Saint Bonaventure and the Divine Order of Creation

Abstract

ABSTRACT One of the most interesting controversies of the thirteenth century arose over the Aristotelian conception of time. Aquinas and Bonaventure took two different approaches to this question of time. Bonaventure took an eschatological view of time which refuted the Aristotelian notion of formless time which Aquinas seems to have accepted. Taking a more emanationist view of creation than Aquinas, Bonaventure sought to link historical time to a sacred unfolding of the divine mystery, symbolically presented in the Genesis account of creation. This sacred unfolding of time has powerful affinities with the stages of mystical ascent portrayed in his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum and the De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam. History, although ultimately hidden from human understanding, nevertheless for Bonaventure can be seen as a refinement and transformation of the creation into the mind of God where all things will be made new. This essay explores the mystical aspects of this Franciscan vision of history as contemplated by Bonaventure.