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| Book cover: Amazon.com |
This 1993 version of Bonaventure's work is a translation from Latin by Philotheus Boehner that has been edited, as well as given an introduction and explanatory notes, by Stephen F. Brown. Mr. Brown says he chose the Boehner translation because it "stays very close to the Latin and is generally quite readable." I would have to agree with that statement, as some of the other versions of The Journey of the Mind to God (also known as The Itinerarium) available online were not nearly as easy to comprehend.
As I mentioned earlier, it is the material Brown provides that truly helps to make Bonaventure's work accessible to a modern audience. Brown tells us from the very beginning that this work will be very different from other texts because 1) Bonaventure uses ample symbolism to represent complex concepts and 2) this is more of a technical university sermon. Brown's text is clear and well-written, and it often uses a simple metaphor or description to illuminate a point, such as these sentences to explain Bonaventure's worldview:
[He] never viewed the world in a hard-nosed, factual way. A rose, for him, was always more than a rose. Or, perhaps, we might better say that for Saint Bonaventure a rose, while remaining a rose, tells an attentive viewer a richer story of its reality.
Or these to explain the "illumination theory of knowledge" developed by Augustine and embraced by Bonaventure:
[According to the theory], the first thing we know is God, even though we are not aware of this at first. Just as we would not see the colors and shapes of a stained-glass window unless the invisible sun was illuminating them, so we would not see visible things if the invisible God was not illuminating them from within. God, then, is present in things, and if we analyze our sense knowledge, our enjoyment of sense objects, and the judgments we make concerning them, we would come to realize God's invisible presence in them.Bonaventure himself relies on these common images or experiences to elucidate a point as well. The majority of his text, however, is very dense. I mean "dense" in the sense that there is a layering effect to how he has written the work, where concepts are built up over the chapters as Bonaventure rigorously argues out his philosophy. There is also a purposeful use of repetition and contrast, so that one concept might be described six different ways, along with six opposite descriptions, to fully flesh out the complexity of what he is describing.
Bonaventure uses a term I had never heard before, but t seems to be popular is religious and philosophical texts: synderesis. Brown's note on the concept states that Bonaventure uses synderesis ".... as the highest power of reason and describes it as the natural gravity of the soul toward the good" Bonaventure also calls it "the unitive" or "loving power." I wasn't too satisfied with that definition, so I took a look at how Philosophy Pages defines it:
Immediate, intuitive apprehension of the fundamental principles of morality. For such medieval ethicists as Peter Lombard and Aquinas, synderesis, unlike mere conscience, is both infallible and general.Perhaps not much clearer, but a bit helpful.
Overall, it is an excellent book to learn more about Saint Bonaventure and Franciscan religious philosophy. It is also an interesting insight into a deeply religious mind, that allows you to experience some of what made Bonaventure such an ardent believer in God.
Other Resources:
http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/666/Journey_of_the_Mind_into_God_St_Bonaventure.html
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/stb16012.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=J2zyOEvN_74C&dq=the+journey+of+the+mind+to+god&source=gbs_navlinks_s
http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Bonaventure%20Journey%20of%20the%20Mind%20Into%20God.pdf
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