All thinkers
Theologian · Medieval
St. Bonaventure
1221–1274 · Franciscan Augustinianism
Doctor of the Church
Latin
Doctor of the Church (Doctor Seraphicus), canonized 1482, declared Doctor 1588.
Minister General of the Franciscans and Cardinal, Bonaventure wrote the Journey of the Mind to God, in which creation, the soul and the divine names become steps of an ascent that ends in the crucified Christ and the silence of ecstasy. Against the Aristotelians he held that creation in time can be demonstrated, that the mind knows truth in the light of the eternal reasons, and that theology is a wisdom ordered to love.
Why he matters: He is the great alternative to Thomas within orthodoxy: the Augustinian-Franciscan school in its purest form, honored by the Church as a second pillar of scholastic theology.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each question the test asks.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
How is God related to the world?
Creation from nothing
Pantheism or emanation
Creation from nothing
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
Do natures and essences really exist?
Realism
Nominalism
Realism
God's essence and His energies
Absolute simplicity
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
How should we speak of God?
Between
Apophatic (negative) way
Cataphatic (analogical) way
Is 'being' said of God and of creatures in the same sense?
Analogy of being
Analogy of being
Univocity of being
How does creation speak of God?
A book of signs and vestiges
Natures studied in their own right
A book of signs and vestiges
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Fideism
Rationalism
Fideism
Where does knowledge begin?
Illumination and innate ideas
Senses and abstraction
Illumination and innate ideas
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
How should Scripture be read?
Fundamentalist literalism
Critical reductionism
Fundamentalist literalism
What is theology for?
A wisdom ordered to loving
A science ordered to knowing
A wisdom ordered to loving
Does doctrine develop?
Between
Always the same, in the same words
A living development
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A gift to be baptized
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Is the body really you?
Body–soul unity
Dualism
Body–soul unity
Are you free?
Free will
Determinism
Free will
How fallen is human nature?
Totally depraved
Totally depraved
Basically good
Does nature desire God?
Natural desire for the vision of God
Pure nature
Natural desire for the vision of God
The body and its desires
Contempt for the flesh
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What makes you this one and no other?
A positive thisness (haecceity)
This matter, this body
A positive thisness (haecceity)
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Why is the good good?
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Divine command (voluntarism)
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
What is heaven's happiness, at its heart?
The will's love and enjoyment of God
The intellect's vision of God
The will's love and enjoyment of God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How does grace move the will?
Thomist (Bañezian)
Thomist (Bañezian)
Molinist
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Would the Word have become flesh had Adam not sinned?
Christ came to redeem sinners
Christ came to redeem sinners
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Between
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Efficacious ex opere operato
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
When the Pope speaks
Every word binds
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Rites of the one Roman Church
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful