Dist. 9, 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/9/q/bon-sent-I-d9-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether generation in God is eternal.*

Thirdly it is asked, whether the divine generation is eternal. And that it is so, is shown in this way.

1. In creatures, that which operates naturally operates as quickly as it can, and it pertains to the perfection of an agent that it be able to operate most swiftly: therefore since the production of the Son from the Father is through nature and supreme power, as soon as he was, the Father generated; but he was from eternity: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it pertains to the perfection of generation that what is generated be equal to what generates: therefore since the divine generation is most perfect, the Son will be in all things equal to the Father; but the Father is infinite in duration: therefore so also the Son.

3. Likewise, to understand itself is coeternal with the divine mind; for it is never to be supposed that God became understanding from a non-understanding being; but the word is coeternal with the understanding mind; for from this, that the mind understands itself, it begets a word. If therefore the Son is most properly the word, he is coeternal with the Father; and this is what blessed John says: *In the beginning was the Word*.

4. Likewise, this same point is shown by [the argument from] impossibility. Everything which began to be has been changed according to substance; but everything which begins to be generated, begins to be: therefore everything which begins to be generated has been changed according to substance; but generation is of the substance of the generator: therefore where generation begins to be, the substance of the generator is changed; but the substance of God the Father, according to its being, is immutable: therefore generation does not begin in God.

**On the contrary:**

1. As corruption stands to non-being on the side of the end, so generation [stands] on the side of the beginning; but everything which is corrupted ceases to be: therefore everything which is generated begins to be; but no such thing is eternal: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, whatever the divine essence produces is posterior to it in time or in duration: therefore by parity of reasoning whatever the divine person produces [is posterior to it], since essence and person are the same.

3. Likewise, in God his being and his duration are the same; but the Son has a principle of being: therefore he has a principle of duration: but what has a principle of duration begins to be: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, the Father lacks principle and lacks beginning: therefore by the same reasoning by which he communicates to the Son not to have a beginning, by the same reasoning he communicates to him not to have a principle; or if not the one, then not the other either.

> **Conclusion.** Generation in God is eternal because of the supreme fecundity of the one generating, and the supreme equality of the one generated, and the supreme actuality of both.

**I respond:** It must be said that the generation of the Son is eternal both by reason of the one generating and by reason of the one generated: by reason of the one generating because of [his] supreme and perfect fecundity, by reason of the one generated because of [his] supreme and perfect equality; each of these conditions removes [the possibility] that the Son be posterior to the Father, as has been seen in the opposing arguments. Another reason is on account of the supreme actuality in each, in which act is not distant from potency, nor does the capacity-to-be precede being.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**

1. To that which is objected, that corruption posits a final term; it must be said that corruption always denotes privation, and change, and thus a conversion of being into non-being; and therefore it posits a final term. But generation sometimes denotes change, as in creatures, and thus posits an initial term; but in God it does not denote change from non-being, but emanation from being.

2. To that which is objected, that the essence produces nothing except in time; it must be said that just as a person produces another person, so the essence [produces] another essence. But it does not produce another essence from itself, since it is unmultipliable, nor from another, because it would similarly be a matter of asking whence it produces that other; and thus it is necessary in the first production of a creature, that it produce from nothing; and everything thus produced has being after non-being, and thus a beginning. But the person does not produce a person from nothing; and therefore it does not make a being out of non-being, and therefore such a production posits no beginning.

3. To that which is objected, that the Son has a principle of being; it must be said that "principle" is said in two ways, namely as originative and as initial. According to the way "principle" is said originatively, thus the Son has a principle both as to being and as to duration, because he has each from another. But if "principle" be called a beginning, thus I say, that he has neither a principle of being nor of duration. The first sense of "principle" does not take away the character of the eternal; the second indeed does.

4. To that which is objected last, why the Father communicates to the Son lack of beginning but not of principle; the response is now clear: because the temporal and the eternal differ of necessity by essence, principle and principled do not so [differ]; therefore the case of the one is not like the case of the other. Because therefore that which has a beginning is temporal, [and] that which lacks one is eternal; therefore since the Father and the Son are of one essence, this is clear etc. Again, since to have a principle and not to have one express a difference of person, and this is between the Father and the Son; therefore just as the Father does not communicate to the Son [his] person, but only [his] nature or essence, so he has communicated to him not having a beginning, but he has not communicated [to him] not having a principle.