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Pope Benedict XVI- General Audiences |
General
Audience
On Theology According to Thomas and Bonaventure
"Different Accents in an Essentially Shared Vision"
H.H. Benedict XVI
March 17, 2010
www.zenit.org
Dear brothers and sisters,
This morning, continuing last Wednesday's reflection, I would like to
reflect further with you on other aspects of the doctrine of St.
Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. He is an eminent theologian, who merits being
placed next to another very great thinker, his contemporary, St. Thomas
Aquinas. Both scrutinized the mysteries of revelation, valuing the
resources of human reason in the fruitful dialogue between faith and
reason that characterized the Christian Middle Ages, making it a period
of great intellectual liveliness, as well as of faith and of ecclesial
renewal, often not sufficiently noted. Other similarities associate
them: Both Bonaventure, a Franciscan, and Thomas, a Dominican, belonged
to the Mendicant Orders that, with their spiritual freshness -- as I
mentioned in preceding catecheses -- renewed the whole Church in the
13th century and attracted so many followers. Both served the Church
with diligence, passion and love, to the point that they were invited to
take part in the Ecumenical Council of Lyon in 1274, the same year in
which they died: Thomas while he was going to Lyon; Bonaventure during
the course of that same council. Also in St. Peter's Square the statues
of the two saints are parallel, placed in fact at the beginning of the
Colonnade starting from the facade of the Vatican Basilica: one in the
left wing and the other in the right wing. Despite all these aspects, we
can see in these two great saints two different approaches to
philosophical and theological research, which show each one's
originality and depth of thought. I would like to refer to some of these
differences.
A first difference concerns the concept of theology. Both doctors asked
themselves if theology is a practical or a theoretical, speculative
science. St. Thomas reflects on two possible contrasting answers. The
first says: theology is reflection on faith and the aim of faith is that
man become good, that he live according to the will of God. Hence, the
aim of theology should be to guide man on the just and good way;
consequently it is, fundamentally, a practical science. The other
position says: theology seeks to know God. We are the work of God; God
is above our action. God operates just action in us. Hence it is
essentially not of our doing, but of knowing God, not of our working.
St. Thomas' conclusion is: theology entails both aspects: it is
theoretical, it seeks to know God ever more, and it is practical: it
seeks to orient our life to the good. But there is a primacy of
knowledge: we must above all know God, then follows action according to
God (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 1, art.4). This primacy of knowledge in
comparison with practice is significant for St. Thomas' essential
orientation.
St. Bonaventure's answer is very similar, but the accents are different.
St. Bonaventure has the same arguments in both directions, as St. Thomas
does, but to respond to the question if theology is a practical or
theoretical science, St. Bonaventure makes a threefold distinction --
hence he lengthens the alternative between theoretical (primacy of
knowledge) and practical (primacy of practice), adding a third attitude,
which he calls "sapiential" and affirming that wisdom embraces both
aspects. And then he continues: Wisdom seeks contemplation (as the
highest form of knowledge) and has as its intention "ut boni fiamus" --
that we become good, above all this: to become good (cf. Breviloquium,
Prologus, 5). Then he adds: "Faith is in the intellect, in such a way
that it causes affection. For example: to know that Christ died 'for us'
does not remain knowledge, but becomes necessarily affection, love" (Proemium
in I Sent., q. 3).
His defense of theology moves along the same line, that is of the
rational and methodical reflection of faith. St. Bonaventure lists some
arguments against engaging in theology, perhaps widespread also among
some of the Franciscan brothers and present also in our time: reason
empties faith, it would be a violent attitude toward the Word of God, we
must listen to and not analyze the word of God (cf. Letter of St.
Francis of Assisi to St. Anthony of Padua). To these arguments against
theology, which demonstrate the dangers existing in theology itself, the
saint responds: It is true that there is an arrogant way of engaging in
theology, a pride of reason, which places itself above the Word of God.
But true theology, the rational work of the true and good theology, has
another origin, not the pride of reason. He who loves always wants to
know more and better the one who is loved; true theology does not engage
reason and its seeking motivated by pride, "sed propter amorem eius cui
assentit" -- [but] "motivated by the love of him, to whom it has given
its consent" (Proemium in I Sent., q. 2), and wishes to know the loved
one better: this is the essential intention of theology for St.
