BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY: CHRIST'S HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AS THE EPITOME OF ILLUMINATION IN DE SCIENTIA CHRISTI Bonaventure's theory of illumination is deeply connected to the mystery of the Incarnate Word. One of his key illuminationist texts is his investigation of Christ's divine and human knowledge in the Quaestionesdisputatae de scientia Christi, 1 the first disputation which Bonaventure held as a new master at the University of Paris in 1254.2 The relationship between illumination and Christ's knowledge in this work yields interesting insights into the way in which the mystery of Christ completes and explicates Bonaventure's illuminationist epistemology: in its intimate union with the Word, Christ's human soul exemplifies human knowledge at the height of its perfection. At the same time, this soul's cognitive perfection only makes sense in the context of certain illuminationist epistemological principles. Bonaventure's 1 Bonaventure, Quaestiones Disputatae de scientia Christi [hereafter De sc. Chr.], Quaracchi 5:1-198. All English translations, unless otherwise noted, are from Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, introduction and translation Zachary Hayes. Works of Saint Bonaventure N (Saint Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1992) [this edition hereafter "Hayes"]. 2 Andreas Speer, "The Certainty and Scope of Knowledge: Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ," MedievalPhilosophy and Theology 3 (1993): 38. Ignatius Brady dates the work instead to the spring of 1256 and identifies it as the first work in which Bonaventure "weld[ed] his previous thinking [on illumination] into a coherent whole" ("St. Bonaventure's Doctrine of Illumination: Reactions Medieval and Modern," in Bonaventure and Aquinas: Enduring Philosophers, ed. Robert w: Shahan and Francis J. Kovach [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976], 58-59). Other key texts of Bonaventure's doctrine of illumination are the later sermon De Christo unico magistro, Quaracchi 5:567-74, which expounds the doctrine in greater detail; the Itinerarium mentisDeum, Quaracchi 5:295-313, which discusses the mystical ascent of wisdom; and In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, a. 2, qq. 1-4, Quaracchi 5:554-571, which elucidates Bonaventure's understanding of agent intellect. 63 Franciscan Studies 65 (2007) 64 THERESE SCARPELLI illumination theory and his doctrine of Christ's knowledge are thus mutually dependent and indeed inseparable. Although Christ's knowledge and illuminationism each are common themes for Bonaventurean scholarship, the mutual interdependence of these two themes, which are significantly juxtaposed in De scientiaChristi, is rarely addressed.' Yet an investigation of this interdependence can be very fruitful for the study of each theme. With respect to Christology, it shows Christ's universal, yet not unlimited, human knowledge to be the logical conclusion of Bonaventure's ordinary illuminationist principles when applied to human nature hypostatically united with the Word. Moreover, when the Christological questions of De scientia Christi are read within the context of the illuminationism in q. 4, it becomes possible to identify the virtue of wisdom, together with its special form of "influence," as an integral part of Bonaventure's illumination theory which implements the natural principles of illumination on the supernatural level." Such an inquiry highlights the way in which the Christian philosopher Bonaventure blends a judicious distinction between natural and supernatural knowledge with the unmistakable Christological orientation which suffuses his whole theory of human cognition. Before addressing the Christological aspects of Bonaventure's illuminationism, I will first briefly discuss the epistemology which Bonaventure advances in De scientia Christi. I will then explore the ways in which his theory of illumination makes possible his analysis of Christ's knowledge and vice versa. The last section will conclude with a discussion of the relationship between the mystery of the Word and human knowledge in general. This inquiry will be limited to qq. 4-7 of De scientia Christi, although I will mention certain key principles from qq. 1-3 as they relate to concepts in the last four questions. l For instance, in Marrone's important work on illumination, the Christological implicationsreceive only a scant paragraph of attention: see Steven P. Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance: Science andKnowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, vol. 1, A Doctrine of Divine Illumination (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 187. One text which does mention Christ's knowledgeas an integral part of Bonaventure'stheory of selfknowledge is Speer, "The Certainty and Scope of Knowledge" (see 43, where he speaksof Christ as the "model" for human knowledge,and pp. 53-5, on the perfect wisdom of Christ), but the focus in the brief passages where Christ is mentioned is mainly restricted to the non-infinity of Christ's knowledge as setting the upper limits for human knowledge. 4 Generally the scholarship on illumination has tended to focus on how the divine light is known indirectly in any act of knowing, and has largely neglected the question of how the divine light itself is seen (see for instance, the relevant final chapter of Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance, vol. 1, on "A Natural Way to Know God"). Speer, "The Certainty and Scope of Knowledge," 51-5, discusses created wisdom, but without explainingits relation to naturally occurring illumination. BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY 65 I. BONAVENTURE'S THEORY OF ILLUMINATION While Bonaventure provides a fairly thorough outline of his theory of illumination in De scientia Christi q. 4, a brief detour to the more explicit discussion of these issues in In II. Sent. is required for us to gain a complete portrait of Bonaventure's illuminationist thought by examining two key concepts underlying the exposition in De scientia Christi: optics and the agent intellect. Since light has been a metaphor for cognition since at least as far back as Plato's Cave, developments in the theory of optics bore particular epistemological significance during the Middle Ages. In brief, the Seraphic Doctor describes bodily vision as possible only through the cooperation of two lights. Besides the natural light of the sun illuminating objects so as to make them visible,' he postulates a natural light of the sight-organ (eye) which is most evident in cats whose glowing eyes allow them to see in the dark. This latter light is not an extromission, but rather a disposition or habit in the eye which adapts sunlight in a way which makes it proportionate to the capacity of the sight-organ. The glowing eyes of nocturnal animals explain why the medievals considered this active habit in the eye to be a kind of light - animals with more "light" in their eyes have a greater ability to adapt the incoming species in such a way as to make even a small amount of exterior light suffice for vision." These two kinds of light, both cooperating to cause vision on the sense level, parallel the two lights on the intellectual level. As Augustine teaches,' the divine light shining into the human mind from outside is the condition in which all objects are known." At the same time, as Aristotle teaches, the natural interior light of the intellect, the agent intellect, is equally neces5 A common analogy in illumination. See for instance Robert Grosseteste, De ueritate 25, in Die pbilosopbiscben 117erke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischoft von Lincoln (Munster i. W: Aschendorff, 1912), 137:"Nec potest aliquares in sua tantum creata veritate conspicivera, sicut corpus non potest conspicicoloratum in suo colore tantum, nisi superfuso extrinsecolumine." 6 In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, a. 2, q. 4, c., Quaracchi 5:569:"... oculo cati, qui non solum habet potentiam suscipiendi per naturam perspicui, sicut alii oculi, sed etiam potentiam faciendi in se speciem per naturam luminis sibi inditi." From here on, Bonaventuredevelopsthe sight analogyin a more Aristotelianway by incorporating the notion of the eye'sown light, as a parallel of the soul'sown activitycontributing to knowledge. 7 One classic quote sums up the Augustinian tradition from which Bonaventure draws: "[SJi ambo videmusverum esse quod diciset ambovidemusverum esse quod dico, ubi, quaeso, id videmus? Nec ego utique in te nee tu in me, sed ambo in ipsa quae supra mentes nostras est incommutabili veritate" (Conftssiones 12, cap. 25, in Corpus Cbristianorum, Series Latina,vol. 27, ed. Lucas Verheijen [Turnhout: Brepols, 1981J,235). 8 In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, q. 4, C., Quaracchi 5:568:"[I]mmo secundum mentern immediate habet a Deo illuminari, sicut in multis locis Augustinus ostendit." 66 THERESE SCARPELLI BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY sary for knowledge, in that it adapts the phantasm to the intellect's capacity." Integrating Aristotelian insights into Augustinian illuminationism, Bonaventure thus upholds the necessity for the properly active operation of the intellect even within the realm of the divine Iight.!" Once this parallel between vision and intellectual sight has been established, the natural light of being, representing reality in general, reenters the picture as the third form oflight necessary for human cognition. "While light comes to the psyche interiorly and immediately from the Archetype, light also approaches exteriorly from the world through the mediation of the body."!' The natural "shining" of the natural world is a sort of radiation of intelligibility which is captured by the senses and internalized as phantasms: in Bonaventure's universe, "each body considered in its perfect state engenders around itself a perpetual radiation which allows its presence to be discovered and its nature to be known when there is a sensible organ to receive it."12 The text of In II. Sent. bears up the causal efficacy of natural intelligibility in cognition, reaffirming the Avicennian image of the soul gazing on both what is higher and what is lower than itself;" Bonaventure insists upon the necessity of sense-phantasms as the foundation for cognition.!? Thus three lights are necessary for the act of knowledge: the divine light (uncreated rationes), the natural light of the intellect, and the light of things known (created rationes). Having guaranteed the active efficacyof the intellect in the act of cognition, Bonaventure leaves behind psychological debates over the division of the powers" in order to elaborate his overall theory of illumination in De scientia Christi q. 4 in terms of how the relationship between God, man, and the world unfolds in the sphere of human knowing. Here, despite the stated title of the question, "whether that which is known by us with certitude is known in the eternal rationes," Bonaventure is less concerned with the origins of certitude than with the anthropological converse of the question, namely, defining the nature and upper limits of purely human cognition." As a result, the question focuses on whether the cause of knowledge lies outside or inside the intellect. 9 Citing Aristotle, Bonaventure maintains that "ille intellectus, quo est omnia facere, est sicut habitus quidam, ut in lumine; quodam enim modo et lumen faeit colores potentia actu colores" (In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, a. 2, q. 4, c., Quaracchi 5:569); see Aristotle, De anima 3.5: "And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of making all things: this is a sort of positive state like light; for in a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours" (trans. J A. Smith, in Tbe Basic WOrks ofAristotle, ed. Richard McKeon [New York: Random House, 1941J, 592). The Aristotelian insight which has the most impact on illuminationism in the thirteenth century is that the intellect has its own proper act: it is not merely a passive receptor of forms, but is "in its essential nature activity," and in some sense "makes" (by abstraction) the forms which then inform it (3.5, Hayes, 592). 10 In II. Sent., d. 24, part 1, a. 2, q. 4, c., Quaracchi 5:568: "[Cjum animae nostrae data sit potentia ad intelligendum, sicut aliis creaturis data est potentia ad alios actus, sic Deus, quamvis sit principalis operans in operatione cuiuslibet creaturae, dedit tamen cuilibet vim activam, per quam exiret in operationem propriam." 11 Thomas Michael Tomasic, "A Central Neoplatonic Paradigm in Bonaventure's Thought: The Soul as an Optic," in Atti del Congresso Internazionafe per if VII Centenario di San Bonaventura da Bagnoregnio, vol. 2, San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza cristiana, ed. A. Pompei, (Rome: Pontifical Theological Faculty of San Bonaventura, 1976), 501. II Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy ofSt. Bonaventure, trans. Illtyd Trethowan and E]. Sheed (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1938), 352. 13 In II. Sent. d. 24, part 1, a. 2, q. 3, c., Quaracchi 5:566: "Aliquando vero fit divisio potentiarum secundum aspectus, sicut dividitur potentia cognitiva in rationem, intellectum, et intelligentiam, secundum quod aspicit ad inferius, ad par et ad superius." While Bonaventure denies that the "gaze" establishes a real division of powers, he upholds the Avicennian (Neoplatonic) view on inferior and superior reason (Avicenna, Liber deanima seusextusde naturalibus 1.5, ed. S. Van Riet [Louvain: Peeters, 1972, pp. 93-5; In II. Sent. q. 2, c.; see also John Blund, Tractatus deanima, 67 ch. 25, part 1, no. 336, ed. D. A. Callus and R.W Hunt [London: Oxford University Press, 1970J, Hayes, 91). Gilson explains,"Inferior reason can consider the same objects as superior reason; it is inferior because it considers only their lower elements" (Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, 381). 14 In II. Sent. d. 24, part 1, a. 2, q. 4, c., Hayes, 28: "[E]r ita una de se [intellectus agens] quodam modo completa er habilitata, alia vero [intellectus possibilis] indigens habilitatione et complemento; er cum sit nata ad illud complementum venire mediante auxilio corporis et corporalium sensuum, inest ipsi animae, secundum quod habet inclinari ad corpus." Troy Everton comments, "Even though Bonaventure further adds to sense perception the role of divine illumination, he still realizes that the sense faculties must be involved in all of our sensate knowledge. The senses serve to give the mind an image of the physical. Then through divine illumination the mind is able to ascend above and beyond the physical and gaze upon Reality Itself" ("Saint Bonaventure's Illumination Theory of Knowledge: The Reconciliation of Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine," Miscellanea francescana 88 [1988J: 110). 15 De scientia Christi never mentions the agent intellect, although Bonaventure clearly has the soul's active power in mind when he discusses the causal efficacy of the intellect in cognition. 16 Here I disagree with Speer when he says that the "central point of [Bonaventure'sJ epistemology," and in fact the central problem of De scientia Christi, is "the problem of the certainty of knowledge ("Certainty and Scope," 42). Although certainty is a major focus for Bonaventure's theory of knowledge as expressed in some of the sermons from 1253-54 (see Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance 1:122-51), the issue at stake here in De scientia Christi q. 4 is not the introspective question of how we know what we know. Rather, as becomes evident in Bonaventure's description of the soul's proper act as image ("Since certain knowledge pertains to the rational spirit in as far as it is an image of God, it is in this sort of knowledge that the soul attains to the eternal reasons" - q. 4, Hayes, 136), q. 4 is about the relationship of our knowledge to God and how closely it approximates divine knowledge. Of the two keywords in Speer's article title, the one which more appropriately expresses the "central point of this epistemology" is "scope" rather than "certainty." BONAVENTURE'S CHRlSTOCENTRlC EPISTEMOLOGY 68 THERESE SCARPELLI In the eonclusio of q. 4, Bonaventure outlines three possible causal relationships between the human intellect and the eternal rationes. The first, a radical illuminationism which he rejects, is that "in the case of certain knowledge, the evidence of the eternal light concurs as the total and sole cause of that knowledge."? In this scenario, which reduces human causality to a receptive cooperation, God would be the entire cause of intellection with the mind remaining passive. The problem which Bonaventure idenrifies with this position is twofold: it cannot distinguish knowledge in statu viae from knowledge in patria or reason from faith (a distinction which will be of importance for defining Christ's knowledge); moreover, it implies that knowledge is only found in the essentially inaccessible world of the intelligibles, leading to skepticism. IS The second position," a radical Aristotelianism which Bonaventure also rejects, lies at the opposite end of the spectrum, suggesting that the relationship between intellect and divine rationes is merely one of influence: the divine rationes cause a habit in the mind whereby the intellect knows. Here the act of knowledge belongs solely to the intellect, with God merely facilitating the process of cognition from behind the scenes, as it were, by providing the intellect through nature or grace with whatever powers it needs to know on its own. Bonaventure argues that this interpretation fails to account for the incommensurability between the mind and the eternal truths it knows; nothing created, whether a grace, a habit of the mind, or a natural disposition, can make the intellect proportionate to such truths." The intellect cannot logically derive the certitude which acDe sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 132. De se. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 133: "This understanding is the least acceptable, for It allows for no knowledge except in the Word ... According to this opinion, which is put forward by some, nothing is known with certitude except in the intelligi?le and Archetypal world ... [F]rom this arose the error of the new Academy, which held that no knowledge was possible at all since that intelligible world was hidden from human minds." 