st. bonaventure

© 2011, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 1

Bonaventure on Nature before Grace: A Historical Moment Reconsidered

Christopher Cullen, S.J.

Abstract. This essay investigates Bonaventure’s account of the original state of hu-man nature and his reasons for holding the theory that God created human beings without grace in an actual, historical moment. Bonaventure argues that positing a historical moment before grace is more congruent with the divine order, precisely because it emphasizes the distinction between nature and grace and delays the conferral of grace until man’s desire is elicited and his willingness to cooperate in the divine plan made clear. Bonaventure incorporates Aristotle’s teleological view of nature into his thought while managing to avoid a view of nature as autonomous. He grounds nature’s heteronomy in the exigencies of natural desires, which dispose our nature to remain radically and intrinsically orderable to a good that transcends those natural powers (albeit not actually so ordered). Bonaventure’s theory thus affirms the integrity of nature, while also emphasizing the total gratuity of grace. He thinks human nature is suspended between its own finitude and a radical capacity for the transcendent that waits upon divine agency.

I.

Introduction. One of the major controversies of twentieth century the-ology was the debate over the possibility of positing a state of human nature apart from grace and thus apart from the end of union with God

in the beatific vision. This theory of “pure” nature is usually thought to involve two elements: (1) an integral and complete account of human nature, and (2) a natural end proportionate to human powers. According to the standard version of this theory, the natural end involves an imperfect happiness subordinated to a perfect and supernatural happiness. Henri Rondet, S.J., for example, defends precisely such a pure nature theory in his 1948 manual on grace. The natural end of the human being is one proportioned to his natural powers and achieved

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in the attainment of human wisdom “through long effort and dedication to knowledge and to virtue.”1

Just two years before Rondet published his manual, Henri de Lubac, S.J., had argued in Surnaturel (1946) that the doctrine of pure nature and its dual end is not the definitive teaching of Thomas Aquinas.2 De Lubac argues that the natural desire for the beatific vision is so deeply inscribed in human nature as the final cause of its essential powers that it really makes no sense to speak of a pure human nature. Man is a being called to communion, even in the constitu-tive powers of his nature:

This desire [for God] is not some accident in me. . . . For God’s call is constitutive. My finality, which is expressed by this desire, is inscribed upon my very being as it has been put into this universe by God. And by God’s will, I now have no other genuine end, no end really assigned to my nature or presented for my free acceptance under any guise, except that of seeing God.3

We find a recent defense of de Lubac’s position in the 2005 book, The Sus-pended Middle, by the Cambridge theologian, John Milbank.4 Milbank claims that the publication of Surnaturel in 1946 was nearly as important as a cultural event as was Heidegger’s Being and Time or Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investiga-tions, for de Lubac’s book is, in many ways, the charter of the nouvelle théologie. His work inserted a nexus of issues that became one of the most important

1Henri Rondet, S.J., The Grace of Christ, trans. Tad W. Guzie, S.J. (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1967), 215; originally published as Gratia Christi (Paris: Beauchesne et Ses Fils, 1948).

2Aquinas succinctly sketches out this sort of solution in his Commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate: “Man’s happiness is twofold: One is the imperfect happiness found in this life, of which the Philosopher speaks; and this consists in contemplating the separate substances through the habit of wisdom. But this contemplation is imperfect and such as is possible in our present life, not such that we can know their quiddity. The other is the perfect happiness of heaven, where we will see God himself through his essence and the other separate substances. But this happiness will not come through a speculative science; it will come through the light of glory” (Thomas Aquinas, In Boeth de Trin., qu. 6, art. 4, ad 4).

3Henri de Lubac, S.J., Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed and John Pepino (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 54, quoted in Edward Oakes, S.J., “The Paradox of Nature and Grace: On John Milbank’s The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 667–96, at 681. In this review of Milbank’s book, Oakes reminds us of the importance of reading de Lubac’s response to Pius XII’s Humani generis in his Mystery of the Supernatural. Oakes does not think that de Lubac recanted or substantially aban-doned his position after Humani generis, contrary to what Milbank claims.

4John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac, S.J., and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 16.

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controversies in the heart of twentieth-century Thomism, and thus in theologi-cal discourse.5

As Milbank reminds us, de Lubac argues that the notion of pure na-ture was not in Aquinas and the medieval thinkers, but that it was, in fact, a doctrine formulated by the Renaissance Scholastics, beginning with Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio, 1469–1534), and resurrected by modern neo-scholastics. Cajetan commits his blunder by going beyond Aquinas and holding that man cannot aspire to what his natural desires cannot attain. In the Cajetanian view, it is therefore possible for a rational creature to exist without being oriented to the beatific vision per se. In other words, when Aquinas speaks of the natural desire for God, Cajetan takes this not to refer to an innate desire in us for the beatific vision, but to a deep ontological thrust, prior to reflection. It thus denotes a desire, which is purely of the will and occasioned by the curiosity of the intellect.6 What was once a twofold but single end is effectually separated into two ends, each a distinct possibility in its own right, no longer necessarily subordinated. Even the very desire for the beatific vision is elicited by grace, as well as made explicit and deepened. Milbank writes, “Thus Cajetan, unlike Aquinas, explicitly says that human nature in actuality is fully definable in natural terms.”7 The implication of this position is that the philosopher is now free to pursue a purely natural ethics, one clearly demarcated and separated from theology and the light of faith.

