## 1. Life and Works



Bonaventure was born in Civita di Bagnoregio in central Italy, an
ancient city perched atop a constantly eroding volcanic butte. Though
Dante placed Bonaventure among the saints in his *Paradiso*
(Canto 12), and reports of Bonaventure's holiness circulated in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, no official cult emerged
after his death and the papacy did not recognize him as a saint until
1482 (on Bonaventure's canonization see Finucane 2011:
33-70). Had Bonaventure been canonized earlier, there might be
more information about his life to sift, as there is in the case of
his contemporary, Thomas Aquinas. What we can know about
Bonaventure's early life comes from his own hagiographical work
on St. Francis of Assisi, the *Legenda major* and
*minor*, where he attests to being healed miraculously by St.
Francis:



> 
> 
> when I was a boy, as I still vividly remember, I was snatched from the
> jaws of death by his invocation and merits. (*Legenda maior*,
> prol. 3, [FA:ED: Volume 2, 528]; cf. *Legenda minor*, lec. 8.
> Texts of Bonaventure will be quoted in the Quaracchi edition,
> 1882-1902, unless a more recent edition
>  exists[1])
> 
> 
> 



One certain date, Bonaventure's election as Minister General of
the Franciscans on 2 February 1257, permits a broad division of his
life into two clear periods: an academic and a pastoral
 period.[2]
 The academic period runs from c. 1235-1257. During those years,
Bonaventure studied and taught philosophy and theology at the
University of Paris and acquired the degree of Master in both
disciplines. The pastoral period runs from 1257-1274. During
that time, Bonaventure served as Minister General, relinquishing the
office on 19 May 1274 when Jerome of Ascoli was elected to replace
him. On 28 May 1273 Bonaventure became a Cardinal and was later
consecrated bishop of Albano (11 November 1273). Bonaventure died at
the second council of Lyon, 15 July 1274.



A fuller chronology of Bonaventure's academic period can emerge
from sifting through various chronicles and from utilizing the data of
scholars' evolving knowledge of the medieval University of Paris
and its degree programs. The general consensus remains that
Bonaventure left Bagnoregio for Paris in 1235 and studied philosophy
until 1243. A student's guidebook from the faculty of arts at
Paris (c. 1240) provides a glimpse of Bonaventure's training,
while his own works display his mastery of this discipline (anonymous,
*Le "guide de l'etudiant"*).
Bonaventure clearly knew and utilized the emerging corpus of Aristotle
and his Arabic commentators. The Parisian program in arts favored
logic and Bonaventure mastered and utilized this art, displaying his
mastery in discussion of metaphysical and theological issues. A text
like Peter of Spain's *Summaries of Logic*
(13th century) displays the kind of logical training
Bonaventure probably received. Notably, scholars have not yet
identified any works from Bonaventure's period as a student or
master of philosophy at Paris.



By 1244 Bonaventure had completed his degree in philosophy and was a
professed Franciscan friar. Bonaventure's *Letter to an
Unknown Master* (commonly dated to the mid 1250s) gives some
insight into why he chose the Franciscans and displays his attitude to
philosophy at this
 time.[3]
 In one important passage of the *Letter* he writes:



> 
> 
> And so, if the writings of the philosophers are sometimes of much
> value in understanding truth and refuting errors, we are not departing
> from the purity of faith if we at times study them, especially since
> there are many questions of faith which cannot be settled without
> recourse to them. (trans. Monti 1994: 53)
> 
> 
> 



Bonaventure's corpus shows that while he could be deeply
critical of positions he identified as philosophical errors
(especially in his last work, the *Collationes in
Hexaemeron*), he consistently utilized philosophy and
philosophical authors in his theological and spiritual writings.



From 1243 to 1248, Bonaventure studied theology at Paris, surely
working closely with the Franciscan masters of this period: Alexander
of Hales (d. 1245), John of La Rochelle (d. 1245), Eudes Rigaud
(master c. 1245-1248), and then William of Middleton (master c.
1248-1254). At this point, Salimbene provides another important
date but one that requires some interpretation. Writing about 1280,
Salimbene states:



> 
> 
> Br. John of Parma [Franciscan Minister General] gave the license to
> Br. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio to read at Paris, which he had never yet
> done because he was not yet installed in a Chair. He then read the
> whole Gospel of St. Luke, a commentary that is very beautiful and
> complete. This was in 1248. (Salimbene, *Cronica*
> [Hodder-Egger: 209] and Hammond
>  2009)[4]
> 
> 
> 



Salimbene's report cannot mean that John of Parma gave
Bonaventure a license in theology from the University of Paris, since
John had no authority to confer this degree. The license John granted
Bonaventure must therefore have been internal to the Order. Perhaps
John made Bonaventure a lector or granted him what scholars have
called the Franciscan's second, internal chair at
 Paris.[5]
 In any case, the usual interpretation is that Bonaventure lectured on
the Bible *cursorie* as a "Bachelor of the Bible",
between 1248 and 1250/51. Then, from c. 1252-53 he commented on
the *Sentences*, likely lecturing on the whole of the
*Sentences* in one year, in the typical order
 I-IV-II-III.[6]
 Once Master, he revised the *Commentary* (*Commentaria in
Quattuor Libros Sententiarum*), his major philosophical and
theological work. In 1253 he was a "formed Bachelor" of
Theology, performing the three duties of a Master: lecturing on the
Bible, engaging in disputations, and preaching. In 1253 the Masters
and students of the University of Paris went on strike, all but the
friars. The two Dominican masters and the Franciscan William of
Middleton continued to teach and refused to take an oath of loyalty to
the University. They were expelled from the "university of
masters", an action defended by the University in a letter of 4
February (*Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis* I, no. 230:
252-8, trans. Thorndike
 56-64).[7]
 Bonaventure received the *licentia docendi* by Easter 1254, in
the midst of this conflict. He assumed the Franciscan Chair in
theology immediately, but taught only at the Franciscan convent,
unrecognized by the University.



Bonaventure performed all three tasks of a Master of Theology from
1254-57. He revised his commentary on Luke and composed
commentaries on John and Ecclesiastes. He also held three sets of
disputed questions. The questions *On the Knowledge of Christ*
(*De scientia Christi*), which develop his illumination theory
of knowledge, may come from 1254. The questions, *On the Mystery of
the Trinity* (*De mysterio Trinitatis*), which elaborated
his view of God, certainly followed *On the knowledge of
Christ*, since they cite this disputation. Bonaventure also
disputed a third set of questions *On Evangelical Perfection*
(*De perfectione evangelica*). These questions defended the
friars' way of life from the attacks of non-mendicant Masters
led by William of St. Amour in 1255 (Bougerol 1982; Traver 1995 and
1999). In October 1256, Pope Alexander IV ordered the secular Masters
at Paris to accept Bonaventure and the Dominican Thomas Aquinas in
their rightful places as Masters of Theology, but it was not until 12
August 1257 that they did so. Six months earlier Bonaventure had been
appointed Minister
 General.[8]
 In addition to the normal writings pertaining to his tasks as a
Master of Theology, Bonaventure produced numerous sermons during this
period. One text, related to the genre of sermons and known as *On
Retracing the Arts to Theology* (*Opusculum de reductione
artium ad theologiam*) may have originated as the second half of
Bonaventure's inaugural sermon as a Master of Theology (Benson
2012). In 1257, while leaving the University and beginning his tenure
as Minister General, Bonaventure also managed to compose his
*Breviloquium*, a brief and popular synthesis of theology.



As noted above, Bonaventure's "pastoral period" runs
from 1257-1274. Scholars can often pinpoint Bonaventure's
activities at this time by utilizing his sermons and by studying
documents related to the Franciscan Order (Quinn 1974; Bourgerol (ed.)
1990). Bonaventure traveled extensively to visit Franciscan houses but
maintained Paris as his chief residence (Monti 2014). During this
period, Bonaventure's writings reflected the needs of the Order,
but he did not cast aside his Parisian philosophical and theological
training. Bonaventure quickly set a firm direction for the Order in an
"encyclical letter" to all the friars on 23 April 1257,
which admonished them to recover the "somewhat tarnished"
luster of the Order (Monti 1994). Amid his other duties, Bonaventure
composed three extremely popular tracts between 1257 and 1260 for the
spiritual training of the friars: *A Soliloquy about Four Mental
Exercises* (*Soliloquium de quatuor mentalibus
exercitiis*), *The Tree of Life* (*Lignum vitae*),
and *The Triple Way* (*De triplici via*) (Coughlin 2006;
Cousins
 1978).[9]



