Dist. 1, Part 1, Art. 3, 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/2/d/1/q/bon-sent-II-d1-p1-a3-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether creation implies a medium between Creator and creature.*

Second, the question is asked whether creation implies a medium between Creator and creature. And that it does, it seems:

**1.** As *to be generated* stands to *to have been generated*, and *to come-to-be* stands to *to have been made*, so *to be created* stands to *to have been created*; but *to come-to-be* is a medium between the maker and the thing made, and *to be generated* between the generator and the generated: therefore etc.

**2.** Likewise, in all created beings «*that which is* and *that by which it is*» differ, even formally: therefore likewise *that by which it is created* and *that which is created* differ. But *that which is created* is the creature; *that by which it is created* is formally the creation: therefore the creation differs from the creature, and similarly creation-as-passion differs from the Creator: therefore it is between the two.

**3.** Likewise, what *passes away* is not the same as what *remains*; but *to be created* for a thing is in an instant, and not beyond it: therefore since the *being* of the creature endures and remains after creation, then *to be created* and *to be* differ, and so creation differs from creature.

**4.** Likewise, every mutation is a *way*, and every way differs from its terminus, because nothing is terminated at itself; if therefore creation is a mutation and has the creature for its terminus, then it differs from the creature as way from terminus. But way falls in the middle between its extremes: therefore etc.

**5.** Likewise, by reduction to impossibility: if creation is a creature, and every creature is created, therefore the creation is created; but everything that is created is created by means of a mediating creation: therefore the creation is created by another creation, and so on to infinity. If therefore one cannot proceed to infinity, the conclusion is plain etc.

**On the contrary:**

**1.** The Philosopher in the *Book of Causes*: «The first of created things is *being*»; but nothing on the side of the creature is before *being created*: therefore *to be created* is nothing other than *to be*, and so creation is not other than essence: therefore there is no difference between creation and creature.

**2.** Likewise, between *being from another* and *not from another* there is no medium; but everything which is not from another is the Creator, and everything which is essentially from another is the creature: therefore between them there is no medium.

**3.** Likewise, it is shown by reduction to impossibility. The creature is referred to the Creator; either then by itself, or through another. If through another, the question is asked about that other, whether it is referred by itself or by another, and so proceeding to infinity. But if it is referred by itself — and it is referred through creation — then creation is nothing other than the creature.

**4.** Likewise, if creation is a medium between Creator and creature, then either eternal, or temporal. If eternal, then something eternal is other than God; if temporal, then before every creature there is something temporal. Both of which are heretical to say and were reproved in the Council of Sens concerning the *ideas*, which were posited by some as media between God and things.

**5.** Likewise, this seems provable from proportion. For as the Creator stands to the creature, so creation-as-action stands to creation-as-passion: therefore, by alternation of proportion, as the Creator stands to active creation, so the creature stands to passive creation: but the Creator does not differ in reality from creation-as-action: therefore etc.

### *Conclusion.*

> Creation-as-action is a medium between Creator and creature only according to the reason understanding [it]; creation-as-passion is not other in reality from the creature, nor a medium between the creature and God according to essence, but [only] according to reason and relation.

**I respond:** It must be said that one may speak of creation-as-action and of creation-as-passion. If we speak of creation-as-action, then I say it is not a medium in reality but only according to the reason understanding [it], because God, being supremely simple, is his own action. But if we speak of creation-as-passion, then a distinction must be made, because by the name *creature* one can signify and import everything which is from another, such that it has *being* after sheer non-being. And in this way the creation itself is included in the name of *creature*, because *creature* names not only the things created but also what is co-created [with them]; and so it is no medium, neither in reality nor in reason. In another way, *creature* names the very substance of the thing produced by someone from nothing; and in this way creation holds a middle place not in reality and nature, but in reason and relation.

