Dist. 17, 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/2/d/17/q/bon-sent-II-d17-a1-q3
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### Question III.
### *Whether the soul of Adam was produced before the body, or afterward.*

Thirdly it is asked whether the soul of Adam was produced before the body, or afterward. And that it was before, it seems:

*To the contrary [position].*

1. By the text of Genesis 1: *Let us make man to our image* etc.; this is said on the sixth day; but after the seventh it is added: *And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth:* therefore if the first formation refers to the soul, the second to the body, the soul was made before the body.

2. Likewise, this seems by *reason.* Just as man on the side of the body shares with the brute animals, so on the side of the soul he shares with the Angels: therefore just as the body of man was produced on the same day as the brute animals, so his rational spirit ought to have been produced on the same day as the Angels: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the soul of Adam stands to the body as the aeviternal stands to the temporal, and as aevum stands to time; but aevum is prior to time, and the aeviternal prior to the temporal: therefore the soul of Adam seems to have had to be produced before the body, to which it was to be united.

4. Likewise, a spiritual substance, not depending on the body as to *being,* does not depend as to *production;* but the rational spirit of Adam did not depend on his body as to *being:* therefore not as to *production* either. The body, however, depended on the spirit, because it could not endure without it: therefore if the *absolute* is prior to the *dependent*, the soul ought to have been produced before the body.

5. Likewise, the distance between the spiritual and the corporeal is greater than that between miscible bodies; but miscible bodies are first produced separately, before they are mixed together for the constitution of a third: therefore the soul ought first to have been produced before being united to the body: therefore it was not created in the body, but outside.

6. Likewise, a thing ought to be produced earlier in proportion as it more nearly approaches the primary origin of things; but the soul approaches God, who is the principle of all things, more closely than the human body, since it is more like Him in simplicity and spirituality: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

*Foundations.*

1. Genesis 2: *And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life;* which is expounded, that is, He made the spirit; but to *breathe the breath of life* is nothing other than to *create the soul of man:* therefore if He first created the body before He breathed in the *breath,* then He produced the body before the soul.

2. Likewise, the soul is naturally the form of the body; but a natural form is either produced together with matter, or follows matter: therefore either the soul is not a natural form, or, if it is a natural form, it is produced after the body, or together with the body: therefore not before.

3. Likewise, the nobler a form is, the later [it is]; but the rational soul is the noblest among all natural forms: therefore the last: therefore it ought to be produced after the vegetative and the sensitive.

4. Likewise, an orderly production proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect: if therefore the perfection of all works was accomplished in man, and most of all as to the soul, it seems that man as to the soul ought to have been produced last after all things.

5. Likewise, if the soul had been produced before the body, since it would have had the use of free choice, nothing would have been impeding or delaying it: therefore it seems that before union with the body it would have merited or demerited: therefore the body would not be partaker of all the merit of the soul itself, nor ought the soul be rewarded in the body; but if this is false, it is plain that the soul of Adam was not produced before its body.

6. Likewise, if the soul of Adam were produced before the body: either it would have desired to be united to the body, or not. If not: then its union with the body would not be natural, nor would its union with the body come about by nature; if so: then it desired the body, which it did not have. If, therefore, the body was deferred to it, it was afflicted in desiring: therefore there was punishment for it before fault.

> **CONCLUSION.**
> *The soul of Adam was produced in the body.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, although concerning this question the eminent doctor Augustine seems to have been in doubt, because each side seems able to be sustained probably, and a fitting order to be kept either way; nevertheless it must be held as true and more fitting that the soul of Adam was produced in the body, and that God did not produce it before the formation of the body. *Augustine doubts.* *Conclusion.* — For although it may seem to be said with sufficient reasonableness that God produced the soul before its body, in order that it might be shown that it does not depend on the body, but is able to subsist through itself; and that with this He might equally show its conformity also with the angelic nature both in *the capacity of reason,* through which the soul is image, and in *beatitude,* to which the soul and the Angel are ordered: *Augustine's reasons.* yet it seems far more reasonable to hold that the soul was produced at once with the body, both because the soul is united to the body as its natural perfection, to which it naturally desires to be joined, so much so that it is a punishment for it to be without it and to be separated from it; *Reasons for the conclusion.* and likewise because it is united as a mover to the movable, so that without it the soul can neither merit nor demerit; and therefore it ought not to have been produced before the body, lest it be punished before fault, and lest it merit or demerit apart from the body. — To this position not only does reason concord, but indeed the authority of Scripture also gives support, which says that after the production and formation of man God breathed the breath of life into him. — Adhering therefore to this side as more probable and safer, we can grant the reasons that establish this side.