19 As found in Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 84, a. 5: "Alio modo dicitur aliquid cognosci in aliquo sicut in cognitionis principio; sicut si dicamus quod in sole videntur ea quae videntur per solem. Et sic necesse est dicerer quod anima humana omnia cognoscat in rationibus aeternis, per quarum participationem omnia cognoscimus. Ipsum enim lumen intellectuale quod est in nobis, nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo luminis increati, in quo continentur rationes aeternae. Unde in Psalmo N dicitur: 'Multi dicunt: Quis ostendit nobis bona?' cui quaestioni Psalmista respondet dicens: 'Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine.' Quasi dicat: Per ipsam sigillationem divini luminis in nobis omnia demonstrantur" (Summa theologiae, vol. 1, ed. Instituti Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis [Ottawa: Studii ｇ･ｮｾ｡ｬｩｳ OP, 1941], 518b). For Aquinas, knowing in the divine light simply means knowing through a created participation in the divine light, i.e., the light of our agent intellect, which is the "seal of the Divine light in us." 20 See Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance, 1:136-7. Interestingly, although by rejecting this second position he is arguing against the Aristotelian exclusivity 69 companies knowledge of eternal truths from a created, finite, and mutable object. Moreover, such a position violates two key principles which will play a crucial role in Bonaventure's theory of Christ's knowledge: if the divine influence operated through nature, one could no longer hold that knowledge bears a unique relationship to the divine; if it operated through grace, one would have to conclude that all knowledge is infused." The third position, a "middle position?" which synthesizes insights from Aristotle and Augustine in a way which guarantees the proper operation of the intellect as well as the unique relationship between God and the intellect in cognition," is the one which Bonaventure finally adopts. In an operation which he calls eontuitio, the intellect attains the eternal ratio together with the created ratio (intelligible species) in every act of certain knowledge: "along with the created reason [ratio], the eternal reason [ratio] is contuited by us in part as is fitting in this life.'?" Thus both the eternal and the created rationes are concurrent causes of cognition, the eternal ratio providing a "regulative" certitude," and the created ratio providing concrete data from the creature being cognized. By conjoining the Aristotelian doctrine of abstraction to the traditional arguments for illumination, contuition safeguards the activity of the intellect, since the created ratio is only obtained when the intellect abstracts it from a sense phantasm: when this abstraction occurs under the light of the divine rationes, the intellect attains both the divine light and the created light at the same time and possesses certain knowledge. Bonaventure's terminology of eontuitio for this version of illumination is crafted so as to emphasize an indirect vision of the divine rationes which is 17 . 18 of the senses as the cause of knowledge, in another work Bonaventure bolsters this argument for the incommensurability of true thing and truth with another classic Aristotelian principle, that true knowledge requires certain knowledge of causes: "Tunc enim scimus, 'cum causam arbitramur, cognoscere, propter quam res est, et scunus, quoniam impossibile est aliter se habere" (Christusunus omnium est magister 6,.Quaracchi 5:568b-569a), citing Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.2]; see Speer, "Certamty and Scope," 43. 21 Desc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 134. 22 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 134. !roy.Eve.rton, "Saint Bonaventure's Illumination Theory of Knowledge," :: ｓｾ･ 108.: His illumination theory forms a great medieval dialogue of Augustinian Platon.Ism and Aristotelianism. In this, Bonaventure remains faithful to Augustine while at the ｳｾｭ･ ｾｭ･ incorporating elements of Aristotle. Furthermore, by using the Pseudo-Dionysian concept of hierarchy, Bonaventure takes these two schools of thought and develops a theory of knowledge that in its thrust is mystical. He moves knowledge toward mystical union with Divine Love." 24 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 134. 25 I.e., it constitutes the standard (regula), the full truth, by which to measure the creature. See De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 134. 70 71 THERESE SCARPELLI BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY therefore distinct from the beatific vision. 26 According to Rodriguez-Bachiller, the indirectness of contuition is derived from the (act that contuition is a collection of intuitions, as indicated by its etymology: reciprocal mediation, this exitus-reditus of light, to which the mind must attain (attingere)31 in order to know, summarizes the semiotic metaphysics which Bonaventure proceeds to reveal as the underpinnings of his system of illumination. For Bonaventure, contuition is only possible because everything in the universe is a sign of God: "Every creature is related to God as a vestige, as an image, and as a likeness.?" In Bonaventure's scale of being, "there is a principle that moves everything towards the highest.'?' In every act of knowledge, the intellect is drawn up to that which is beyond the earthly vestigia cognized, the ultimate ratio of the thing's very essence, which when attained, grants the ultimate and most certain explanation of that essence, namely, its truth. "[A]s the archetypal expression of the divine ground, as the everlasting Word, the divine prototype is equally immediate to each of its creaturely images. Conversely, these creaturely copies bring to mind the divine original 'penes modum repraesentandi."?" The God-oriented intelligibility of all creation takes the Divine Word, He Who is Truth, as its source. Its goal is to lead man not only to an indirect intellectual contact with this Truth, but to a complete return to this Truth in contemplation." De scientia Christi q. 4, then, lays out some of the most important principles in Bonaventure's illuminationism: the importance of the intellect exercising its own proper operation concurrent with the divine illumination; the degree to which the intellect attains to the divine in each act of knowing; the distinction between knowledge in via and in patria; the regulative role of divine light in bestowing otherwise inaccessible certitude to judgments; and Contuition or cointuition - in Bonaventure - is the indirect knowledge which the soul acquires of God, either in creatures, insofar as they are vestiges or signs of God, or else in the effects of divine grace, or in the innate species of the divine Being. From beginning to end, this knowledge is one which is 'implied' in another being, 'accompanied' by another being." It seems therefore that St. Bonaventure envisions here not merely a con tuition in which the created and eternal rationes are known simultaneously, but one in which the intuition of the divine ratiomediates the intuition of the created ratio, and vice versa, so that each ratio is attained through the other." Such a scenario explains how he is able to accord concurrent causality to both while making it impossible for either one to cause knowledge independently from the other. The created essence directs man upwards to the Divine Idea which is its truth.?? while the Divine Idea illuminates the mind in such a way as to enable it to understand the immutable truth which constitutes the ultimate reality of a created essence." In fact, this 26 See Zachary Hayes, footnotes to Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, n.49,134. 27 "Contuici6n 0 cointuici6n - en Buenaventura - es el conocimiento indirecto que el alma adquiere de Dios, 0 bien en las criaturas, en cuanto son vestigios 0 signos de Dios, 0 bien en los efectos de la gracia divina, 0 bien en las especies innatas del Ser divino. Al fin y al cabo, es un conocimiento 'implicado' en otro ser, 'acompafiado' de otro ser" (Angel Rodriguez-Bachiller, "Sintuici6n (contuici6n) en san Buenaventura y santo Tomas," inAtti delCongresso Internazionale per il VII Centenario di san Bonaventura da Bagnoregnio, vol. 2, San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza cristiana, ed. A. Pompei, [Rome: Pontifical Theological Faculty of San Bonaventura, 1976], 51, my translation). Rodriguez-Bachiller also helpfully points out that "Todo 10que se conoce por un medio (indirecta 0 mediatamente) es cointuici6n" (51); "Hayconnotada una relaci6n de 'medio a fin.' Per tanto, en la contuici6n hay, por 10menos, dos intuiciones" (53). 28 See Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance 1:152-4, for a documentation of the development of this crucial theme in Bonaventure's thought. 29 De sc. Chr., q. 2, c., Hayes, 90: "But there is a likeness in another sense when one being resembles another. And this can be of two types. One is a likeness ofimitation. This is seen in the way in which the exemplary Idea in the Creator is a likeness of the creature. In both ways, both as imitation and as exemplary Idea, the likeness of which we speak of both expressing and expressive. And it is this sort of likeness that is required for any knowledge of reality." See also Speer, "Certainty and Scope," 46; Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance 1:123. 