Bonaventure's most popular work today was also composed at this
time. For Francis's feast day in October, 1259, Bonaventure
visited Mt. Alverna, the very place where Francis himself had received
a mystical vision of Christ "under the appearance" of
"a Seraph having six wings" and had "imprinted in
his flesh" the stigmata or wounds of Christ (*Legenda
maior* 13.3 [FA:ED: Volume 2, 632-633]). Here Bonaventure
conceived the idea for his *Journey of the Mind to God*
(*Itinerarium mentis in Deum*), a mental and spiritual journey
to God whose basic outline--though not its details--could be
understood by even the simplest friar (Armstrong 2020 is the most
recent English translation, offering extensive notes). The text
displays Bonaventure's philosophical and theological training in
the service of articulating how to contemplate God. The journey
follows the route first charted by St. Augustine--from the
exterior world to the interior mind, and from the interior but
inferior human mind to the superior mind, namely, to God. Bonaventure
understood the six wings of the angelic Seraph Francis saw to stand
for six ways God can be approached. Among other things, the series of
six chapters also stood for Bonaventure as the six days of creation.
He therefore arranged his *Journey* into six chapters of mental
work followed by a seventh chapter on mystical rest. The two lower
wings of the Seraph symbolize seeing God through "footprints
(*vestigia*)", signs in the sub-human world that point to
God, including signs in the physical universe itself (c. 1) and signs
found in the sensory life humans have in common with other animals (c.
2). The two middle wings of the Seraph symbolize seeing God in his
"image", namely, in humans understood as bearing within
their intellectual nature special signs pointing to God. Here
Bonaventure distinguished signs of God found in the
"natural" exercise of the mind in theoretical knowledge
(c. 3) from those found in its exercise in the practical sphere
"reformed by grace" (c. 4). The two highest wings of the
Seraph symbolize seeing the light of God, first in the way reason sees
God as having one divine nature (c. 5) and then as faith sees God in
the Trinity of persons (c. 6). These three sets of twin
"steps" culminate in the "mental and mystical
transport" found in mystical experience (c. 7), the end of the
*Journey*. For each step, Bonaventure used material from
earlier writings; but the *Journey*, like all his later works,
is a synthesis the Minister General never had the leisure to expand.
In the *Journey*, he achieves a combination of scriptural
imagery, philosophic depth, mystical yearning, and a density more
meditative than demonstrative, as befitting the genre of the text. The
*Journey*, nevertheless, provides an appropriate outline for
looking at Bonaventure's philosophy which will be pursued
below.



The General Chapter of 1260 held in Narbonne, France, the first where
Bonaventure presided, ratified his codification of the legal statutes
under which Franciscans lived, known as the "Constitutions of
Narbonne" and also asked him to write a definitive *Life of
St. Francis*, which he did in 1261. These two works set the Order
on a moderate course that lasted for centuries and led Franciscans to
revere Bonaventure as their "second founder".



For most of the period from 1257 through 1266 Bonaventure trekked
through France and Italy by foot, as did all friars when they
traveled. In 1266 he returned to Paris, where his friars were under
attack both from conservatives in the Theology faculty and from
radicals in Arts. Bonaventure began giving a series of collations
(sermons offered in the morning and evening) which he considered a
sequence: *Collations on the Ten Commandments* (*Collationes
de decem praeceptis*), Lent of 1267; *Collations on the Seven
Gifts of the Holy Spirit* (*Collationes de septem donis
Spiritus sancti*), Lent of 1268; and *Collations on the
Hexaemeron* (*Collationes in Hexaemeron*) during
Easter-tide of 1273, a series that was never finished and is often
regarded as a masterpiece of medieval theology. Though the issues
covered in these collations range across nearly the whole of Christian
theology, they have come to be understood as Bonaventure at his most
polemical, since in them he attacks the three philosophical errors
that he believes are the most dangerous: the eternity of the world,
the necessity of fate, and that there is one intellect for all human
beings (On these collations see Ratzinger 1959 [1971] and
 2009).[10]
 Bonaventure thought all three of these errors undermined Christian
faith, the last of the three impacting the doctrineof salvation
 itself.[11]
 Notably, the series of collations are close in time to 10 December
1270, when certain Aristotelian positions were condemned by the Bishop
of Paris, Etienne Tempier.



In addition to these important collations, in 1269 Bonaventure again
defended mendicant life from the critiques of secular clergy in his
*Apologia pauperum* (*Defense of the Mendicants*). The
last period of Bonaventure's life saw him rise to become one of
the most prominent men in Christendom. During the three-year Papal
vacancy, from 29 November 1268 to 1 September 1271, Bonaventure
preached an important sermon in Viterbo and was perhaps instrumental
in ending the vacancy. He is said to have been offered the papacy by
the electors and to have suggested Teobaldi Visconti instead. After
Teobaldi's election as Pope Gregory X, he appointed Bonaventure
cardinal on 28 May 1273 (Franchi, 1981); Bartholomew of Pisa, the
earliest source for Bonaventure suggesting Teobaldo's name,
wrote ca. 1385.). At the Second Council of Lyon, Bonaventure labored
for the reunification of eastern and western Churches, a major goal of
the Council which seemed to have been achieved when he suddenly fell
ill on 15 July 1274. The acts of the council then report:



> 
> 
> at the hour of Matins died Br. Bonaventure of happy memory, Bishop of
> Albano, who was a man eminent for his knowledge and eloquence
> (*homo eminentis scientie et eloquentie*), a man outstanding
> for his sanctity and acknowledged for the excellence of his life, both
> religious and moral ... Br. Peter of Tarantasia [also a Cardinal]
> celebrated the funeral mass and preached on the theme "I am
> saddened over you, my brother Jonathan". There were many tears
> and much weeping, for the Lord had given him such grace that the
> hearts of all who saw him were seized with a desire for his love.
> (Franchi 1965: 95; in Bougerol, 1988: 11)
> 
> 
> 


## 2. Philosophy, Faith, and Theology

 

Without exception, every word of philosophy Bonaventure ever wrote is
contained in works explicitly religious--in sermons, works of
spiritual direction, and theology. He never wrote the kind of
introductions to the principles of metaphysics and natural philosophy
that Thomas Aquinas composed in his *On Being and Essence*
(*De ente et essentia*) and *On the Principles of
Nature* (*De principiis naturae*), nor have any
commentaries on Aristotle's works under his name been
identified. Scholars writing during the twentieth century
Neo-Thomistic revival compared Bonaventure with three other thinkers:
Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. P. Mandonnet thought he had no
philosophy of his own, but was an Augustinian theologian, pure and
simple, all of whose conclusions depend on faith. E. Gilson thought
Bonaventure developed an Augustinian philosophy within his
theology:



> 
> 
> with St. Bonaventure the mystical synthesis of mediaeval
> Augustinianism was fully formed, just as that of Christian
> Aristotelianism was fully formed with St. Thomas. (Gilson 1924 [1938:
> 490]).
> 
> 
> 



F. Van Steenberghen thought his philosophy a failed Aristotelianism
separate from but at the service of his Augustinian
 theology.[12]
 None of these interpretations quite captures Bonaventure's
relation to these three philosophers or his own approach to the
relations among reason, faith, and theology, because they implicitly
employed a Thomistic model for being an Aristotelian, with the result
that Bonaventure's failures derive from his not being the kind
of Aristotelian Thomas Aquinas was.



Bonaventure's approach to Aristotle was quite different from
Albert and Thomas. He felt no need for detailed knowledge of the text
of Aristotle. As a student in Arts he had learned from his Masters,
not from detailed study of Aristotle's text, broadly
Aristotelian philosophical principles--the categories and
transcendentals, the causes and predicables, and fundamental notions
like potency and act, possible and necessary--sufficient to do
his own work. As a philosopher and theologian, he was perfectly
capable of using such borrowed principles to draw his own conclusions,
ones which he himself said depended more on Alexander of Hales than on
any philosopher:



> 
> 
> For I do not intend to advocate new opinions, but to reweave the
> common and approved ones ("Praelocutio," Quaracchi II: 1a, trans.
> authors).
> 
> 
> 



Consequently, Bonaventure was not a failed Aristotelian for the simple
reason that he never tried to be an Aristotelian in the Dominican way
at all. On the other hand, while Augustine was clearly
Bonaventure's favorite theological authority, he was not,
properly speaking, an Augustinian. Even when he draws Augustinian
conclusions, Bonaventure does not employ Augustinian arguments. In
truth, Bonaventure was, broadly speaking, an Aristotelian in his
philosophical principles, but not in his conclusions. A better way to
describe his philosophical conclusions and his way of drawing them is
that his thought was Franciscan in inspiration and Bonaventurean in
execution.



The pressing issue concerning philosophy, faith, and theology in the
1250s was how to set up theology as an Aristotelian demonstrative
science. Albert had done so in his commentary on the
*Sentences* (1243-9), which Bonaventure had on hand when
writing his own commentary. Demonstration is causal knowledge, and a
science in Aristotle's sense is systematic knowledge of one
limited subject developed through demonstrating necessary conclusions
by making use of certain fundamental causal principles relevant to the
subject at hand. The task theology had set itself, then, was to
discover and present systematically the truths set out in that most
unsystematic of books--the Bible.



Since a "science" is causal knowledge, Bonaventure devoted
the four questions of the prologue to his commentary on Book 1 of the
*Sentences*, which serves as his introduction the whole
"science" of theology, to its four causes--efficient,
final, formal, and material. These causes in turn clarify the
relations between philosophy, faith, and theology.



Since science exists as an intellectual habit in the mind of the
knower, the *efficient* cause of any book of theology is the
author who wrote it, Peter Lombard in the case of his
*Sentences*, Bonaventure himself in the case of his commentary.
Lombard was no mere scribe, compiler, or commentator; he was an
"author", and the same is true of Bonaventure himself.
This simple point distinguishes faith, whose sole efficient cause is
God working through grace, from both philosophy and theology, whose
efficient cause is the human mind, though even here God has a role to
play.



