Bonaventure’s Arguments for the Existence of God and an “Independent” de Deo uno

The Thomist 74 (2010): 57-84 BONAVENTURE'S ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND AN "INDEPENDENT" DE DEO UNO GREGORYF. LANAVE Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C. IT HAS BEEN CUSTOMARY, and indeed almost inevitable, for Bonaventure to be read in comparison with his Dominican contemporary Thomas Aquinas. Their historical positioncontemporaries at one of the most decisive turning points in the history of theology-invites the comparison. So too does the magisterial regard for these two "glorious doctors" of Scholastic theology, as Pope Sixtus V called them, and Pope Leo XIII echoed.1 The papal approbation of Thomism, from Leo'sAeterni patris to Pius Xi's Studiorem ducem, prompted Bonaventureansas well as the followers of other schools-to insist on the legitimacy of these schools, but also to highlight, where possible, their congruency with the thought of Aquinas.2 Etienne Gilson took a sharply different tack, concluding his book The Philosophy ofSt. Bonaventure with the judgment that "it must be clear that [St. Bonaventure's doctrine] can never be properly comparable in any point with the doctrine of St. Thomas 1 Sixtus V, Triumphantis Hierusalem 1O; quoted in Leo XIII, Aeterni patris 14. 2 One sees examples of this in many of the scholia appended by the editors of the critical edition of Bonaventure's works (Opera omnia, 10 vols. [Quaracchi: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902]) to various questions and treatises. Papal approbation of Thomism did not end with Pius XI, of course; Pius XII's Humani generis and John Paul H's Fides et ratio naturally come to mind. But it was the earlier documents that especially prompted followers of other schools-most notably Suarezians and Scotists, but also Bonaventureans-to undertake the rapprochement with Thomism. This may be seen, for example, in the debate about the binding force of the Twenty-Four Thomistic Theses. 57 58 GREGORY F. LANAVE Aquinas."3 Gilson's admonition was not immediately heeded by the majority of scholars writing about Bonaventure. However, beginning in the 1960s, as Thomism began to be abandoned as the normative tradition in Catholic philosophy and theology, different readings of Bonaventure emerged. Wayne Hellmann well expresses the shift: My earliest attempts to read the theological and mystical works of St. Bonaventure ended in nearly complete frustration. I could not grasp ... whence he came nor where he was going. I was about to concede defeat when two students of the Seraphic Doctor [viz., Leon Veuthey and Romano Guardini] opened new doors for me. . . . They both taught me I could not read Bonaventure in a linear and merely logical way, as I had been trained in my manual theology and in the texts of St. Thomas to which I had been earlier exposed.4 The dominance of this shift is such that, in the past forty years, in English-language scholarship at least, the reading of Bonaventure's thought in markedly non-Thomistic ways has become the norm. During this same time, certain systematic theses have been attributed to Bonaventure almost as a matter of course that would have seemed odd to earlier generations of scholars. For example, it is commonly said that Bonaventure holds that the primary reason for the incarnation was the perfection of creation, rather than redemption from sin-even though the only time he specifically addresses the question, he gives precisely the opposite answer.5 Another example, and the one pertinent to this essay, is the claim that Bonaventure has nothing that could be called a treatise de Dea uno. Jay Hammond puts it this way: 3 Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy ofSt. Bonaventure, trans. Dom Illtyd Trethowan and F. J. Sheed (London: Sheed & Ward, 1940), 494. 4 J. A. Wayne Hellmann, O.F.M.Conv., "Preface," in idem, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure's Theology, trans. J. M. Hammond (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 2001), xv. Hellmann's book is a translation of his dissertation, published in Munich in 1974; the preface was written in 2001. 5 III Sent., d. 1, a. 2, q. 2. See, e.g., Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., "The Meaning ofconvenientia in the Metaphysics of St. Bonaventure," Franciscan Studies 34 (1974): 74-100; Ilia Delio, O...