30 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 135: "Similarly, the light of the creature is not completely infallible by virtue of its own power, since each such light is created moving from non-being to being. But, if full knowledge requires recourse to a light that is fully immutable and stable, and to a light that is completely infallible, it is necessary for this sort of knowledge to have recourse to the heavenly art as to light and truth." 31 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 137: "[I]n all certain knowledge the principles of knowledge are attained by the knower." 32 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 135. Marc Ozilou calls Bonaventure's position on this point an "expressionist exemplarism;" see "Introduction generale," in Les Sentences. Questions sur Dieu, trans. Marc Ozilou (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002),17-23. 33 Paul Grimley Kuntz; "The Hierarchical Vision of Bonaventure," in Atti del Congresso Internazionale per il VII Centenario di San Bonaventura da Bagnoregnio, vol. 2, San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza cristiana, ed. A. Pompei (Rome: Pontifical Theological Faculty of San Bonaventura 1976),247. Kuntz sees this upward moving principle as a ontological reditus via a Dionysian ladder of love; but Bonaventure's illuminationism only makes sense if this motion towards the highest also takes via intelligibility and knowledge (a position which does not contradict Bonaventure's Dionysian tendencies, although the Areopagite would say that knowledge must ultimately give way to unknowing - see Pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology 7). 34 Speer, "Certainty and Scope," 46. 35 De sc. Chr., q. 4, ad 23-24-25-26, Hayes, 143-44. 73 THERESE SCARPELLI BONAVENTURE'S CHRlSTOCENTRlC EPISTEMOLOGY the vestigia-status of the external world as a form of intelligible communication, directing the mind towards the eternal rationes. These principles will reappear in qq. 5-7 as foundational to Bonaventure's presentation of Christ as the perfect human knower. intellect of Christ, which is not only unimpeded by sin-obstacles, but is closest to the source of illumination by virtue of enjoying the most intimate possible union with the Word, has the most perfect knowledge humanly possible. The mystery of the Word made flesh thus highlights the contrast between the divine and human modes of knowing, revealing purely human knowledge at its best in a perfect man. As is clear from qq. 1-3 of De seientia Christi, the highest knowledge belongs to God. No man, however intelligent, can ever begin to approximate such knowledge simply by learning from particulars. Thus the source for maximum human knowledge can only be found in God: by closeness to God, can the human intellect see in God what God knows? It is this question with which Bonaventure is really occupied in the last three questions of De seientia Christi. Consequently he ignores the issue of Christ's acquired knowledge" and goes straight to the heart of the matter, namely, Christ's wisdom (sapientia). "In the Augustinian tradition 'wisdom' is the usual name for the epitome of perfect knowledge, and thus a knowledge that has a perfect grasp of the conditions under which it exists." 41 Whereas ordinary knowledge knows in the divine light, wisdom beholds the divine light itself," Wisdom is therefore the final step in illuminated knowledge, the lifting up of one's intellect to the divine light itself, just as in the optical analogy, one could go from viewing things in the sunlight to lifting up one's eyes to the sun itself. But just as in the optical analogy, the sun can only be directly perceived if the natural "light" of the eyes is strengthened to bear the additional brilliance, the intellect can only turn away from earthly knowledge to knowledge of the divine itself if its natural abilities are strengthened." Wisdom 72 II. THE IMPLICATIONS OF ILLUMINATION FOR CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE The pivotal role of the Word in human knowledge as the "expressive principle of the existence and intelligibility of everything that is"36 comes full circle when the Word Himself assumes the human mode of knowledge made possible by His own illumination. Mirroring this motion, the structure of De scientia Christi achieves a sort of reditus: human knowledge (q. 4), which comes from God (qq. 1-3), returns to its ground and exemplar in Christ the perfect knower (qq. 5_7).37 Accordingly, the last phrase of q. 4 sets the stage for Christ as the exemplar of human knowing: "But that truth which is absolutely immutable can only be seen by those who are able to enter into that innermost silence of the soul, and to this no sinner is able to come, but only one who is a lover of eternity.':" Since knowledge is most fully human (as imago) when it attains the divine principles," the human . . 36 Speer, "Certainty and Scope," 45. See also De se. Chr., q. 2, Hayes, 91: "the divine Intellect - expressing all things eternally in its supreme truth - possesses from eternty the exemplary Ideas of all crearures." 37 See Joshua C. Benson, "Structure and Meaning in St. Bonavenrure's Quaesｳ･ｮｯｾｴ disputatae de scientia Christi," Franciscan Studies 62 (2004): 70: "[T]he disputation moves from the divine, through humanity, and into the soul of Christ. Likewise, upon scrutiny of the Latin text, the seven questions are found to move from scientia, through cognitio, and into sapientia." ｾＳ De se. Chr., q. 4, ad. 23-24-25-26, Hayes, 144. See Benson, "Strucrure and M.eanIng," 76: "This statement is the heart and soul of the entire disputation. With this statement, the work takes a decisive mystical rurn. From this point on, the text no longer speaks of the scientia and cognitio of God, nor of the eognitio and contuitio of humans but rather of the sapientia of Christ's soul. It is to this ultimate statement of ｱｾ･ｳｴｩｯｮ four that the entire De Scientia Christi, to this point, has been striving and It IS from here that Bonavenrure will begin to describe the supreme lover of eternity Jesus Christ." , 39 A case could be made that every act of human lmowledge in some way attains the divine reasons, as is proper to the soul as imago: "Since certain lmowledge pertains to the rational spirit in as far as it is an image of God, it is in this sort of lmowledge that the soul attains to the eternal reasons ... However, since the nature ｾｦ the image is never absent from the rational spirit, it always attains to the reasons In some way" (Desc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 136). Itis not quite clear whether Bonaventure simply means that in any act of certain lmowledge alone the soul has some sort of access, however limited, to the divine reasons, or rather that it is consonant with the narure of the imago that every act of lmowledge share in some sort of certainty and thus attain the divine ideas to that extent (hence the origin of the unconscious certainty we have that our perceptions match with reality. This latter theory would accord well with Bonavenrure's semiotic metaphysics, in which every being is a sign of God, so that every act of lmowledge reaches out to Him). In other words, is certirude here a logical or psychological entity? 40 Bonaventure has already provided a more traditional discussion of the various levels of Christ's lmowledge ("cognitionem gloriae, cognitionem narurae integrae et cognitionem poenalis experientiae") in In III. Sent., dist. 14, a. 3, q. 1, Quaracchi 3:313. For a summary of his position see Laurence S. Vaughan, The Acquired Knowledge of ChristAccording to the Theologians ofthe 12th and 13th Centuries (Rome: Schola Typographica Missionaria Dominiciana apud S. Sixtum, 1957),45-52; Marilyn McCord Adams, What Sort of Human Nature?MedievalPhilosophy and the Systematics of Christology (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1999), 30-6. 41 Speer, "Certainty and Scope," 43; Bonaventure, Christus unum omnium est magister, 6, Quaracchi 568b-569a. 42 De sc. Chr., q. 4, ad 19, Hayes, p.141: "[A]ttaining to these reasons does not make anyone wise unless that person is aware of attaining them and finds repose in them." 43 See De sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8. 74 THERESE SCARPELLI therefore requires a created disposition in the intellect (a divine "influence," created wisdom) in order to attain the uncreated wisdom." Bonaventure's phrase "influence of the divine light" (infiuentia) describes the gift by which God provides the creature with what it needs in order to achieve a particular end, either naturally or supernaturally. In q. 4, he mentions two forms of this influence: "a general influence through which God operates in all creatures, or ... a special influence such as that which God exercises by means of grace.'