The Point of Departure . :
INTRODUCTION
glory, where the most perfect conformity between the created trinity and the creative trinity is realized. Again the mystery of the trinity is intertwined with the mystery of Christ. Created as the finite image of God, the human person is given the task of shaping human life personally in the likeness of the perfect Image, "and~ thus of ~ moving from image to similitude. To the degree that this is ac-~ complished, the human person is personally moulded into the mystery of the Image who is the Son, and thus enters into the Son's relation to the Father and the Spirit. By becoming Christ-like, the human person is conformed to the trinity.
It is clear that Bonaventure's theology is trinitarian in a way that is profoundly different from that of his contemporary, Aquinas.
His is a view that may be seen as a consistent economic trinitarianism for which the world and its history is a vast symbol of the trinitarian
God who communicates Himself in being, in grace, and in consummation.
Il. (THE POINT OF DEPARTURE
"No one is good but only God." Lk 18, 19.
While it is clear that Bonaventure never gives an extended treatment of the nature of God independently of the doctrine of the trinity,' yet it would be deceptive to say that he begins his trinitarian theology from a consideration of the individual persons as such. The problem from which he begins in each of his major treatments is the problem of how we are to conceive of the movement from the unique and unified nature of God to the existence of three persons.
The early Franciscan school appears to have been deeply concerned with the theological implications of the religious experience of St. Francis who, because of his experience of Christ, came to emphasize the nature of God as a good and loving Father. The Summa of the early friars gives considerable emphasis to God under this image and makes extensive use of the Dionysian metaphysics of the self-diffusive good to elaborate this religious ex- ' In none of his works is there a tract corresponding to the familiar De
Deo Uno. The Sentence Commentary, after one brief question on the one-ness of God, proceeds directly to the question of the plurality of persons (I Sent. d. 2, a.u., q. 1-2 [I, 51-53]). The Breviloquium follows the same pattern (Brevil. 1, 2 [V,
210]). We look elsewhere in vain for such a treatment. The development of the attributes of the divine nature is presented within the framework of the trinitarian question.
BONAVENTURE'S TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY
perience at the theological level. Through the influence of Alexander of Hales and other early friar theologians, this was to become a significant factor in Bonaventure's personal synthesis.
The emphasis on the nature of God as primal goodness is seen by Bonaventure to correspond to the New Testament revelation of the divine name: "No one is good but only God."5 As being seems to be the proper name of God in the Old Testament and corresponds to the concerns of philosophy, goodness is the proper name of God in the New Testament and will lead eventually to trinitarian theology.* Thus a clear point of contact can be seen between the religious experience of Francis and the writings of Scripture on the one hand, and between the experience of Francis and the theology of the early friars, including Bonaventure, on the other hand. But elsewhere in the New Testament we read that "God is love."? This designation of God would also play a leading role in the history of Christian thought, and would enter into the structure of Bonaventure's trinitarianism, though without explicit citations from the New Testament.
Both the idea of the good and the concept of love are fundamental in Bonaventure's_attempt to _show.the derivation of the persons in the trinity, and his arguments reveal how he has employed
_both the neo-Platonic thought of Pseudo-Dionysius as well as the theological insights of Richard of St. Victor in a way that is distinctively his own.
In the Dionysian view, goodness is the preeminent attribute of God; it is the very definition of the superessential
Godhead and the deepest basis for God's creative activity. Since God is good, and since the good is by nature self-diffusive, it follows that God is necessarily self-communicative. This tradition is taken up by Bonaventure and is used to argue for the necessary selfcommunication of the divine nature. It provides the metaphysical basis for understanding the first emanation within God as a natural emanation which flows necessarily from the dynamism of the divine nature. But, for Bonaventure, this is not sufficient for trinitarian theology since it specifies neither the mode nof the number of divine emanations.
To_fill_ up the incompleteness of the Dionysian model, Bonaventure reaches to Richard's reflections on love. Richard himself
Fe Se eed eerie fort or the poodand had employed the former rather than the latter in working out his understanding of the trinity. For Bonaventure, this approach — while not adequate
5 Tk. 18, 19; also, Ms. 19, 17.
6 Itin. 5, 2 (V, 308); and 6, 2 (V, 310).
71 Jn. 4, 8.16.
St. Bonaventure, Disputed Questions
INTRODUCTION
in itself — can be used in conjunction with the Dionysian metaphysics . ne .
. ae to supplemént the understanding of th ty. This model offers the possibility of moving beyond the necessary, natural emanation to an understanding of the dynamism of the will from which proceeds a free self-communication; this provides the basis for understanding the procession of the Spirit as an emanation per modum liberalitatis; or per modum amoris. While the first approach emphasizes the necessary diffusiveness of a fecund nature, the second highlights the communication of liberality from a fecund will. While the nature is the primary principle in the generation of the Son (natura est principium concomitante voluntate),® the will is a real principle in the spiration of the Spirit (voluntas est principium concomitante natura).®
Since it is the fecundity of the nature and the will from which the emanations flow, and since the intellect precisely as intellect is not fecund, Bonaventure always uses the term per modum naturae to designate the first procession.1° The Augustinian tradition of an intellectual emanation is thus subsumed within this dominant framework.
While both the argument from the good and the argument from love lead fo the affirmation of a plurality of persons in God, the analysis of love provides further clues for limiting the number of persons to three. In the general argument of the Sentence Commentary for the plurality of persons,4 the concepts of goodness and love are subsumed under the notion of beatitude. By way of contrast, in answering the question of why there are only three persons, the notion of beatitude again stands in the first place; but in the analysis of beatitude, the concept of goodness is omitted, and only the notions of germanitas and caritas are employed." Here the understanding of charity as perfect love which is both liberal and shared! is employed to show that there must be both dilectio and condilectio; hence there can be_no-less than three persons. The argument from love appears here as a necessary argument, while later the three modes of love
SOLS Senta Oy awe Gare etesp a lentag)s ® Tbid.
