Knowing God through and in All Things: A Proposal for Reading Bonaventure's Itinerarium mentis in Deum

Scholars of Bonaventure's thought labor under the difficulty that the Seraphic Doctor is more widely admired than read. Yet there is one advantage they may claim: the immense popularity down through the centuries of his magnum opus: the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, "The Journey of the Mind to God." The text is poetic, concise, and dense. It summarizes many points in Bonaventure's philosophy, theology, and spirituality – indeed, it has sometimes been called a summa of his spiritual theology.

In the present essay, I offer a proposal for reading the Itinerarium. I do so with two types of readers in mind. One is the Bonaventure scholar, for whom I make certain arguments concerning the logic of the text and its relationship to other works of Bonaventure. The other is the non-specialist who wishes to teach the Itinerarium as a significant part of the Christian theological patrimony. To the latter, I offer a schematic to understand the different elements of the text in their relationship to each other. This guided reading will, I hope, help the teacher to present the scientific (in the Aristotelian sense) power of Bonaventure's theology.¹

I. Preliminary Note

My preliminary claim is that the Itinerarium is best understood as divided into two trajectories: one involves the three stages of seeing God through the visible world, the soul, and what is above the soul; the other involves the three stages of seeing God in the visible world, the soul, and what is above the soul. This claim might be criticized by readers of the text. Bonaventure gives several possibilities for understanding the structure of the text in the first part of chapter 1, and does not state that one should be privileged above the others.² However, as he goes on to explain each stage, the division that keeps reappearing is that of seeing God through and in the visible world, the soul, and what is above the soul.³ I therefore regard that division as the most significant.⁴ In what follows, I first examine certain antecedents to the Itinerarium's structural argument in earlier works of Bonaventure. I then outline the first trajectory, highlighting its similarities and differences with those earlier works, and then the second trajectory, highlighting its uniqueness and proposing a key by which it may be understood. I close with a brief statement of the significance of my reading in light of some recent scholarship.

For reference, one may use the following chart, delineating the trajectories.

	Knowing God through	Knowing God in
what is below the soul	chap. 1: the consideration of God through his vestiges in the universe	chap. 2: the consideration of God in his vestiges in this visible world
the soul	chap. 3: the consideration of God through his image imprinted on our natural powers	chap. 4: the consideration of God in his image reformed through the gifts of grace
what is above the soul	chap. 5: the consideration of the divine unity through its primary name which is Being	chap. 6: the consideration of the most blessed Trinity in its name which is the Good

II. Antecedents to This Kind of Consideration of God

A) Knowing God through and in

The distinction between seeing God through and in is not unique to the Itinerarium. It occurs earlier, in the Commentary on the Sentences, in two places. Though the contexts and the language are slightly different, the content of the distinction is the same.⁵ To know God through creatures is "to be raised from the knowledge of the creature to the knowledge of God as by way of a intermediate ladder." To know God in creatures is rather to know "his presence and influence in the creature." Bonaventure says further that knowing God through creatures is characteristic of wayfarers, and is a knowledge that is always available to them, even after the fall, though the fall darkened the mirror of creatures. To know God in creatures is characteristic of the blessed, though it can be experienced...