?" The intellect's own power of abstraction is an example of the general kind, and we have already seen that this power is indispensable to Bonaventure's theory of ordinary knowledge (knowledge in divine light). The special kind of influence, however, is identified in q. 5 as created wisdom, the grace which strengthens the intellect by making it deiform" and mediates the cognitive attainment of uncreated wisdom (knowledge of divine light)." Both are instances of divine influence, and both bestow an act, whether natural or supernatural, upon the soul, by which the soul can reach its end. Thus when Bonaventure posits a grace mediating the intellect's turn toward the light itself, he does not mean thereby to exclude the intellect's own act, but rather understands created wisdom as a grace which takes the natural cooperation of the intellect with divine light (as manifested in the agent intellect) to a supematural level." Although wisdom is simply a higher form of illuminated human knowledge, therefore, the transition between the two types of cognitive relation to the divine light (knowledge in and knowledge oj) is not a continuous one; grace is required to get past the qualitative shift between knowledge in and knowledge of Within the category of wisdom, however, created wisdom is given in variDe sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 5, Hayes, 156. De sc. Chr., q. 4, C., Hayes, 133-4. Zachary Hayes'sfootnote on this passage says that "in the activesense, influentia is understood by the scholastics to refer to a passing action of God. Here, Bonaventure speaks not of the active influence in itself, but of its.created effect,. that is, a habit of the mind. Below, beginning with furthermore, he IS clearlyspeakingof God's cooperation with the act of the creature" (n. 48, 133). 46 ｉ｡ｭｾｲｯｮ･ aptly explains that the function of the influence "e di proporziｾｮＬ｡ｲ･ e ｡｢ｉｾｬｴｲ･ l:amma a vedere Dio come Egli e in stesso" (Luigi Iammarrone, L'autocoscienza In Cristo secondo S. Bonaventura," Miscellanea francescana 57 [1957]: 323). 47 Benson, "Structure and Meaning," 76-7. Note however that I disagreewith ｾ･ｮｳｯＧ assertion that certain knowledge (in the light) does not require a divine Influence; Bonaventureclearlyexplains in the conclusio of De sc. Chr., q. 4., that there are two types of influence,one by nature and one by grace. 48 Iammarrone, "L'autocoscienza in Christo," 326: "La Sapienza increata trascende ｬＧ｡ｮｩｭｾ in quanto conoscente, e percio enecessarioche questa sia elevata mediante la grazla per conoscerla; ed inoltre l'unione (ipostatica) non e sufficiente per quellaconoscenzase non intervengaun altro modo di unione, quello cioe che si effettuamediante l'assimilazione conoscitiva." BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTO CENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY 75 ous degrees: although it most often operates in ordinary contemplation, it can happen in a particularly intense way during life in ecstatic experience and after death as the beatific vision." The degree of wisdom attributed to Christ by medieval authors seems rather overstated to some modern theologians." Bonaventure concludes the work with the claim that the soul of Christ has comprehensive knowledge of all things that happen in the universe and ecstatic knowledge of all things contained in the divine art ... Consequently, as nothing further can be added to his grace, so nothing can be added to his wisdom because he has been given as much as can be granted to any creature." Contrary to first appearances, however, this claim is not merely a juxtaposition of two superlatives - grace and wisdom - among many, but rather is a philosophical statement of serious import. The connecting "so" has the force of a conclusion: given the nature of Bonaventure's epistemology, Christ's grace logically entails His encompassing wisdom. 52 It cannot be stressed enough that Bonaventure's exposition in De scientia Christi is not merely an indiscriminate attribution of all possible knowledge to Christ because He is God. Rather, it is the demonstration of his illumination theory functioning at its highest human level, where absolute knowledge of the Highest Truth is unimpeded by the obstacles posed by sin. The presupposition underlying Bonaventure's treatment here is that of Christ's utter sinlessness (deiformity), which enables His intellect to reach the fullness ofhuman knowledge unhindered. The knowledge which Bonaventure attributes to Christ in qq. 5-7 of De scientia Christia thus hinges on the illuminationist 44 45 49 In fact, Bonaventurecites sixways or stages in which the intellect can be "directed to the infinite good and truth," namely, "faith, reasoning, wonder, viewing, ecstasy, and comprehension.The first way is imperfect and is proper to the wayfaring state. The last way is the most perfect and is proper to the eternal and infinite trinity, The second and third wayspertain to the progress of the historical journey. The fourth and fifth pertain to the consummation of heaven" (De sc. Chr., q. 6, c., Hayes, 171). 50 Karl Rahner, Raymond Moloney,Jean Galot, and to some extent Jacques Maritain, to name a few. 51 De sc. Chr., q. 7, ad 19-20-21,Hayes, 194. 52 The epistemological connection which Bonaventure draws between union with God and wisdom rests on a theological point which Marilyn McCord Adams identifies as "the cornerstone thesis of his spirituality: viz., that unionwith Godpresupposesdeiformity" (What Sort ofHuman Natures, 28).It seemsfrom De sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8, Hayes, 156,however, that the deiformitywhich bestowsthe hypostatic union (deiformityin the personal order) is not the same as the deiformity which bestows wisdom (deiformityin the intellectualorder). 76 77 THERESE SCARPELLI BONAVENTURE'S CHRlSTOCENTRlC EPISTEMOLOGY principles from q. 4. Although Bonaventure also draws on theology," the present inquiry will be restricted to the two main epistemological aspects of his disputation: the indispensable role of the human act and the limitations of illumined human knowledge. way as a member of the human race" and is more concerned to prove, as he does throughout most of q. 5, that created wisdom is of such a nature that it is necessary for all men, including Christ. The question which he is trying to elucidate thus concerns the conditions of knowledge, namely, whether proximity to the presence of the eternal light negates the need for the mediation of the intellect's own grace-strengthened act (created wisdom). He concludes that it does not: "[W]e must recognize that for the knowledge of wisdom the presence of that eternal light is not sufficient without its influ- 1. The Indispensable Operation of the Intellect Bonaventure devotes question 5 to proving that the soul of Christ "was wise ... by created together with uncreated wisdom.?" In this question it becomes increasingly apparent that the Christological discussion is meant to uncover the extent of human knowledge as such. Since for illuminationists certain knowledge is attained by touching the divine ideas in some way, the union of the Word with a human intellect (in which the intellect achieves the most intimate union possible with the One in Whom the divine ideas are expressed) might be expected to yield such an infinite wealth of know1edge as to render the intellect's own operation superfluous." Thus Hugh of St. Victor, for instance, attributes only uncreated wisdom to the soul of Christ, on the grounds that the created wisdom is simply swallowed up in the uncreated." Bonaventure challenges this position on the basis of the indispensable role played by the human intellect's own operation in the act of knowing: "knowledge is an act that proceeds from the power of the soul itself,"? The uncreated wisdom can be attained, but never possessed, and even its attainment must be mediated by created wisdom. The ineradicable qualitative difference between human and divine knowledge can never be overcome, since the need for the intellect's own finite grace-strengthened act can never be eliminated. Bonaventure's argument is therefore not merely about the true humanity of Christ's knowledge, but also about the nature of human knowledge in general. He already takes for granted that Christ knows in a fully human 53 Among these, Andreas Speer identifies the rules governing communicatio idiomatum as particularly important to Bonaventure's theological aspect ("Certainty and Scope," 39-41). 54 De sc. Chr., q. 5, heading, Quaracchi 5:27, my translation. 55 Here described as the "influence of the divine light" or "created wisdom." 56 Hugh of St. Victor, De sapientia animae Christi (PL 176, 851); see Vaughan, AcquiredKnowledge of Christ, 12. St. Albert is one of the first to resolve this problem conclusively by insisting that one light only swallows up another "si irradiant super idem, sed quando radii feruntur ad diversa, tunc neutrum tollitur ab alio et ita est in scientiis anime Christi, quod una non facit scire, altera demonstrat veritatem nature" (Albertus Magnus, Tractatus deIncarnatione (De scientia Christl), ms. Bibl. Naz. di Firenze, G. 5, 347, fo!' 47r., C. 2; quoted in Vaughan, AcquiredKnowledge of Christ, 25, n, 58). 