Bonaventure

I. Hanc quaestionem, quae est magni momenti magnisque difficultatibus obstructa, praemittit S. Doctor, ut viam sibi paret ad solvenda dubia, quae commentatores Lombardi hic tractare solebant. Ceteri autem commentatores eandem hanc quaestionem tangunt in sequenti quaest., et diffusius de eadem agunt infra d. 18, ubi disputant de rationibus seminalibus, vel etiam d. 13. — Experientia constat, novas semper oriri corporalium rerum formas naturales, tum per generationem perfectam et propriedictam, quae definitur: origo viventis a principio vivente, coniuncto in similitudinem naturae (S. Thom., S. I. q. 27. a. 2; S. Bonav., I. Sent. d. 9. a. 1. q. 1.), tum per generationem imperfectam, qualis est in mixtionibus, quando ex diversarum substantiarum combinationibus chimicis novum aliquod corpus resultat. — Praenotandum est, quod non agitur de prima formarum naturalium origine, de qua sermo est in Genesi c. 1, nec de productione animae humanae, de quibus cfr. hic dub. 3. 4, infra d. 13. a. 1. q. 1. et d. 17. a. 1. q. 2. et d. 18. a. 2. q. 3. — In hac autem quaestione solvenda est difficultas, quae valde vexavit ingenia, quomodo formae illae, quae iuxta mentem Scholasticorum important aliquid substantiale, licet incompletum, produci possint ab agente creato, cum constet, quod agens creatum nullatenus possit aliquid producere ex nihilo. Hinc exortae sunt primae duae opiniones extremae, hic commemoratae et communiter a Scholasticis reprobatae, quarum prima asseruit, has formas nullatenus produci, sed eas, cum formaliter praeexi-

stant, tantum manifestari; secunda vero putavit, eas omnes a Creatore de nihilo creari. Contra istos errores principales auctores communi suffragio haec statuunt: 1. Natura in productione formarum vere aliquid agit. 2. Formae non praeexistunt formaliter, sed tantum in potentia. 3. Formae illae, cum non subsistant nisi in composito, proprie loquendo non fiunt, sed ipsum compositum fit, et quidem ex materia, et non ex nihilo (S. Thom., S. I. q. 63. a. 4; S. Bonav., hic ad 4.). 4. Formae sunt in potentia materiae et virtute agentium corporalium educi possunt in actum. 5. Ad hanc eductionem concursus Dei necessarius est, quod egregie S. Thomas explicat et probat de Potentia q. 3. a. 7. (cfr. S. Bonav., infra d. 37. a. 1. q. 1.).

II. Si autem ulterius quaeratur de modo, quo formae sint in potentia materiae, et quo inde educantur, doctores et antiqui et recentes diversas ingrediuntur vias, quae fere reducuntur ad illas duas, in expositione tertiae opinionis a S. Bonav. explicatas.

1. Primam illam sententiam S. Thom. haud ambigue propugnat, et post eum multi, quam etiam S. Bonav. esse probabilem aestimat, ut patet hic ex solut. ad 5. Clarius eandem explicat S. Thom., I. Sent. d. 18. q. 1. a. 2, ex quo iuvat aliqua excerpere. Relata enim quarta sententia, idem ita prosequitur: « Hoc autem verum non videtur, quia, quamvis formae educantur de potentia materiae, illa tamen potentia materiae non est activa, sed passiva tantum... Nec tamen sequitur, si in materia est potentia passiva tantum, quod non sit generatio naturalis; quia materia coadiuvat ad generationem, non agendo, sed in quantum est habilis ad recipiendum talem actionem, quae etiam habilitas appetitus materiae dicitur et inchoatio formae... Et ideo concedo, quod in materia nulla potentia activa est, sed pure passiva; et quod rationes seminales dicuntur virtutes activae, completae in mixto cum propriis passivis, ut calor et frigus et forma ignis et virtus solis et huiusmodi. Et dicuntur seminales non propter esse imperfectum, quod habent, sicut virtus formativa in semine; sed quia rerum individuis primo creatis huiusmodi virtutes collatae sunt per opera sex dierum, ut ex eis, quasi ex quibusdam seminibus, producerentur et multiplicarentur res naturales » (cfr. S. I. q. 115. a. 2, q. 63. a. 4; de Potent. q. 3. a. 8.). — Haec igitur sententia statuit, quod formae sint in materia tantum ut in qua et aliquo modo a qua, sed nullatenus ex qua, quia nihil praecedit in materia, ex quo fiat forma. Hanc sententiam ita explicat Aegid. R. (II. Sent. d. 12. q. 3. n. 2.): « Tripliciter dicitur materia esse in potentia ad formam: vel prout recipit formam, vel prout desiderat formam, vel prout transmutatur ad formam. — Si quaeratur ergo, per quid recipit? dicetur, quod per essentiam suam... Sed accipiendo potentiam materiae, prout desiderat formam, dici potest, causam huius desiderii esse privationem... Privatio vero nullam rem addit ultra materiam... Tertio modo potest accipi potentia materiae pro transmutatione ad formam, ut ex hoc sit materia in potentia ad formam, quia transmutatur ad illam; et sic adhuc differt materia a tali potentia, sicut differebat a privatione... Si autem quaeratur, ...quid addat potentia sic accepta supra materiam, dicemus, quod addit aliquam dispositionem ad formam. Nam hoc modo transmutatur materia ad formam et per agens disponitur ad illam. Quanto ergo plus habet de huiusmodi transmutatione, tanto plus habet de huiusmodi dispositione. Quando ergo est perfecte transmutata vel perfecte disposita, tunc est formae inductio » etc. Cfr. idem de rationibus seminalibus d. 18. q. 2. a. 1. 2.

