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A “Modern” Medieval Theory of Doctrinal Development: Development of Doctrine in St. Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Already in St. Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron there is a rudimentary theory of doctrinal development that confronts the historical problematic encountered most forcefully in modernity. This is the result of Bonaventure's urgent need to respond to the difficulties of Joachimism wherein Francis of Assisi is believed to have ushered in the new age of the Holy Spirit disassociated from the Bible, sacraments, and the institutional Church. In response Bonaventure elucidates an understanding of divine revelation in which new historical epochs allow the Church through the wise and holy mystic-contemplative to read more deeply of the word of God so as to gain a deeper insight into what has already been given in Jesus Christ. In this way the newness of Francis is preserved by grounding his radical way of life in continuity with the once-for-all revelation of God and the Church. In so doing Bonaventure anticipates the particularly modern historical problematic and paves a way forward that preserves the integrity of revelation centuries before the likes of John Henry Newman, Yves M-J Congar, and others.
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References
1 Cf. Bonaventure, , Commentary on the Sentences: Philosophy of God / Works of Bonaventure Volume XVI, trans. by Houser, R. E. and Noone, Timothy B. (Saint Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications 2013), Bk 3 Dist. 25 a. 1 q. 1Google Scholar.
2 Cf. Chadwick, Owen, From Bossuet to Newman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 21-48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Marin-Sola, Francisco O.P., The Homogeneous Evolution of Catholic Dogma, trans. by Piñon, Antonio T. (Manilla: Santo Tomas University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.
4 Cf. Mansini, Guy, “The Development of the Development of Doctrine in the Twentieth Century”, Angelicum 93 (2016), pp. 789-91Google Scholar.
5 In this regard, Marin-Sola seeks to rebut the work of Francisco Suaréz, S.J., who introduces into the scholastic tradition the term “virtual-confused”, which ends up combining theological conclusions with that which pertains to the explicit given of faith. The end result is that theological conclusions, which are the data of Magisterial definition and doctrinal development, ends up being relegated to those truths that are not objectively identical with the deposit and thereby constitute new revelations. Cf. Marin-Sola, Homogeneous Evolution, pp. 175-203.
6 Ibid., p. 403. “Thus, as the history of dogmas shows, it frequently happens that come saintly person, or someone possessed of a pure and lively faith, feels or anticipates a certain dogmatic conclusion or development even before it has been deduced, or indeed even surmised, by speculative theology. Such a person than proceeds to share his feeling with other faithful who spontaneously receive it as the genuine expression of their own sentiments or faith. The process is repeated until the feeling is so widely spread that it becomes the common feeling of all the Christian people.” Cf. Mansini, “The Development of the Development of Doctrine in the Twentieth Century”, 791. “This is not the recognition of a cognitive but non-propositional possession of the deposit, but of a non-cognitive relation to the deposit, one based, however on affirming the truths of faith.”
7 Ibid., p. 404.
8 Cf. Mansini, “The Development of the Development of Doctrine in the Twentieth Century”, p. 791. “The great strength of logical theories consists in their taking seriously what the nature of revelation must be if it is a revelation to us, to human beings. The human cognitive possession of reality is propositional. It consists in affirming true propositions about reality. Therefore, if what is developed is led out and developed from the deposit, if what is implicit must be folded up in the deposit, then it must already somehow be there, in the propositions constituting the deposit.”
9 de Lubac, Henri S.J., “The Problem of the Development of Dogma” in Theology in History, trans. by Nash, Anne Englund (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), p. 265Google Scholar.
10 Ibid., pp. 274-5.
11 Ibid., p. 276. “Then we will understand that, contrary to one current affirmation, which is at the source of the difficulties we have shown, the “implicit” is not contained in the “explicit” as such. It is, from the beginning, the “explicit” that is contained in the “implicit”, “in the definable fringe of the mystery”.
