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Bonaventure on the beatific vision: A response to Hans Boersma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2025

Kaylie Page Open the ORCID record for Kaylie Page [Opens in a new window]
Kaylie Page*
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Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
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Email: kaylie.page@duke.edu
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Abstract

This paper considers Hans Boersma's analysis of Bonaventure's account of the beatific vision in his book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. Boersma disputes Bonaventure's claim in his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum that mystical union with God in this life takes place via the will and not the intellect, arguing that union with God must always produce union of the intellect and will. However, Boersma's consideration of the Itinerarium fails to take into account Bonaventure's other works, particularly his Commentary on the Gospel of John, in which he states that the beatific vision does unify the intellect and will, but that sin's effect on the faculties makes the intellect unable to experience union with God in this life. This closer look at Bonaventure's thought shows that Boersma needs a stronger account of the intellect and will to critique Bonaventure effectively.

Keywords

beatific visionBonaventureHans Boersmaintellectwill

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Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , First View , pp. 1 - 10
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2020), p. 208.

2 Ibid., pp. 17–22, 40–1.

3 Ibid., p. 387.

4 Ibid., p. 207.

5 Ibid., p. 217.

6 Ibid.

7 Michael Root, ‘The Christological Character of the Beatific Vision: Hans Boersma's Seeing God’, The Thomist 84/1 (2020), p. 129n4. Boersma is not alone in eliding the distinction between the contemplative and the eschatological vision in Bonaventure: Christopher Cullen's excellent introduction to Bonaventure ends by describing the divine darkness of intellect and fire of the will in the beatific vision, with the same language he used to describe the Itinerarium's mystical union (see his Bonaventure [Oxford, 2006] pp. 26, 184). More accurate and detailed accounts of Bonaventure's view of the beatific vision can be found in Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique: Des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1995), pp. 197–207.

8 Bonaventure, Breviloquium, vol. 9 of Works of St. Bonaventure, trans. Dominic Monti (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2005), pt. 7, ch. 7, n. 1, pp. 290–91.

9 Boersma, Seeing God, p. 387.

10 Ibid., p. 208.

11 Ibid., p. 218.

12 Robert J. Karris, ‘Introduction’, in Commentary on the Gospel of John, vol. 11 of Works of St. Bonaventure, trans. Robert J. Karris (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2007), p. 21; Cullen, Bonaventure, pp. 11–12.

13 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 4, sec. 68, p. 256.

14 Ibid., ch. 15, sec. 17, p. 768; see also ch. 7, sec. 18, p. 409.

15 Ibid., ch. 6, sec. 79, p. 372; ch. 3, sec. 6, pp. 176–7; ch. 14, sec. 37, p. 746.

16 Ibid., ch. 4, sec. 27, p. 235.

17 Ibid.

18 Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, vol. 2 of Works of St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2002), ch. 7, sec. 4, p. 137.

19 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 17, sec. 43, p. 854.

20 Ibid., ch. 17, sec. 11, p. 833.

21 Boersma, Seeing God, p. 195.

22 Bonaventure posits also an irascible part of the soul in the Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, conf. 8, sec. 5; and the memory as a third part in Breviloquium pt. 7, ch. 7, n. 3; but these do not play a fundamental role in his thought like the will and the intellect do.

23 Bonaventure, Breviloquium, pt. 3, ch. 1, n. 4, p. 101.

24 Ibid., pt. 3, ch. 1, n. 5, p. 104.

25 See Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, vol. 3 of Works of St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2000), qu. 1, art. 2, ad. 1, p. 133; and Bonaventure, Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, vol. 14 of Works of St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2008), conf. 8, sec. 5, p. 165.

26 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 6, sec. 79, p. 372.

27 I wish the virtue of hope had an equal place in this schema, but Bonaventure says very little about hope in the Commentary on John, and he does not connect it to the soul's faculties in a meaningful way.

28 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 8, sec. 18, p. 462.

29 Ibid., ch. 8, sec. 18, p. 462.

30 See Bonaventure, Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, conf. 8, sec. 5, p. 165.

31 Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, qu. 1, art. 2, ad. 1, p. 133.

32 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 6, sec. 105, p. 393.

33 Bonaventure, Itinerarium, ch. 7, sec. 1, p. 131.

34 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 12, sec. 42, p. 667; see also ibid., ch. 11, secs. 56–57, pp. 617–18.

35 Ibid., ch. 2, sec. 13, p. 91; Bonaventure, Itinerarium, ch. 7, sec. 2, p. 135.

36 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 21, sec. 41, p. 1011.

37 Ibid., ch. 21, sec. 43, p. 1013.

38 Ibid., ch. 1, sec. 43, p. 91.

39 Ibid.

40 Bonaventure, Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, conf. 4, sec. 25, p. 104.

41 Boersma, Seeing God, p. 217.

42 Bonaventure, Itinerarium, ch. 7, secs. 1–2, pp. 133, 135.

43 Boersma, Seeing God, p. 208.

44 Ibid., p. 393.

45 Ibid., pp. 393–94.

46 Ibid., p. 218.

47 Some questions remain; for example, if the beatific vision simplifies the division in us between will and intellect, why not also the division between soul and body? Are our faculties altered to share in other divine qualities besides incorruptibility and immortality – perhaps omniscience or omnipresence? I think a structure could be deduced from Boersma's argument that answers some of these questions, but Boersma does not provide that structure himself.

48 Boersma, Seeing God, p. 218.

49 Ibid., p. 13.

50 Bonaventure, Commentary on John, ch. 17, sec. 11, p. 833; see also ch. 1, sec. 43, p. 91; and Bonaventure, Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, conf. 4, sec. 25, p. 104.

51 Boersma, Seeing God, pp. 206–7.

52 Bonaventure, Itinerarium, prol., sec. 2, p. 37; Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, trans. E. Gurney Salter (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1904), ch. 13, sec. 3.

53 Boersma, Seeing God, pp. 189–90.

54 Ibid., p. 190.