Dist. 7
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-littera
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### Distinction VII

#### Chapter I

*Whether the Father could or willed to beget the Son.*

Here it is wont to be asked by some, whether the Father could or willed to beget the Son. For if, they say, he could and willed to beget the Son: therefore he could and willed something which the Son neither could nor willed; for the Son neither could nor willed to beget a Son. To which subtlety we easily reply, saying: to be able or to will to beget the Son is not to be able or to will something subject to will or to power. There is, however, some power or will, namely, to be able or to will to beget the Son; and therefore the meaning of the proposed phrase is to be distinguished: to be able or to will to beget the Son is to be able or to will *something*. For neither is the generation of the Son any of those things which are subject to the divine power and will, nor is it any thing among all things or of all things, but above all and before all. For he did not will or have power before he begot; just as he did not exist before he begot, since from eternity he was and from eternity he begot. We can also see this from a similar case. For the Father can be Father and wills to be Father; the Son, however, neither can nor wills to be Father: therefore the Father can or wills to be something which the Son cannot or does not will to be. It does not follow, because to be Father is not to be *something*, but is to be *in relation to something*, as will be shown in what follows.

But what Augustine says in the second book *Against Maximinus* greatly moves us — Maximinus, who asserted that the Father is more powerful than the Son, in that the Father begot the Son a Creator God, but the Son did not; and he said the Father could have begotten one not a Son; and therefore was more powerful than the Son. Replying to which, Augustine seems to say that the Son also could have begotten, wishing to show that the Father is not more powerful than the Son, in these words: «Far be it that the Father be therefore more powerful than the Son, as you suppose, because the Father begot a Creator, but the Son did not beget a Creator; for it is not that he could not, but that he ought not». See and diligently attend to these words: *for it is not that he could not, but that he ought not*. For he seems to say that the Son could have begotten, but ought not to have; and so could what he ought not. Why he ought not, Augustine adds, saying: «For the divine generation would be immoderate, if the begotten Son were to beget a grandson for the Father, since that grandson too, unless he were to beget a great-grandson for his grandfather, would, according to your wondrous wisdom, be called impotent. Likewise also that one, if he were not to beget a grandson for his grandfather and a great-grandson for his great-grandfather, would not be called by you omnipotent; nor would the series of generation be fulfilled, if always one were born from another; nor would any complete it, unless one omnipotent suffice. Therefore the Father's nature *begot* the Son omnipotent, it did not *make* him».

This, however, does not seem to some able to stand, namely that the Son could have begotten. For if the Son could have begotten, he could have been a father; and if he could have been a father, then he could have been father either of himself, or of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of some other. But not of another, because no other always was; nor of the Father, because the Father is unbegotten and innascible; nor of himself, «because no thing can beget itself»; nor of the Holy Spirit, because he could not be born. For if he could be born, he could be a son, and so could be mutable.

How then is to be taken what was said above: *for it is not that he could not beget, but that he ought not*, as if he could, but ought not? It is not clear to us how to explain how this is true, and so it should rather be passed over in silence, were not the importunity of those who ask compelling me to say something on it.

It can therefore be understood thus: *for it is not that he could not, but that he ought not*, that is, it was not from any impotence of his that the Son did not beget, but it did not befit him, just as God the Son is not God the Father; nor yet is this from any impotence of his. For likewise the Father is not the Son, nor is this from any impotence of the Father. But Maximinus, the Bishop of the Arians, asks: whence then is it, that the Father cannot be Son, or the Son Father? Surely not from impotence, but the Father is Father by the property of generation, by which it is fitting that he not be the Son, and the Son is Son by the property of nativity, by which it is fitting that he not be the Father. Of which properties more fully will be treated hereafter.

#### Chapter II

*Whether to be able to beget the Son is some power in the Father which is not in the Son.*

Likewise it is asked by some, whether the Father is able by nature to beget the Son, and whether this is some power which is not in the Son. To which we say, that the Father is not able save by nature; for his power is nature or essence. But they say: if he is able to beget, therefore he has the power of begetting; the Son, however, does not have the power of begetting, if he cannot beget: therefore the Father has some power which the Son does not have. It does not follow. For the Son has wholly the same power as the Father, that by which the Father could beget, and the Son could be begotten. For the same power is in the Son, by which he could be begotten, which is in the Father, by which he could beget. But against this it is objected: to be able to beget is one thing, to be able to be begotten is another; for to beget is one thing, to be begotten another. Here a distinction must be made. For if, when it is said: *to be able to beget is one thing, to be able to be begotten another*, you signify one power, by which the Father is able to beget, and another, by which the Son is able to be begotten, the understanding is false. But if you say that the Father can have one property or notion, by which he is begetter; and the Son another, by which he is begotten, the understanding is true. For the Father has one property, by which he is Father, the Son another, by which he is Son. So also, when it is said: *the Son does not have the power of begetting which the Father has*, it can be understood in two ways. For if it be said: the Son does not have the power of begetting which the Father has, that is, by which he is able to generation, that is, that he should have begotten, or that he should beget as the Father, it is true. But if it be understood thus: he does not have the power by which he could be begotten or be one begotten, by which same the Father is able, that he should have begotten or that he should beget, it is false; just as it is said: the Father has the power by which he can be Father; the Son, however, does not have the power by which he could be Father; and conversely, the Son has the power by which he can be Son, but the Father does not have the power by which he could be Son: therefore the Father has some which the Son does not have, and conversely. Far be it; for the same is the power of the Father, by which he can be Father, and of the Son, by which he can be Son. So too the same is the will, by which the Father wills to be Father, not Son, and the Son wills to be Son, not Father: and the same is the will of the Son, by which he wills to be begotten, and that the Father has begotten; and of the Father, by which he wills to be begetter, and that the Son is begotten.

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