The Phenomenological Act of Perscrutatio in the Proemium of St. Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Sentences

Abstract

As Hans Urs von Balthasar has put it, "nothing is more typical of [St. Bonaventure] than the prologue to the whole commentary on the Sentences." 1 This remark is the inspiration for the following rereading of Bonaventure's inaugural lecture. Not only does the Commentary succeed to a remarkable degree in unifying scholasticism and mysticism, but it also contains the seeds of a descriptive theological method that is original in ways that parallel contemporary phenomenological thought, despite the risk of anachronism inherent in such a claim.Profunda fluviorum scrutatus est, et abscondita produxit in lucem (Job 28:11). 2 This verse from the Book of Job, with which Bonaventure opens his Proemium, should be interpreted first as a "a crystalization of all that constitutes the significance of theology," that is, a searching of the depths and a bringing of hidden things to light. 3 On the one hand, then, we have the hiding place of the mytery that remains veiled in the four books of the Sentences (the rivers of the Trinity, creation, the Incarnation, and the sacraments). On the other hand, we have the theologian's role sanctified-or, better, consecrated-by the Holy Spirit as a "searcher of secrets and of the depths" (perscrutator secretorum et profundorum), a formulation that explicitly *Most recent publication:

From Aquinas to Teilhard: Divine Action and the Metaphysics of Love

“…Knowledge through love is the only thing that puts in motion whoever comes to know them'. 53 Our understanding of God must be consonant with our experience of cosmos; otherwise we either have a conceptual cosmos and a real God or a conceptual God and a real cosmos but we do not have a God of the cosmos. Among writers of the twentieth century who grasped the import of the cosmological whole and the role of love as the order of the whole, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin stands out as one of the most provocative and insightful thinkers.…”

From Metaphysics to Kataphysics: Bonaventure's ‘Good’ Creation

“…52 That is, love becomes the form of true knowledge; rationality is primordially the freedom of love. As Emmanual Falque notes, 'love becomes a conceptual determination at the junction of theory and practice'.…”

“…As Emmanual Falque notes, 'love becomes a conceptual determination at the junction of theory and practice'. 52 That is, love becomes the form of true knowledge; rationality is primordially the freedom of love.…”