Bonaventure Saint (c.1221–74), Italian theologian. Born John of Fidanza in Bagnorea, Tuscany, he was educated at Paris, earning a master’s degree in arts and a doctorate in theology. He joined the Franciscans about 1243, while still a student, and was elected minister general of the order in 1257. Made cardinal bishop of Albano by Pope Gregory X in 1274, Bonaventure helped organize the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons, during the course of which he died, in July 1274. He was canonized in 1482 and named a doctor of the church in 1587. Bonaventure wrote and preached extensively on the relation between philosophy and theology, the role of reason in spiritual and religious life, and the extent to which knowledge in God is obtainable by the ‘wayfarer.’ His basic position is nicely expressed in De reductione artium ad theologiam (‘On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology’): ‘the manifold wisdom of God, which is clearly revealed in sacred scripture, lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature.’ He adds, ‘all divisions of knowledge are handmaids of theology.’ But he is critical of those theologians who wish to sever the connection between faith and reason. As he argues in another famous work, Itinerarium mentis ad deum (‘The Mind’s Journey unto God,’ 1259), ‘since, relative to our life on earth, the world is itself a ladder for ascending to God, we find here certain traces, certain images’ of the divine hand, in which God himself is mirrored. Although Bonaventure’s own philosophical outlook is Augustinian, he was also influenced by Aristotle, whose newly available works he both read and appreciated. Thus, while upholding the Aristotelian ideas that knowledge of the external world is based on the senses and that the mind comes into existence as a tabula rasa, he also contends that divine illumination is necessary to explain both the acquisition of universal concepts from sense images, and the certainty of intellectual judgment. His own illuminationist epistemology seeks a middle ground between, on the one hand, those who maintain that the eternal light is the sole reason for human knowing, providing the human intellect with its archetypal and intelligible objects, and, on the other, those holding that the eternal light merely influences human knowing, helping guide it toward truth. He holds that our intellect has certain knowledge when stable; eternal archetypes are ‘contuited by us [a nobis contuita],’ together with intelligible species produced by its own fallible powers.
In metaphysics, Bonaventure defends exemplarism, the doctrine that all creation is patterned after exemplar causes or ideas in the mind of God. Like Aquinas, but unlike Duns Scotus, he argues that it is through such ideas that God knows all creatures. He also adopts the emanationist principle that creation proceeds from God’s goodness, which is self-diffusive, but differs from other emanationists, such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, in arguing that divine emanation is neither necessary nor indirect (i.e., accomplished by secondary agents or intelligences). Indeed, he sees the views of these Islamic philosophers as typical of the errors bound to follow once Aristotelian rationalism is taken to its extreme. He is also well known for his anti-Aristotelian argument that the eternity of the world – something even Aquinas (following Maimonides) concedes as a theoretical possibility – is demonstrably false.
Bonaventure also subscribes to several other doctrines characteristic of medieval Augustinianism: universal hylomorphism, the thesis, defended by Ibn Gabirol and Avicenna (among others), that everything other than God is composed of matter and form; the plurality of forms, the view that subjects and predicates in the category of substance are ordered in terms of their metaphysical priority; and the ontological view of truth, according to which truth is a kind of rightness perceived by the mind. In a similar vein, Bonaventure argues that knowledge ultimately consists in perceiving truth directly, without argument or demonstration.
Bonaventure also wrote several classic works in the tradition of mystical theology. His bestknown and most popular mystical work is the aforementioned Itinerarium, written in 1259 on a pilgrimage to La Verna, during which he beheld the six-winged seraph that had also appeared to Francis of Assisi when Francis received the stigmata. Bonaventure outlines a seven-stage spiritual journey, in which our mind moves from first considering God’s traces in the perfections of irrational creatures, to a final state of peaceful repose, in which our affections are ‘transferred and transformed into God.’ Central to his writings on spiritual life is the theme of the ‘three ways’: the purgative way, inspired by conscience, which expels sin; the illuminative way, inspired by the intellect, which imitates Christ; and the unitive way, inspired by wisdom, which unites us to God through love. Bonaventure’s writings most immediately influenced the work of other medieval Augustinians, such as Matthew of Aquasparta and John Peckham, and later, followers of Duns Scotus. But his modern reputation rests on his profound contributions to philosophical theology, Franciscan spirituality, and mystical thought, in all three of which he remains an authoritative source. See also ARISTOTLE , AUGUSTIN. J.A.Z.