When he came to clarify the *end* of theology, Bonaventure
understood that Aristotle had sharply distinguished practical
science--whose end is deeds--from theoretical
science--whose end is knowledge. So he asks whether theology is
"for the sake of contemplation or for the sake of our becoming
good". The answer is that theology is more perfect than any
philosophical science because it breaks through the bounds of this
Aristotelian dichotomy. Neither theoretical knowledge nor practical
deeds get to the center of the moral life, which is love--both
the "affection" of love and the theological virtue of
charity. The kind of intellectual virtue that prepares the mind for
charity is a "wisdom" that "involves knowledge and
affection together". The "knowledge that Christ died for
us", for example, is far different from the knowledge of the
geometer or the knowledge of the general. Consequently, theological
wisdom is both



> 
> 
> for the sake of contemplation and also for our becoming good, but
> principally for the sake of our becoming good (Quaracchi III: 13b;
> trans. Houser and Noone 2013: 12)
> 
> 
> 



through enlivening our knowledge and deeds with Christian
"affection".



The *form* that produces "science" is its
"method of proceeding". Now



> 
> 
> the end imposes necessity on the means, since "teeth are sharp
> in order to cut", as Aristotle says.
> 
> 
> 



Since theology is "designed to promote the faith", it
employs "the method of argumentation or inquiry" first
developed by Aristotle. By adapting the philosophical method to the
data of faith, theology attempts to "confound the adversaries of
the faith", "strengthen those weak in their faith",
and "delight those whose faith is complete". Bonaventure
situated theology within the hierarchy of the sciences by adverting to
Aristotle's notion of "subalternated sciences". The
Philosopher had recognized that optics--which studies visible
lines--is a science "subalternated" to
geometry--which studies lines as such. Theology depends upon
Scripture in a similar way, for scripture offers certain truths to be
believed, but theology looks at the same truths "as made
intelligible". In this way, theology is different from the faith
it tries to understand and from the Scripture that offers faith to us
(*In I Sent.* prol. q. 1 ad 5m; 2c [Quaracchi I: 8b]; trans.
Houser and Noone 2013, 5).



To understand theology as a "science" making faith
intelligible, Bonaventure must clarify its *material* cause.
Determining that *material* cause of theology is the same as
settling on its *subject*. On this point, there had been
considerable dispute among the Masters. Aristotle's
"sciences" were all limited to a particular genus, such as
"animal" or "soul" or "memory" or
"ethics". Even his universal science of metaphysics was
limited to studying substances; it eschewed the other categories.
Theology, by contrast, cuts across all genera and includes God, who is
not confined within any genus. Bonaventure was familiar with many
accounts of the subject of theology: "things and signs",
the work of "reparation for sin", "Christ--head
and members", "God", and "the object of
belief" (*credibile*). To throw light on these
conflicting answers, Bonaventure turned to his study of the Arts.
Priscian had noted three different senses of the subject of grammar.
Its subject in the sense of its "root principle" is the
"letter" that makes up words; its subject conceived as an
"integral whole" is "a fitting and complete
oration;" and its subject conceived as "universal
whole" is "meaningful sound, articulated and
ordered". There are three correlative senses of the subject of
theology: "God" is the "principle" of the
subject and "Christ--head and members" is the
"integral whole", the entirety of what theology studies.
But the most important sense of "subject" is the
"universal whole". Therefore, "the subject of this
book, properly speaking", is the "object of belief",
a subject that lets theology range over all realities and all thoughts
about which one can have religious faith. (Quaracchi I: 6-8; trans.
Houser and Noone 2013, 1-6).



Bonaventure does not explicitly address the principles of theology.
But he further clarifies its "subject" in a way that
points to those principles. To faith, Scripture adds the notion of
"authority", and to the faith and authority of Scriptural
revelation, theology adds "proof". Theology presupposes
faith but adds to it rational demonstrations about matters of faith.
Consequently, Bonaventure adds a telling qualification to his
description of the subject of theology. Theology's subject is
the object of belief



> 
> 
> in so far as the *object of belief* *passes over into
> intelligibility by the addition of reasoning*.
>   
> 
> *prout tamen credibile transit in rationem intelligibilis, et hoc
> per additionem rationis.*
>   
> 
> (*In I Sent.* prol., q. 1 conclusio [Quaracchi I: 7b]; trans.
> Houser and Noone 2013, 4)
> 
> 
> 



With this concise formula, Bonaventure includes within theology both
religious belief transformed by arguments from natural reason and
natural reason transformed by arguments based on religious revelation.
If so, then theology must have the kinds of principles that make
possible both kinds of arguments: the fundamental truths of faith
drawn from the Bible and tradition, but also fundamental truths of
reason. What makes all such basic truths theological is their
argumentative function. Theological arguments may draw from revelation
by using revealed truths as premises and they may draw from reason by
using rational truths as premises. Both kinds of arguments are
theological because of the use to which they are put. In this way,
philosophical *reasoning* has an integral place within the
domain of Bonaventurean theology.



Bonaventure showed how philosophical reasoning works in theology in
the very structure of his disputed question *On the Mystery of the
Trinity.* Each question is divided into two articles, the first
proven using rational premises and the second proven using premises
drawn from faith. In Question 1, for example, God is rationally proven
to exist in Art. 1, then shown to be a trinity of persons using
arguments based on faith and reason in Art. 2. Theology, then,
consists most fundamentally in the understanding that results from
joining rational arguments and faith-based arguments
 together.[13]
 The same mode of reasoning is found in *On Retracing the Arts to
Theology*. Here "reduction" consists in developing
analogies that move the mind from the liberal arts to theology and
back again. Bonaventure argues for each point by combining one claim
based on reason with another based on revelation, as though they were
wall and buttress of the cathedral of theology. Philosophical
reasoning, then, is an absolutely integral part of Bonaventure's
faith-based theology.


## 3. Physical Creation



In the first step of the *Journey* Bonaventure focuses upon the
sensible objects of the physical world around us, both taken in
themselves and in reference to our sense awareness of them. Like all
creatures, sensible things are understood to be signs that ultimately
can direct humans to the divine art or wisdom through which all things
have been made. Bonaventure's semiotics distinguishes four sorts
of signs. All creatures can be seen as "shadows"
(*umbra*) and "vestiges" (lit. footprints,
*vestigia*):



> 
> 
> For a creature is called a shadow based on its properties which point
> to God in some type of causality in an indeterminate way. But a
> creature is called a vestige based on properties which point to God as
> triple cause--efficient, formal, and final cause; for example,
> the properties: one, true, and good. (*In I Sent.* d. 3, pars
> 1, q. 2, ad 4 [Quaracchi I: 73b], trans. Houser and Noone, 77-78)
> 
> 
> 



In addition, Bonaventure posits two higher types of semiosis pertinent
solely to rational creatures, which are "images"
(*imago*) pointing to the First Principle through its properly
rational powers which have their source and highest object in God and
"likenesses" (*similitudo*) of God to the extent
that they are recipients of divine grace and conform themselves to the
divine will. All creatures, from rocks to angels, are signs in the
sense of shadows and traces of God, for they all bear a relation of
causal dependency upon God as their source; but only rational
creatures can have the divine as an object of their activities and,
for that reason, can conform themselves to the divine will and become
likenesses of God.


### 3.1 The Physical World



Bonaventure's understanding of the physical world is heavily
indebted to two fundamental sources: the Biblical account of creation,
mediated by Patristic commentaries, and the Aristotelian view of
nature, taken chiefly from Aristotle's writings on natural
philosophy, such as the *Physics* (*Physica*) and *On
the Heavens* (*De caelo*), but combined with the
commentaries of Averroes, the tracts of Avicenna, and the
*Timaeus* of Plato in the Latin translation of Calcidius.
Bonaventure constructs a view of the physical world that is indebted
to both of his fundamental sources, but ultimately gives the
Scriptural text and the related Patristic tradition precedence
whenever his sources come into conflict. His manner of synthesizing
those sources into a coherent and impressive whole is what gives his
views on nature their distinctive character.


### 3.2 Creation



The tension between the newly translated Aristotelian corpus and the
traditional theological teaching of the Church regarding the doctrine
of creation was well understood by Bonaventure's time. Indeed,
the prohibitions of 1215 and 1231 regarding the teaching of the
Aristotelian writings on natural philosophy had given way to the
direct teaching of Aristotle in the Faculty of Arts by the time
Bonaventure took his master of arts degree at the University of Paris,
and by the time he left the University, the Aristotelian corpus in its
entirety was a subject of examination for candidates for degrees in
the Faculty of Arts. Yet the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of
the world was given various interpretations. Some favored a benign
interpretation, claiming that all Aristotle meant in *Physics*
VIII was that the world and its motion did not arise from some earlier
motion, but rather time, moveable things, and motion were all coeval
and
 concomitant.[14]
 Others, however, chief among them Robert Grosseteste, argued that the
views of Aristotle should be taken at face value and what the
Stagirite intended was the eternity of the past; the Greek Fathers and
Aristotle's own commentators both were in accord that the
Aristotelian outlook involved the beginninglessness of the past and
unoriginated
 matter.[15]



Bonaventure's own position takes its origins from a combination
of elements coming from Alexander of Hales and Grosseteste. Following
the lead of the latter, Bonaventure rejects, albeit with some
hesitation, the benign reading of the Stagirite; in all likelihood,
Aristotle did intend to teach that the world was beginningless:



> 
> 
> And this view [i.e., that matter eternally existed under some form]
> seems more reasonable than its opposite, namely, that matter existed
> eternally incomplete, bereft of form and divine influence, as some of
> the philosophers posited. Indeed, this view seems so reasonable that
> the most excellent of the philosophers, Aristotle, fell into this
> error, at least as the saints impute it to him, his commentators
> expound him, and his own words indicate. (*In II Sent.*, lib.
> II, d. 1, pars 1, art. 1, qu. 2, resp. [Quaracchi II: 22b], trans.
>  authors[16])
> 
> 
> 



