Dist. 18, Art. 2, 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/18/q/bon-sent-II-d18-a2-q3
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### Article II. *On the production of the soul of Eve and of other human beings.*
### Question III. *Whether the rational soul is by traduction.*

Thirdly it is asked, supposing that souls are produced successively, whether the rational soul is by traduction. And that this is so, it seems thus.

***For the opposite side.***

1. Genesis forty-six: *All the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy-two.* If you say that *soul* there does not stand for the rational substance but for the carnal life or the outer man; it is objected from Genesis chapter two: in the formation of woman it is never said that God breathed into her the breath of life: therefore it seems that the whole woman was produced from Adam as to soul as well as to body.

2. Likewise, to the Ephesians chapter two: *We are all by nature children of wrath;* but we are not children of wrath on the side of the flesh, but on the side of the soul, nor are we children of wrath save because we are children of Adam: therefore our soul proceeds from the soul of Adam.

3. Likewise, this same thing seems so by reason. The act of generating belongs to a complete being — for then is each thing complete, when it can generate such as it itself is — but the human soul among all natural forms is the most perfect: therefore if another natural form has the power of multiplying itself in diverse matters, as one flame in diverse candles, much more does this seem to be in the rational soul.

4. Likewise, the generative power principally resides in the soul: therefore if «*man generates man*», since generation consists in the production of like by like, it produces the soul more principally than the flesh: therefore if flesh is from flesh, much more is soul by traduction.

5. Likewise, an equally great or greater congruence is of man to man than is of brute to brute; and the generative power is more perfect in man than in any brute animal. If therefore a brute can produce a brute wholly, both as to soul and as to body, and it is not necessary that the soul of brutes be created: much more does it seem that the rational soul can be transmitted and sown by intercourse.

6. Likewise, this seems so by *reduction to the absurd:* for either the rational soul is by *propagation,* or by *creation.* If by propagation, I have what I propose, namely that it is by

traduction. If by creation, since God, whose office it is to create, can or ought to do nothing inordinately; it seems that just as he does not give to an adulterer the grace that proceeds immediately from himself, so neither ought he infuse the soul into a body generated through adultery. But if he do infuse it, he seems to be reprehensible and to accept the intercourse of adultery.

**On the contrary:**

***Foundations.***

1. Isaiah fifty-seven: *Every breath have I made;* it is settled that he does not understand it of bodily breath, therefore of spiritual breath, which is the rational soul: therefore just as God alone breathed into Adam's face the breath of life, so he creates the soul of every man.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher in the sixteenth book *On Animals*: «*The intellect alone enters from without*»; but if it were transmitted, it would not enter from without: therefore the rational soul is not by traduction.

3. Likewise, by *reason* it seems so. Everything which is by nature propagable is by nature corruptible; but the rational soul, according to the philosophers and even according to all laws and sects, is incorruptible: therefore it is not by nature propagable: therefore it is not by traduction.

4. Likewise, if the soul is by traduction, either then the soul is from the flesh, or the soul from the soul. From the flesh it cannot be, since it is impossible that from a body there come to be a non-body: but the soul is non-body, as the Philosopher and Augustine prove in many ways. If from the soul; then either from the whole, or from a part. Not from a part, because the soul is simple; if from the whole: then when one generates another, since he gives him his whole soul, he ceases to have a soul, and so ceases to live. But since this is manifestly false, it is clear etc.

5. Likewise, the rational soul, since it is a substance existing through itself and incorruptible, has matter and form, as has been proved above. When therefore it is produced, either it is produced from pre-existing matter, or its matter is produced together with it. If its matter is produced together with it, then it is necessary that it be produced from nothing: therefore by God alone. If it is produced from pre-existing matter: I ask of that matter: either it is bodily, or spiritual. If bodily, from it the soul cannot come to be. If spiritual, either it has a form, or not. If not, how can it be in the nature of things without a form, since «*all being is from form*»? If it has: then it will be either an Angel, or a soul. Not an Angel, that is clear: therefore a soul; but from the same thing the same numerically does not come to be: therefore from it a soul cannot come to be.

6. Likewise, if the rational soul were by traduction, it would necessarily have to be cut off then, when the semen is shed; but there are many seeds which never attain to organization, indeed more are poured out than are brought forth to form: therefore either there would be rational souls without bodies, or so noble a form would perish; both of which it is absurd and impious to say.

### Conclusion.

> Rational souls are not by traduction, but through creation.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it is to be noted that concerning this there is a threefold mode of speaking.