It is important to keep in mind that the neo-scholastics in the Thomistic tradition did not hold that this pure nature ever actually existed, since God conferred graces on man in the first moment of his existence.8 In other words, the doctrine was meant to bring to the fore a possibility: namely, that God could have created man ordered only to a natural happiness that he could achieve by the proper exercise of his own powers. In the Thomistic and neo-scholastic version of the pure nature doctrine, man was not thought to have ever actually existed without grace before the Fall. The purpose for positing a state of pure nature was to safeguard the gratuity of God’s grace.

In the course of his defense of Lubac, Milbank accuses Bonaventure of three intellectual blunders that create a slippery slope to secularism: First, Milbank points an accusatory finger at Bonaventure as “one of several medieval antici-pations” of the later scholastic doctrine of pure nature;9 second, Milbank cites Bonaventure as one of those who began to conceive of the divine causality of

5Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., “Avant-Propos: Le concept de thomisme après H. De Lubac” Revue thomiste 101(2001): 5–9, at 5.

6Milbank, The Suspended Middle, 16.7Ibid. 8Ibid., 89.9Ibid., 88.


grace as an infused, divine influence;10 and third, as a result of these two moves, Bonaventure emerges as a pivotal figure in the rise a secularized rationality, i.e., a view of human reason as no longer intrinsically ordered to the transcendent final end of union with God.

This doctrine of a pure nature involves both a theological and a philosophical dimension: theological in that it concerns the gratuity of grace and philosophi-cal in that it concerns the autonomy of nature. Milbank, of course, does not object to the attempt to preserve the gratuity of grace. He sees this dimension as having been solemnly affirmed and clarified in the Christian tradition. What he finds objectionable is the autonomous understanding of human nature. Ac-cording to him, the problem is found in positing, as even a possibility, a natural end proportionate to our powers. Even positing this natural end as a possibility confers an autonomy on nature that renders it no longer intrinsically ordered to the transcendent end. In consequence, supernatural grace appears as extrinsic in this dual-end view—as something imposed, like a second story, on the already complete house that is an autonomous human nature.

Denying a natural end might lead one to conclude that God is obligated to elevate man’s nature to the beatific vision, because man has, in some sense, a right to his proper end. Of course, no Christian would make such a claim, since such a view would deny the gratuity of God’s grace. Hence, at a certain point, some scholastics, apparently in the Renaissance, reflecting on this problem, hypothesized that there was a state of pure nature, at least as a mere possibility. In this hypothetical state of pure nature, man is a complete being, a union of body and rational soul, with all his faculties, and most significantly of all, an end proportionate to his nature. The beatifying vision of God is thus affirmed as beyond the capacity of unaided human nature, and hence this vision can only be a gift of a supernatural grace. Such a doctrine affirms natural teleology, and thus the sufficiency of nature, while also preserving the gratuity of grace. The Thomist defenders of this doctrine regard this state as purely hypothetical and so maintain that it never actually existed at any given time. In short, the natural desire for God is elicited, conditional (if it is possible), and inefficacious. Nevertheless, this hypothetical state was a key provision of the Thomist and neo-scholastic solution to the problem of nature and grace in that it ensured the gratuity of God’s grace.

10As Milbank tells it, Bonaventure is a key player in “the transition in the understanding of the supernatural as but one aspect of a vaster change in the comprehension of all causality and particularly divine causality” (Milbank, The Suspended Middle, 89). Cf., Bonaventure, IV Sent., dist. 49, part 1, art. 1, qu. 1 resp., in Doctoris seraphici S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, ed. Fathers of the Collegium S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Ex typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891–97): “Satians nostrum appetitum sicut objectum solus Deus est, ad quem capiendum humana anima ordinatur. Satians autem sicut informans est ipsa influentia Dei in animam quae est ipsa deifor-mitas et satietas” (IV, 1001a).


As we will see, Bonaventure is guilty, as charged by Milbank, of two of the accusations: first, of holding a notion of nature as having an integrity apart from grace, i.e., a “pure nature”; and second, of holding that grace is a divine influence that causes change in the created order. Yet, Bonaventure is guiltier than Milbank suggests on the first charge. For Bonaventure, in fact, holds that the state of pure human nature was an actual historical moment, rather than a merely hypothetical state. But it is on the third charge that Bonaventure should be exonerated, namely, that he sets us on the course to a secularized rationality closed to the transcendent. On the contrary, his understanding of the rational soul is that it is radically orderable to the transcendent God.

