. . to the knowledge of spiritual motions, as through the effect of the knowledge to the knowledge of causes (3).
In this common mode of acquiring knowledge the sense perception in connected with the active intellect, which forms an immediate idea of ​​an object in passive intellect by means of abstraction. The knowledge of super-sensual but real is deduced in a manner of philosophical speculation. Again:
The whole of the visible world enters the human soul through apprehension. . . p> Yet things enter not through their substances, but through similitudes generated in the medium, and through the medium they pass into the organ and thence into the apprehensive faculty. Thus the generation of the species in the medium, and from the medium they pass into the organ. From the external organ they pass into the internal organ, and the directing of the apprehensive faculty upon it leads to the apprehension of all those things which the soul apprehends outside itself (4).
When does the divine light belong in this doctrine? For Bonaventure it is the certainty of knowledge even of sensibles constitutes the ground for deduction of the existence and even the necessity of that light in the process of knowing. As C. M. Cullen mentioned of the theory: "The mind is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the attaining of truth ". And I would add that the mind could be in different modes depending on different degrees of its conformity , therefore, the above portion of the theory applies only to the empirical mode.Bonaventure following Aristotle (in his Metaphysics ) continues with the notion of "the delight we take in our senses "(A I, 1):
From this apprehension, if it is a suitable object, pleasure follows. The senses are delighted in an object, perceived through the abstracted similitude. . . , Proportion is observed in the similitude in so far as it has the character of the species of form, and then it is called beauty, because beauty is nothing other then numbered equality, or a certain disposition of parts, together with a suavity of color . Again, proportionality is observed in so far as it has the character of power or strength, and then it is called sweetness, when the active power does not disproportionally exceeds the recipient sense. For the senses are pained by extremes and delighted by moderation. . . . Thus through pleasure, external delights enter the soul by means of their similitudes ... (5).
Where does the beauty come from? It comes from the Good, or the ordering aspect of the First Principle, which is reflected in nature and the human soul. Many goods, or those mini reflections, become possible for the soul because of the constant participation in the Good, or " contuition of God, and the divinely given signs wherein we can see God "(11). p> Explaining further judgment as "an action which, by purifying and abstracting the sensory likeness received sentiently by the senses, causes it to enter into the intellective faculty "(6), and repeating that" this whole world must enter the human soul through the doors of the senses ", Bonaventure says:
"Yet these activities are vestiges in which we can see our God. For the perceived species is a similitude generated in the medium and then impressed on the organ itself, through this impression it leads us to its starting point, that is to the object to be known. Hence, this process manifestly suggests that the Eternal Light begets of Himself a Likeness or a co-equal, constubstantial, and co-eternal Splendor; that He who is the image of the invisible God and the brightness of his glory and the image of his substance , Who is everywhere by His first generation like an object that generates its similitude in the entire medium, is united by the grace of union to the individual of rational nature as the species is united with the bodily organ, so that through this union He may lead us back to the Father, as to the Fountain-head and Object "(7)
In this formula the explanation of the regular knowledge finds its teleology and transcends the empirical knowledge itself forming the true metaphysics. p> Here the big question: WHY? finally may be answered. The final cause of this kind of knowing finds its explanation, and it is inseparable with the notion of the Eternal Light. p> If, therefore, all knowable things must generate likeness of themselves, they manifestly proclaim that in them, as in mirrors can be seen the eternal generation of the Word, the Image, and the Son, eternally emanating from God the Father (7). br/>
Bonaventure emphasizes this final cause in his theory of knowledge again and again. He follows Aristotelian logic but shows that the philosopher stopped short and never actually became a true metaphysician. That is why he also needs Plato, whom he also attempts t...
