Volume 85, Issue 1, Winter 2011
Bonadventure
Suzanne Metselaar
Pages 43-75
The Structural Similarity between the Itinerarium mentis in Deum and the Collationes in Hexaemeron with Regard to Bonaventure’s Doctrine of God as First Known
In this article, I provide a close analysis of the resolutions to God as first known in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum and the Collationes in Hexaemeron. Hardly any methodological reflection has been given to the fact that there are two accounts of God as first known in each of these works. My
analysis shows that there exists a structural similarity between the Itinerarium and the Hexaemeron with regard to their treatment of Deus primum cognitum. In both texts, Bonaventure’s doctrine on God as first known exhibits a dynamic character, which I relate to the fact that both texts present a spiritual discourse dealing with the gradual transformation of the soul, in which the resolutions are embedded. Each of the two resolutions is part of a different stage of the development of
knowledge that corresponds to this transformation.