*Solution of the opposing [arguments].*

1. To that, however, which is first objected in contrary from the text, it must be said that one of them was said by way of *recapitulation,* or the first was said by *anticipation.* Yet it is better to say that Scripture recapitulates this, in order to add [something further].

2. To that which is objected, that the body was produced together with the brutes, therefore etc.; it must be said that the cases are not similar; for the production of the body so concords with the production of the brute animals, that

the production of the rational spirit does not discord, but rather consummates their imperfection by its dignity; whereas the production of the spirit so concords with the production of the Angels that it concords least with the production of human bodies, which indeed belong to the adornment of the earth, the production of which adornment belongs to the sixth day.

3. To that which is objected concerning the comparison of the aeviternal to the temporal, it must be said that although an aeviternal substance extends more than the temporal on the side *after* itself, inasmuch as it lacks an end; nevertheless it is not necessary that [it extends more] on the side *before,* especially if it is such that by its production it has to terminate the appetite of a temporal thing; and so it was in the soul of Adam. *And moreover,* if that may be true of the aeviternal which has the character of the aeviternal *purely,* it does not, nevertheless, hold true of that which *so* has the character of the aeviternal that it is also temporal. For the rational soul, although insofar as it is *spirit* and *being through itself* it has the character of the aeviternal as such, nevertheless, insofar as it *animates* a changeable body, it has to be measured by time.

4. To that which is objected, that the soul does not depend on the body as to *being;* it must be said that although it does not depend on the body as needing it for its own conservation, yet it depends through the inclination of its own appetite, which it has toward it, just as a form toward its proper matter; and therefore, just as a form is produced in matter, so the soul of Adam ought to have been produced in its proper body.

5. To that which is objected concerning miscible bodies, it must be said that the cases are not similar, because the elements which are mixed do not depend on one another, and one can have *complete being* without the other; but it is not so concerning the soul and its body, of which each depends on the other.

6. To that which is objected, that the soul approximates more closely to the primary origin; it must be said that since God is *alpha and omega, principle and end*, and *Note.* the rational creature is near to Him in either relation; yet, speaking properly, the angelic nature approaches Him more in the character of *principle,* and the human more in the character of *end:* therefore among all creatures *wisdom was created before all*, that is, the angelic creature, both in dignity and in origin; and after all things the human soul was produced as the end of all and the consummation. And therefore, although it approximates much to God insofar as it holds the character of *origin,* nevertheless it approximates God no less insofar as it has the character of *end;* and therefore it was more fittingly produced later than earlier. These things have been said concerning the soul of Adam; for concerning the other souls it will be asked below in its proper place.

### Scholion.

**I.** The pre-existence of souls *in general,* which Origen taught along with Plato, was censured by the Fifth General Council (as is more commonly said) can. 1, in these words: «*If anyone shall have asserted the fabulous pre-existence of souls and the monstrous restoration that follows from it, let him be anathema.*» Concerning this error the Holy Doctor, with other commentators, treats below in d. 18, a. 2, q. 2. But in this place there is specially treated *the soul of the first parent,* because for special reasons Augustine doubted concerning this more than concerning the others, as is expounded in the place cited.

**II.** Other ancient authors do not explicitly treat this special question, but touch on it (either here, or in d. 17 or 18) in the general question on the pre-existence of souls. Alex. Hal. touches on it in S. p. II. q. 60. m. 2. a. 2.

On this special question treat: S. Thomas, S. I. q. 91. a. 4. ad 3. — B. Albert, here a. 2; S. p. II. tr. 12. q. 72. m. 4. a. 1. — Petr. a Tar., here q. 1. a. 3. quaestiunc. 1. — Aegid. R., here q. 2; a. 2.

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