Статья: Illumination in Bonaventure’s Epistemology

- Then by the light of a candle.

And when there is no sun, moon or candle?

- Then, teacher, I somehow see by the light within.

In the Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ (q. 4, p. 115-117) Bonaventure quotes from St. Augustine On the Teacher:

In every instance where we understand something, we are listening not to someone who utters external words, but to that truth which guides us from the mind itself (1).

The City of God:

Those whom we rightly prefer to all others have said that the very God by whom all things were made is the light of our minds by which we learn all things (4).

On the Trinity:

When our soul so pleases us that we prefer it to all corporeal light, it is not the soul itself that pleases us but that art by which it was created. For a created thing is worthy of approval in reference to that source where it is seen to have been present before it was created. Now this is the truth and pure goodness(5)

When we approve or disapprove of something rightly, we are shown to approve or disapprove by virtue of other rules which remain altogether unchangeable and above our mind (6).

This light, which is the truth and goodness, come from within and there from above. The latter is obvious to Bonaventure, because - he quotes (8):

When the unjust person sees the rules according to which everyone ought to live, where does he see them? Not in his own nature, since it is certain his mind is changeable while these rules are unchangeable. And not in any habit of his mind, since these are rules of justice. Where does he perceive that he ought to possess something that he does not possess? Where then are they written but in the book of that light which is called the truth, from which every just law is copied? (Augustine, On the Trinity, chapter 15)

Further in the argument 8 Bonaventure presents the Augustinian correction of Plato’s theory of reminiscence:

It is credible that even those who are unskilled in certain disciplines can give the correct answers when they are able to receive the eternal light of reason in which they perceive these immutable truths. This is true, but not because they once knew them and have forgotten them, as it seemed to Plato. (Retractations)

About this, I would argue that it is problematic that Plato speaking of the mind and the eternal ideas did not understand that the mind should ascend from its regular state. On the contrary, Plato speaks about this divine perfection, which is not easily achieved by a philosopher while his soul goes through four stages (symbolically “requires four incarnations”) in his quest for perfect knowledge. So, the Divine Plato rather had quite similar approach (but of course he did not use the terminology of the Christian theology), and his reminiscence does include the possibility that the soul on some deepest level is divine or participates in the knowledge of the Divinity. It is just that in its regular state of forgetfulness of its deepest nature it can have just glimpses of the light that is not essentially external to the soul itself. This seem to be in compliance with Genesis 2:7 and the idea that we are all children of One Father, and not bastards.

Bonaventure continues to quote:

The intellectual nature is linked not only to intelligible things but also to immutable things. This nature is made in such a way that when it moves to those things with which it is connected, or when it moves to itself, it may give correct answers about such things as it is capable of seeing.

Then he concludes:

From these authoritative arguments of Augustine it is manifestly clear that everything is known in the eternal reasons.

The essential connection of the intellect to the eternal reasons and its capability of seeing those suggest our relation to those and to the light itself. Bonaventure quotes from Anselm Proslogion, chapter 14:

How great is the light from which shines forth all truth that manifests itself to the rational mind (12) How rich is that truth in which is found everything that is true and outside of which is only emptiness and falsehood!

And he concludes: “Therefore no truth is seen except in the eternal truth”. It is not that dogmatic as it may seem to those contemporary thinkers who claim: “There is no Truth…” Logically, their claim is a universal claim itself, hence aspires to be true universally, hence, it claims itself the existence of the universal truth it attempted to deny, hence does not have any ontological value and constitutes rather invalid critique on purely emotional ground.

Quoting Aristotle’s Ethics:

We all suppose that what we know by means of science cannot possibly be other than it is. But, when those things that could be other than they are pass beyond the range of our observation, we do not know whether they exist or not. Therefore, the object of scientific knowledge is necessarily eternal. And eternal things are ungenerated and incorruptible (16).

Bonaventure concludes:

Therefore, there can be no such thing as certain knowledge unless the very nature of eternal truth is involved. But this is found only in the eternal reasons.

It is fascinating, how in the world of contingency, where everything what we observe could be otherwise, there could be any certainty. Still we know there is certainty. Where does it come from then? Obviously not from the world of change and uncertainty. And what is this world? It is the world of the eternal reasons, which belong to the very nature of God who is beyond all change and doubt, and who illumines our minds, which are rather attached to this world of change and are used to its various forms of entertainment.

It is very reasonable, that when the intellect is connected to senses, analyzing their data, so to speak, it is habitually in the mode of perception of precisely this kind of data, but when it is disconnected from senses it may be in some other mode of perception, and not only of the sensual memory content, but also what they call super sensual. Isn’t it the reason why the monks or hermits everywhere practice asceticism? So, usually one mode of perception and corresponding activity of the intellect excludes or hinders the other mode of perception and formation of the relevant ideas.

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