2. S. Bonaventurae vero visa est « intelligibilior et veritati vicinior » secunda explicatio, quae praeter potentiam passivam (receptivam) materiae, et virtutem activam sive principium effectivum in agentibus naturalibus, insuper supponit aliquod principium concreatum materiae, ex quo agens naturale educit formam. Hoc autem putat esse idem cum illo quod S. Augustinus vocat rationes seminales, scil. in sensu largiore. Pro maiore explicatione huius positionis cfr. hic quaest. seq. et dub. 3; infra d. 12. a. 1. q. 3, d. 15. a. 1. et praecipue d. 18. a. 1. q. 2. 3, ubi agitur de rationibus seminalibus. Perspicue eandem doctrinam tradit IV. Sent. d. 43. a. 1. q. 4, ubi agitur de resurrectione corporum, his verbis: « Supponamus nunc, quod natura aliquid agat, et illud non agit ex nihilo, et cum agat in materiam, oportet, quod producat formam. Et cum materia non sit pars formae, nec forma fiat pars materiae, necesse est, aliquo modo formas naturales esse in materia, antequam producantur; et substantia materiae praegnans est omnibus; ergo rationes seminales omnium formarum sunt in ipsa. Sed ad illud stat resolutio, a quo incipit generatio; ergo nulla forma omnino corrumpitur, sed manet in materia post corruptionem, sicut manebat, antequam produceretur; et sic dicit Augustinus. Unde formas in materia ante productionem dicit esse quantum ad rationes seminales; dicit etiam resolvi ad materiam sicut ad occultissimos sinus naturae, idem utroque nomine secundum alteram et alteram rationem intelligi volens... Quamvis forma ibi sit aliquo modo post corruptionem, tamen natura non potest producere ad idem esse, quod habuit prius. Et ratio huius est, quia agens naturale agit influendo et impertiendo aliquid sui, quo mediante perficit illud quod erat in materia. Et illud quod influitur a parte agentis, fit aliquid de completo esse ipsius producti; et ideo necesse est, quod natura det aliquid novi quantum ad modum essendi substantialem, qui est esse in actu. Quamvis enim natura non det novam essentiam, dat tamen novum modum essendi, non tantum accidentalem, immo etiam substantialem, sicut esse in actu, secundum quem potest res substantialiter numerari et diversificari ». Ibidem q. 5. ad 6. legitur: « Semper manet substantia materiae cum ratione seminali ».

III. Opinioni S. Bonaventurae vel omnino adhaerent vel favent Alex. Hal., praecipue S. p. II. q. 86. m. 2. § 2, q. 42. m. 5. a. 1-6. (de rationibus seminalibus), q. 6. m. 2. n. 4, q. 9. m. 5, q. 10. praesertim m. 3; et B. Albert. (S. p. II. tr. 1. q. 4. m. 2. a. 1.); Uldaricus, eius discipulus, Gulielmus Paris., relati a Dionys. Carth., II. Sent. d. 18. q. 2. — Uldaricus ibi ita concludit: « Forma est in materia per essentiam secundum esse imperfectum et confusum atque potentiale; et ipsa eadem numero est ab extra secundum esse suum actuale, determinatum et perfectum per virtutem formativam agentis, immissum materiae... Cumque utrumque praedictorum dicat totam formam, quamvis non totaliter, hinc quidam sub eodem sensu dicunt, quod non sit formae pars ab intus et pars ab agente, sed quod tota forma est ab intus, et tota est ab extra secundum esse diversum ». — Etiam Petr. a Tar. (infra d. 18. q. 1. a. 3.) eidem sententiae magis favet, cum solvat obiectiones contra eam ab aliis factas, licet utramque sententiam referat.