10 Bonaventure uses the terms per modum naturae and per modum voluntatis to designate the two trinitarian emanations. The terms are inspired by Aristotle's principle that there exist only two perfect modes of production; namely, natural and free. I Sent. d. 2, a.u., q. 4, fund. 2 (I, 56) cites Aristotle, Lib. IT Phys. text. 49
(c. 5); cf also, Brevi/. 1,°3 (CV, 214).
TET Sene cd. Apes, Gaees una e a5S):
ToT Scent, dee, aus, Ganae fumes fe (leno).
18 Tbhid. Amor liberalis is seen as a love which "'tendit in alterum." The amor communis is described as one which "vult illum diligi ab altero et diligere alterum."
Cf. also the response (I, 57) where the first argument of necessity follows the same line of thought.
BONAVENTURE'S TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY
formulated by Richard of St. Victor appear as the first argument from congruity.14
Bonaventure's argument is constructed around two poles which reflect both the Dionysian and the Victorine concern. Neither of these poles can be reduced to the other since each provides only a limited vision of the mystery of God. The same bipolar argumentation appears again in the J+inerarium,® but with a certain priority given to the Dionysian pole. In his final work, which we may see as his mature thought on the matter, the two poles are in fact presented as two parallel arguments,!* thus confirming the view that there is a basic distinction between the argument from the good and the argument from love.
The argument from simplicity, which appears in the Sentence Commentary!' is a variation of the argument from goodness. Simof the good which is concentrated in the one, simple divine essence raises unity to multiplicity without multiplying the essence. It is precisely because of His supreme simplicity that God is supremely communicable.1® If God is most simple, He is most communicative and productive in proportion to His being. Therefore, simplicity includes a plurality of persons.
The argument from perfection appears in different forms in the Sentence Commentary®® and in the Hexaemeron.?! Perfection is understood broadly as the ability to communicate or to produce another like oneself; it refers to productive power. In the Commentary this is taken primarily in the sense of a dynamic power, while in the Hexaemeron, it has more of an aesthetic quality reflecting a state of being in God, including origin, order, and lack of division."
All these arguments flow together into the notion of primacy which lies at the heart of Bonaventure's doctrine of God. It is a concept which is involved in some way in the resolution of all the major trinitarian questions: 1) the movement from unity of nature r49) "Sent. (d,, 2, a.u., G.4, resp. (L, 57).
15 [tin. 6, 2 (V, 310-311).
16 Hex, 11, 11 & 12 (V, 381-382).
17 T Seat. d. 2, a.u., q. 2, fund. 3 (I, 53). It is found also in Qg. Dd. q. 3, a. 1, resp. (V, 70).
18 T Sent. d. 8, q. 2, a.u., q. 1, ad 1-4 (I, 166).
19 T Sent. d. 8, p. 2, q. 1, ad 1 (1, 166); d. 2, q. 2, resp. (I, 54).
20 T Sent. d. 2, a. 2, fund. 2 (I, 53). a1 Hex. 11, 6 ff. (V, 381).
22 The elements of this argument will be treated further below.
INTRODUCTION
to trinity of persons;?3 2) the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son;%4 3) the impossibility of more than three persons;25 and 4) the personal constitution of the Father.?® Employing the philosophical principle that a being is cause of others because it is first, Bonaventure states that the more a being is prior, the more it is the fecund source of others.2? This may be understood in a broad sense to speak of the divine essence with respect to the world, at which level it corresponds to the doctrine of creation.
The divine nature is the rich fountain from which flows the entire created universe.28 But Bonaventure pushes beyond this to argue that the concept of primacy may be_ traced into the depths of the divine nature itself where it may be seen as the characteristic of the "first divine person. As the divine nature is absolutely prior with respect to all other essences, and thus is 2 se in the fullest sense of 'the word, so the Father, as that person who is non ab alio, is first with respect to the other persons. Hence, there'is in God one in whom resides the fullness of divine fecundity with respect to_the persons.?® But since whatever God is in Himself He is in act, it
~ follows that the divine fecundity with respect to God Himself must be in act, and hence there must be a plurality of persons in God.
The survey of the full range of Bonaventure's arguments reveals that his primary concern is to uncover an intelligible connection between the one divine essence and the trinity of persons. The concepts of goodness, primacy, love, perfection, and simplicity do this, each from a particular perspective.' Underlying all the arguments is a rich and dynamic image of the divine reality. God is the infinitely rich and_fecund _mystery.whose eternal being is a dynamic ecstasy of "goodnessand. love. The divine nature is not a static,
'mMonadic being, but is to be conceived more as a unifying power which, in the unity of the divine fecundity, produces a plurality without multiplying the nature. The trinity of persons is the fruit of the most perfect unity which, while subsisting in a multiplicity of persons, is yet not multiplied in itself.9° ee 1 AVG eh PA, bey 2S oabierely ZO (GG, Gye) al Sent deel lisa iqad, tespen(la215).
Mel Senteda2, awe, dy 4. respa(1) 57).
*6 I Sent, d. 27, p. 1, a.u., q. 2, resp., and ad 3 (I, 469-470).
Aristotle, I Poster. c. 2; Liber de Causis, prop. 1 and 17; Bonay., 1 Sent. di2; a.u., q. 2, fund. 4 (1, 53). a8 I Sent. Prooemium (1, 1-6). aes as of the first person as plenitudo fontalis is called the antiqua opinio (I Sent. d. 2, a.u., q. 2, resp. [I, 54]).
18 (Le SORES (Qe 381); Og. Dad. q. 2, a. 2, fund. 6 (V, 64).