At first thought, it might seem as if this question should be left in its theo-logical contexts where it was debated, since it concerned positing a hypothetical state of prelapsarian nature. Yet, without denying its theological provenance, it is valuable to recognize this debate’s philosophical foundation. For this debate is ultimately concerned with whether it is possible to conceive of human nature without reference to grace or, to put it in another way, whether it makes sense to speak of achieving happiness, even if imperfect, as a natural end, given the natural desire of human beings for the infinite good.

II.

Human Nature. One of the basic questions that arises for Bonaventure is whether there is any conception of a complete and integral human nature to begin with. It may be surprising to some that Bonaventure even develops any detailed theory of human nature, analyzing its constitutive metaphysical principles, its powers, its exigencies, and its end. The fact that Bonaventure did aim at developing a comprehensive account of human nature should not be so surprising if we recall that he belongs in the larger context of the medieval “discovery” of nature, an intellectual development that the French Dominican, Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P. did so much to make us aware of.11

We find Bonaventure’s attempt to develop a comprehensive account of hu-man nature in his Commentary on the Sentences. In this early text Bonaventure assimilates many elements of Aristotle’s anthropology and psychology, especially as found in the De anima, while also drawing on a number of other sources, above all, Augustine. For example, he begins with Aristotle’s foundational view that the human being is a rational animal. Since Bonaventure thinks the distinctive characteristic of our animal species is rationality, and since he understands form

11Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little, Medieval Academy of America Reprint (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). This is an edited ver-sion of La théologie au douzième siècle, Études de philosophie médiévale, 45 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1957).


to refer to the metaphysical principle that makes a thing be what it is, he holds that the substantial form of the human being is the rational soul. Bonaventure speaks of the rational soul as “an existing, living, intelligent form having freedom of choice.”12 “Soul” is thus, most properly, a particular type of form, namely, a living one; and the rational soul is more specifically, intelligent and free.

Furthermore, Bonaventure believes that the soul is the perfection and mov-ing principle (motor) of the human being—perfection with regard to substance, and motor with respect to the powers. In the former role, the soul is the act of the body. He follows Aristotle’s De anima and even employs the term “entelechy” from the Greek text, understanding this to refer to an activating principle that transforms and shapes passive matter. The soul thus gives act and completion to the body. If the relation between soul and body is that of act and potency, then it follows that the rational soul is, as he defines it, “the perfection of a body intended by nature to be informed by rational life.”

The rational soul is the perfection and mover of the corporeal composite. In this latter role, the soul gives existence, life, sensation, and intelligence. The proper name for these abilities is “power,” and Bonaventure thinks that the soul has a vegetative, a sensitive, and an intellective power. Through its vegetative power, the soul generates, nourishes, and increases the body; through its sensi-tive power, it apprehends sensible things, retains what it has apprehended, and combines and divides what it has retained. By the intellective power, it discerns truth, flees evil, and seeks good.

An important point in Bonaventure’s theory of human nature is his conten-tion that the rational soul is itself a composite of form and matter. The matter of the soul, however, is a spiritual or incorporeal matter. Bonaventure under-stands the spiritual matter that enters into union with the human form to be the sheer capacity or potency for form. The incorporeal matter that enters into union with the human form provides the principle for soul’s existing; the soul has its existential stability (or a stability of being) from matter as the receptacle for the substantial form. The implication of this view is that the rational soul is a substance in its own right, independent of its union with the body. In other words, the soul is a “this something” (hoc aliquid) in its own right.

III.

Pure Nature as a Historical Moment. In a passage that Milbank does not cite in his book, but which would have caused him even more consternation,

12Bonaventure, Breviloquium, part 2, ch. 9, in Doctoris seraphici S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, ed. Fathers of the Collegium S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Ex typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891–97), V, 226b: “De anima igitur rationali haec in summa tenenda sunt secundum sacram doctrinam, scilicet quoad ipsa est forma ens, vivens, intelligens et libertate utens.”


is Bonaventure’s discussion of the condition of nature before the Fall. Here, Bonaventure presents the view that human nature can exist in three states: a state of created nature before the Fall or first sin (status naturae institutae), a state of fallen nature (status naturae lapsae), and an eschatological state of glori-fied nature. In distinction twenty-nine of book two of his Commentary on the Sentences, Bonaventure takes up questions concerning the state of created nature and innocence. In this state of innocence, he tells us, two moments or times ought to be distinguished: a time of pure natural things (in puris naturalibus) and a time of natural and gratuitous things.13 Bonaventure is unambiguous in his opinion, even if not certain: grace is given after nature already existed (post naturam). It would have been possible for God to have given grace to man at the very moment of his creation, but God chose to observe a threefold order: an order of wisdom, an order of goodness, and an order of justice. Hence, Bonaventure posits two distinct moments in this first state of created nature, because it is more fitting to these three orders.14

