Theologian
Saint Bonaventure is considered one of the major thinkers of the Franciscan tradition, which also thanks to him began to become a real school of thought, both from a theological and philosophical point of view.
He defended and re-proposed the patristic tradition, in particular the thought and approach of Saint Augustine.
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Thought of a Saint
He openly fought Aristotelianism, even if he acquired some concepts that were fundamental to his thought. Furthermore, he valorized some theses of Arab-Jewish philosophy, in particular those of Avicenna and Avicebron, inspired by Neoplatonism. In his works the idea of the primacy of wisdom continually recurs, as an alternative to a philosophical rationality isolated from the other faculties of man. In fact, he maintains that: philosophical science is a path towards other sciences. Whoever stops remains immersed in darkness. According to Bonaventure, Christ is the way to all sciences, both for the philosophy than for theology.
Bonaventura's project is a reduction of the arts not in the sense of a weakening of the liberal arts, but rather of their unification under the light of revealed truth, the only one that can orient them towards the perfect objective towards which all knowledge imperfectly tends, the truth in himself who is God.
The distinction of the nine arts into three categories, natural (physics, mathematics, mechanics), rational (logic, rhetoric, grammar) and moral (political, monastic, economic) reflects the distinction of res, signa and actions, whose verticality is not nothing but an initiatory journey by degrees of perfection towards mystical union.
For Bonaventure, the partiality of the arts is nothing other than the refraction of the light with which God illuminates the world: before original sin, Adam knew how to read God indirectly in creation, but the fall was also the loss of this ability. To help man in recovering the contemplation of the supreme truth, God has sent man additional knowledge that unifies and orients human knowledge, which would otherwise lose itself in self-referentiality.
Through the illumination of revelation, the active intellect is capable of understanding the divine reflection of the earthly truths sent by the passive intellect, as pale reflections of the eternal truths that God perfectly thinks through the Word.
The perfect truth, absolute and eternal in God, is not an acquired fact, but a force whose dynamics is implemented historically in the regency of the truths with which God maintains the order of creation. The unveiling of this order brings man closer to the source of all truth.
Bonaventure defines the characteristics of theology by stating that, since its object is God, it has the task of demonstrating that the truth of sacred writing is from God, about God, according to God and has God as its end. The unity of its object determines theology as unitary and ordered because its structure corresponds to the characteristics of its object.
Bonaventure explains that the criterion of value and the measure of truth are acquired from faith, and not from reason. From this it follows that philosophy serves to give help to the human search for God, and can do so, as Saint Augustine said, only by bringing man back to his own internal dimension, that is, to the soul, and, through this, finally leading him back to God Therefore, the spiritual journey towards God is the fruit of divine illumination, which comes from the supreme reason of God himself.
To reach God, man must pass through three degrees, which, however, must be preceded by intense and humble prayer, and again, no one can reach bliss if he does not transcend himself, not with the body, but with the spirit. But we cannot rise above ourselves except through superior virtue. Whatever the internal dispositions, they have no power without the help of divine Grace. But this is granted only to those who ask for it with fervent prayer. Prayer is the principle and source of our elevation. Thus praying, we are enlightened in knowing the degrees of ascent to God.
The "scale" of the 3 degrees of the ascent to God is similar to the "scale" of the four degrees of love of Bernard of Clairvaux, although not the same; these degrees are:
- The external degree: it is necessary that we first consider the corporeal, temporal and external objects in which the footprint of God is found, and this means setting out on the path of God.
- The inner degree: It is necessary to return to ourselves, because our mind is the image of God, immortal, spiritual and within us, which leads us into the truth of God.
- The eternal degree: Finally, we need to elevate ourselves to what is eternal, most spiritual and above us, opening ourselves to the first principle, and this gives joy in the knowledge of God and homage to his majesty.
Bonaventura, corresponding to these degrees, the soul also has three different directions:
The one refers to external things, and is sensitivity; the other has as its object the spirit, turned in and towards itself; the third has as its object the mind, which rises spiritually above itself. Three directions that must prepare man to rise to God, so that he loves him with all his mind, with all his heart, with all his soul.
Bonaventure maintains that the only possible knowledge is contemplative knowledge, that is, the path of enlightenment, which leads to grasping eternal essences, and even allows some to approach God mystically. Enlightenment also guides human action, as it alone determines synderesis, that is, the practical disposition towards good.
The world, for Bonaventura, is like a book from which the Trinity that he created shines through. We can find the Trinity in: outside us, in us and above us.
Creation is ordered according to a Trinitarian hierarchical scale, and nature does not have its own consistency, but reveals itself as a visible sign of the divine principle that created it and only in this does it find its meaning.
Those who hope in the promises of the Almighty - maintains the Saint - "must raise their heads, directing their thoughts upwards, towards the height of our existence, that is, towards God".
