Abstract

The study reflects upon the text of Bonaventure in the Commentary on the Sentences, a text typical for the discussion of the knowability of God. The correct meaning of the illuminational gnoseology of the Seraphic Doctor is brought out; following St. Augustine, he teaches that, if there is a created intelligence, this is itself bounded by Truth and is without intermediaries. From this comes the proper formulation of our problem, as follows: in itself, the divine Light is fully knowable, just as the Good, who is God, is fully lovable. St, Bonaventure is among those Doctors who are most averse to the primacy of apophatism: to false apophatism, he opposes the claim that God is not the logical Infinite, but the Infinite “simplex”, or – at the level of being – infinite Luminosity. A good profession of the “summe Cognoscibilis” is free from all ontologism, because the goodness – truth, which created intelligence can receive, is inscribed, without any confusion, in the complete Reception, which is in the Word, Light from Light, who is God, and who is Son. At this point, however, Bonaventure’s discourse goes beyond this, without becoming lost, in the sense that he insists first on the absolute primacy of Love and only by way of derivation on the level of knowledge.