Yet the most striking feature of Bonaventure's account of the
philosophers is the manner in which he juxtaposes the doctrine of
creation, as he understands it, with the philosophical theory of
origins. According to Bonaventure, only two theories regarding the
origin of the cosmos are really tenable: first, the theory of the
pagan philosophers according to which the world is eternal and the
matter of the universe is without ultimate causal origin; second, the
Christian doctrine of creation according to which the universe depends
entirely for its being on God, is produced "from nothing (*ex
nihilo*)", and is temporally finite in the past. The third
possibility, namely that the world is both produced from nothing and
eternal, Bonaventure vehemently rejects on the grounds that such a
position is inherently contradictory:



> 
> 
> Response: To posit that the world is eternal or eternally produced,
> while positing likewise that all things have been produced from
> nothing, is altogether opposed to the truth and reason, just as the
> last reason stated showed. Indeed, it is so opposed to reason that I
> do not believe any philosopher, however small his intellectual
> abilities, took this position. For this involves, in itself, an
> obvious contradiction. To posit, however, that the world is eternal on
> the supposition that matter is eternal seems reasonable and
> understandable.... (*In II Sent.*, d. 1, pars 1, art. 1,
> qu. 2 [Quaracchi II: 22a-b], trans.
>  authors[17])
> 
> 
> 



Returning to the last argument, we find the reasoning to which
Bonaventure refers. The argument is an elegant synthesis and
restatement of the position of Parisian theologians since the time of
William of Auxerre, but is especially indebted to the
*Quaestiones* of Alexander of Hales. Everything that depends
entirely for its being on something else is produced by that thing
from nothing. The world depends entirely for its being on God. Hence,
the world must be produced from nothing. If the world is produced from
nothing, it must either arise out of the "nothing" as out
of matter or out of the "nothing" as out of a point of
origin. The world cannot arise out of nothing as out of matter. Thus
the world must arise out of nothing as out of a point of origin. If,
however, the world arises out of nothing as out of a point of origin,
then the world has being after non-being. Nothing having being after
non-being can be eternal. The world, as a created thing, has being
after non-being. Therefore, the world, precisely as created "out
of nothing", cannot be eternal (*In II Sent.*, d. 1, pars
1, art. 1, qu. 2 [Quaracchi II:
 22a][18]).
 The philosophical force of the expression that there be a logical
moment at which we could say that the world is not and with reference
to which the world begins to be. The ontological reference of such a
logical moment is the divine eternity with respect to which
("after" which) the world begins.



To Bonaventure's mind, the creationist view of the universe
alone accounts for the total being of the universe in the sense of
explaining both its structure and the fact that it exists; the view of
the ancients only explains the order and the pattern of the universe
without reaching the depths of accounting for why the universe exists
at all. A sign of this shortcoming is to be seen in the shared
presupposition of Plato and Aristotle that matter is unoriginated.
Furthermore, to the extent that the ancient pagan views of the
universe involve the infinity of past time, with all the philosophical
difficulties that the eternity of past time entails, natural reason
would seem capable of arriving, in principle, at the conclusion that
the world was created, even though, historically speaking, the
greatest of the ancient philosophers failed to do so.


### 3.3 Matter



The conflict between Scriptural sources and the Aristotelian writings
on the issue of the primordial state of matter is not so severe,
because in the Aristotelian corpus there is no description of the
primordial state of matter, and the other sources available to
Bonaventure are themselves in disagreement. Augustine, for example,
had suggested in his literal commentary on Genesis that the matter of
the world could have been made all at once, whereas in his
*Confessions* (*Confessiones*) he had suggested that
there might be an indeterminate and inchoate initial state of matter.
This possibility was further corroborated by such pagan authors as
Plato and Ovid, who had posited a primordial chaotic state of matter
out of which the present cosmic order gradually emerged (Plato,
*Timaeus* 52D-53C, 54-55; Ovid,
*Metamorphoses*, 43:5-45:7).



Bonaventure begins by distinguishing the consideration of matter from
the actual existence of matter in the order of natural history (*In
II Sent.*, d. 12, art. 1, q. 1 [Quaracchi II: 294a]). We may
consider matter simply as a constitutive principle of things and as
such it is pure potency; this is the way that the concept of matter
functions in Aristotle's *Physics* and, to
Bonaventure's mind, how Augustine spoke of matter in the
*Confessions*. But we may also think of matter as it actually
exists in time. In this respect, matter never exists and cannot exist
as lacking all form. Such a claim, however, does not require that
material creation was brought forth as fully formed, even if such a
position might be more philosophically defensible than its opposite
(*In II Sent.*, d. 12, art. 1, q.2 [Quaracchi II: 296b]).
Instead, Bonaventure suggests that physical matter was created in a
state wherein it had a tendency and capacity to admit many different
forms, though it had none of them in its own right. Rather, its
potentiality to develop distinct forms required further external,
divine agency in order for the distinct things having diverse forms to
fully emerge (*In II Sent.*, d. 12, art. 1, q.3 [Quaracchi II:
299b-300a]). Physical matter's properties in its
incomplete state included extension and visibility (properties arising
from the form common to all physical things, namely, light). These
features are still shared by all the items in the physical world, even
though Bonaventure admits, in accord with the Aristotelian teaching on
the heavens, that heavenly bodies, such as the stars, have matter that
differs in kind from that of terrestrial things. Accordingly, after
things were fully produced matter was twofold, terrestrial and
celestial, but in its primordial state physical matter enjoyed a
corresponding unity that was one of contiguity, i.e., it was one mass
(*In II Sent.*, d. 12, art. 2, q.1 [Quaracchi II:
 303a-b]).[19]
 This primordial unity of physical matter continues to have some
scientific bearing for Bonaventure since it grounds the consideration
of the general physicist who may prescind from the process of
generation and corruption and consider bodies simply in terms of their
mobility in place and extension (*In II Sent.*, d. 3, p. 1 art.
1, q.2 [Quaracchi II: 97a]).


### 3.4 Light



Bonaventure's treatment of light is mainly found in the
discussion of light in his commentary on Lombard's
*Sentences*, Bk. 2, d. 13. In this theological context, light
mainly bears upon the work of the six days of creation, and
Bonaventure must take a position on the Genesis account of the
creation of light. Though he acknowledges Augustine's
spiritualizing interpretation of light, an interpretation that
identifies the light spoken of in Genesis with the creation and
activities of the angels, Bonaventure inclines to a more literal
interpretation (*In II Sent.* d. 13, art. 1, q. 1 [Quaracchi
II: 312b-313a]). This means that Bonaventure had to take a
position on the contemporary debates on light and its nature.



The two positions that Bonaventure discusses are what we may call a
broadly Aristotelian position, one eventually adopted by Thomas
Aquinas, and a broadly Augustinian position advocated by Robert
Grosseteste in his *On light* (*De luce*). According to
the first, light is simply an accidental form, one found in degrees in
different bodies, but according to the second, light is perhaps a
substance or at least a substantial form communicating extension and
visibility to physical things.



Bonaventure discounts the possibility that light is a substance,
because it is purely active and if it were a substance in its own
right it would be God and not a creature. He does allow, however, that
light is a substantial form and is the substantial form that is
concomitant with the mass of matter in its primordial state (*In II
Sent.* d. 13, art. 2, q. 2 [Quaracchi II: 320b-321b]). In
this originating condition, light gave the mass of matter its
extension and visibility and the hierarchy of heavenly bodies
corresponds to the hierarchy of things capable of partaking either
more or less in the light that renders bodies active and extended. For
Bonaventure, then, light is a substantial form, but only the partial
perfection of any given physical substance, whether celestial or
terrestrial. Since Bonaventure endorses, usually without any elaborate
argumentation, the general claim that there is a plurality of
substantial forms within any composite thing, his doctrine of light
really means that light is the first form, endowing each thing with
extension, and preparing the way for further perfections such as the
forms of the elements or the forms of mixtures or compounds.


### 3.5 Seminal reasons



The transition in the order of natural history from bodies that are
simply such, extended and endowed with the ability to act and be acted
upon, to the bodies of plants and animals is explained in part through
the motions of the celestial bodies and their causal influences on
matter. In part, however, matter itself has latent structures that
simply await the correct circumstances and conditions to cause the
emergence of a higher type of body. These latent structures,
originally sown into matter at its creation, Bonaventure calls,
following the terminology of St. Augustine, *rationes
seminales* or seminal reasons, a term hearkening back to the
cosmology of the ancient Stoics. Seminal reasons amount to a lingering
impact of the creator on the matter of the physical world since their
presence in matter originates with creation. In physical science,
Bonaventure believes seminal reasons help to explain the successive
emergence of the different kinds of bodies suitable for higher and
higher types of life. But this process of gradual emergence does not
apply to the creation of human life, since human souls for Bonaventure
are incorruptible and can only arise through the direct action of the
creator.



Though from our post-Darwinian perspective we may be tempted to see in
the doctrine of seminal reasons, whether in Augustine or Bonaventure,
a curious, yet awkward anticipation of the doctrine of evolution,
similarities between the doctrine of seminal reasons and certain
elements in evolutionary theory are more apparent than real. First,
though seminal reasons do provide directionality and progression for
the succession of physical types in natural history, they are
themselves latent forms within matter and not reducible to more
fundamental mechanical or chemical processes; rather, they underlie
such processes. Second, seminal reasons are never appealed to in order
to explain the demise of one living species and the emergence of
another species to replace the former, a key feature of Darwinian
explanations. Third, seminal reasons are not, as we have just seen,
universal in their application to the living things that occur within
the order of natural history; human beings, at least in terms of their
souls, fall outside the range of influence of seminal reasons.