***Opinion 1.*** For certain ones said that the production of souls is mediated by an *Intelligence,* so that, just as the heavenly body contributes to the production of the human body, so also an Intelligence to the production of the soul; and many philosophers held this, and the author in the book *de Causis* seems to have held it. — ***Reason.*** The reason which moved them to posit this was both the divine *unity,* which did not allow that God should immediately produce many things, and the divine *immutability,* which did not allow that God should produce new things. — ***It is refuted.*** But these things are to be cast out as heretical and have been shown to be false above, in distinction one. Hence that saying of the *de Causis* is to be rejected as heretical, unless one understands that the soul is said to be created by an Intelligence in this, that it receives some illumination

through it. For an Intelligence, according to the Philosopher, exceeds the soul in clarity of cognition; and therefore a certain philosopher says, that «*the rational soul is created in the shadow of an intelligence, and the sensitive in the shadow of the rational*». But this is said because the one falls short of the perfection of the other, not because the one is produced by the other.

***Opinion 2.*** There is also another mode of speaking, namely that the production of souls is by *traduction,* so that the soul is transmitted from a soul, as flesh from flesh; and as from one candle many are lit, so from one soul, by its multiplication without diminution, many bodies are vivified. And concerning this the Catholic discussants sometimes doubted, and Augustine especially, as is clear in the book *On Genesis according to the letter*, and in the book *On Free Choice,* and in the book *Retractations,* where he also says that he could not arrive at certainty about this question. The reason which most strongly made him doubt was the transmission of original sin. — ***It is not proved.*** Nevertheless Augustine himself expressly reproves this position in the book *On Ecclesiastical Dogmas,* whose authority the Master sets down in the text, and he himself reproves this same mode in *On Genesis according to the letter:* because if on account of original sin the soul is transfused from a soul, then either the soul of Christ would not be of the kind of other souls, or it would have had original sin, both of which are false and impious.

***Opinion 3.*** And therefore there is a third mode of speaking, catholic and true, namely that souls are not sown but, the bodies being formed, are created by God and by being created are infused and by being infused are produced. — ***Twofold reason.*** For the creation of souls God ought to have reserved to himself alone, both on account of their *dignity* and on account of their *immortality.* On account of the *dignity* of souls, because, since the soul is the image of God and born to be borne immediately to God and to be beatified in him by loving him with the whole heart, its whole being it ought to have immediately from him, so that it would be bound to love him with the whole heart. — It was fitting also on account of the *immortality* of souls. For since God alone is he who has life in himself and life that does not fail; he alone is who can produce a perpetual principle of life. Since therefore an incorruptible thing cannot be substantified in transmutable matter, and the operation of the creature is over transmutable matter; it is impossible that any creature produce a rational soul: and ***Conclusion.*** therefore God ought to have reserved its production to himself alone.

***Solution of the opposing arguments.*** The reasons proving that rational souls are not by traduction but by creation are therefore to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected to the contrary about the text of Genesis, it must be said that *soul* is there taken for *man,* and a man is said to have come out from the body by reason of the bodily part. — Nor is that valid which is objected against this, that it is not said in the production of the soul of Eve: *he breathed into her face* etc., because, since the mode of producing the soul of Eve and the soul of Adam was the same, it was not necessary to repeat it.

2. To that which is objected, that all are born by nature children of wrath; it must be said that this is because the soul, when it is united to infected flesh, is immediately infected and contracts original guilt; not because it itself is transmitted, but because the flesh to which it is united is transmitted. But how this can come to be will be determined below, when original sin is treated.

3. To that which is objected, that the act of generating belongs to a complete being; it must be said that it does not belong to just any complete being, but to that thing which has transmutable matter from which it can be produced. And since the soul does not have such matter, it cannot produce another like itself, although it is a complete form.

4. To that which is objected, that the generative power principally resides in the soul; it must be said that although it principally regards the soul by way of *mover and agent,* nevertheless it principally regards the body as that *from which* it produces. And since decision can be made from the body, not from the soul, hence it is that it is ordained to the production of the human body, not to the production of the rational soul.

5. To that which is objected, that a brute can produce a brute; it must be said that it is not

similar, because the soul of a brute, since it is a form only and a corruptible form, can be educed from the potency of matter; but the rational soul, since it is a *this something* and incorruptible and is not educed from pre-existing matter, must necessarily be educed from nothing and so created. That it cannot be produced from pre-existing matter, Augustine shows in many ways on *Genesis according to the letter,* book seven, namely that that pre-existing matter can be neither bodily nor spiritual.

6. To that which is objected concerning what is generated by adultery, it must be said that in this is shown rather the praise of the divine goodness than reprehension; because the benefit which he has disposed to preserve or continue, on account of the sins of men he does not change or interrupt; hence, when he infuses the soul, he does not consider the vice but considers the nature. Nor is it the same with grace, which does not regard nature insofar as it is nature, but rather insofar as it is converted to God. And through this is clear the response to the objections. Clear also are the things which are said in the text.