Bonaventure. Hence, in the end, determinant for St. Bonaventure is the
primacy of love.
Consequently, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure define in a different way
man's ultimate destiny, his full happiness: for St. Thomas the supreme
end, to which our desire is directed, is to see God. In this simple act
of seeing God all problems find their solution: let us be happy, nothing
else is necessary.
For St. Bonaventure, man's ultimate destiny is instead to love God, the
encounter and the union of his love and our own. This is for him the
most adequate definition of our happiness.
In this line, we could also say that the highest category for St. Thomas
is the true, while for St. Bonaventure it is the good. It would be
mistaken to see a contradiction in these two answers. For both the true
is also the good, and the good is also the true; to see God is to love
and to love is to see. It is a question therefore of different accents
in an essentially shared vision. In both the accents have formed
different traditions and different spiritualities and thus they have
shown the fecundity of the faith -- one in the diversity of its
expressions.
We return to St. Bonaventure. It is evident that the specific accent of
his theology, of which I have given only one example, is explained from
the Franciscan charism: the Poverello of Assisi, beyond the intellectual
debates of his time, showed with his whole life the primacy of love; he
was a living and enamored icon of Christ and thus made present, in his
time, the figure of the Lord -- he convinced his contemporaries not with
words, but with his life. In all St. Bonaventure's works, also the
scientific works, of academia, one sees and finds this Franciscan
inspiration; one notices, namely, that his thought starts from his
encounter with the Poverello of Assisi. But to understand the concrete
elaboration of the topic "primacy of love," we must also keep in mind
another source: the writings of so-called Pseudo-Dionysius, a Syrian
theologian of the 6th century, who concealed himself under the pseudonym
of Dionysius the Areopagite, referring, with this name, to a figure of
the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 17:34). This theologian had created a
liturgical theology and a mystical theology, and had spoken amply of
different orders of angels. His writings were translated into Latin in
the 9th century; at the time of St. Bonaventure -- we are in the 13th
century -- a new tradition was appearing, which sparked the interest of
the saint and of the other theologians of his century. Two things in
particular attracted the attention of St. Bonaventure:
1. Pseudo-Dionysius speaks of nine orders of angels, whose names he had
found in Scripture and then systematized them, from the simple angels to
the seraphim. St. Bonaventure interprets these orders of angels as steps
for creatures drawing close to God. Thus they can represent the human
journey, the ascent to communion with God. For St. Bonaventure there is
no doubt: St. Francis belonged to the seraphic order, the highest order,
to the choir of seraphim. That is, he was a pure fire of love. And so
should the Franciscans be. But St. Bonaventure knew well that this last
step of closeness to God cannot be inserted in a juridical ordering, but
is always a particular gift of God. Because of this, the structure of
the Franciscan Order is more modest, more realistic, but must, however,
help the members to come ever closer to a seraphic existence of pure
love. Last Wednesday I spoke about this synthesis between sober realism
and evangelical radicalism in the thought and action of St. Bonaventure.
2. St. Bonaventure, however, found in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius
another element, for him even more important. Whereas for St. Augustine
the intellectus, the seeing with reason and with the heart, is the
ultimate category of knowledge, Pseudo-Dionysius takes still another
step: in the ascent to God one can come to a point when reason no longer
sees. But in the night of the intellect, love still sees -- it sees what
remains inaccessible to reason. Love goes beyond reason, sees more,
enters more profoundly into the mystery of God. St. Bonaventure was
fascinated by this vision, which met with his Franciscan spirituality.
Precisely in the dark night of the cross appears all the grandeur of
divine love; where reason no longer sees, love sees. The conclusive
words of his "Journey of the Mind to God," in a superficial reading,
might seem an exaggerated expression of a devotion devoid of content;
read, instead, in the light of the theology of the cross of St.