### 3.6 Living Things



Bonaventure's doctrines regarding living things are mainly
inspired by an Aristotelian biology. Living things are such thanks to
the kind of forms they have, namely, soul, which is defined as the
first actuality of a body having life potentially. Soul is understood
as the form that makes a thing alive and able to enjoy the type of
life that it does. Consequently, souls are termed either vegetative,
sensitive, or rational, according to the functions that the living
things themselves exercise.


### 3.7 Sense Cognition



The world as it is revealed to us through the senses provides the
means for our re-entering ourselves and ascending to higher things.
Furthermore, the senses themselves are equally signs of higher
things.



Physical things considered in their own right evidence "weight,
number, and measure" (Psalm 83:8), thereby causing us to
contemplate their own measure, beauty, and order. These features are
grounded in the activities and natural powers of sensible substances.
The nature of sensible substances accordingly expresses in their
actions and interactions the measure, beauty, and order of their
origin and thereby attest to the power, wisdom, and goodness of the
Source from which they spring (*Journey* cap. I, n. 11
[Quaracchi V: 298b]). Likewise, the origin, size, number, beauty,
fullness, function, and origin of physical things point to the Divine
Source and its essential properties of power, wisdom, and goodness
(*Journey* cap. I, n. 14 [Quaracchi V: 299a-b]).



The pointing of physical things towards their Source finds its
parallel in sense cognition itself, which also points towards that
same Source. Drawing his point of departure from the Neoplatonic theme
of macrocosm and microcosm, Bonaventure discovers an analogy between
Aristotelian cosmology and the process of sensation. Each sensible
object generates a likeness of itself in the medium through which it
is perceived, and that likeness in turn generates another likeness
successively in the sense organ, causing the sense power to apprehend
the sensible object. The process so described reflects the process of
the emanation of forms from the heavenly bodies and also the manner in
which creatures, going forth from their Principle, return to their
Source through the exercise of their natural activities. A similar
pattern emerges within the different acts exercised by each sense
power: the sense apprehends (*apprehensio*) the object,
delights (*delectatio*) in its object, provided that the object
does not exceed the natural limits of the organ, and judges
(*diiudicatio*) or discriminates the quality of its object.
This last act, found in both the external senses and the internal
senses, takes on a special role for Bonaventure. Such a sense
judgement, through comparative awareness, detaches the object from a
given place and time, thereby preparing the way within the realm of
sense cognition for intellectual cognition (*Journey* cap. II,
n. 6 [Quaracchi V: 301a]).


## 4. Intellectual Creatures



When we arrive at the threshold of intellectual cognition, we are
entering the next step along the Bonaventurean journey. This level of
creaturely being points to the Divine Source, but in ways that are
more direct than those in which sensible creatures do. In exercising
their powers of intellect and will, intellectual creatures discover
the highest and most perfect object of their powers in the Divine
Source of their being, since God is the First or Highest Truth and the
First or Chief Good. Accordingly, intellectual creatures have God as
their ultimate object, whereas all creatures have God as their Cause.
Consequently, intellectual creatures show themselves to be
"images" and "likenesses" of God, while they
show that all creatures are "shadows" and
"vestiges" of God.



Bonaventure traces out how intellectual creatures and intelligible
objects reflect the divine Source. If we begin with something as
immediate and basic as simple apprehension on the part of the human
intellect, we find that an object of simple apprehension (such as the
natural kind "dog") is susceptible of definition. Yet
every definition requires a genus and a differentia. Through the
generic term we are led to a further object of simple apprehension,
usually itself susceptible of definition. If the genus is definable,
we may state its definition, but we shall eventually find ourselves
through continuing the process of definition arriving similarly at one
of the supreme general or Aristotelian categories; if the genus is not
definable, then we have arrived at one of the Aristotelian categories.
Once we arrive at a category, we confront an item not susceptible of
further definition, though it admits of description. If the
categorical item is an accident, it satisfies the description of an
accident as "being through another;" if we are dealing
with substance, then the item we are considering satisfies the
description of substance as "being in itself".



The resolution of all our items of simple apprehension into the
concept of being is metaphysically and epistemologically crucial:
metaphysically, it opens up a route of argumentation that leads to the
existence of God; epistemologically, such a resolution means that
behind all, even the most determinate and specific, conceptions of
things lies a transcendental awareness of being that informs all of
our knowledge. If we take the concept of substance as being in itself,
we cannot come to know a particular substance's definition
without the concept of being presupposed in the background, and in
addition we are concomitantly aware of the transcendental properties
of being (unity, truth, and goodness) in any such notion. Such
co-extensive transcendental properties, however, are only one of the
two types of properties that belong to being; the other transcendental
properties (later called disjunctive properties) prove extremely
useful for increasing our metaphysical knowledge. Being may be
conceived of as either actual or potential, absolute or dependent,
prior or posterior, immutable or mutable. Yet to conceive of being as
potential, dependent, posterior, or mutable requires that we already
be acquainted with being as actual, independent, prior and immutable.
In other words, the more perfect of the two disjuncts in any of the
disjunctive transcendentals must be an item we acknowledge in our
awareness of being:



> 
> 
> Since privations and defects may only be known through positive
> features, our intellect does not fully resolve the understanding of
> any one created thing unless it is assisted by an understanding of the
> purest, most actual, complete, and absolute being, which is being
> simply and eternally and in which are found all the formulas of things
> in their purity. Indeed, how can the mind know that this being is
> defective and incomplete unless it has some awareness of being without
> defect? And the same line of analysis pertains to the other conditions
> of being mentioned above. (*Journey* cap. III, n. 3 [Quaracchi
> V: 394a]; trans.
>  authors)[20]
> 
> 
> 



At one level, this line of argumentation is part of an argument for
the existence of God. But, at another level, it is an effort to
demarcate the proper object of the human mind as being and to point
out that, if we reflect upon the notion of being (*ens*) in
terms of its actuality (*esse*) we are inexorably led to the
conclusion that there is a Perfect Being (*Journey* cap. V, n.
3 [Quaracchi V:
 308b-309a][21]).
 We reach the same kind of conclusion if we reflect, not upon the
primary object of the mind, but upon its operations. The certainty of
judgment requires that we be aware of the impossibility of our being
mistaken combined with our awareness that the truth that we know
cannot be otherwise; indeed, the most fundamental truths we know are
all immutable. But, following Augustine, Bonaventure claims that there
is no source for immutable truth other than God, since God is the only
immutable and unchanging Being *Journey* cap. III, n. 3
[Quaracchi V:
 304a-b][22]).



What we find when we look within ourselves is that we are pointed
above to God, who is the light of the mind, guaranteeing the certainty
of our judgments. This thesis, usually called by scholars divine
illumination, was quite ancient by Bonaventure's time; it was
part of the philosophical teaching of Augustine. What makes
Bonaventure's version so philosophically distinctive is that he
proposes to synthesize the epistemology of divine illumination with
the Aristotelian account of abstraction. Bonaventure is thoroughly
committed to the integral role played by the agent and possible
intellects in human intellectual cognition. The agent and possible
intellects are not separated substances, in the way envisaged by
Averroes, but properly human faculties essential to the constitution
of the human soul (*In II Sent.* d. 24, pars 1, art 2, q. 4
[Quaracchi II:
 568b][23]).
 Hence, unlike his contemporaries, who often thought of the human
possible intellect as being illumined by God functioning as an agent
intellect, Bonaventure assigns each human being an agent intellect.
Differing from his contemporaries, Bonaventure also insists that the
possible intellect always remains the recipient of the intelligible
species abstracted by the agent intellect and the faculty of
apprehension; accordingly, the possible intellect continues to be part
of the human soul even when the soul is separated by death from the
body (*In II Sent.* d. 24, pars 1 art. 2, q. 4 [Quaracchi II:
569b-570a]). Abstraction is, for Bonaventure, the main, though
not exclusive, source of our concepts of things. How then does
illumination work and why is it necessary? The divine light works
together with the human intellectual faculties as a "regulative
and moving cause", ensuring that the human mind grasps the
immutable truth of the creature; it does not and cannot replace the
human intellectual faculties in their proper roles (*De scientia
Christi*, q. 4 [Quaracchi V: 23b]). The appeal to divine
illumination is justified, primarily if not exclusively, for the
reason that there is an incommensurability between our intellectual
faculties and the ordinary objects we know as created and mutable, on
the one hand, and the immutable truths we come to know. Inasmuch as
things cannot give what they do not have, the only source of eternal
and immutable truth is God's Light.



