Dist. 7, 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/7/q/bon-sent-I-d7-a1-q3
----------------------------------------
### Question III

*Whether the power of begetting and the power of creating are one power.*

Third it is asked whether *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create* is one being-able; and that it is not one, seems evident:

**1.** Augustine: «He is Father by one [thing], God by another»: therefore by one He is generator, by another creator: but the power of begetting is generative, the power of creating is creative: therefore, etc.

**2.** Likewise, powers are distinguished by their acts, and acts by their objects; therefore if generation is terminated at God and creation at the creature, and these are altogether diverse: therefore, etc.

**3.** Likewise, powers are pluralized by subjects, since in many having power there are many powers; but the power of creating is in the Son — that is, *to be able to create* — yet in Him there is not *to be able to beget*: therefore they are not one *being-able*.

**4.** Likewise, whatever things are such that one can be understood without the other being understood, and conversely, those are not one; but *to be able to beget* can be understood when the power of creating is set aside, and conversely *to be able to create* when the power of begetting is set aside: therefore, etc.

*On the contrary:*

**1.** Of one altogether simple having-power there is only one being-able; but the Father is altogether simple having-power: therefore He has only one being-able; but He has *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create*: therefore those two are one being-able.

**2.** Likewise, if being-able is one [thing] and another, since *to be able to beget* regards person and *to be able to create* regards nature: therefore nature and person are two: therefore neither is the nature said of the person, nor conversely — which is altogether false.

**3.** Likewise, if there is a distinction between *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create*: then there is order there. I ask, therefore, what is prior according to the account of understanding. And that the power of begetting is, seems evident — because it is with respect to the eternal, and the eternal is prior to the temporal. But on the contrary: the understanding of the common is before the understanding of the proper; but the power of creating denotes what is common to the three, while the power of begetting denotes what is proper to the Father: therefore, etc.

### Conclusion

> *The power of begetting and the power of creating differ not in reality but only according to the account of understanding.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create* are one being-able, yet said in two ways. For *to be Father* and *to be God* are one being in reality, but differ according to the account of understanding — because this is absolute, when I say *to be God*; that is relative, when I say *to be Father*. Likewise it must also be understood in *being-able*. Hence as essence and person are one in reality, yet there is a difference of account in understanding and in speaking, so it must be said of the power of begetting and creating.

And just as there is there a difference not in reality but according to account, so there is also order according to the account of understanding. Hence according to diverse comparisons they have one and another order. For comparing *to be able to create* and *to be able to beget* *to that to which they belong* — since the power of creating belongs to nature, and the power of begetting to person, and the understanding of the common is before the understanding of the proper — thus without dispute the power of *creating* is prior according to the account of understanding. But comparing them *to that at which they are terminated* — since the power of creating regards the temporal, while the power of begetting regards the eternal — the power of *begetting* is prior according to the account of understanding to the power of creating; and so the objections concerning order are clear.

The arguments showing that *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create* do not differ by a difference according to reality or essence are therefore to be conceded.

**1.** To the objection, therefore, that *He is God by one, Father by another*: it must be said that Augustine speaks of *one and another* with an *otherness of account*, and not of reality. And *otherness of account* is understood in that way which was said above in distinction five, where it is asked whether the essence begets.

**2.** To the objection that powers are distinguished by their acts, etc.: it must be said that this is true of those acts which have their *completion from their objects*; but divine acts are not so. Hence although the creature and the Son altogether differ, nevertheless generation and creation are the same, just as essence and person. For God in acting is not completed by an object, since *He acts by Himself*.

**3.** To the objection that powers are pluralized by subjects: it must be said that this is true of the *proper subject*; but the Son, *insofar as He is Son*, is not the subject of the power of creating, but *insofar as He is God*. And it is plain that the divine nature does not make number with the Father; thus neither does the power regarding the nature with the power of the Father.

**4.** To the last objection, that one can be understood without the other and conversely: it must be said that you speak either as to *what is signified* or as to *what is connoted*. If as to what is connoted, you speak truly — that the creature can be understood without the person of the Son being understood, and conversely. If as to *the principal signified*, you speak falsely: for it is impossible to understand the power of begetting without the power of creating, just as it is impossible to understand person without essence.