Dist. 20, Art. 1, Q. 5
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/20/q/bon-sent-II-d20-a1-q5
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### Question V. *Whether as often as they were joined, they would each time have generated offspring.*

Fifth, it is asked whether in every union of man and woman there would be the generation of offspring. And that this is so, it seems.

*Fundamenta.*
1. Matrimony, for the time of innocence, was only for office, not for remedy; but the office consists in procreating offspring: therefore it was for this alone. If therefore man and woman were not joined matrimonially except on account of that for which matrimony existed, it seems that they would never be joined without generating offspring.

2. Likewise, one who in the state of fallen nature asks the conjugal debt apart from the necessity of procreating offspring sins at least venially: therefore there the man would never ask the debt apart from the necessity of procreating offspring, or if he did ask, he would sin and would fall from the state of innocence. Therefore, with that state remaining, he would never know his wife without receiving offspring from her, since there the *act* would not be deprived of due intention, nor the *intention* of its due end; for the deprivation of right intention is not without fault, and the deprivation of the intended utility is not without penalty — neither of which existed in nature as instituted.

3. Likewise, never would man have eaten without taking refreshment from that meal, nor would the nutritive power in its act ever have been deprived of its proper effect: therefore by parallel reasoning the generative power in its act would never have lacked its due fruit; but its fruit is offspring: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, never would man have sown the ground without gathering temporal fruit from it; for sterility was not in the earth except on account of man's fault: therefore if the womb of the woman was as alien to sterility as the earth in the time of nature instituted, then he would never have known the woman without taking due fruit from her.

*Ad oppositum.*
1. **On the contrary:** The nutritive power supplies seed to the generative; therefore since man would be continuously nourished, the seminal humor would continuously be administered to the generative power: therefore either it was necessary that man be extraordinarily polluted, or that nature be burdened by retention of seed, or that he sometimes know the woman when she was not fit to generate, namely when she had offspring in her womb. If, therefore, the first two members are unfitting, the third remains, namely that he would sometimes have known his wife when he would not have generated offspring.

2. Likewise, just as eating is a natural act, so also is intercourse; but man naturally desires to eat not only in the state of fallen nature, but also of instituted nature: therefore by parallel reasoning he naturally desired intercourse. But man in the time of instituted nature ought to satisfy nature's appetite, since nature was ordered and would desire in an ordered way, otherwise he would feel pain: therefore it seems that whether the woman could conceive or not, the man would sometimes know the woman apart from the necessity of generating offspring.

3. Likewise, suppose Adam knew his wife when pregnant; I ask: would he sin, or not? If not: therefore it was not necessary that he generate in every coitus. If so; on the contrary: matrimony then was holier than in the time of fallen nature, and of equal or greater efficacy; but now, on account of the good of matrimony, coitus is excused from fault even when there is no necessity of generating offspring: therefore it seems that much more strongly so then.

4. Likewise, there was no greater disorder in the contact of those members than in moving the hand to the mouth; but the hand can be moved to the mouth without any sin, even apart from necessity: therefore it seems that Adam could know his wife without sin apart from the necessity of generating offspring.

> **Conclusion.** In the state of innocence both the congruence of order required, and the perfection of virtue sufficed, that from any act by which Adam knew his wife, offspring should be received.

**I respond:** It must be said that the man, in any act by which he knew his wife, would have received offspring from her. — And the reason for this is that the congruence of order required it, and the perfection of virtue sufficed for it. *Ratio 1.* For the congruence of a twofold order required this, namely of the generative power to reason, and of both to their end. For the generative power had an order to reason — an order, I say, of perfect subjection; and therefore it did not go forth into act except according as reason dictated. But right and ordered reason dictates that nothing is to be used except for that for which it exists; and since the generative power was given to man for the multiplication of offspring, therefore right reason would never dictate, nor would the generative power ever go forth into act, except for the generation of offspring; for this is what the *congruence of order* required. — *Ratio 2.* The perfection of *virtue* also was present, which sufficed for this. For since the generative power in the man was potent and sufficient for generating, and had no impediment, and likewise in the woman according to her place and time; therefore, when the man knew his wife in an ordered way, he would always receive offspring from her on account of the requirement of the twofold order and the sufficiency of the twofold virtue, namely of the one generating and of the one conceiving, as has been said. Hence the arguments showing this are to be conceded.

*Solution of the opposing arguments.*
1. To that, then, which is first objected on the contrary, that the nutritive would always serve the generative; it must be said that Adam's nature would be so ordered that he would never take of food except so temperately that the superfluity of the third digestion, which is called *semen*, would not be sufficiently gathered together until the due hour of generating arrived. For Adam in the state of innocence would know the *capacity* of his nature, both the sufficiency of nourishment and the time and hour when he ought to generate; and so he would live modestly and soberly, so that he would incline neither to superabundance nor to need.

2. To that which is objected, that he would naturally desire intercourse just as eating; it must be said that it is not similar, because the act of eating is ordered to the welfare of the individual, in whom continual loss occurs; but the act of generation is ordered to the conservation of the species and the multiplication of the like — which need not occur continually, but at determined times — and therefore the natural appetite for intercourse would not be like that for food, nor so continuous nor so frequent. For if even in chaste men in the time of fallen nature the inclination to intercourse is not as to food, much less was it in Adam. But that the appetite of the generative power is so intensified — this belongs rather to the corruption of nature than to its primary institution.

3. To that which is objected, that if he knew her pregnant he would not sin; it must be said that a pregnant woman cannot be known without disorder, either real or apparent. And since in the state of innocence he could not fear disorder, because there was no titillation or itching there: therefore, if he had then known, if he knew that he was knowing uselessly, he would have been disordered, and so would have sinned. Nor is what is adduced about matrimony in the state of fallen nature similar, because now it is not only for the *office* of procreating offspring, but also for the *remedy* of avoiding fornication, as will appear better in the fourth book.

4. To that which is objected, that there would be no greater disorder there than in moving the hand to the mouth; it must be said that that *similitude* is taken with respect to this, that both members were subject to reason, and both were free from the itching and ardor of concupiscence. In this, however, there is *dissimilitude*, because it was more necessary to order that act to the due end than any movement whatsoever of the hand or foot, on account of the determination of the use of those members to the procreation of offspring. But the use of the hand or foot is not so determined; and therefore it is not necessary to exercise it with such deliberation.