57 De sc. Chr., q. 4, ad 14, Hayes, 159. ence.">? Consequently, the battery of "uncreated wisdom only" objections which Bonaventure addresses in q. 5 mostly pronounce upon the nature of human knowing, insisting that "the soul of Christ is wise by reason of uncreated wisdom alone. And this is true, not only of the soul of Christ, but of every other soul that possesses wisdom as well."60 Many of these same objections were historically used in support of earlier forms of illurnination,essentially suggesting that the mediation of created wisdom is ignoble, an obstacle which could be dispensed with if only the uncreated wisdom were in closer contact with the soul. For instance, one objector insists that a union so close as the hypostatic union should render a lesser mediated knowledge unnecessary." Another revives the argument that the shining of 58 Note the offhand way in which Christ's creaturehood is inserted into the conclusio: "the soul of Christ, since it is a creature, was wise by virtue of both forms of wisdom, namely created and uncreated" (De sc. Chr., q. 5, c., Hayes, 154). From Alexander of Hales onward, the Franciscan school generally admitted the presence of experiential knowledge in Christ so as to guarantee the proper functioning of his agent intellect, though not in such a way as to add to the knowledge he has supernaturally (see Vaughan, AcquiredKnowledge of Christ, 41-57). Although Bonaventure concurs with this opinion in In III. Sent. dist. 14, a. 3, q. 2, he is not concerned with the issue, here in De scientia Christi. Rather, the active cooperation of the intellect involved here is simply the one which is a requirement, per his theory of illumination, for every act of human knowledge. Even when beholding the Word itself, Christ's soul requires the same divine "influence" (either the gift of the agent intellect, naturally, or the grace of created wisdom, supernaturally) in order to engage in this knowledge in a fully human way. 59 De sc. Chr., q. 5, c., Hayes, 153. 60 Desc. Chr., q. 5, argo 7, Hayes, 147. 61 De sc. Chr., q. 5, argo 8, Hayes, 147-8: "Wisdom makes anyone who is united with it to be a wise person. But uncreated wisdom is united to the soul of Christ." Again this position is drawn from Hugh of St. Victor, who taught that by virtue of union with the Word, the act of uncreated wisdom was communicated to Christ's soul (Hugh of St. Victor, De sapientia animae Christi [pL 176, 847-55]; see Iammarrone, "L'autocoscienza in Cristo," 322, n. 19). See also De sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 12, Hayes, 158. 78 THERESE SCARPELLI a greater light obscures the lesser: "[U]ncreated wisdom obscures any other wisdom. But no obscure wisdom is to be posited in Christ."62 Responding with his own position, Bonaventure restates the necessity of the intellect's proper cognitional activity: "The uncreated is involved as that which principally moves, directs, and brings it to rest. The created is involved as that which informs, qualifies, and elevates it so that it is capable of fully attaining to the uncreated wisdom.?" This assertion is more epistemological than Christological: uncreated wisdom cannot absorb created wisdom, since the soul must partake in created wisdom in order to reach the uncreated. A union by proximity to Wisdom is not sufficient to make one wise." the union necessary for attaining wisdom intellectually is of the same kind as when "the cause and light of knowledge is united to the knower enlightened by it."65 ill other words, just as agent intellect's cooperation with the divine light is necessary for ordinary cognition, the mediation of a created wisdom proper to the human intellect is always necessary for attaining wisdom. Bonaventure returns to the vocabulary of contuition to emphasize the irreducible participation of the human intellect in the cognitive act of wisdom: "wisdom is united with the soul of Christ only through the mediation of the gift of created wisdom, which is like an informing light for the soul, making it conformed to God and capable of contuiting the light of uncreated wisdom.i'" There is a pure and simple lack of proportionality between the human and divine intellects, such that in order merely to touch the divine light, whether in ordinary knowledge or wisdom, the human intellect needs a created disposition of its own (whether the agent intellect or a grace)." Even the hypostatic union cannot bypass the human intellect's own operation here. 62 De se. Chr., q. 5, argo 17, Hayes, 150. This argument figured prominently in debates over illuminationism on both sides. See Robert Grosseteste, De ueritate 17, in Diephilosophisehen Vf7erke des Robert Grosseteste, Bisehofs von Lincoln (Munster i. W, Aschendorff, 1912.), 134: "[S]i lux huius solis cetera luminaria offuscat, ut ipsa praesente nihil ostendant visui corporis, quomodo non amplius lux ill aomni alia luce spirituali incomparabi1iter lucidior omnem aliam vincet, ut alia nihil agat ipsa praesente?" 63 De sc. Chr., q. 5, c., Hayes, 154. 04 See Benson,"Structure and Meaning," 76. 65 De sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8, Hayes, 156. Conversely, however, Marilyn McCord Adams does note that "Bonaventureargues that the defect of ignorance is unfitting for Christ, not onlybecause it isincompatible with the deiftrmitypresupposedfir hypostatic union, but also because it could lead to error and falling awayfrom justice" (What Sort ofHuman Naturei, 43 [emphasis added]; she cites Sent. III, d. 15, a. 2, q. 1, c & ad 5 & ad 6 [Quarrachi 3:337]). 66 Desc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8, Hayes, 156. 67 De se. Chr., q. 5, ad 15, Hayes, 159: "[The created light] is not superfluous, but rather proportionate to the soul itselfwhich, in its naked reality, is not capable of receivingthe immensityof created wisdom in itself." BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY 79 2. What kind of access to the infinite does the human intellect have? Bonaventure's second epistemological insight, which is woven throughout qq. 5-7, concerns the way in which the attainment of the divine light sets both a goal and limits to human knowledge. An imprecise use of the "vision" or "attainment" terminology of illuminationist theories might seem to imply that human knowledge is situated on a sliding scale between absolute unknowing of all earthly things to the beatific vision, depending merely on how close a soul is to God in holiness. Yet if knowledge is a function of closeness to the divine light, increasing piety should concurrently increase one's understanding, say, of swallows' migration patterns, or of the mystery of the Trinity." By virtue of the hypostatic union, then, it seems that Christ's human knowledge should be equal to the divine knowledge, since His soul "is most perfectly united to the Word both as Word and as exemplar.t"? It is true that for Bonaventure, the degree of intimacy to which one attains the divine light governs the breadth and depth of one's knowledge, and this intimacy varies in each individual according to the deiformity bestowed by the grace of created wisdom. Because [the soul] is never fully conformed to God in this life, it does not attain to the reasons clearly, fully, and distinctly, but only to a greater or lesser degree according to the degree of its conformity to God. However, since the nature of the image is never absent from the rational spirit, it always attains to the reasons in some way;" Two obstacles stand between man and the divine light. The first is the conditions of "this present life." Here on earth in statu viae we only see the Truth in part, as in a mirror." This has nothing to do with sin, or even, 68 John Blund exemplifies the blurred distinction between union of holiness/ proximityto the light and union of knowledge, which Bonaventurewasable to correct; see his discussion of the light illuminating the illiterate man in Tractatus de anima, ch. 25, part 3, no. 372-3. 69 De sc. Chr., q. 7, argo 5, Hayes, 179. 70 De sc. Chr., q.4, c., Hayes, 136. 71 See 1 Cor 13:12.The notion of "seeingin a mirror" comesto the foreground in Bonaventure's thought in passages such as De sc. Chr., q. 7, c., Hayes, 188,and ad 19-20-21,Hayes, 194.The mirror is an appropriate imagefor illumination,sincein ancient times, mirrors were highly polished pieces of metal which provided dimly coloured reflection, thus giving rise to the notion that the more the glass (soul)is "polished," the more perfectlyit reflectsthe light. 80 BONAVENrURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY THERESE SCARPELLI presumably, the interference of a body." It simply expresses the fact that a purely negative perfection (never committing any sin) is not enough for perfection; through grace we must actively develop the image of God in ourselves to become continually more like Him, and until we are fully conformed to His image, we cannot see Him fully. A second obstacle is posed by sin, which separates us from God and clouds our intellects." When these imperfections are removed, the intellect has the "full and clear" knowledge which results from being fully conformed to God in glory." Still, the union of holiness with God is not the same as the union ofwisdom. The latter presupposes a grace (created wisdom, as noted in the previous section) which depends on the former, yet which is not identical with the former." These distinctions enable Bonaventure to state precisely the extent and limits of Christ's knowledge (which are of course the limits of human knowledge at its closest point of approach to the divine). In question 6, he rejects the idea that the soul of Christ comprehends the uncreated wisdom, followed by a denial in question 7 that the soul of Christ comprehends everything which the uncreated wisdom comprehends. In short, he completely devastates the notion that merely to attain Truth itself is to comprehend it and all that it knows - even for Christ. While the soul of Christ is conformed to God, yet it is not equal to God. And herefore we concede and we hold that, even though it apprehends clearly and plainly that very wisdom which is united with itself, yet it does not comprehend this wisdom totally?" 