CHAPTER THREE: TrinirARIAN THEMES IN THE Dis
CHAPTER THREE
TRINITARIAN THEMES
IN THE DISPUTED QUESTIONS
Bonaventure indicates his intention of establishing two foundational issues: The existence of the one God, and His existence as a trinity. The one is an issue of human reason; the other an issue of faith. In so doing, he sets up the pillars of the structure for the entire series of questions in which is worked out the relation between the nature of the one God with its necessary attributes on the one hand, and the trinitarian nature of God as known by faith on the other hand. The structure reflects Bonaventure's conviction that the God who can be known and is known ina limited way by reason is identical with the God who reveals Himself as trinitarian in the history of salvation. Since God is one, and since the world is a unified cosmos coming from God, and since there is a positive relation between human knowledge and the objects of that knowledge, it follows that there should be a positive correspondence between reason and faith; for the truth of reality is fundamentally one and grounded in one God. But since the possibilities of reason ate limited, and since God is free to communicate Himself to the human race in ways other than through the structures of the created order alone, if He has communicated Himself — as He has in the history of salvation — it follows that such a self-communication, while not contradicting what is accessible to reason, may also extend the range of human knowledge in a way not predictable from reason alone. Since, for Bonaventure, this is the case, he can give full tribute to the power of reason while recognizing its limitations and demanding that the basic categories whereby reason expresses and interprets reality must be held open to expansion and possible correction in the light of faith.
It is for this reason that we frequently find a clear dialectical structure which reflects these basic convictions. An outstanding case of such dialectic is found in the fifth and sixth chapters of the Itinerarium, reflecting first on the attributes of God as Being, and
INTRODUCTION
then on the attributes of God as Good.! The first level is a metaphysical reflection which corresponds to the Old Testament revelation of God as '"'He who is;"' here one sees the intimate relation between the categories of the classical metaphysics of being with the Old Testament revelation. But the history of revelation stops neither with philosophy nor with the Old Testament, but goes on to a revelation which, while it does not negate the former, yet moves beyond, revealing that God, who is Being, is Goodness and Love.
Thus, what has been established in the fifth chapter must be held open to what remains to be done in the sixth chapter. It is here, in reflecting on the New Testament, that we arrive at the highest level of metaphysical reflection; a level that we may truly call theological metaphysics, since it is truly metaphysical in character, though it takes its decisive clues as to the nature of reality from a particular religious experience. The dialectical structure of these chapters clearly reflects the basic metaphysical convictions of the Seraphic
Doctor. In its basic outline, it is the same structure which provides the framework for the Disputed Questions, a structure which is established in the first question and carried out consistently as each of the attributes under consideration (with the exception of primacy) is studied in two articles; the first dealing with how that attribute is derived by reason, and the second employing reason to show how the same attribute finds its fullest meaning in a God who is trinitarian. The basic philosophical concepts are given a fuller content in this confrontation with faith which — for Bonaventure — is the final court of appeal for the proper understanding of reality.
The list of attributes to be treated here had already appeared in summary form in the Sentence Commentary,* and will appear again almost literally in the Breviloquium.? But in the Disputed Questions, the analysis of each is carried out very extensively and in such a closely integrated way that the whole of the work appears almost as one massive argument starting from the foundation set up in the first question, moving from one attribute to the next, showing the logical structure of each, building from one to another, and culminating in the final question on primacy which, as we have seen, is a key concern of Bonaventure's trinitarian style. This provides the larger framework within which the constant dialectic described above is carried out between the two articles of each question, and even within particular articles.
1 Ttin. 5 & 6 (V, 308-312).
21 Sent. d. 2, a.un., q. 1 (1, 50-52).
> Brevil. 1, 3 (V, 211).