will generate an eternal God: therefore something will be able to begin to have being and to be eternal; but this is impossible and unintelligible.

Therefore it must be said that the Father does not communicate to the Son *to be able to generate*, for two reasons. One is that *He cannot*, the other, that *He ought not*.

The reason, then, why *He cannot* is this: because fruitfulness for generating is in the Father because [He is] principle, and so [He is] principle because [He is] first. But it is impossible that the first communicate primacy to another. For it is a contradiction in terms that a produced person be first. Since therefore fruitfulness for generating was in the Father from primacy, He cannot communicate it to the Son; and I believe this to be the proper reason for it, as will appear below in the twenty-seventh distinction, where it will be treated why the Father generates.

Likewise, *He ought not* to communicate, because in the emanation of the divine persons must be observed *original distinction* and *most full communication*: *original distinction*, because what communicate in nature must necessarily be distinguished either by matter or by origin. To be distinguished by matter is impossible for persons; because where there is such a mode of distinguishing, there is composition and variation and multiplication of form — all which are repugnant to God, who is simple and invariable and truly one. And therefore they must necessarily be distinguished by origin or by relation: therefore by *generating* and *being generated*: therefore if the Son can generate, He can also fail to be distinguished. If you say that there is still a distinction, because one is only Father, another only Son, another Father and Son; then I object to you that the second son could generate by the same reason as the first; and then there would be two, each of which would be a father and a son.

Likewise, on account of the *most full communication* He ought not to communicate, because the multiplication of supposita according to a similar mode of issuing forth is only either on account of *a defect of duration* — as has been said — in generable and corruptible things, that being may be perpetuated through successive generation; or on account of *a defect of perfect action*, that there may be done through many what cannot be done through one. Just as many stars have been made, because one would not suffice for what they all do, so also many Angels and many souls for filling that City and manifesting the goodness of God, which neither one soul nor one Angel was able sufficiently to manifest. Since therefore in the Son of God there is most full communication — because the Father gives to Him His whole infinity — it was not fitting that He should communicate to the Son that power: and therefore it was impossible, because whatever is unfitting in divine matters is impossible.

**1.** To that, then, which is objected on the contrary through Hilary's authority — that the Son has in Himself a generating nature: it must be said that this expression is improper, and from improper expressions one must not argue, but rather their impropriety must be expounded, as the Master above expounded. The sense is: *He has in Himself a generating nature* — that is, the nature of the Father.

**2.** To that which is objected — that *not* that He could not: it must be said that the Master rightly explains it, that is, *He was not on this account impotent*. Hence according to the art [of grammar] a distinction must be made when it is said *the Son could not generate*: for *not able* can be taken *privatively*; and then the sense is, *He could not* — that is, *He was impotent*; and then the power is denied and aptitude is left, as is said of one maimed [of legs], that he cannot walk, because he is naturally suited to walking and yet cannot walk: in this way it cannot be said of the Son, because He does not have the aptitude for this; and in this sense Augustine speaks. In another way *not to be able* is taken *negatively*; and in this sense it is to be conceded that the Son could not generate.

**3.** To that which is objected — that the Father communicates to the Son the spirative power: the response is plain: because, since the Son is generated, He cannot have primacy with respect to generation; but since He is not spirated, He is *un-spiratable*: and therefore He could have primacy and fruitfulness with respect to it; and thus it is plain that the reasoning does not hold.

**4.** To that which is objected — that the Son is the most express image, etc.: it must be said that the Son is therefore called the most express image because He represents in all things in which an image is naturally suited to represent; but an image is so suited to represent that it itself nevertheless is not the imaged; otherwise it would not be an image. But if the Son represented [the Father] in the act of generating, He would already be the Father: and therefore it is neither intelligible nor possible that the Son generate or imitate the Father in generating.

**5.** To that which is objected concerning light and splendor, it must be said that it is not similar, because light does not perfectly multiply itself in the first splendor: therefore in many it does what it cannot in one.

**6.** Likewise [the same is to be] understood in the case of the carnal son; whence one father generates many sons. This reasoning, however, is not principal, but the one given above — because in these inferior things fruitfulness is not by reason of *primacy*, but by reason of *perfection*. In God, however, since He is most perfect and first, [fruitfulness] is not only by nature of perfection — because then it would be in all the persons, and a stop could not exist — but by reason of *primacy*. Likewise these reasonings do not proceed by similarity, but rather by dissimilarity.