72 It does not seem that Bonaventure considers the body as a fundamental obstacle to human knowledge. He says that even in the state of innocence, this full deiformity of glory was lacking (De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 136); in short, his anthropology suggests that God did not create human beings (even before the Fall) "ready-made" for Heaven; although perfect in their kind, they still had to grow in conformity to Him until they reached a perfect state of union with Him. 7J See Richard Rufus, ScriptumsuperMetaphysicamAristotelis 12, d. 2, lect. 5, q. ｾｩ｣｡Ｌ sol.: "the angels understand all creatures because the angels are without any sm; and so too would man, if he were born without sin" (trans. and ed. T. Noone, [ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, Centre for Medieval Studies, 1987]). 74 De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 136; see also q. 4, ad 20, Hayes, 141. 75 Desc. Chr., q. 6, ad 8, Hayes, 173; see also q. 5, argo ad neg. 9, Hayes, 152. The question remains: is the hypostatic union the same as the union of holiness? Or is ｾ further grace of perfection (befitting a nature joined to the Word) required to brmg about the union of holiness posterior to the hypostatic union? At this point we are getting into deep theological waters which cannot be probed in this paper. See Adams, What Human Nature? 76 De sc. Chr., q. 6, ad 19-20, Hayes, 177. See also q. 7, ad 10, Hayes, 191: "even though there is greater proximity [in the hypostatic union], there is not, for that reason, a greater degree of proportion." 81 As a creature, the human intellect cannot mediate infinity, establishing a cognitional limit which can never be passed. "Even if the entire river Seine were to offer itself to a person coming with a pitcher to draw water, the whole of the river could not be drawn up. The amount would be determined by the capacity of the pitcher.'?" This limit bars man from either comprehending God or comprehending an infinity of things in Him. By integrating into illuminationism the indispensable mediation of created finite act, Bonaventure has succeeded in defining the limits of human knowledge in such a way that no human soul, not even Christ's, can cross them. If infinity is denied the human intellect, what then is the maximal relationship between the divine light and the human intellect when the holy soul turns towards the divine reasons? At this point, Bonaventure's illuminationism displays an integral component of mysticism rooted in Dionysian spirituality. Although Christ's soul cannot comprehend the Word, the fact that it "touches" (attains) the Word in the most intimate personal union means that it apprehends the Word, i.e., beholding the Word without being able to encompass it. Bonaventure thus distinguishes between the Word as creative exemplar and as expressive exemplar." As creative exemplar, the Word is the source of knowledge about all things which draw their essence from the divine ideas: it encompasses the entirety of the created order, and shows forth the essence of all creatures in their ultimate reality. Apprehending the Word as creative exemplar, Christ's soul can thus behold the finitude of created things in Him. As expressive exemplar, however, the Word bespeaks all the ways in which the divine essence can be expressed in creation. To know all these ways would be to know the infinite majesty of God's own essence, something utterly beyond the human capacity. Before such an array, the mind can only fall silent and gaze - it cannot strive to grasp, but must let itself be grasped instead."? Such knowledge can only be characterized as excessive or ecstatic, and, paradoxically, it is only in such excessive knowledge that the soul finds rest, for only there does it find the Good which truly exceeds all else and therefore exceeds even the soul itself. 77 De sc. Chr., q. 7, ad. 7, Hayes, 190. De sc. Chr., q. 7, c., Hayes, 187. 79 De sc. Chr., q. 6, ad 15, Hayes, 176: "In grasping and apprehending it, the soul is taken captive by its greatness and superexcellence." See Benson, "Structure and Meaning," 79: "[Tjhe soul of Christ is drawn to the uncreated wisdom under the aspects of both exemplars. To the creative exemplar, Christ is drawn to a comprehensive understanding of all the finite things which are contained therein. Thus, in his finite human soul, Christ has a knowledge of all things that have, are and ever will happen. However, to the expressive exemplar, which is infinite, Christ's soul is drawn by means of an excessive knowledge. Thus, even the perfect human soul of Christ cannot comprehend the uncreated wisdom. Rather, he is continually drawn after uncreated wisdom through excessive knowledge." 78 82 BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY THERESE SCARPELLI Here a twofold difficulty arises. First, it is curious that Bonaventure assumes that Christ is conceived with His human intellect already turned towards the divine light. One might think that the default orientation is towards the lower realm, i.e., knowledge in the divine light, and that a further act of the will is required to turn the intellect towards the higher realm of the light itself (returning to the optical analogy, we first see visible objects, and then later look up at the sun). Second, the excessive knowledge which Bonaventure describes seems to be identical to the beatific vision: how can Christ enjoy such knowledge in statu viae? The answer to both objections lies in Bonaventure's understanding of created wisdom as a grace which follows from holiness. First, just as the sun can be blocked from view by clouds, so too at birth our "view" of the divine light itself is blocked by lack of deiformity. But since Christ was naturally holy, He had this gift of deiformity from the moment of conception, and therefore attained the uncreated wisdom (which is more intimately present to our intellects than the sun is to our eyes) from that first moment. Second, in response to the question about the beatific vision, Bonaventure holds that excessive knowledge occurs even in this life in cases of rapture or mystical experience for those who are very close to God. The rational soul reaches the outer limit in sight on the level of overstepping (excedere): it sees God and so arrives at an immediate unitary view of the supreme principle and the highest truth itself, without becoming one with that truth. This is true not only of the case in statu viae where we are moved, enraptured, and lifted up - which signifies each time a special overstepping of the present state - but also of the state of perfection in patria. 80 Surprisingly, Bonaventure makes no qualitative distinction between this culminating intellectual experience as occurring in this life or in the next. Other than sin, there seems to be no intrinsic aspect of life in statu viae - not even existence in the body - which impedes such a vision of God and all things in Him. The reason is that for Bonaventure, access to uncreated wisdom is situated along a sliding scale governed by the degree of intimacy in a soul's union with God, which in turn dictates how great a gift of created wisdom the soul receives" (note that whereas the entire spectrum of Speer, "Certainty and Scope," 52. See Desc. Chr., q. 5, ad. 9, Hayes, 157: "To the objection that the greater a wisdomis, the more knowableit is and the more it enables one to know, it must be said that this is true when wisdomis viewedas a kind of influence.But it is not true when wisdomis viewedas an informing causeunlessit is that sort of wisdomwhose nature it is to inform and to perfect and to be united to another as a form. But this is not the nature of uncreated wisdom but only of created wisdom." 