The order of wisdom calls for two moments, since grace is a genus distinct from nature. Bonaventure thinks we find God following this same order of wisdom when he creates the elements of the world at different moments. The order of goodness coincides with the two-moment view, because grace is thereby given when nature will find it more useful and fruitful (secundum quod est utilior et fructuosior). Grace therefore is not concreated with man but extended to man when he had disposed himself to receiving it through the act and use of reason.15 He quotes Augustine to defend his view: “He who created you without you, does not justify you without you.”16 The order of justice calls for the two moments, because it reinforces what is due to nature and what is from the gifts of grace.

Finally, Bonaventure thinks this theory of two prelapsarian moments also the more probable opinion when it comes to dissolving the apparent contradictions among the Fathers of the Church The seeming contradictions in their opinions arise from understanding them to refer to one general time or state of innocence.

13Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 29, art. 2, qu. 2, resp. (II, 703b): “Unde secundum hanc opinionem in statu innocentiae distinguuntur duo tempora: quoddam enim fuit tempus, in quo habuit tantum naturalia; quoddam vero, in quo habuit et naturalia et gratuita.”

14Bonaventure, II Sent. , dist. 29, art. 2, qu. 2, resp. (II, 703b): “Ratio autem, quare Dominus voluit post naturam dare gratiam, cum posset dare simul; sumitur ex triplici ordine, videlicet ab ordine sapientiae, bonitatis et iustitiae.”

15Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 29, art. 2, qu. 2, resp. (II, 703b):“Et ideo gratia non fuit homini concreata, sed dilata fuit, quousque homo per actum et usum rationis quodam modo se dispon-eret ad illam suscipiendam.” Cf., Breviloquium, part 2, ch. 9: “Est igitur anima rationalis forma beatificabilis. Et quia ad beatitudinis praemium pervenire non est gloriosum nisi per meritum; nec mereri contingit, nisi in eo quod voluntarie et libere fit.”

16“Qui creavit te sine te, non iustificat te sine te” (Augustine Serm. 169 ch. 11, n. 13 [PL 38, 923] quoted in Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 29, art. 2, qu. 2, resp. [II, 703b] ).


Rather, when speaking of prelapsarian man, we should understand that they are sometimes speaking of the moment when human nature existed apart from grace and sometimes of the moment after human nature had been graced.17

In this second moment of man’s prelapsarian nature, God gave man four gifts: the gift of integrity or rectitude (donum rectitudinis/integritatis), the gift of immortality (donum immortalitatis), the gift of impassibility (donum impassibilita-tis), and the gift of knowledge (donum scientiae). Yet these gifts, while being actual graces, still do not elevate man to the supernatural order and the beatific vision. They stand beside nature (as “praeternatural” gifts), bringing human nature to its perfection or, more precisely, its natural powers to their highest actualization. For example, with regard to corporeal immortality, man has an aptitude for it by nature, but is only sufficiently disposed to it by grace. This grace fulfills the aptitude for immortality by preserving the human composite from three possible ways of dying: through a battle of elements, through the consumption of the humors, or through an external wound.18 In this light, the grace of immortality is a preventative against these three ways of dying. Yet, the grace of immortality does not elevate nature to God and the divine order. It is praeter naturam, not super naturam.

IV.

The Infinite, Transcendent End. A question then immediately arises: what end does this actual human nature possess prior to grace while still in this state of innocence? In order to answer this question, we need to take note of Bonaven-ture’s general treatment of end (finis). First, he follows Aristotle in defining end as that for the sake of which something is or acts. He distinguishes between a subordinate end—an end under an end, as he calls it—and an ultimate end (finis ultimus), which is end in the most proper sense of the term. Bonaventure calls a subordinate end that is ordered to another end a “terminus.”

Bonaventure defends a view of the universe as an elaborate order of such termini and the ultimate end—what we could call a universal teleological view. For he says that God has ordered being in two ways: in his wisdom he has or-dered the parts in the whole; and in his goodness he has ordered the parts to an end.19 These two orders are joined together and so conformed that the order of parts is for the sake of the order to the end.20 Since God is the highest wisdom,

17Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 29, art. 2, qu. 2, ad 2–3 (II, 704a–b). 18Ibid., dist. 19, art. 3, qu. 1, resp. (II, 469b).19Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 44, art.1, qu. 3, resp. (I, 786; ed. min., I, 624b). For a detailed

discussion of Bonaventure’s extensive treatment of “order” and its centrality in his thought, see J. A. Wayne Hellmann, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure’s Theology, trans. Jay M. Ham-mond (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2001).

20Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 44, art.1, qu. 3, resp. (I, 786).


he cannot produce a thing disordered insofar as it is in the whole, and since he is good, he cannot make a created thing without an end.

When it comes to the human being, Bonaventure thinks that happiness is man’s end in that it is desired for its own sake and not for some other end. Indeed, all rational beings want to be happy (beati)21 and desire this happiness by nature.22

Furthermore, Bonaventure accepts Aristotle’s opinion in the ninth book of the Metaphysics, that every natural power desires its own perfection, and the perfection of a power is found in its union with its proper object.23 The rational soul’s distinctive powers are the intellect and will, and so, the human being’s end will be found in the union of the intellect and will with their proper objects, namely, truth and goodness. Hence, it is accurate to say that the rational soul has a natural ordering to truth and to goodness through the intellect and will. Happiness is the state of this union.

It is, however, when we examine these natural appetites that Bonaventure’s account becomes quite complicated. For when we actually examine these natural appetites, Bonaventure thinks that we find that the truth and goodness sought by the soul are for the infinite and perfect.

Let us begin, for example, with cognition: The soul’s natural cognition is unconstrained and so it naturally seeks to know all things and hence is not satis-fied with the knowing of any particular thing.24 The knowing of any particular, abstract truth is inadequate to making the human being happy. Human cognition seeks what has in itself all knowable things and in which all things are known. When we examine affection, we see, likewise, that the soul’s affection is naturally bound to love every good, and hence is not satisfied with loving any particular good. Its affection is quieted only by the Good of every good, the All in all.25 When we examine estimation, we find that the soul could not be blessed until it judged that it was blessed. But the affection of the soul exceeds anything finite, for the fundamental reason that something greater than every finite can be thought. When we examine delectation, we find that what is true of the completing of the

21Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 19, art. 1, qu. 1 resp. (II, 460a): “Certissimum enim est nobis quod omnes volumus esse beati.”

22Bonaventure, IV Sent., dist.. 49, part 1., art. 1, qu. 2, con. (IV, 1003a): “Omnes homines beatitudinem veram appetunt naturaliter.”

23Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 1, ad 3 (II, 683a). 24Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 1, art. 3, qu. 2, resp. (I, 40b): “Et ratio huius est, quia nihil potest

animam sufficienter finire nisi bonum, ad quod est. Hoc autem est bonum summum, quod superius est anima, et bonum infinitum, quod excedit animae vires. Cognitio enim animae naturalis est cog-nitio non arctata; unde nata est quodam modo omnia cognoscere, unde non impletur cognitio eius aliquo cognoscibili, nisi quod habet in se omnia cognoscibilia et quo cognito omnia cognoscuntur.”

25Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 1, art. 3, qu. 2, resp. (I, 40b): “Similiter affectio eius nata est diligere omne bonum; ergo nullo bono sufficienter finitur affectus, nisi quod est bonum omnis boni et quod est omnia in omnibus.”


soul’s estimative power is also true of its quest for delectation. “For all these four reasons are reduced to one, that is, to this: because the soul is naturally bound to perceive the infinite Good, which is God, for that reason in Him alone ought it rest and Him enjoy.”26 Hence, it is not surprising that Bonaventure believes every human being has a natural desire to know and love God.

V.

Two Extreme Alternatives. The teaching that the human being has a natural desire for a transcendent good, which is beyond his natural powers of attaining, might seem to open a nearly insoluble problem for Bonaventure: either affirm the existence of a being without a proportionate end, i.e., an end that it can attain with its own powers, and thus, in a fundamental sense, endless (without a finis), or say that the power of meriting belongs to human beings by nature, and thus, that there is natural right to perfect beatitude.

Bonaventure seems to reject the first of these alternatives. In the Sentences, as we have seen, Bonaventure clearly affirms the view that the universe or nature contains nothing without an end, and each creature is part of a larger order. That human nature, or any essence, might be endless would be problematic for Aristotle, since in his view, all natural substances and their natural desires are ordered to an end. Indeed, Aristotle presents us with a cosmos in which every thing is ultimately ordered to its proper end. It would seem very strange if the human being were the one being in the whole world that was without a natural end. (This is not to say, of course, that every individual substance attains its end; rather it is to say that every nature is so ordered, even if any given individual fails.)