Bonaventure, they are a clear and realistic expression of Franciscan
spirituality: "If now you yearn to know how that happens (that is, the
ascent to God), ask grace, not doctrine; desire, not the intellect; the
groan of prayer, not the study of the letter; ... not light, but the
fire that inflames everything and transports to God" (VII, 6). All this
is not anti-intellectual and anti-rational: it implies the way of reason
but transcends it in the love of the crucified Christ. With this
transformation of the mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Bonaventure is
placed at the beginning of a great mystical current, which greatly
raised and purified the human mind: it is a summit in the history of the
human spirit.
This theology of the cross, born of the encounter between the theology
of Pseudo-Dionysius and Franciscan spirituality, must not make us forget
that St. Bonaventure also shares with St. Francis of Assisi the love of
creation, the joy of the beauty of God's creation. I quote on this point
a phrase of the first chapter of the "Journey": "He ... who does not see
the innumerable splendors of creatures, is blind; he who is not awakened
by so many voices, is deaf; he who for all these wonders does not praise
God, is dumb; he who from so many signs does not rise to the first
principle, is foolish" (I, 15). The whole of creation speaks in a loud
voice of God, of the good and beautiful God; of his love.
Hence, for St. Bonaventure, all our life is a "journey," a pilgrimage --
an ascent to God. But with our own strength we cannot ascend to the
loftiness of God. God himself must help us, must "pull" us on high. That
is why prayer is necessary. Prayer -- so says the saint -- is the mother
and origin of the ascent -- "sursum actio," action that takes us on
high, Bonaventure says. Because of this, I conclude with the prayer,
with which he begins his "Journey": "Let us pray, therefore and say to
our Lord God: 'Lead me, Lord, on your way and I will walk in your truth.
My heart rejoices in fearing your name'" (I,1).
[Translation by ZENIT]
[The Holy Father then greeted the people in several languages. In
English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, we turn
once more to Saint Bonaventure. Bonaventure was a contemporary of Saint
Thomas Aquinas and the two great theologians reveal the rich diversity
of the theology of the thirteenth century. Whereas Thomas saw theology
as primarily a theoretical science, concerned with knowing God,
Bonaventure saw it as practical, concerned with the "wisdom" which
enables us to love God and conform our will to his. Thomas's emphasis on
truth complements Bonaventure's emphasis on love within the unity of a
great common vision. As a Franciscan, Bonaventure reflects the primacy
of love embodied in the life of Saint Francis. He was also deeply
influenced by the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius, with its emphasis on the
heavenly hierarchies which serve as steps leading the creature to
communion with the Triune God. Pseudo-Dionysius also inspired his
reflections on the darkness of the Cross, where, in the ascent of the
mind to God, reason can go no further and love enters the divine
mystery. As a great master of prayer, Bonaventure invites us to let our
minds and hearts rise from the contemplation of creation to rest in
God's eternal love.
Today is the feast of Saint Patrick, and in a special way, I greet all
the Irish faithful and pilgrims here present. As you know, in recent
months the Church in Ireland has been severely shaken as a result of the
child abuse crisis. As a sign of my deep concern I have written a
Pastoral Letter dealing with this painful situation. I will sign it on
the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, the Guardian of the Holy Family and
Patron of the universal Church, and send it soon after. I ask all of you
to read it for yourselves, with an open heart and in a spirit of faith.
My hope is that it will help in the process of repentance, healing and
renewal.
I welcome all the English-speaking visitors, especially those form
England, Ireland, Denmark, Indonesia and the United States of America.
Upon you and your families I invoke God's abundant blessings.
©Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
[He concluded in Italian:]
And now my greeting goes to youth. Dear young people, to meet with you
is always for me a reason of consolation and hope, because your age is
the springtime of life. Be always faithful to the love that God has for
you. I now address an affectionate thought to you, dear sick people.
When we suffer, all the reality in us and around us seems to darken but,
in the depth of our heart, this must not extinguish the consoling light
of faith. Christ with his cross sustains you in your trial. And you,
dear newlyweds, whom I greet cordially, be grateful to God for the gift
of the family. Counting always on his help, make of your existence a
mission of faithful and generous love.
[Translation by ZENIT]
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