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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

"On the reduction of the arts to theology" by Saint Bonaventura

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or
THE RECONCILIATION OF THE MYSTICAL INSIGHTS OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI
with a rational understanding of reality.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi
For his solution Bonaventura turned to the Platonic tendency in medieval philosophy as developed by Saint Augustine,Alexander of Hales(been influenced by Peter Lombard),and Robert Grosseteste.
Thus,his work stands outside the Aristotelian tradition of his contemporary,Saint Thomas Aquinas.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
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Every kind of knowledge,if understood rightly,is knowledge of God ;
all of the arts reduce to theology.
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God created light in the first day of creation as the source of activity in all living things,
the link between soul and body.
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There are two sorts of light,
the created and the spiritual.
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The mechanical arts are illuminated by external light,the sun ;
other knowledge comes from the light of sense perception,
the light of philosophical knowledge,
and the light of Sacred Scripture.
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As seen by man,
the four lights whose source is God become six
because of distrinctions within philosophy between rational philosophy,
natural philosophy,
and moral philosophy ;
the six lights correspond to the six days of the creation.
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In philosophy Bonaventure presents a marked contrast to his contemporaries, Roger Bacon and St Thomas Aquinas. While these may be taken as representing, respectively, physical science yet in its infancy, and Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he brings before us the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation which had already, to some extent, found expression in Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, and in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. To him, the purely intellectual element, though never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living power of the affections or the heart. He used the authority of Aristotle in harmony with Scriptural and Patristic texts, and attributed much of the heretical tendency of the age to the attempt to divorce Aristotelian philosophy from Catholic Theology. Like St. Thomas Aquinas, with whom he shared numerous profound agreements in matters theological and philosophical, he combated the Aristotelian notion of the eternity of the world vigorously. St Augustine, who had imported into the west many of the doctrines that would define scholastic philosophy, was an incredibly important source of Bonaventure's Platonism. Augustine himself had engaged Neoplatonism, a school of Platonism distinct from that of Plato, mostly through Plotinus but possibly through Iamblichus as well; it is likely that Augustine had never encountered a work written by Plato himself. Another prominent influence was that of a mystic passing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canticle_of_the_Sun the poem by Saint Francis of Assisi :
Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.
To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,especially through my lord Brother Sun,who brings the day; and you give light through him.And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,and clouds and storms, and all the weather,through which you give your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water;she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,through whom you brighten the night.He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,who feeds us and rules us,and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you;through those who endure sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.
Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,from whose embrace no living person can escape.Woe to those who die in mortal sin!Happy those she finds doing your most holy will.The second death can do no harm to them.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks,and serve him with great humility.
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