Philosophy of Bonaventure

Life and Works

Bonaventure (born Giovanni di Fidanza) was born at Bagnorea in 1221 and entered the Franciscan Order probably about the year 1243. He studied at the University of Paris, where he was a disciple of Alexander of Hales, the first Franciscan master of that university; Bonaventure later succeeded his master in the chair of philosophy. He taught at the university from 1248 to 1255 and took part, along with Thomas Aquinas, in the debate against William of Saint Amour, adversary of the Mendicants.

In October of 1257 the degree of Doctor was bestowed on Bonaventure at the university. Nominated General of the Order in the same year, he left his studies to devote himself to the affairs of the Franciscans. At this time he wrote the new Constitutions of the Order and the biography of St. Francis of Assisi which helped to pacify the various Franciscan currents.

In 1273 he was named Cardinal and Bishop of Alvano. He died in Lyons in 1274 while the Council being held in that city was still in session. Bonaventure has been honored with the title "Doctor Seraphicus."

His principal works are: Commentaries on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard; Itinerarium mentis in Deum; De reductione artium ad theologiam; and Breviloquium.

Doctrine: General Notions

Bonaventure is the theorist of what, in a practical way, was mirrored in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis had been entirely consumed by love of God and of Christ crucified; and the sacred stigmata, visible in his body, were the manifestation of what had already been verified within the very depths of his saintly spirit. In this mystical union with God and with Christ, St. Francis had found the basis of brotherhood not only with men but also with all beings, and the human and physical world was revealed before his eyes as a sanctuary in which all things spoke to him of God.

Bonaventure wished to theorize on the life of the Poverello and to build it into a perfect system of the Christian life. For this purpose he did not borrow the teachings of the speculative rationalism of Aristotle, but looked to Augustinianism, which already boasted a long tradition in the Church. Its voluntarism, which placed love of God at the center of every activity; its theory of illumination, which made God present to the soul; its analogism, which revealed an image of God and of His attributes in each and every creature -- all of these motives which, outside all speculation, speak to us most vividly of what should be the ideal of the Christian life.

It is understood, then, why Bonaventure is not opposed to the doctrine of Aristotle, why he even accepts it in part. But his preference is for St. Augustine, and he again works out all the motives of Augustinianism, in which all things, the external and the internal world, matter and spirit, speak to us of God; following Augustine he holds that the apex of all human activity is contemplation or mystical union with God.

In brief, Bonaventure shows the Christian what kind of life he should live if he wishes to attain his destiny. This is the historical function of the mysticism of Bonaventure, which is as important in the spiritual order as the Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas in the order of rational philosophy.

Theory of Knowledge

Bonaventure admits three degrees of knowledge:

• The first degree is knowledge of the particular, of the individual. For this first degree of knowledge, sensible experience, corresponding to the physical senses, is indispensable;

• The second degree consists in knowledge of the universal, of ideas, and of all that we acquire by reflecting upon ourselves. This knowledge does not come from abstraction as suggested by Aristotle and Aquinas, but from illumination. This illumination is for Bonaventure the result of an immediate cooperation of God. The intellect needs this cooperation or illumination in order to know the intelligible.

• The third degree is the understanding of things superior to ourselves -- God. This kind of knowledge can be obtained through the eye of contemplation. "The eye of contemplation cannot function perfectly except in the state of glory, which man loses through sin and recovers through grace, faith and the understanding of the Scriptures. By these the human mind is purified, illumined, and brought to the contemplation of heavenly things. These are beyond the reach of fallen man unless he first recognizes his own defects and darknesses. But this he can only do by considering the fall of human nature." (Breviloguium, II, 12.)

General Metaphysics

Bonaventure accepts the Aristotelian principle of matter and form, but he wanders far afield in the interpretation of both. Matter, created by God, has its proper form, distinct from all other forms or determinations which may come to it. Moreover, it contains the seeds of all these determinations (the doctrine of "rationes seminales" of St. Augustine).

Nevertheless, it is an essential constituent of every creature, even of those which are said to be incorporeal, such as human souls and angels. The matter of incorporeal substances, on account of the form which it receives, is spiritual matter ("materia spiritualis"), which expresses what is contingent and limited in every finite being. Bonaventure admits in every body a plurality of forms. Thus, besides the form which is proper to the matter, in every body there are as many forms as there are essential properties, all placed in hierarchical order; that is, the inferior forms are subordinate to the superior ones.

Cosmology

In his cosmology, Bonaventure does not accept the Aristotelian concepts of the eternity of the world and of matter as co-eternal with God. The world has its origin in the creative act in time; creation "ab aeterno" is contradictory. God, who has created matter, has placed in it the seeds or reasons of all the determinations which it can assume ("rationes seminales").

Psychology

In psychology, Bonaventure departs from Aristotelianism not only in the fact of knowledge, as we have already seen, but also in judging the relationship between the soul and the body and between the soul and its faculties.

For Bonaventure the soul is of its very nature form and matter (spiritual matter), and as a consequence is a complete substance, independent of the body. The body in turn is composed of matter and form (vegetative and sensitive form), but it aspires to being informed by the rational form. In this aspiration and coordination the unity of the individual consists.

Without doubt, the unity of the person is not as intimately welded as in Aristotelianism; but Bonaventure's teaching avoids the danger into which Aristotelianism entered with its theory of immanent form, of making the soul dependent on the body even in its destiny. Such a danger cannot exist in Bonaventure, for whom the soul is a substance complete in itself and not indissolubly united to the body.

With regard to the faculties of the soul, Bonaventure, in accord with St. Augustine, distinguishes three -- the will, the understanding and the intellective memory. For Bonaventure the faculties are expressions of one and the same soul, which is endowed with three diverse activities; between the soul and its faculties there is merely a logical distinction. In Aristotelianism the faculties are qualities of the soul and really distinct from it. Bonaventure holds that among the faculties of the soul the will has primacy over the other faculties; therefore it is necessary to love in order to understand.

This law is applied also to our knowledge of God: it is necessary to be united to God through faith and grace in order to know Him and His attributes. The process of this knowledge is described in the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. There are three grades or steps through which the soul ascends to God.

• The first grade is called "vestigium," which is the imprint of Himself that God has stamped on material things outside ourselves.

• The second grade is "imago," or the reflection of the soul upon itself, by which, seeing the threefold faculties of the soul -- will, intellect, and memory -- man discerns the image of God.

• The third grade is "similitudo," or the consideration of God Himself. By considering the idea of the most perfect being, we can conceive the unity of God (the ontological argument of Anselm, which Bonaventure admits as valid); and from the concept of infinite goodness we can reach the consideration of the Trinity. In "similitudo" the soul attains to mystical union, the supreme degree of love between the creature and his Creator.