Alii autem posteriores Scholastici hanc sententiam impugnant, ut Scot., d. 18. q. unica, n. 4. seqq., d. 18 q. unica, in utroque Scripto, VII. Metaph. q. 12; Henr. Gand., Quodl. 4. q. 11, qui diffuse disputat contra eandem. — Dionys. Carth., hic q. 5. et infra d. 18. q. 2. — Sententiam S. Thomae sequitur etiam Richard. a Med., II. Sent. d. 12. q. 10, d. 18. a. 1. q. 2; Durand., II. Sent. d. 18. q. 2; Biel, II. Sent. d. 18. q. unica.

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I. This question, which is of great moment and obstructed with great difficulties, the holy Doctor prefaces in order to prepare the way for solving the doubts which the commentators on Lombard used to treat here. The other commentators, however, touch on this same question in the following quaest., and treat of it more fully below at d. 18, where they dispute concerning the seminal reasons, or also at d. 13. — Experience makes it plain that there are always new natural forms of corporeal things arising — both through perfect and properly so-called generation, which is defined as: the origin of a living thing from a living principle, joined into a likeness of nature (St. Thom., S. I, q. 27, a. 2; S. Bonav., I. Sent. d. 9, a. 1, q. 1) — and through imperfect generation, such as is in mixtures, when from the chemical combinations of diverse substances some new body results. — It must be noted in advance that the question is not about the first origin of natural forms, of which there is mention in Genesis c. 1, nor of the production of the human soul, of which see here dub. 3, 4, below d. 13, a. 1, q. 1; d. 17, a. 1, q. 2; and d. 18, a. 2, q. 3. — In this question, however, the difficulty must be solved which has very much vexed minds, how those forms which according to the mind of the Scholastics import something substantial, albeit incomplete, can be produced by a created agent, since it is clear that a created agent in no way can produce something out of nothing. Hence arose the first two extreme opinions, mentioned here and commonly disapproved by the Scholastics — of which the first asserted that these forms are in no way produced, but, since they formally pre-exi-

st, are only manifested; while the second held that they are all created by the Creator out of nothing. Against these principal errors the authors by common consent establish the following: 1. Nature truly does something in the production of forms. 2. Forms do not pre-exist formally, but only in potency. 3. Those forms, since they do not subsist except in the composite, properly speaking are not made — but the composite itself is made, and indeed from matter and not from nothing (St. Thom., S. I, q. 63, a. 4; S. Bonav., here ad 4). 4. Forms are in the potency of matter and by the power of bodily agents can be educed into act. 5. For this eduction the concurrence of God is necessary — which St. Thomas excellently explains and proves in de Potentia q. 3, a. 7 (cf. S. Bonav., below d. 37, a. 1, q. 1).

II. If, however, it is further asked about the mode in which forms are in the potency of matter, and in what way they are educed thence, the doctors — both ancient and recent — enter on diverse ways, which are nearly reduced to those two explained by St. Bonaventure in his exposition of the third opinion.

1. That first opinion St. Thomas not ambiguously upholds — and after him many — which St. Bonaventure too judges to be probable, as is plain here from the solution to objection 5. St. Thomas explains the same more clearly in I. Sent. d. 18, q. 1, a. 2, from which it is helpful to extract some things. Having related the fourth opinion, he proceeds thus: « But this does not seem true, because, although forms are educed from the potency of matter, that potency of matter nevertheless is not active, but passive only... Nor does it follow, if in matter there is only passive potency, that there is no natural generation; because matter coadjuvates generation not by acting, but inasmuch as it is fit to receive such an action — which fitness is also called the appetite of matter and the inchoation of form... And therefore I concede that in matter there is no active potency, but pure passive; and that the seminal reasons are called active virtues completed in the mixed body together with their own passive ones, like heat and cold and the form of fire and the power of the sun and the like. And they are called seminal not on account of the imperfect being which they have — as the formative virtue in the seed — but because to the individuals of things first created such virtues were conferred through the works of the six days, that from them, as from certain seeds, natural things might be produced and multiplied » (cf. S. I, q. 115, a. 2; q. 63, a. 4; de Potent. q. 3, a. 8). — This opinion, then, holds that the forms are in matter only in which and in some way by which, but in no way out of which, because nothing precedes in matter out of which the form should come to be. This opinion Aegidius Romanus thus explains (II. Sent. d. 12, q. 3, n. 2): « In three ways matter is said to be in potency to form: either as it receives the form, or as it desires the form, or as it is transmuted toward the form. — If, then, it be asked, by what does it receive? — it will be said, by its essence... But taking the potency of matter as it desires the form, it can be said that the cause of this desire is privation... Privation, however, adds no thing beyond matter... In a third way potency of matter can be taken for the transmutation toward form, so that thereby matter is in potency to form because it is transmuted toward it; and so matter still differs from such a potency as it differed from privation... But if it be asked... what such a potency adds beyond matter, we will say that it adds some disposition to form. For in this way matter is transmuted toward form and disposed to it by the agent. The more, therefore, it has of such transmutation, the more it has of such disposition. When, therefore, it is perfectly transmuted or perfectly disposed, then there is the induction of the form » etc. Cf. the same on the seminal reasons d. 18, q. 2, a. 1–2.

