St. Bonaventure and Contemplation: The Soul’s Pursuit of Its Philosophical and Theological End

This study offers a new perspective on the internal coherence of Bonaventure’s philosophical and theological synthesis by viewing it through the lens of contemplation. It is argued that Bonaventure’s understanding of contemplation is twofold: philosophical and theological. By considering the way in which Bonaventure relates both forms of contemplation to our unified pursuit of wisdom and the pursuit of our own perfection, we are able to arrive at a better understanding of how he relates nature to grace and philosophy to theology, as well as how he situates his (in)famous doctrine of illumination in relation to both within his overall system of thought. And vice versa, when we properly understand how he relates these things, we are able to arrive at a better understanding of the nature and task which Bonaventure ascribes to contemplation.
Contrary to the more common narrative in Bonaventurean studies, it is argued here that Bonaventure fully distinguishes these two forms and degrees of contemplation, such that each is sufficient unto its own end but also maintains an ordered relation of the former to the latter. Elucidating both, their distinction and relation, sheds new light upon the much-debated question of how he understands the relation of nature to grace and of philosophy to theology. According to Bonaventure, just as nature is elevated and perfected by grace, so also is philosophical contemplation elevated and perfected by means of theological contemplation. And the soul that pursues God is gradually elevated and perfected by degrees through the exercise of both. In the end, the utility and coherence of this approach is demonstrated by how Bonaventure structures his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, which is an intricate philosophical and theological guide to the contemplative’s twofold, though unified, pursuit of wisdom.