Bonaventure also takes up the second alternative. He argues that nature provides only what is caused by the principles of nature. It is necessary that na-ture fails to achieve what is beyond its power.27 The human being cannot merit beatitude. Bonaventure is very clear that man is not able even to dispose himself to, let alone achieve, the gratuitous good, i.e., the good beyond his powers, except through grace.28 There is no knowing or desiring that will ever make the human being capable of achieving by his own powers the gratuitous good.29

26“Omnes enim hae quatuor rationes ad unam reducuntur, scilicet ad hanc: quia nata est anima ad percipiendum bonum infinitum, quod Deus est, ideo in eo solo debet quiescere et eo frui” (Bonaventure, I Sent. , dist. 1, art. 3, qu. 2 [I, 41a]).

27Bonventure, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 1, ad 3 (II, 683a): “dicendum quod verum est de perfectione illa quae est infra terminos naturae; non oportet de illa, quae supra naturam est.

28Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 1, sed contra 3 (II, 682a): “Ergo ad bonum gratuitum non potest quis se disponere nisi per aliquid gratis datum; ergo impossibile est, quod ad illud se disponat liberum arbitrium, omni gratia destitutum.”

29Bonavneture, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 1, ad 3 (II, 683a): “Sic autem cognoscendo et appetendo non se disponit sufficienter ad donum gratiae, sicut prius ostensum est.”


VI.

A Suspended Middle. Instead of adopting either of these two extreme posi-tions—the first of which would reject the whole teleology of nature, and the second of which would be tantamount to Pelagianism—Bonaventure adopts a middle position, arguing that the human being is suspended between a natural good that only partially satisfies the exigencies of his nature and the desire for a transcendent good. Instead of adopting either extreme, Bonaventure seems to indicate that there is a twofold good (duplex bonum) and a twofold beati-tude.30 He distinguishes, for example, between acquired and infused cardinal virtues.31 The acquired virtues may be completed by a supervenient grace (ex gratia superveniente). In these cases, grace and nature concur as causes. Yet, the imperfect good and imperfect happiness of created nature is not as “thin” as we might think when we consider two elements of Bonaventure’s thought: (1) his rich notion of creation as a book written by God, providing the human being with a limited but clear knowledge of its author; and (2) his view that natural virtue is a true good.

Bonaventure thinks that the sensible world is part of a twofold book (duplex liber) written by God—the first part of which is “the eternal art and wisdom of God” and the second part of which is the whole sensible world.32 The human being was originally able to “read” the divinely authored book that is the sensible world—the reading of which provided man with a certain happiness. “The first Principle created this sensible world to manifest himself so that through it, as through a mirror and a vestige, man might be led to love and praise God the Maker.”33 It is only after the Fall that man then beheld the world as an illiter-ate person beholds a book in a foreign language.34 In other words, the book of creation provided man with a clear, even if limited, cognition of God.

Bonaventure treats natural virtue as a true good (bonum honestum). He draws a distinction, however, between two types of true goods: the purely good and the good by similitude. Virtue is a bonum honestum in the second sense,

30Bonaventure, Breviloquium, part 2, ch. 11 (V, 229a).31Bonaventure, III Sent., dist. 33, art. 1, qu. 5, resp. (III, 723a–b).32Bonaventure, Breviloquium, part 2, ch. 11 (V, 229a): “Et secundum hoc duplex est liber

unus scilicet scriptus intus, qui est aeterna Dei ars et sapientia, et alius scriptus foris, mundus scilicet sensibilis.” See Efrem Bettoni, Saint Bonaventure, trans. Angelus Gambatese, O.F.M. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1964), 35.

33Bonaventure, Breviloquium, part. 2, ch. 11 (V229a): “quia primum principium fecit mundum istum sensibilem ad declarandum se ipsum videlicet ad hoc quod per illum tanquam per speculum et vestigium reduceretur homo in deum artificem amandum et laudandum.”

34Bonaventure, Collationes in hexaemeron, II, 20 (V, 340a): “Et tamen nos non invenimus eam, sicut laicus nesciens litteras et tenens librum non curat de eo, sic nos; unde haec sciptura facta est nobis Graeca, barbara et Hebraea et penitus ignota in suo fonte.”


and these goods, in their assimilation to God, possess a beauty by which they delight and attract us.35 On this point, Bonaventure is not adopting a reading of Augustine’s City of God that would regard the virtues of the pagans, i.e., the natural virtues, as vices. Instead, he explicitly identifies the natural virtues as habits that order the agent to moral goodness (ad bonitatem moralem).36

We find the foundation for his view of the moral virtues in his treatment of free choice. In a question about whether free choice, lacking all grace, is able to do a morally good act, Bonaventure argues that the human being is capable of the morally good act, but that the will is not naturally ordered to God—it is merely orderable. By implication then, in the first moment of created nature, man was neither ordered to grace nor to glory because the liberum arbitrium was not ordered to the ultimate end; it was merely subject to being so ordered.37

This is not to say that the natural virtues are without their problems. The problem with the natural virtues is that they are not stable, that is, they are subject to the loss of their beauty when they reference themselves and become proud and vain, or when they are lost through evil and vice. So man in his pure nature could attain only a likeness of true happiness; and although a profoundly imperfect and limited one, it is nevertheless still a real likeness. In pure created nature, man would see as in a mirror—through a glass, brightly (per speculum clarum).38

VII.