2. To St. Bonaventure, however, the second explanation seemed « more intelligible and closer to the truth »: which besides the passive (receptive) potency of matter and the active virtue or effective principle in natural agents, further supposes some concreated principle in matter, from which a natural agent educes form. And this he holds to be the same with what St. Augustine calls seminal reasons, in the broader sense. For a fuller explanation of this position see here the next quaest. and dub. 3; below d. 12, a. 1, q. 3; d. 15, a. 1; and especially d. 18, a. 1, q. 2–3, where the seminal reasons are treated. He hands down the same doctrine perspicuously in IV. Sent. d. 43, a. 1, q. 4, where the resurrection of bodies is treated, in these words: « Let us now suppose that nature does something, and that this is not from nothing; and since it acts upon matter, it must produce a form. And since matter is not part of the form, nor does the form become part of matter, it is necessary that natural forms be in some way in matter before they are produced; and the substance of matter is pregnant with all things; therefore the seminal reasons of all forms are in it. But upon that rests the resolution: from what generation begins; therefore no form is altogether corrupted, but remains in matter after corruption, as it remained before being produced; and so Augustine says. Whence he says that forms are in matter before production as to the seminal reasons; he says also that they are resolved back to matter as to the most hidden recesses of nature, wishing the same thing to be understood by either name according to one and the other consideration... Although form is there in some manner after corruption, yet nature cannot produce it to the same being which it had before. And the reason for this is that natural agency acts by inflowing and imparting something of itself, by which mediating it perfects what was in matter. And what is inflowed from the side of the agent becomes part of the complete being of the thing produced; and therefore it is necessary that nature give something new as to the substantial mode of being, which is to be in act. For although nature does not give a new essence, yet it gives a new mode of being — not only accidental but also substantial — like being in act, according to which a thing can be substantially numbered and diversified ». In the same place, q. 5, ad 6, it is read: « The substance of matter always remains with the seminal reason ».

III. To the opinion of St. Bonaventure there adhere altogether or favor it Alex. Hal., especially S. p. II, q. 86, m. 2, § 2; q. 42, m. 5, a. 1–6 (on the seminal reasons); q. 6, m. 2, n. 4; q. 9, m. 5; q. 10, especially m. 3 — and Bl. Albert (S. p. II, tr. 1, q. 4, m. 2, a. 1); Uldaricus, his disciple; William of Paris, reported by Dionysius the Carthusian, II. Sent. d. 18, q. 2. — Uldaricus there thus concludes: « Form is in matter through its essence according to an imperfect, confused and potential being; and the same form numerically is from outside according to its actual, determinate, and perfect being through the formative virtue of the agent, infused into the matter... And since each of the aforesaid is said to speak the whole form, although not totally, hence some, in the same sense, say that no part of the form is from within and no part from the agent — but rather that the whole form is from within, and the whole is from outside according to a diverse being ». — Peter of Tarentaise too (below d. 18, q. 1, a. 3) is more favorable to the same opinion, since he solves the objections brought against it by others, although he relates both opinions.

But other later Scholastics impugn this opinion, such as Scotus, d. 18, q. unica, n. 4 and following, d. 18, q. unica, in both Scripta; VII. Metaph. q. 12; Henr. Gand., Quodl. 4, q. 11, who disputes diffusely against it. — Dionys. Carth., here q. 5 and below d. 18, q. 2. — The opinion of St. Thomas is followed also by Richard of Mediavilla, II. Sent. d. 12, q. 10; d. 18, a. 1, q. 2; Durandus, II. Sent. d. 18, q. 2; Biel, II. Sent. d. 18, q. unica.

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