In general, the activities proper to intellectual creatures point much
more directly than merely sensible or sentient creatures to the divine
Source. Both the objects of the understanding and the will are
ultimately rooted in God as Being and Goodness. This more direct
pointing to God on the part of the intellectual creature is also seen
in the intellectual creature's constitution, both psychological
and ontological. The image of God is found in the fundamental
interrelatedness of the memory, understanding, and will. Each act of
memory calls to mind the past, is aware of the present and anticipates
the future; each act of understanding presupposes the memory of first
principles; and each act of will presupposes the act of understanding
and moves the mind to further acts of memory. This triadic structure
of the human mind reflects its Source: the Perfect Being that is
simultaneously, Highest Unity, Supreme Truth, and Ultimate Good
(*Itenerarium* cap. III, n. 5-6 [Quaracchi V:
305a-b]). Likewise, the ontological constitution of intellectual
creatures, humans and angels, moves us along the road to the
consideration of God. Each intellectual creature is composed of act
and potency, metaphysical principles that Bonaventure understands to
be co-extensive with matter and form (*In II Sent.* d. 3 pars
1, art. 1, q. 2 resp. [Quaracchi II 97b]). Accordingly, even
intellectual creatures are composed of form and matter (*In II
Sent.*, d. 3, pars 1, art. 1, q. 1 resp. [Quaracchi II: 91a];
*In II Sent.* d. 17, art. 1, q. 2, resp. [Quaracchi II:
414b-415a]). For Bonaventure, it is the conjunction of form and
matter that explains the individuality of each thing (*In II
Sent.* d. 3, pars 1, art. 2, q. 3 resp. [Quaracchi II:
109b-110a]; on the principle of individuation in Bonaventure,
see King 1994). But that even the highest creatures are composed of
potency and act in this fashion entails that they are derived from a
Source that is not so composed, but is, instead, pure act and hence
pure form.


## 5. God



In his *Collations on the Hexameron* Bonaventure read Genesis
spiritually, distinguishing seven levels of "vision"
corresponding to the seven days of creation. The first level is
"understanding naturally given" or philosophy, which he
divided following the Stoics into logic, ethics, and physics, the last
further subdivided following Aristotle into natural philosophy,
mathematics, and metaphysics. The focus of metaphysics is on causal
relations between God and creatures. Here



> 
> 
> the philosophers--the finest and the ancient
> philosophers--came to this conclusion: there is a beginning, and
> an end, and an exemplar cause
> 
> 
> 



of the universe (*Collationes in Hexaemeron* 6.1
[Quaracchi V: 360]; trans. authors), that is, God is the efficient,
final, and formal cause of the world. Since efficient causality
connects metaphysics to physics and final causality connects it with
ethics, the "true metaphysician" focuses on
*exemplar* causality (*Collationes in Hexaemeron*
1.13 [Quaracchi V: 331]; cf. Speer 1997: 30-1), a kind of formal
causality which is the grand theme of Bonaventurean metaphysics.



To pursue this theme, Bonaventure made use of materials drawn from
earlier philosophers about three important points: the
transcendentals, the three Neoplatonic routes to God, and the
difference between scientific principles and conclusions. About the
transcendentals, Aristotle made metaphysics the science of substance.
Centuries later, Avicenna transformed it into a science truly
universal in scope by insisting that it study the nine accidents, as
well as substance, and also the attributes that transcend the
categories (Avicenna, *Metaphysica*, 1.5, 8). Philip the
Chancellor codified this doctrine into four
transcendentals--being, one, true, and good (Aertsen 1996:
25-70). Bonaventure opens consideration of God in his
*Commentary on the Sentences* by noting that the categorical
attributes of being are "its special properties which
characterize its *imperfection*", but the transcendentals
are "its general conditions which characterize its
*perfection*" (*In I Sent.* d. 3, pars 1, art. 1,
q. 2 ad 1 [Quaracchi I: 72a-b]; trans. Houser and Noone 2013,
75). The transcendentals therefore set the terms for treating God.



When he read "the books of the Platonists", Augustine
opened up three routes to proving the existence of God, though he
himself explored only one. Arguments like Aristotle's that begin
in the world must proceed from effect to cause and have been called
*cosmological* arguments, though
*aitiological*--meaning simply an argument uncovering
causes*--*seems a better description. When Augustine
turned within his mind he opened up two other routes to God. The
second route also proceeds from effect to cause, but starts within the
mind and searches out God as the ultimate cause of the mind's
knowledge. This is the *illumination* argument for God.
Augustine's turn inward also opened up a third route, later
given by Kant the unhappy name of *ontological* argument. The
fullest development of this neoplatonic approach to God stood ready to
be realized, when all three routes, the aitiological, illuminationist,
and ontological, would be scouted out by one and the same
philosophical mind. That mind was not Augustine's or
Anselm's but Bonaventure's.



If the transcendentals came primarily from Muslim Aristotelians,
especially Avicenna, and the three routes to God were opened by
Augustine, the last set of materials Bonaventure used to construct his
arguments for the existence of God came from Aristotle himself.
"Science" consists in knowledge of a limited subject
achieved through demonstrating conclusions about it based on
un-demonstrated principles. Bonaventure was one of a group of Parisian
theologians, including the Dominicans Albert and Thomas, who attempted
to set up Christian theology as an Aristotelian science. He therefore
approached the issue of the existence of God with a sharp distinction
between principles and conclusions in mind. The question he asks is
not "Does God exist?" but "Is the divine being so
true that it cannot be thought not to be?" This Anselmian
formulation offers two options: God's existence is either a
principle or a demonstrated conclusion. Philosophers are inclined to
pick one route to God and reject all others, but Bonaventure had
learned from Francis, the poor man of Assisi, that the world is filled
with signs of God that even the simplest peasant can grasp.
Bonaventure's response to the problem of the existence of God
was therefore most unusual. He pursued all three routes to God; and he
even ranked them: Illumination arguments make us "certain"
of God's existence; aitiological arguments give us "more
certain" knowledge of God's existence; while ontological
arguments show that God's existence is



> 
> 
> a truth that is most certain in itself, in as far as it is the
> *first* and *most immediate* truth. (*De mysterio
> trinitatis* 1.1 concl. [Quaracchi V: 49; tr. Hayes 1979: 116])
> 
> 
> 



Let us look at each of them in turn.


### 5.1 Bonaventure's Illumination Argument



The transcendental that initially opens up arguments for the existence
of God is "truth". Bonaventure bases his illumination
argument on the epistemological sense of truth, inspired by
Augustine's memorable description of his own inward route to
God:



> 
> 
> And admonished by all this to return to myself, I entered inside
> myself with you leading and I able to do so because you had become my
> helper. And I entered and with the eye of my soul, such as it was, I
> saw above that eye of my soul, above my mind, an unchangeable
> light....Whoever knows *the truth* knows this
> light.... O *eternal truth* and true love and loved
> eternity, you are my God; to you do I sigh both night and day.
> (Augustine, *Confessiones*, 7.10 [CCSL 27: 103])
> 
> 
> 



In his *Commentary on the Sentences*, Bonaventure extracted
from Augustine's stirring rhetoric the logical core of the
illumination argument, reducing it to plain and dispassionate
syllogisms, as he had learned from his teachers in Arts at Paris:



> 
> 
> All *correct understanding* proves and concludes to the truth
> of the divine being, because knowledge of the divine truth is
> impressed on every soul, and all knowledge comes about through the
> divine truth. Every affirmative proposition proves and concludes to
> that truth. For every such proposition posits something. And when
> something is posited, the *true* is posited; and when the true
> is posited that *truth* which is the cause of the true is also
> posited. (*In I Sent.* d. 8, pars 1, art. 1, q. 2, resp.
> [Quaracchi I: 155a]; trans. Houser and Noone 2013, 108 [modified])
> 
> 
> 



Bonaventure understood that the step from a true proposition to divine
truth is a large one, so he advocates a moderate illuminationist
position, one that depends on both divine and created causes.
Bonaventure's Augustinian illumination theory avoids the
problems of Platonism, which turns knowing the world into knowing God,
and the problems of Muslim illuminationism, which thought a creature
could do what it takes the infinite mind of God to accomplish.



> 
> 
> For *certain* knowledge, *eternal reason* is necessarily
> involved as a regulative and motive cause, however, not as the sole
> cause or in its full clarity, but along with a *created cause*
> and as contuited by us "in part" in accord with our
> present state of life. (*De scientia Christi* q. 4 concl.
> [Quaracchi V: 23]; trans. Hayes 1992, 134 [modified])
> 
> 
> 



To explain the contribution of the "created" causes of
knowledge, Bonaventure noted that the *content* of human
knowledge comes from four kinds of "created" causes: the
passive intellect within the individual soul as *material*
cause, for it receives knowledge; the individual agent intellect as
*efficient* cause, for it abstracts the content of knowledge
from sensation; the essence of an individual creature known as
*formal* cause, for the creature is "what" we know;
and epistemological truth as *end*. These "proper
principles" of knowledge do not involve God (*In II
Sent.* d. 24, pars 1, art. 2, q. 4 [Quaracchi II: 567-571];
cf. J. Quinn 1973: 345-352).



Above and beyond these "created" causes, knowledge also
requires an "eternal" cause. In the mental acts of
abstracting universals and arguing inductively, the human mind
generalizes well beyond the data of our experience. It is one thing to
be able to generalize so, quite another to be sure one has succeeded.
Intuition into the essence of a creature involves truths that are not
only universal, but also necessary and certain. God is acquainted with
the full extension of any universal since the divine idea of any truth
consists in knowledge of that truth in *absolutely all its actual
and possible instantiations*. The infinite extension of
God's knowledge is what makes divine understanding certain, and
this certainty in the divine mind is on loan, so to speak, to the
human mind.



