Dist. 7, Art. 1, Q. 4
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-q4
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### Question IV

*Whether to-be-able-to-be-begotten and to-be-able-to-be-created are a univocal being-able.*

Last it is asked whether *to be able to be begotten* and *to be able to be created* are a univocal being-able. And that they are not, seems evident:

**1.** Because although *to beget* and *to create* are the same as to the principal signified, *to be begotten* and *to be created* are nevertheless different, just as Creator and creature [are different]: therefore since creature and Creator do not have a univocal being: therefore etc.

**2.** Likewise, creation expresses a coming-forth and a change; generation, however, excludes all change: therefore since *to be able to be created* imports a power of being-changed, and *to be able to be begotten* does not, since the powers differ in their general account in the power of being-changed, and they do not agree in this: therefore [they agree] in nothing.

**3.** Likewise, *every* (omne) distributes a term for all things which are univocally or analogically [signified] in it; but when I say *omnipotent*, no distribution is made for that which can beget, because then the Son would not be omnipotent: therefore it is manifest that the two beings-able are neither univocal nor analogical; otherwise omnipotence would not belong to the Son.

*But on the contrary:*

**1.** *Thing* (res) is common to the enjoyable and the useful: therefore since *possible* has equal or greater extension than *thing*, and there is not a greater difference between the begotten and the created than between the enjoyable and the useful, by parity of reason *possible* or *being-able* is common to both.

**2.** Likewise, in eternal things there can be no multiplicity nor diversity: therefore since *to be able to be created* and *to be able to be begotten* have existed from eternity before the establishment of the creature, therefore they do not have multiplication in the power itself.

**3.** Likewise, when I say: *the creature can be created*, I say nothing [is] created; for that is truly said of what is altogether nothing, as of the soul of the Antichrist: therefore I speak only of the agent's power; but the power of God is one, having no multiplicity: therefore His *being-able* is univocal to *to be able to be created* and *to be able to be begotten*.

### Conclusion

> *To-be-able-to-be-begotten and to-be-able-to-be-created, as to the principal signified, are the same in reality and are said univocally; as to the connoted, however, [they are said] analogically.*

**I respond:** It must be said that when I say *to be able to be created* and *to be able to be begotten*, I speak of a principal signified and I speak of a connoted. As to the principal signified, I say that *to be able to be created* says the same in reality as *to be able to create*, differing only in the mode of speaking or saying: because what is said by way of action through *to be able to create*, *to be able to be created* says by way of passion. As to what is connoted, however, it says an effect in the creature.

When, therefore, *to be able to be created* and *to be able to be begotten* are compared, if they are compared by reason of the *principal signified*, I say that it is not only univocal, but indeed one [thing], as has been seen, yet understood and uttered in one way and another, as *to be able to beget* and *to be able to create*. But if they are compared by reason of the *connoted*, then I concede that it is analogical, like this name *thing* (res) for the enjoyable and the useful. For although Creator and creature do not have a common univocal [term], they nevertheless have an analogical one.

It should be noted, however, that analogy is twofold: one [is] by reduction to the unity of *nature* according to prior and posterior; and this can be by comparing creature to creature, and in this [analogy] the sign distributes for all the things contained, unless the distribution be restricted by addition, or by use or mode of speaking — as is called an accommodated distribution — as when it is said: *the sky covers all things*. The other is analogy by reduction to the unity of *proportional likeness*, not of nature; and what is so analogically related is not *among* others, but *above* others. Hence a distribution does not properly distribute for it unless it be extended. Hence God is not a being *among* all things, but *above* all things.

And hence *omnipotent* does not distribute for the power of begetting, taken in the proper distributive sense, unless a certain extension is made — and from that, by consequence, a certain appropriation is made regarding the supposit. Hence properly *omnipotent* belongs to the three [persons], because it does not distribute for the power of begetting; appropriately, however, according as an extension is made on the side of the sign, [it belongs] to the Father alone.

From these [things] the responses to all the objections are clear; for they proceed by different paths, as is plain to one who looks.