That account [of "medium"] nevertheless does not say nothing; but it does not say anything which is essentially diverse from the creature, and this is plain as follows. For creation is said to be *from nothing*, and creation is likewise said to be *from God*; whence by the very account of its name it implies a relation of the thing to its preceding non-being and to its producing being. For *to be created* does not principally signify *to be*, but *to go out from non-being into being*, and this from some [agent].

If then it be asked, what is the relation imported by the comparison to non-being, it must be said that this relation is called *mutation*. — And if you ask what that mutation is, I say it is nothing other than the thing itself. — And this is plain, because there is *mutation toward being*, and *mutation from being*, and *mutation within being*. Mutation *toward being* posits nothing except on the side of the terminus; mutation *from being* posits nothing except on the side of the principle; mutation *within being* posits something on the side of both; and therefore *to be changed* in the first mode is nothing other than *to be now for the first time*. Mutation in the second mode is nothing other than *to be now for the last time*; and therefore it does not posit anything other in reality, but only according to intention. Mutation *within being*, however, has both extremes and a subject, which is prior in nature to its terminus. Therefore such a mutation can be something prior in nature to its terminus and diverse from it in reality, even though it is not yet a being complete in act. — And therefore creation is not a medium between Creator and creature in the way generation is between generator and generated. So, speaking of the comparison toward non-being, it implies a medium not diverse in essence, but only according to reason.

Likewise speaking of the comparison toward the Creator. For relation is threefold: one kind founded upon an accidental property — as some are called *similar* because both are white; another founded upon essential dependence — as the comparison of matter to form; another upon natural origin. The first relation adds something other in essence; the third relation adds nothing other than purely

*to be*, as is plain in the divine [Persons]; the middle relation says something which is in one way the same and in another way other. — Creation says a relation in the middle mode, since the creature itself essentially and totally depends upon the Creator.

And so it must be granted that creation is not other in reality from the creature, nor a medium between the creature and God according to essence, but [only] according to reason and relation; whence *to be created* is prior in nature to *to be*, but not in duration. Yet creation-as-action is more *the same* with the Creator than creation-as-passion is *the same* with the creature, because there [in the divine] there is no difference except according to our mode of understanding; here however there is a difference of reason and even of relation — which does not make a diversity in essence, because that relation is essential. The same is to be judged concerning essential unity, goodness, and truth.

Once these things are seen, the objections are plain. For the reasons proving that there is no true medium in reality are to be granted.

**To the arguments.**

*To 1.* What is objected from *to be generated* and *to have been generated*, the answer is plain from what was said: because generation is not according to the whole, but rather something is presupposed of what is generated, the *entelechy* of which is the generation itself, prior in nature to the form itself, and through this it marks diversity. It is not so with creation, according to which the whole substance of the thing comes about from the divine power immediately, which creates the thing by willing it first to be, when it was not.

*To 2.* What is objected, that *quod* ("that which") and *quo* ("that by which") differ; it must be said that this is not a difference in essence, but in one way they differ and in another way they agree. — Or it must be said that the cases are not alike, because creation embraces the whole substance of the thing, which is said to consist of *that by which it is* and *that which is*.

*To 3.* What is objected, that [creation] passes away; it must be said that it does not pass away by reason of what underlies its signification, but only by reason of what it connotes; which is plain. For if *to be created* is *to be now for the first time*, then *to be created* ceases not by reason of what it posits, but by reason of its immediate ordering toward nothing.

*To 4.* What is objected, that mutation is a *way*; it must be said that the mutation which has two extremes is the one which necessarily differs from its terminus — of which kind is mutation *within being*; but the mutation which has only its final extreme as being cannot imply a medium, but it must necessarily belong with one of the extremes.

*To 5.* What is objected, that every creature is created; it must be said that this is true of creature properly so called; but if it is said broadly, then *creature* names not only what is created but also what is *co-created* and what is annexed to the creature — and in this way creation [is creature]. — If therefore it is asked how this can be, it must be said that in the first things there is a *stop*, as has been touched earlier. Hence as the unity which makes the subject one is not one by another unity, so neither is the creation by which the substance goes out into being produced or co-created by another creation.