12 Mansini, “The Development of the Development of Doctrine in the Twentieth Century”, p. 796.
13 Ibid., p. 801.
14 Congar, Yves M.-J. O.P., La Foi et la Theologie (Belgium: Desclée, 1962), p. 100Google Scholar. “Par son contenu proper, la Révélation concerne, non la nature ontique des choses (elle ne nous dit pas ce que sony les étoils, etc…), mais les termes et les lois du rapport religieux que Dieu a le dessein de réaliser entre lui et less hommes (inséparables du cosmos). Cela implique des affirmations d'ontologie, mais c'est autre chose qu'une physique, ou meme qu;une métaphysique. S'il s'agit de l'implicite de la Révelation, c'est-a-dire de ce que Dieu a voulu nous faire savoir par sa Parole, il est relative a cette nature, a ce contenu proper de la Révélation.” [By its proper content, revelation concerns not the ontic nature of things (it does not tell us what the stars are, etc…), but the terms and laws of the religious relationship that God has planned to realize between him and men (inseparably from the cosmos). This implies ontological affirmations, but it is something other than a physics, or even a metaphysics. If it is the implicit of Revelation, that is to say, of what God wanted to make known by his Word, it is relative to this nature, to this proper content of the Revelation. (my translation)”
15 Ibid., p. 101.
16 Ibid., p. 117 [my translation]. “Elle est celle de la plenitude de la foi, incluant tout ensemble la vie fidéle, la contemplation religieuse, l’élaboration théologique, le rejet des hérésies, létude de la suite séculaire des témoignages, le perpétuel retour aux profondeurs du texte biblique en union avec l'usage qu'en fait la liturgie dans sa celebration du mystére chrétien: tout cela s'intégrant sous la conduit du magistére et sous la grace du Saint-Esprit, ame de l’Église, principe d'identité de sa vie et de sa conscience surnaturelles. Il y a, en tout cela, assez d’éléments de raison, soit théologique, soit historique pour que l’Église puisse render compte aux hommes qui l'interrogent, de sa foi et de son espérance; mais il y a toujours un plus dans la conscience surnaturelle de l’Église par rapport a ce don't elle peut render compte rationnellement: la théologie déborde l'apologétique.” Additionally, Congar outlines four “motors” of doctrinal development. Cf. Ibid., 107-12. These are theological speculation, Christian living and piety, heresy, and the contingencies of history.
17 Cf. Karl Rahner, “Yesterday's History of Dogma and Theology for Tomorrow”, Zeitschrjft für katholische Theologie 99 (1977), pp. 1-24, under the title ‘Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte - gestern und morgen’. In this article Rahner advocates for a continual revisal of dogma due to the ineffability of the mystery of God and the finite, historical circumstances and language in which the Church finds herself in the world and in time. He writes, “On this is need only be said that a religious statement in the last resort points not to what is drained of meaning, but to the ineffable mystery that we call God, and it is this reference alone which makes a statement a religious one. In other words, these processes of elimination are basically continually recurring events pointing to that mystery and must occur over and over again in the history of abiding religious truth, since this liberating and hopeful approach to the mystery of God must take place in the light of continually new historical situations of truth.”
18 Cf. Mansini, “The Development of the Development of Doctrine in the Twentieth Century”, p. 804.
19 Congar, Yves, The Meaning of Tradition, trans. by Woodrow, A. N. (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), p. 114Google Scholar.
20 I am aware of only two works on doctrinal development in Bonaventure's Hexaemeron: White, John R., “St. Bonaventure and the Problem of Doctrinal Development”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 85 (2011) No. 1, pp. 177-202CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Angelo Geiger, F.F.I., “In Medio Ecclesiae: The Theory of the Development of Doctrine in St. Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron”, (Unpublished Tesina: Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Urbe, 2016). The latter work has been of great help in introducing me to important themes within Bonaventure's Hexaemeron that lend themselves to a theory of doctrinal development.
21 Bonaventure never expressly mentions Joachim of Fiore or his followers but many scholars recognize the behind-the-scenes motivation which the Joachimite strand of Franciscans had upon Bonaventure, who was the minister general of the Minors, as well as Bonaventure's genuine desire to rescue what was true from Joachim so as to integrate his insights in a balanced and orthodox manner. Cf. Ratzinger, Joseph, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, trans. by Hayes, Zachary (Chicago, IL: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971), pp. 95-117Google Scholar. Cf. McGinn, Bernard, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought, (New York: MacMillan, 1985)Google Scholar.