Point of Contention. The on-going scholastic debate has not been about whether there is a radical capacity for transformation in human nature, but rather how this capacity is to be conceived. That there is such a capacity is presupposed by all parties. Hence, we must examine Bonaventure’s understanding this capac-ity in the human being in order to distinguish his position.

Bonaventure presents variations on the natural desire argument frequently. For example, there is also a concomitant, innate desire for peace, and hence, the human being seeks an eternal and immutable being. The general point is clear: there is no quieting of the natural desires apart from union with their object. Bonaventure speaks of man as beatifiable (beatificabilis).39 But this beatifiablity concerns two points, he says: man’s aptitude (aptitudo) for beatifiability and his disposition (dispositio). Furthermore, man is beatifiable through nature and through grace. By his own nature man has an aptitude for beatitude. But he

35Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 1, art. 3, qu. 2, ad 4 (I, 41b).36Bonaventure, III Sent., dist. 36, art. 1, qu. 6, resp. (III, 806a).37Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 3, resp. (II, 689a). 38Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 3, part 1, art. 1, qu. 3, resp. (I, 74b).39Bonaventure, Breviloquium, part 2, ch. 9 (V, 227a): “Est igitur anima rationalis forma

beatificabilis.”


says the sufficient disposition for beatitude, or as he alternatively calls it, the sufficient order to the act, is not in man by nature but by grace, “through which he is sufficiently disposed to glory and without that nature cannot suffice.”40

Now the reason that the human being is capable of beatitude (capax beatitu-dinis) is that the soul itself is capable of God (capax Dei), who constitutes man’s happiness.41 In short, the rational soul is made for God, and thus, nothing less than God will do. Bonaventure is very clear throughout the corpus of his works that man is created in the image of God. Following in the footsteps laid down by Augustine in De Trinitate, Bonaventure locates this image in the human soul. In several texts he ties the image to nature and likeness to grace. This is how he interprets the Genesis verse that man is made in the image and likeness of God. In one of three possible readings, image applies to the natural condition of the human soul as consisting of memory, intellect, and will. Likeness he takes to refer to the image as reformed and polished into an exact likeness. “The likeness more principally consists in the union of the soul with God, which is certainly through grace.”42 Bonaventure thus seems to posit a distinction between im-age and likeness, such that likeness is a clearer approximation of God. Man’s threefold powers of memory, understanding, and will image the triune God, but they become a likeness of God only through grace.43 In the first moment of created nature, man was neither ordered to grace nor to glory, because the liberum arbitrium was not ordered this ultimate end; it was merely subject to being so ordered.44

VIII.

The Supernatural Perfects Nature. Given these capacities, it is then possible to develop a notion of grace as that which perfects nature, as Bonaventure says often. Supernatural grace is superadded to nature, but it works within the natural powers of man. Thus, Bonaventure defends a notion of grace as supernatural but intrinsic. And it exercises this perfective role as an influence from God. “Grace is an influence from God produced in the soul itself, insofar as God assimilates the whole soul to himself.”

40Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 19, art. 3, qu. 1, resp. (II, 469b): “Secundum autem quod importat dispositionem sufficientem, per quam quis pervenit ad beatitudinem sive sufficientem ordinem ad actum, sic inest homini non per naturam, sed per gratiam per quam sufficienter disponitur ad gloriam, nec sine illa potest sufficere natura.”

41Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 19, art. 1, qu. 2, resp. (II, 462–63). 42“Similitudo vero principalius consistit in unione animae ad Deum quae quidem est per

gratiam” (Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 16, art. 2, qu. 3, resp. [II, 405a–b]).43Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 16, art. 2, qu. 3, resp. (II, 405). Cf., Breviloquium, p. 2, c. 9

(V, 227a).44Bonaventure, II Sent., dist. 28, art. 2, qu. 3, con. (II, 689a).


Bonaventure thinks that actual grace then prepared man for the reception of sanctifying grace. In a question on whether free choice, destitute of actual grace, is able to dispose itself sufficiently for sanctifying grace, Bonaventure ar-gues explicitly that only actual graces are able to prepare the will for sanctifying grace. It is superadded to the will to help prepare the will for habitual grace. Even though the will can choose the moral good, it is not so disposed to grace and to glory: “It is not ordered to its ultimate end; it is only orderable.”45 He sees this as the explanation of Christ’s proclamation to his apostles at the Last Supper in John’s gospel, “Sine me nihil potestis facere.”

IX.