80 81 83 natural and supernatural knowledge is not on one continuous scale, being interrupted at the grace-boundary between knowledge in and knowledge of the divine light, the smaller range of wisdom itself does exist in such a hierarchy of degrcesf - which explains why the pious are wiser, but do not necessarily possess more scientific knowledge). At one end of the scale, a lesser gift of created wisdom allows souls to turn towards God, desiring to know Him. As deiformity increases with increasing sanctity, souls can ponder the mysteries of God. At the higher end of the scale, as the soul draws ever closer to the light, it experiences mystical raptures. Finally, when it attains its everlasting goal and is permanently united to God in Heaven, it enjoys the beatific vision, though never in a comprehensive way. As a result, the same gift of created wisdom, given in differing degrees, is therefore responsible for diverse phenomena such as pious souls meditating on the divine attributes, mystics, and the beatific vision. Bonaventure's understanding of created wisdom as a limit which prevents Christ's human knowledge from reaching infinity, therefore, also enables him to explain how by virtue of His perfect union with the Word, Christ is situated at the pinnacle of human knowledge. This insight does not contradict Bonaventure's earlier statement in question 4 that here, in statu viae, the soul knows the divine reasons only "in part." There he points out that the reason the soul has partial knowledge is that it does not have the "full deiformity of glory," a condition which would have applied even in the state of innocence." But later, he identifies created wisdom as the gift which "is like an informing light for the soul, making it conformed to God and capable of contuiting the light of uncreated wisdom.Y" The gift of created wisdom confers a sort of deiformity which, as it increases, makes the intellect more and more able to behold the divine light itself. Thus, it is not absurd for Christ to have the kind of knowledge which pertains to beatitude even in this life, since already from the first moment of His conception, He had the kind of union with the Word and the kind of absolute perfection which result in such knowledge." It would make no sense to say that the See again the sixstages of wisdomin Desc. Chr., q. 6, c., Hayes, 171. See De sc. Chr., q. 4, c., Hayes, 136. 84 Desc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8, pp.156-7. 85 Iammarrone identifies the created wisdom in Christ as "illume della gloria," referring to a somewhat misleading passage in which Bonaventure holds that the only created habitus possessed by Christ is the lumen gloriae (In III Sent., d. 14, a. 2, q. 2; see "L'autocoscienza de Christo," 323). In the context of Bonaventure's illuminationism, however, the use of the phrase lumen gloriae does not mean that created wisdomis restricted to the beatificvisionor that Christ has no other created wisdom,but that this grace has reached the degree at which it bestows complete deiformity,at which point it has reached its maximumand enables the beatificvision. Bonaventureclearlyholds that the same gift of created wisdomin different degrees is responsiblefor strengthening the soul to contemplate God in any way, up to and 82 83 84 85 THERESE SCARPELLI BONAVENTURE'S CHRISTOCENTRIC EPISTEMOLOGY Word's human nature lacked full conformity to Him - how else could it be united to Him in His Person? Bonaventure thus concludes, "since that soul which is united with the Word is made more God-like and is more intoxicated because of a grace that is not only sufficient but superexcellent, therefore it beholds the divine wisdom, and in this beholding it is drawn to that wisdom in ecstasy even though it does not comprehend that wisdom. "86 What prevents us from having such knowledge is not our earthly condition, but our lack of union with God: excessive knowledge "begins on earth and is consummated in heaven."? It is interesting to note that for Bonaventure, Christ's cognitive perfection does not derive directly from His human intellect's union with the divine light in the hypostatic union, since being hypostatically united to the Word is not the same as being united to it as the "cause and light of know1edge.l'" For the latter, the additional gift of created wisdom is required. Yet this gift is a function of charity," and Christ has the perfection of virtue since the Word could not take to Himself a nature stained by sin. By virtue of the hypostatic union, Christ is the perfect lover," and thus the hypostatic union is indirectly responsible for His cognitive perfection. the highest form of knowledge "in the soul of Christ and in every other soul."" Epistemology, for Bonaventure, is not merely an account of the inner mechanical workings of the soul, but a question of fundamental theological import. For him, earthly life is somehow consistent with, although utterly surpassed by, life after death, and the principles of illumination which explain how I know that both Dachshunds and Great Danes are dogs also serve to explain how the blessed behold the light of divine truth. By a union of Aristotelian and Augustinian principles, Bonaventure is able to refine illuminationism to show the two ways, one by nature, and one by grace, in which man intellectually approaches the divine. Moreover, he is able to show the epistemological implications of union with the divine light and the factors which must be present in order for our increasing knowledge to make the quantum leap to wisdom and thence grow into the final fruition of the beatific vision. At the same time, however, Bonaventure's illuminationism is specifically Christological: the mystery of Christ reveals the telos of his epistemology. Christ's human knowledge models the consummation of knowledge in perfect union with the Word, exemplifying the mystical union in which the soul can only gaze silently at the infinite splendors of the divine light before it without attempting to comprehend, knowledge such as few experience on earth, but for which every human being longs, a knowledge which flows from - and is - the perfection of 10ve. 92 By concluding his investigation of divine and human epistemology in Descientia Christiwith an inquiry into Christ's human knowledge, Bonaventure brings man's knowledge back to its final resting place, closing the circle which began with the Word as the exemplar which makes every creature a sign of God. 93 From the first moment of creation, knowledge is irreducibly Christological. Having created the universe as a sign which points back to its divine origin with a radiant intelligibility which mirrors His own blinding intelligibility, the Word grants the human intellect a share in His own light, the agent intellect, by which man is able to discern in each thing the essence that shadows God by abstracting and adequating it to the human intellect's own nature. At the same time, He constantly shines down His own light, the light of the immutable ideas, upon the human intellect so III. CONCLUSION: CHRIST THE GOAL AND SUMMIT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE As the setting for one of Bonaventure's clearest and best-known expositions of illumination theory, De scientia Christi exemplifies both in structure and content the Christological orientation which makes Bonaventure's version of illumination so cogent and appealing. The question of Christ's knowledge is clarified by distinctions hammered out in the theory of illumination, while conversely, the demarcation of the boundaries of human knowledge at its pinnacle in Christ serves to delineate the nature of knowledge more clearly. In fact, the question of Christ's human knowledge is inseparable from that of illumination, showing forth the truths about including the beatific vision. To refer to Christ's created wisdom as lumen gloriae makes His human knowledge sound strikingly out of place in statu viae, whereas Bonaventure's illuminationism incorporates created wisdom in its varying degrees as a phenomenon which pertains to this life as well as to the next. As presented in De sc. Chr., the lumengloriae is simply the final fullness of created wisdom. 86 De sc. Chr., q. 6, c., pp. 171-2. 87 De sc. Chr., Epilogue, Hayes, 196. as De sc. Chr., q. 5, ad 8, Hayes, 156. 89 De sc. Chr., Epilogue, Hayes, 196: "And no one will experience [excessive knowledge] except one who is 'rooted and grounded in love so as to comprehend with all the saints what is the length, and the breadth,' etc.... " 90 See De sc. Chr., q. 4, ad 23-24-25-26, Hayes, 144. De sc. Chr., Epilogue, Hayes, 196. De sc. Chr., Epilogue, Hayes, 196. 93 Through the Word, all creation expresses its Creator; moreover, the Word Himself is the infinite expression of the Father in the heart of God: "[S]'il est vrai que Dieu, par son Verbe, est la cause exemplaire des choses qui ont ete ou qui seront creees, l'expression divine ne se limite pas a la creation ... elle est interne a Dieu Iui-meme" (Marc Ozilou, "Introduction generale," in Les Sentences. Questions sur Dieu, 19). 91 92 86 THERESE SCARPELLI that the intellect can perceive the immutable truth of a thing: the divine light and the human light cooperate to produce the contuited knowledge which is appropriate to the human soul as imago Dei. Again, it is by His grace, a created likeness of His own wisdom, that He turns the "face" of the human soul towards Himself, drawing the soul every closer to Himself in wisdom. Yet when the obstacles of sin prevent man from attaining the full union of wisdom-love, in a moment which shall forever be the amazement of the universe, the Word takes the finitude of the human intellect upon Himself, entering into the created structure of human knowledge which He Himself established as a shadow of His own divine knowledge. In this condition the Word Incarnate is both the goal of our knowledge, the One with Whom we are destined to be united, as well as the most perfect model for attaining this goal. THERESE SCARPELLI Arlington, Virginia