Peter S. Dillard

I commend this book. By taking a 'mystical' text as his starting point - Bonaventure's summary of the processes of spiritual maturity in 'The Soul's Journey into God' - Peter Dillard avoids the pitfall of reducing Scholastic Theology to an abstract speculative system: instead, it becomes something much more nuanced and flexible, humble and self-correcting. Far from attempting to make definitive claims, it nurtures a ruminative method of reasoning which explores not what is demonstrably true, but, rather, what is credibly possible in the light of 'natural theology' (by the exercise of our unaided reason) working alongside the implications of 'revealed theology' (articulated in the Bible and the Creeds). By this account, Scholasticism is not a system of brittle and disputatious abstraction, but a model of Anselmian 'faith seeking understanding'.
At the heart of Peter Dillard's understanding of Bonaventure's own perception of the Christian faith is the image of the Ark of the Covenant, watched over - contemplated - by two seraphs (Exodus 25.18-20). It is from the space between these two angelic beings that God communicates with Moses, and, by inference with us. This imagery allows Bonaventure to describe the basis our knowledge of God in terms of two epistemic approaches, each watched over by one of the seraphs, namely God's Perfect Being and God's Perfect Goodness. That is to say, Bonaventure proposes a symbolic structure at the heart of our capacity to 'know God' which has both an ontological and an ethical basis - we might almost say that it is moderated by a balance between the theoretical and the practical. In a detailed exposition of the structure of Bonaventure's reasoning, which explores its potential but also critiques its limits, Peter Dillard clarifies the intrinsically Christological nature of Bonaventure's thought, by which Jesus Christ himself is the luminous and radiant revelation to us of the Glory of God. As the one in whom divinity and humanity cohere, he is the means - the lens - through whom the very nature of God becomes comprehensible to the human mind and soul. Here again, the balance and poise which are intrinsic to Scholastic thought are described in terms which make sense in the light of preceding Christian tradition and the heritage of Patristic theology - including that in the Eastern Tradition, with its emphasis on the cooperation of the mind and the heart in their apprehension of the character of God. 'Scholasticism' becomes at least as much about reflective encounter as it is to do with reasoning as such. It invites us into a process of shared consideration of the claims of faith, and not into polarising disputation. It presents faith as a credible and meaningful response to the data available to us, rather than as a system of dogmas which cannot be questioned.
Finally, Peter Dillard likens Bonaventure's vision of God to the effect in us of a gothic cathedral. There are other ways of constructing a building; and the cathedral itself is very different from the kinds of building which we choose to construct today. But we can all see that in its own terms it reflects a coherence and rationality which has the capacity not only to delight the mind, but also to inspire a sense of wonder within the soul. That is exactly how Peter Dillard interprets Scholasticism itself, and I recommend this small but exquisite book as it guides us into Bonaventure's own understanding of the world and our capacity to make sense of it, and his meditation on the world's (and our own) meaning in the light of the luminous Glory of God.… (más)