Saint Bonaventure And The Entrance Of God Into Theology

This Doctor of the Church, in a lifetime crowded with absorbing activities—as ruler of his Order for almost twenty years, as Cardinal-Bishop, as director of the deliberations of an ecumenical council—yet became one of the Church’s supreme expositors of the theology of love. From the first he was known to be a giant, and succeeding centuries saw almost innumerable editions of his works. Archbishop Paschal Robinson has pointed out that no writer from the Middle Ages onward has been more widely read and copied. Yet comparatively little of this interest is reflected in publications in the English tongue. Of course, the Prince of Mystics (as Leo XIII called him) is not wholly unknown among us. So great is the power of his genius, so insistent his message to the heart and spirit, that these qualities have in some degree forced their way through whatever barriers exist. Translators of merit, both Franciscans and others, have brought over into English separate chosen opera; and these have conveyed enough of his greatness to establish it as a fact. But though he is an acknowledged master, he remains, by and large, to us a master still unread.

This work examines Bonaventure's teachings and his belief that spiritual transformation is achieved when theological study is subordinated to and integrated into the spiritual life. An excellent introduction to all of Bonaventure's work.

Bonaventure was a great pastor and preacher, and also a very effective teacher. His writing shows clarity and conviction, and his authority arose from his profound grasp of Scripture and patristic monastic tradition. The force behind how he wrote sprang from his keen sense of the significance of Francis and Clare and all that flowed from them, not least into his own spiritual life and experience as a person of deep contemplative and mystical prayer. Way Back to God is a comprehensive conspectus and study of how Bonaventure taught Christian theology and applied it to spiritual life. It is intended to be a guide through most of his writings (though not as a substitute for reading them). It provides a bridge into his thought, and also a remarkable hand-book of Christian theology in its bearing upon spiritual life. Douglas Dales’ new work enables Bonaventure’s distinctive spiritual theology to be seen as a whole, as well as making his writings, in Latin or English, accessible and attractive.

Continental philosophers of religion have been engaging with theological issues, concepts and questions for several decades, blurring the borders between the domains of philosophy and theology. Yet when Emmanuel Falque proclaims that both theologians and philosophers need not be afraid of crossing the Rubicon – the point of no return – between these often artificially separated disciplines, he scandalised both camps. Despite the scholarly reservations, the theological turn in French phenomenology has decisively happened. The challenge is now to interpret what this given fact of creative encounters between philosophy and theology means for these disciplines. In this collection, written by both theologians and philosophers, the question “Must we cross the Rubicon?” is central. However, rather than simply opposing or subscribing to Falque’s position, the individual chapters of this book interrogate and critically reflect on the relationship between theology and philosophy, offering novel perspectives and redrawing the outlines of their borderlands.

Emmanuel Falque, one of the foremost philosophers working in the continental philosophy of religion today, takes us by the hand into the very heart of 12th-century monastic spirituality. Translated into English for the first time, The Book of Experience weaves together contemporary phenomenological questions with medieval theology, revealing undiscovered dialogues already underway between Hugh of St. Victor and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, between Richard of St. Victor and Emmanuel Levinas, between Aelred of Rievaulx and Michel Henry, and not least between Bernard of Clairvaux and the trio of Descartes, Heidegger, and Jean-Luc Marion, consummating in a masterful phenomenological reading of Bernard's sermons on the Song of Songs. Whether it is a question of 'the idea that comes to God' (Anselm of Canterbury) or actively 'feeling oneself fully alive' (Aelred of Rievaulx or Bernard of Clairvaux), Falque uses these encounters to shed light on both parties, medieval and modern, theological and philosophical. Leading us through works of art, landscapes, architectures, and liturgies, this major contemporary philosopher of religion clarifies mysteries and discovers experience lying at the heart of the medieval tradition.