22 Cf. White, “St. Bonaventure and the Problem of Doctrinal Development”, pp. 185-7.
23 Cf. Ratzinger, Theology of History, p. 55. “Though this new People of God may rightfully be called Franciscan, and though it must be said that it is only in this new People that the real intention of the Poverello will be realized, nonetheless, this final Order is in no way identical with the present Order of Franciscans. It may be that the present Order was originally destined to inaugurate the new People immediately. But even if this had been the case, the failure of its members has frustrated this immediate determination. For the present, the Dominican and the Franciscan Orders stand together at the inauguration of a new period for which they are preparing, but which they cannot bring to actuality by themselves. When this time arrives, it will be a time of contemplation, a time of the full understanding of Scripture, and in this respect, a time of the Holy Spirit who leads us into the fullness of the truth of Jesus Christ.”
24 White makes the interesting point that – whereas the problematic that John Henry Newman had to solve was the issue of the development of doctrinal – for Bonaventure the solution to the problem that lay before him was to posit a rudimentary theory of doctrinal development. Cf. White, “St. Bonaventure and the Problem of Doctrinal Development”, p. 200. “In contrast, Bonaventure does not begin with the fact of doctrinal development but actually requires a notion of doctrinal development, in order to justify the admitted difference between the life of the Franciscans (and the mendicant orders more generally) and modes of Christian living up to his time. Doctrinal variation is not the problem to be solved, for Bonaventure, but is itself the solution to what he sees as the more basic problem, namely, how to justify the new way of Franciscan life theologically.”
25 Bonaventure, , Collationes in Hexaemeron / Opera Omnia Volume V, trans. by de Vinck, José (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970), p. 26, 2.8Google Scholar.
26 Ibid., 2.11.
27 Ibid., 2.12.
28 Ibid., 2.19.
29 Ibid., 2.28.
30 Ibid., 2.30.
31 Ibid., 2.30.
32 Ibid., 20.15. “Hence, we can gaze upon the moon, not upon the sun, because the radiation of the sun is tempered to our sight by the moon. Likewise, the radiation of eternity cannot be faced as such, but if we look upon it as it exists in the Church, veiled under the sacraments and figures, we may perceive the One who shows us what has been done, what should be done, and what exists in eternity…”
33 Ibid., 20.18.
34 Ibid., 20.21.
35 LaNave, Gregory, “Bonaventure's Theological Method” in A Companion to Bonaventure / Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition Volume 48 ed. by Hammond, Jay M., Hellmann, J. A., and Goff, Jared (Leiden + Boston: Brill Academic Publishing, 2014), pp. 83-4Google Scholar.
36 Bonaventure, Hexaemeron, 19.3.
37 Ibid., 13.7.
38 Ibid., 13.13.
39 Ibid., 14.1.
40 Ibid., 15.10. He writes, “For the principle intelligences and figures exist in certain determined numbers, while the theories are almost infinite… Hence, as in the seeds there is multiplication to infinity, so also are the theories multiplied.”
41 Ibid., 13.2.
42 Ibid., 15.11
43 Ibid., 15.12.
44 Mystical Body of Christ
45 Cf. Ratzinger, Theology of History, p. 21.
46 Bonaventure, Hexaemeron, 15.18. “And it is a return to the first, for after the seventh day, there is a return to the first. These, then, are the seeds scattered throughout for the understanding of Scripture, and they are produced from these trees in so far as they accord with common interpretation, and in this way time is divided into seven ages.”
47 Ibid., 15.22-23.
48 Ibid., 16.1.
49 Cf. Ibid., 16.2. “After the New Testament, there will be no other, nor can any sacrament of the new Law be eliminated, for this is an Eternal Testament. These times follow one another, and there are many correspondences between them, and they are like the germination of a seed out of a seed, of a tree out of a seed, and of a seed out of a tree.”
50 Ratzinger, Theology of History, p. 9.