Showing posts with label Bonaventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonaventure. Show all posts

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Spiritual Warfare

St. Bonaventure depicts the Sacraments as weapons for spiritual warfare:

"Hence, because Baptism is for those entering the battle, Confirmation for those fighting, Holy Eucharist for those recuperating, Penance for those rising anew, Extreme Unction for those about to leave, Orders for those bringing in new recruits, and Matrimony for those providing these recruits-it is clear that the sacramental remedies and means of defense are sufficient and orderly."
(Breviloquium, VI.3.4)

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Does Christ’s Death Go Against Justice?


It would seem that God the Father committed an act of injustice when He has Christ, His Son who is completely innocent, suffer and die for condemned humanity. St. Bonaventure, however, tells us that it would be an injustice if Christ suffered against His will. Yet, this is not the case. Christ, Himself, tells us:

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father." (John 10:17-18)

Christ willingly gives His life for our salvation, because “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Here is St. Bonaventure’s explanation from his Breviloquium:

“Finally, no innocent person is morally obliged to suffer against his will, since this would contradict the order of divine justice; also, no mortal being wishes for death and suffering by natural impulse, for it is his nature to flee death. Christ, then, could assume these penalties only in a qualified manner: He was not to suffer against His rational will, since He not only lived in the state of beatitude and of union with the omnipotent Godhead through which He could repel any evil, but He also possessed perfect innocence which, according to the order of natural justice, cannot be obligated to suffer. Yet He was to suffer against His instinctive will: that is, against the sensible impulse and desire of His flesh. He expressed in His prayer - a rational act - the will of the flesh through which He shrank from suffering, when He said: "Let this cup pass away from Me"; but He conformed His rational will to the will of His Father, thus placing reason above instinct, when He said: "Not My will but Thine he done." One will was not opposed to the other, for "in His divine will, He wished what was just; in His rational will, He consented to justice; and in His natural instinct, while averse to pain, yet He did not contest justice. Each will acted in its field, tending toward its proper object: divine will to justice, rational will to obedience, and sensible will to nature." And so there was in Christ no conflict or struggle, but peaceful order and orderly peace.” (4.8.5)

Monday, January 11, 2010

Can God Make A Rock So Big That He Can't Lift It?

"1. Concerning God's omnipotence, the following must be held according to the sacred teaching. God is almighty, but in such a manner that acts of culpability, for instance, lying, or intending evil, cannot be attributed to Him; nor can acts of penalty [for original sin], such as fearing and sorrowing; nor corporeal and material acts, such as sleeping and walking, except figuratively; nor contradictory acts, such as making something greater than Himself, or producing another God equal to Himself, or creating some being that would be infinite in act; and so forth. As Anselm writes, "whatever is contradictory, be it the smallest thing, is not found in God." Although God cannot do such things, yet He is truly, properly, and perfectly omnipotent.

2. This should be understood as follows. The first Principle is powerful by a power that is unqualified; therefore the universal "omni" prefacing "potent" covers all those things the power to do which is power unqualified: that is, all things that proceed from a power both complete and orderly. We call COMPLETE a power that cannot disappear, succumb, or be limited. But sin implies a disappearance of power, pain a collapse of power, and bodily operation a limitation of power. Divine power, supreme and utterly perfect, is not created, nor is it dependent upon anything, nor is it wanting in anything. Therefore, it cannot be the subject of culpable, penal, or corporeal acts: and this precisely because it is omnipotent through a power that is complete.

3. Now, there are three senses in which a power can be called ORDERLY: as it is in act; as it signifies potency on the part of a creature; and as it signifies potency on the part of the uncreated Might alone. That which is possible to power in the first sense is not only possible but actual. That which is possible in the second sense but not in the first is simply possible, although not actual. That which is possible in the third sense, but not in the first or second, is possible to God but impossible to creatures. That which is not possible in any of the foregoing senses, i. e., whatever, by reason of primordial and eternal principles and causes, is directly opposed to order, is simply impossible; as it would be for God to produce something infinite in act, to make something to be and not to be at the same time, to make a past event as never having happened, and so forth. The order and completeness of divine might exclude the possibility of doing such things.

This clearly shows the scope of divine might, the meaning of the simply possible and of the simply impossible, and the fact that some impossibility is compatible with true omnipotence."

-St. Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Chapter 7- On God's Omnipotence

(Or you could go with the short answer, which is: No.)