> 
> 
> If full knowledge requires recourse to a *truth* which is fully
> immutable and stable, and to a *light* which is completely
> infallible, it is necessary for this sort of knowledge to have
> recourse to the heavenly art as to light and truth: a light, *I
> say*, which gives infallibility to the [created] knower, and a
> truth which gives immutability to the [created] object of knowledge.
> (*De scientia Christi* q. 4, concl. [Quaracchi V: 23]; trans.
> Hayes 1992, 135 [modified])
> 
> 
> 



Here Bonaventure makes more precise Augustine's
"light" and "truth". They are the two sides of
certitude, so it is the certainty, and only the certainty, found in
human knowledge that requires divine illumination; all other features
of human knowledge--abstraction, universality,
correspondence--come from created causes.


### 5.2 Bonaventure's Aitiological Argument



The aitiological argument is "more certain", because it
begins with a real effect outside the mind and therefore better fits
Aristotle's model of demonstration. But Bonaventure does not
follow Aristotle's argument from motion, because motion falls
under the categories. More promising were neoplatonic aitiological
arguments (Boethius *Consolatio philosophiae*, III 10; Anselm
*Monologion*, 1-3), which combine an empirical premise
with a participation premise. This is how Bonaventure packed his
aitiological argument into a single syllogism:



> 
> 
> Every truth and every created nature proves and leads to the existence
> of the divine truth. For if there is being by participation and from
> another, there must exist a being due to its own essence and not from
> another. (*In I Sent.* d. 8, art. 1, q. 2, resp. [Quaracchi I:
> 155a]; trans. Houser and Noone 2013, 108)
> 
> 
> 



For his *empirical* premise Bonaventure turns again to truth,
but ontological truth. All creatures are true to the extent that they
actualize the potential perfections of their natures, and they are
false to the extent that they fail to do so, because ontological truth
is "the indivision of act and potency". So "in a
*creature* there is indivision combined with difference between
act and potency". All creatures are *partial*
actualizations of truth. Ontological truth takes us to the heart of
Bonaventurean metaphysics. Aristotle's definition of prime
matter as pure potency means that everything that contains potency of
any sort, even an angel, must contain matter. This universal
hylomorphism leads in turn to Bonaventure's doctrine of
being:



> 
> 
> Matter gives independent existence (*existere*) to form, while
> form gives the act of being (*essendi actum*) to matter.
>   
> 
> *Existere dat materia formae, sed essendi actum dat forma
> materiae* (*In II Sent.* d. 3, pars 1, art. 2, q. 3 concl.
> [Quaracchi II: 110]; trans. authors)
> 
> 
> 



Every created being (*ens*) is an ontological composite of
independent existence (*existere*) and being (*esse*),
where *esse* signifies the nature or essence of the thing. From
rocks to angels, all creatures are true to the extent that the
potencies of their "existence" given by matter are
realized through the perfection of their "being" through
form.



The *participation* premise moves from effect to cause within
the line of formal causality. A necessary condition for the existence
of any attribute *by participation* is that the same attribute
is present in its exemplar *essentially*, that is,
intrinsically. Participation does not immediately take us to God, but
initially describes relations between creatures. A statue or computer
can have certain human attributes--shape, color, size,
computational skill--but only because these features are caused
by the artisan who made it. This is how participation works *within
the created order.* It is transcendental "truth" that
moves the argument beyond creatures to God. If incomplete realization
of an intrinsically imperfect categorical attribute--like white
or horse or dirt--implies that those attributes must also exist
in some other creature "essentially", then transcendental
attributes should behave the same way. But no creature could be such
an exemplar. The exemplar for ontological truth must therefore be God,
who perfectly realizes his own essence, which is to say that God is
true "essentially". In *On the Mystery of the
Trinity*, Bonaventure expands this line of argument further in the
direction of the transcendentals. There he identifies nine more
disjunctive transcendentals, in addition to the pair "by
participation" and "essentially", where the lesser
implies the existence of the greater (*De mysterio trinitatis*
1.1 arg. 11-20 [Quaracchi V:
 46b-47b]).[24]



Just as his illumination argument uncovered God as a kind of formal
and efficient cause of certitude, so Bonaventure's aitiological
argument uncovers God as formal cause of truth in creatures. But in
addition, it ends just where his ontological argument begins. For what
does an ontological argument do but peer into the inner logic of such
an exemplar essence and try to capture the logical consequence that it
must exist?


### 5.3 Bonaventure's Ontological Argument



Bonaventure was the first thirteenth-century thinker to pay serious
attention to the ontological argument. He read the *Proslogion*
of Anselm through Aristotelian lenses. Now Aristotle had recognized
three different kinds of scientific principles: common axioms
governing all thought, so well-known that no one can deny them, and
proper principles limited in range to a given science--its
definitions and postulates. Anselm seemed to mean that God's
existence is an axiom of thought known by all humans, and Bonaventure
agrees:



> 
> 
> since our intellect is never deficient in knowing about God *if it
> is*, so it cannot be ignorant of God's existence, absolutely
> speaking, nor even think God does not exist. (*In I Sent.* d.
> 8, a. 1, q. 2 concl. [Quaracchi I: 154b]; trans. Houser and Noone
> 2013, 107)
> 
> 
> 



While Anselm thought this conclusion rules out even the possibility of
atheism, Bonaventure more realistically shows how atheism is possible.
The problem is with our defective knowledge of God's
*nature*. Error there can lead by logical inference to the
conclusion that God does not exist in the first place. We are
spontaneously theists but can convince ourselves to become atheists.
Inadequate definition of God points to a second problem. Knowing God
exists is similar to knowing axioms because both are recognized by
all. The difference is that we are quite certain "the whole is
greater than the part", because the terms involved in this axiom
are so familiar to us; but about God's existence we have more an
opinion than certain knowledge, because we lack an adequate definition
of God's nature.



There are two remedies for the defects in our knowledge of
"what" God is, one taken from faith, the other from
reason. Both make knowledge of God's existence more like a
postulate known with certitude by the "wise" than like an
axiom recognized by "all" humans (Boethius, *De
hebdomadibus*, 40). For Christian belief and for theology,
God's existence is an article of faith. The other remedy is
Bonaventure's adaptation of Anselm's argument conceived as
a philosophical argument on behalf of a metaphysical postulate.



Bonaventure's ontological argument contains two moments, so to
speak, one negative, the other positive. Negatively,
Bonaventure's ontological argument proceeds as a reduction to
absurdity of the atheistic proposition. Anselm had taken a peculiar
description of God, "something than which a greater cannot be
thought", which Augustine had used to argue through a
*reductio ad absurdum* to the conclusion that God must be
incorruptible, and Boethius used to argue that God must be good, and
he had used it to argue by *reductio* that God must exist in
the first place. Bonaventure recognized the affinity with arguing by
*reductio* in support of the principle of
non-contradiction:



> 
> 
> As a union of things in the greatest degree distant from each other is
> entirely repugnant to our intellect, because no intellect can think
> that *one thing at the same time both is and is not*, so also
> the division of something entirely one and undivided is entirely
> repugnant to that same intellect. For this reason, just as it is most
> evidently false to say that *the same thing is and is not*, so
> also it is most evidently false to say at the same time that the same
> thing is in the greatest degree and *in no way is*. (*De
> mysterio trinitatis.* 1.1, concl. [Quaracchi V: 49]; trans. Hayes
> 1979, 116 [modified])
> 
> 
> 



But his study of Aristotelian philosophy made Bonaventure more
sensitive than Anselm to the limitations of *reductio*
arguments. Positive insight into principles is more than negative
*reductio* leading up to principles, so snaring the atheist in
a contradiction is still one step away from affirming that God exists.
To make this step intelligible he emended the ontological argument in
a positive direction.



Bonaventure therefore explains what makes a proposition
"self-evident", which in turn opens the way for deducing
God's existence out of God's essence.



Principles are "self-evident" (cf. Aristotle,
*Topics*, 100a31-b21). In the second of Aristotle's
modes of *per se* (Aristotle, *Posterior Analytics*,
73a34-b3), the essence of the subject *causes* the
predicate. This provided Bonaventure with an ingenious explanation of
why principles are self-evident:



> 
> 
> We know principles to the extent that we understand the terms which
> make them up, because the cause of the predicate *is included
> in* the subject.
> 
> 
> 



If the essence of the subject term is what connects it to the
predicate term in a self-evident proposition, then the essence of God
must be what makes "God exists" self-evident. The positive
ontological argument contains an inference to the existence of God
that runs *through the divine essence*.



Most descriptions of the divine essence are inappropriate for the
ontological argument, but the transcendentals are the right terms
because they do not imply imperfection, can be predicated
non-metaphorically of God, and are primordial, the "first
notions falling into the mind" (*Journey* 3.3 [Quaracchi
V: 304a]; cf. Avicenna, *Metaphysica* 1.5). All more specific
concepts presuppose transcendental notions, and Anselm's own
formula was no exception to this rule. In his *Commentary on the
Sentences* Bonaventure used the transcendental "true"
as the middle term of his positive ontological argument; in the
disputed question *On the Mystery of the Trinity* he used
"good", and in the *Journey of the Mind to God* he
used "being".



