Prospects for a Sapiential Theology: Bonaventure on Theological Wisdom

Is theology a science, or a wisdom? Theologians formed in any Scholastic tradition readily recognize the vital importance of understanding that theology is a science. The topic received such attention well into the twentieth century that it provoked something of a reaction, with theologians insisting that there were other things to be said about theology as well.¹ Such a dynamic was anticipated by the thirteenth-century university masters. Alexander of Hales, for example, begins his Summa of theology by asking "whether the doctrine of theology is scientia." He concludes that, whatever one may say about the scientific aspects of this doctrina, it is far more appropriately called "wisdom," sapientia.

Is theology, then, a science, or a wisdom?² The two need not be opposed. But if the desire—whether it originates among the thirteenth-century masters or twenty-first-century theologians—to describe theology in terms of wisdom is to bear fruit, one will have to have a precise understanding of what wisdom is. The purpose of this article is to enter into the subject by laying out the thought of one extraordinary exemplar of sapiential theology, St. Bonaventure. It is notable that he is committed to the scientific character of theology. He is perhaps the first theologian to appeal to the Aristotelian notion of subalternation to validate a true science of theology.³ It is equally obvious, though, that his vision of the theologian's activity does not end in a purely intellectual mastery of the things of faith. To give just one example, at the end of the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, having gone through an extraordinarily dense argument about the variety of ways in which the Christian mind may be raised to God, Bonaventure states that the completion of this journey lies in a transitus, a passing over in which the mind is utterly quieted and intellection gives way to the ardor of love.⁴ We will not understand his theology if we try to deny or minimize its scientific character, but the perfection of theology lies not in a purely scientific project.

An adequate account of Bonaventure's understanding of theology in light of wisdom must contain four elements. First is the simple identification of theology as wisdom, which I will accomplish with reference to seminal texts on the nature of theology. Second is a more refined identification of theological wisdom in light of Bonaventure's whole doctrine of wisdom. This will require appeal to two famous texts in which he speaks of four types of wisdom and the isolation of that type that is most strictly speaking theological. Third is the incorporation of this wisdom into the ordinary working of theology: the relationship between the wisdom of theology and the science of theology. Here, our attention will turn to various forms of theological argument, especially the form that Bonaventure calls the argument ex pietate. I will focus on two texts, one that indicates the distinctive quality of this kind of reasoning and a second that gives an example of such reasoning. Fourth is the relationship that theology has to other kinds of knowledge. The question of the "autonomy" of Bonaventure's philosophy was one of the great topics of twentieth-century Bonaventure studies. Yet, without directly engaging that vast literature, it is possible, and helpful, to distinguish between the ways in which theology may be said to have a purely extrinsic relationship to other sciences and the ways in which its relationship is intrinsic.

In sum, the prospects for a sapiential theology in Bonaventurean terms should deal with theological wisdom (1) in itself (a combination of the first two points mentioned above), (2) in relation to theological science, and (3) in relation to nontheological knowledge.⁵

Theology as Wisdom

That Bonaventure regards theology as a matter of both science and wisdom is undoubted:

Sacred Scripture or theology is a science that imparts to us wayfarers as much knowledge of the First Principle as we need to be saved. Now God is not only the principle and effective exemplar of all things in...