The Journey of the Soul into God: Itinerarium Mentis in Deum

Chapter Five

153 St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum Chapter Five 1 Cf. I Sent., 8, 1, 1, 2 (I, 154):Tanta est veritas divini esse, ut non possit cum assensu cogitari esse nisi propter defectum ex parte intelligentis, qui ignorat, quid sit Deus; ex parte vero intelligibilis non potest esse defectus nec praesentiae nec evidentiae, sive in se, sive in probando (So great is the truth of the divine being that it cannot be thought not to exist except by reason of some defect on the part of the one knowing who does not know what God is. But the defect cannot be in the object to be known; nor can it be a lack of presence or of evidence, either on the part of the object nor in that which is to be proved). 2 Thisisadifficultpassage,butcanbeexplainedasfollows.Every objectconceivedofbyourmindisconceivedofasacertainbeing and without the concept of being nothing can be understood. This necessity is sufficient evidence that we are faced with a first principle. For, in addition, not only all objects of our experience, but also all ideas must be grouped under the idea of being and cannot be understood without it. What Saint Bonaventure is trying to explain in this part of the Itinerarium pertains to the deepestconcernofmetaphysics.Ontheotherhand,wemustnot forget that he presents his speculation at the fifth degree of the human journey home to God, immediately after his speculation on grace. These metaphysical speculations, therefore, are made bytheessentiallyChristianmind,whichisinformedbyrevelation that the first name of God is Ego sum qui sum (Ex 3:14). Such a mind is exhorted to fix its gaze on the ipsum esse, and it can do sobecausetheipsumesse,asknownfromrevelation,isglimmering through the veil of the being of every creature. Moved by it and forced by its unerring, though dim, light, it becomes aware 154 St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum of that being which is so certain that it cannot be thought not to be. The Seraphic Doctor can certainly count in his favor the fact that no philosopher can deny the necessity of the implications: If something exists, something is necessary. If something exists, the absolute nothing is an impossibility. If something exists, the absolute potency is impossible. Hence, before the nothing and the potency, there is being and actuality in necessity. But one must not misunderstand this interpretation, for the Seraphic Doctor is not interested in such deductions; he takes for himself the fact that it is so, and he immediately explains it in the most obvious way, that it is the being itself, the first being, the purest and most actual being, that leaps to our mind, as soon as we fix our mind on Being itself, in an act of contemplation. 3 Thisdoesnotmeanthatourmindinitspresentstateisawareof Being itself. For in our present state we are intent upon particular beings and their abstractions, without noticing that Being which occurs to us under the surface of all those particular beings, and which is the Being itself transcending all categories. In this passage we are at the starting point again.What the illuminated eye of the contemplative person recognizes in an act of contemplation as the Being which is God through any particular and finite being, is there, too, for everyone, though only dimly and faintly seen in the perception of any being. Without this faint light no one would be able to conceive an idea of being transcending the finiteness and contingency of the objects of his experience. What he is able to grasp from these objects alone is being with its essential limitations, which is truly analogical in essential otherness. From such an analogical idea of being, there is no way to a cognition of God, since it has to be qualified when also applied to God, as essentially equivocal. Through the Being of God which shines through the being of creatures, faint as it may appear, we are able to reach an idea of Being with its essential predicatesofnecessity,absoluteness,andeternity.Thisideaisnot aconstructionofnegationsandprivations,butofpositionsunder the influence of that Being which is the ideas in their totality. If 155 St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum a theory of analogy of being will not be devoid of sense, both terms of comparison must be given. Saint Bonaventure’s theory of cognition provides us with both terms, with the created being known by experience, and with the uncreated Being known by illuminationthroughthefogofcreatedbeings.Cf.ISent.,3,1,u.,1 (I,69):Deusinsetanquamsummaluxestsummecognoscibilis;et tanquamluxsummeintellectumnostrumcomplens...