In the *Commentary*, Bonaventure introduces his arguments for
God's existence with an elaborate treatment of truth. As a
relation, truth always involves a comparison. Epistemological truth is
an "indivision" between the human mind and the thing
known. Ontological truth is an "indivision" between
potency and act within a creature; the more it fulfills its nature,
the truer it is. These two senses of truth open up a comparison of
creature as participant to God as exemplar. All three,
epistemological, ontological, participationist truths, are imperfect,
combinations of truth and falsity. They point to their exemplar, the
one "pure" truth, present only in God, where there is
"pure indivision mixed with no diversity" (*In I
Sent.* d. 8, art. 1, q. 1 concl. [Quaracchi I: 151b]). This last
sense of truth Bonaventure uses in his ontological argument:



> 
> 
> We know *principles* to the extent that we understand the terms
> which make them up, because the cause of the predicate is included in
> the subject. This is why principles are self-evident. *The same
> thing is true about God*. For God, or the highest truth, is being
> itself, that than which nothing greater can be thought. Therefore, God
> cannot be thought not to be, for the predicate is already included in
> the subject. (*In I Sent.* d. 8, art. 1, q. 2 concl. [Quaracchi
> I: 155a; trans. Houser and Noone 2013, 108])
> 
> 
> 



Bonaventure includes the negative reasoning so prominent in
Anselm's version, but to Anselm's formula he adds
"being itself" and "the highest truth". While
each of these three descriptions casts a different light on why the
inference to God's existence is valid, Bonaventure here seems to
prefer "the highest truth" because the definition of truth
as "indivision" is the basis for re-conceiving the
ontological argument as establishing an "indivision"
between the middle term and the predicate "exists". If the
"highest truth" is "pure indivision", then the
highest truth cannot be divided off from existence.



In *On the Mystery of the Trinity*, Bonaventure changes the
focus of the ontological argument to goodness, with a memorable
result. The basic notion of goodness is not by itself sufficient to
mount an ontological argument, but analysis of goodness uncovers the
relevant terms:



> 
> 
> No one can be ignorant of the fact that this is true: the best is the
> best; or think that it is false. But the best is a being which is
> absolutely complete. Now any being which is absolutely complete, for
> this very reason, is an actual being. Therefore, if the best is the
> best, the best is. In a similar way, one can argue: If God is God,
> then God is. Now the antecedent is so true that it cannot be thought
> not to be. Therefore, it is true without doubt that God exists.
> (*De mysterio trinitatis* 1.1 fund. 29 [Quaracchi V: 48];
> trans. authors)
> 
> 
> 



The logic of "the best" (*optimum*) is different
from the logic of "the good". Since goodness completes or
perfects something, "the best" must be "a being
which is fully complete (*ens completissimum*)". Now what
is absolutely complete must possess all possible perfections. But
existence is not just *a* perfection, one component among many
making up such ontological completeness, it is *the* most
fundamental feature of such completeness. Consequently, such an
absolutely perfect being must exist. Bonaventure's argument runs
from the subject "God", through the middle terms
"the best" and "absolutely complete being", to
the predicate "exists". In the shorter and even more
memorable formulation, "If God is God, God is", the
premise *If God is God* is not an empty tautology (Seifert
1992: 216-217). It means "if the entity to which the term
God refers truly possesses the divine essence". And the
conclusion means that such an entity must exist.



Bonaventure was well aware of criticisms of the ontological argument,
beginning with Gaunilo's retort that the greatest of all
possible islands should also really exist. His reply is more effective
than Anselm's because it uses the transcendentals. An island is
an inherently imperfect being (*ens defectivum*) because
categorical; but *ens completissimum* is not because a
transcendental (*De mysterio trinitatis* 1.1 *ad* 6
[Quaracchi V: 50]).



In *The Journey of the Mind to God*, c. 5, Bonaventure focuses
the ontological argument on "being" and develops it far
beyond anything he had previously done. He qualifies *esse* in
two different ways, creating two different middle terms: "divine
being" (*esse divinum*) and "completely pure being
(*esse purissimum*)". First he uses "completely
pure being" to deduce the predicate "exists", then
uses "divine being" to ensure that it is *God* who
is so proven to exist. In this way the basic steps of this argument
closely parallel those of the argument based on goodness:



> 
> 
> God (*Deus*) who is divine being (*esse divinum*) is
> also seen to be completely pure being (*esse purissimum*) and
> therefore must exist (*est*).
> 
> 
> 



Bonaventure begins (*Journey* 5.3 [Quaracchi V:
 308])[25]
 by repeating the essentials of the earlier versions of the argument,
but then moves well beyond them:



> 
> 
> For completely pure being itself occurs only in full flight from
> non-being, just as nothingness is in full flight from being.
> Therefore, complete nothingness contains nothing of being or its
> attributes, so by contrast being itself contains no non-being, neither
> in act nor in potency, neither in reality nor in our thinking about
> it. (*Journey* 5.3 [Quaracchi V: 308]; trans.
>  authors[26])
> 
> 
> 



If "being itself" (*ipsum esse*) distinguishes the
being (*esse*) of a creature from its independent existence
(*existere*), adding the superlative *completely pure*
to *being itself* (*esse purissimum*) refers to the
notion of an *essence* that does not involve non-being *in
any way*: a completely pure or perfect essence. The notion of
*esse purissimum* does not presuppose the real existence of
God; rather, it implies that real existence. But at this point this
inference may not yet be clear, so Bonaventure devotes the rest of
this short text to showing why the notion of *completely pure being
itself* actually entails the real existence of God.



In contrast with creatures, which are mid-level on the scale of being
because they are open to existence and non-existence, the notions of
complete nothingness (*omnino nihil*) and completely pure being
(*esse purissimum*) have absolutely opposed implications for
existence. "Complete nothing-ness" is logically
inconsistent with real existence, so there is a perfectly valid
inference from the *notion* of nothing to non-being
(*non-esse*). Nothing cannot exist. If the nature of nothing
entails its non-existence, the nature of its opposite, *completely
pure being*, entails its real existence. Making use of the
categories of his own metaphysics in this way shows more effectively
than merely backing the mind into a contradiction why the ontological
inference is valid.



The basis for the argument thus far is a notion, not of God but of an
essence, completely pure, of non-being. One might ask where
Bonaventure acquires this notion, seemingly drawn from thin air. His
reply is that conceptual analysis of the first of all notions,
transcendental being (*ens*), reveals this purely metaphysical
notion.



> 
> 
> Now since non-being is the privation of being, it does not fall into
> the mind except through being; while being does not fall into the mind
> through something else. For everything which is thought of is either
> thought of as a non-being, or as a being in potency, or as a being in
> act. Therefore, if a non-being is intelligible only through a being,
> and a being in potency is intelligible only through a being in act,
> and being denominates the pure actuality of a being, it follows that
> being is that which first falls into the intellect, and that this
> being is that which is pure actuality. (*Journey* 5.3
> [Quaracchi V: 308]; trans.
>  authors)[27]
> 
> 
> 



Here Bonaventure peers into the notion of "a being"
(*ens*) and finds it has two component principles: independent
existence (*existere*), which gives the being the potential to
have a certain essence; and being (*esse*), the actuality of
such an essence. It is *esse* rather than *existere*
which "denominates the pure actuality of a being". Here
"actuality" (*actus*) means "that which makes
the being actually intelligible, by giving it the actual essence it
has". This movement of *conceptual analysis* opens the
mind to see that we can understand a creature as "a being"
(*ens*) only by referring to the notion of an act of being
which is pure from non-being (*esse purum*), indeed, which is
pure from *any* non-being (*esse purissimum*). Implicit
within the very *notion* of transcendental "being"
and *a presupposition of our understanding the notion of
transcendental being*, is the notion of being with no hint of
non-being (*esse purissimum*). Even if only implicit, this
notion must be present in the mind of anyone who understands being
(*ens*), that is, everyone who understands anything at all.



Once it has been shown that *esse purissimum* is a notion which
implies real existence and that we all possess this notion as a
component of the fundamental notion of a being (*ens*), it
remains only to identify *esse purissimum* with God.



> 
> 
> But this is not particular being, which is limited being because mixed
> with potency, nor is it analogous being, because that has the least
> actuality, since it is to the least degree. Therefore, the result is
> that this being is divine being. (*Journey* 5.3 [Quaracchi V:
> 308-309]; trans.
>  authors)[28]
> 
> 
> 



If *esse purissimum* really exists, as has been proven, it must
exist in one of three modes. But since particular and intentional
being cannot be completely perfect, *esse purissimum* must be
identical with the divine being.



The real but initially hidden starting point for Bonaventure's
ontological argument in the *Journey* is the notion of *esse
purissimum*, taken not subjectively as existing as a concept in a
human mind, but in its objective
 meaning,[29]
 that is, as signifying a certain kind of quiddity or essence. The
achievement of the ontological argument, as Bonaventure saw it, is
twofold: it shows that this essence must really exist, and it shows
that this essence is none other than God.



Bonaventure locates knowledge of God's existence within all
three parts of an Aristotelian science--as demonstrated
conclusion, as common axiom, and as proper postulate. It can be proven
through two kinds of demonstrations of the fact, by an illumination
argument starting inside the mind and an aitiological argument
starting outside. Such proofs proceed from created truth as a
*vestige* to the *one* God as its cause. But "God
exists" is also a principle recognized by virtually all humans,
a kind of axiom built upon creatures conceived as *shadows* of
the *one* divinity for whom explicit arguments specifying
God's causality are no more needed than for other axioms.
Finally, there are two ways God's existence is known as a
postulate: first, through the ontological argument, where the
transcendental attributes found in creatures function as
*vestiges* providing the mind the notions it uses in the
argument for the *one* God's existence; and second, as an
article of faith. Here faith is postulated on the authority of
revelation and is certain, but its certainty comes from God, not human
reason. And here, too, features of intellectual creatures, especially
humans, function as *images and likenesses* of the
*Trinitarian* God. Knowledge of God's existence, in sum,
is ubiquitous. Thus spoke the follower of Francis.