A Parallel to the Prelapsarian State of Nature. We find confirmation of this reading of Bonaventure’s theory of grace and natural desire in his discussion of the state of human nature without grace in questions on unbaptized infants in limbo. In Bonaventure’s view, children who die without baptism go to a higher part of hell referred to as limbus. In limbo they do not know the pain of fire, which is the punishment of sinners; but they also do not receive the reward of the just, namely, the vision of God. We might say that their state reflects a state of nature without grace—pure nature.

Bonaventure explains that God deprives the infants of any cognition that might cause them sadness. They share traits of both the beatified and the damned: like the beatified, they lack every interior or exterior affliction; like the damned they lack the vision of God.46 Yet, it is this first trait that ought to engage our focus, for Bonaventure asks how they could be free of sadness if they desire a good they cannot have. Bonaventure does not think that they know any spiritual sadness, for they surely do not elevate their eyes to what they are not able to have.47 Thus they are neither sad nor in joy; they remain in uniform tranquility. And in such a way God shows forth both his justice and his mercy. Limbo thus emerges as illustrative of Bonaventure’s general treatment of nature and grace.

X.

Conclusion. Bonaventure’s account of the finality of human nature must be understood in the context of his metaphysics of emanation and return: All

45“Per illud tamen nec disponitur ad gratiam nec ad gloriam, quia non est in finem ultimum ordinatum, sed tantum ordinabile” (Bonaventure, II Sent., dis. 28, art. 2, qu. 3 resp. [II, 689a]). For a detailed discussion of grace and holiness, see Gregory LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure (Roma: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini), 2005.

46Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 38, a. 3, q. 2 resp (II, 797a).47Ibid., d. 38, a. 3, q. 2 ad 2 (II, 797b): “Sic et in parvulis intelligendum est esse, quod eis

sufficiat status suus; nec elevant oculos ad opes, quas habere non possunt.”


things have come forth from God; all things are to return back to him. It is the rational creature, endowed with a will and capable of choice, that is the agent for reality’s return to its source. As we have seen, Bonaventure speaks of a twofold, natural order of the universe: the parts in the whole and the parts to an end.48 The human soul is the noblest form of all natural forms found in the world. The human being unites all the elements, and so, as the lynchpin in creation, the rational animal is the bridge between lower, material creation and a higher, spiritual creation; man “speaks” for creation. God, who is the cause of being and the principle of knowledge, is also the order of living. The human being is the most important part of creation in that he is the link between lower, corporeal creatures and the higher, incorporeal intelligent creatures, the microcosm of the whole (minor mundus, as Bonaventure calls him). A part of this ordering of the whole to the end is man’s ordering to the highest happiness. Bonaventure speaks of non-rational beings sharing in beatitude by their subordination to the human being. In sum, there is a universal eudaemonism made possible by human nature’s mediating role in the creation.49

Bonaventure’s theory involves an integral human nature that avoids the pitfall of being closed to the transcendent and thus autonomous; his philosophi-cal anthropology involves an understanding of man’s heteronomy, grounded in a natural desire to see God, that avoids naturalizing grace, that is, understanding it as constitutive of human nature, as a gift owed in justice. As seen above, Bo-naventure thinks that God delays the conferral of grace precisely for the sake of eliciting both the human being’s cooperation in the divine plan and his natural desire for the infinite good. This natural desire is the other half of the pure na-ture package, for while the possibility of human nature apart from grace is the foundation of an integral humanism, the natural desire is the root of human longing and transcendence. Bonaventure’s position may be described as heter-onomous integrity: that is, man possesses a complete and integral but radically heteronomous human nature. In short, Bonaventure provides us with integrity without autonomy, heteronomy without naturalism—heteronomous integrity.

The dependence of creation on its First Principle is a theme that runs throughout Bonaventure’s thought, from his metaphysics through his episte-mology to his ethics. There are countless ways by which man is bound by God, according to Bonaventure. As he so often does, Bonaventure breaks the mold. He maintains that human nature has an ultimate end, namely, in the beatifying vision, but that a certain happiness approximating that beatitude is found in nature. But whatever happiness we know in this life is necessarily inadequate,

48Bonaventure, I Sent., dist. 44, art.1, qu. 3, resp. (I, 786a). 49See Hellmann, Divine and Created Order, 94–5 for a discussion of human nature’s me-

diating role.


given human nature. Nature fails with respect to what is beyond nature. This balancing act allows him to maintain the total gratuity of grace, while also affirming the integrity of nature. But the integrity of nature ought not to be understood as closed to the transcendent. On the contrary, the exigencies of our natural desires and the finitude of being dispose us to remain radically and intrinsically orderable to the good that transcends our powers. In this regard, Bonaventure’s doctrine provides Milbank with the suspended middle he so wants, that is, a suspended middle position in which we cannot practice philosophy without transcendence.

Fordham University Bronx, New York

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