Abstract
Summary: 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 (1 Sent., d. 3, p. 1 a.u.). 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 (on the level of participation), is inscribed,
without any confusion, in the complete Reception, which is in the Word, Light from Light, who is God, and who is Son (the eternal, trinitarian plan, is revealed in Revelation, but it is necessary to be able to give their just place to being and to its value, including its noetic value). 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.
Key words: Bonaventure, intellectual illumination, exemplarism, the binomial knowledgelove, the binomial philosophy-Revelation.
Parole chiave: Bonaventura, illuminazione intellettuale, esemplarismo, binomio conoscenza / amore, binomio filosofia / Rivelazione.
