St Bonaventure's Reticence

There are a number of reasons I prefer St Bonaventure to St Thomas. I think his metaphysics has distinct advantages. Unlike St Thomas he really is a spiritual master. He doesn't tend to rely on the "latest scientific research" the way Thomas does--we all know how that turns out. His Breviloquium and Itinerarium are original and excellent compressions of his thought which are not merely summaries of summaries; he's not constantly suck in disputatio mode. But his most endearing characteristic is his humility, his willingness to admit that a question is hard and he just doesn't know the answer, or even whether it's decidable. Consider the following passage from In Lib. IV Sententiarum Dist. XIII Art. I Q. III:

Quae autem harum opinionum verior sit, difficile est diiudicare et difficiulius videtur aliquam harum improbare . . . Quis autem audeat arguere, si amplius non vult asserere, cum nec fides cogat nec auctoritas compellat amplius dicere, maxime adhuc perspecta, quae non possit satis exponi hoc modo sine sensus distorsione? Et ideo, quia magis est sobria et magis intellectui consona, potest cui placet huic positioni satis adhaerere secure.

But which of these opinions is the truer is difficult to decide, and it seems even more difficult to disprove either of them . . . But who would dare to argue, if one doesn't want to assert further, since neither faith demands nor authority compels to say anything more, especially when one observes that nothing more can be expounded in this fashion with distorting the sense [of the question]? And therefore, since this is more sober and more agreeable to the mind, one can safely stick to whichever of these positions pleases him.

It doesn't matter much what the subject in question is; the point is that St Bonaventure talks like this often while St Thomas rarely does.

Phillip the Chancellor on Augustine and the Divine Ideas

Summa de bono, q.5 (ed. Wicki p.56):

"De ydeis autem queritur propter quoddam verbum Augustini in XLIII questione libri De LXXXIII questionibus ubi dicit: "rationes vel ydee que eterne sunt et incommutabiles, quarum participatione fit ut sit quicquid est, quoquo modo est, absit ut ponantur nisi in Deo et ut a rebus ipsis accipiantur." Ex quo videtur quod multe sunt ydee, cum multitudo sit ydeatorum.

Quod autem non sit multitudo ydearum, sumitur ex hoc quod omnimoda simplicitas est in ipso secundum essentiam. Esse vero ydeam est dictum secundum, licet approprietur Filio. Ergo omnimoda simplicitas erit ydee, quoed concedendum; se ipso enim omnia cognoscit. Multitudo autem in intentione nominis non est nisi propter multitudinem ydeatorum in suo esse. Et non est simile de exemplaribus que accipiuntur a rebus; illa enim numerantur secundum res."

Glossa ordinaria online!

I'm a bit late in the game, but here it is, in 6 pdf files.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=glossa%20ordinaria%20AND%20collection:toronto

An Epitaph for Antonius Andreae

From S. Garcia Navarro, "Antonio de Andres (S. XIV). Estudio bibliografico-critico", 100:

Certa manent firmo magna praeconia laudi
nec minus ingenio lucide docte tuo
Qui prior antonii coelestia scripta polisti
Andreae quem mox scotistica turba collit
Tantum docta cohors debet tibi lucide quantum
Utile divinum saeculi existat opus.

by "Bernardinus"

An Argument for the Necessity of Studying Medieval Philosophy

J. Hoffman and G.S. Rosenkrantz, The Divine Attributes, p. 14-15 (italics and bold are theirs):

"Generally speaking, if a being has a certain degree of greatness, then that degree of greatness must be assessed relative to a particular category to which that being belongs. More specifically, the degree of greatness of a being, x, of a category, C, is determined by the extent to which x has the great-making qualities relevant for a being of category C. Great-making qualities typically vary from one category to another, and are a function of the nature of the category in question. [an example follows]

[...]

...in conceiving of God as a maximally great being, traditional Western theism makes the value judgment that a certain set of qualities is relevant for assessing the greatness of such a being. This form of theism implies that God is a maximally great substance, rather than a maximally great time, place, event, boundary, collection number, property, relation or proposition. Yet, it seems that traditional Western theism is also commitedto the idea that God is a maximally great entity, or being of any sort whatsoever, and hence to the idea that a maximally great substance is a greater entity than any possible insubstantial entity. This commitment reflects the influence of Aristotle (384-322 BC). Specifically, in his Categories Aristotle held that individual substances are the primary entities, and that entities of the other categories are dependent upon individual substances. Hence, if the aforementioned conception of God is intelligible, then a being's degree of greatness may be assessed relative to the category of Entity. It can be plausibly argued that Entity is a category on the ground that Entity is the summum genus, or most general kind, of all categories. Accordingly, the subdivisions of Entity include the categories of Concrete Entity and Abstract Entity; the subdivisions of Concrete Entity are categories such as Substance, Place, Time, Event, and Boundary; and the subdivisions of Abstract Entity are categories such as Set, Number, Property, Relation, and Proposition. Given such a taxonomy of categories, it seems that Entity qualifies as the limiting case of a category, since it is a category which applies universally."

Augustine on the Divine Ideas

From Augustines' 83 questions, which I lifted from the "Documenta catholica omnia" website (I don't know the edition).

46. - De ideis

1. Ideas Plato primus appellasse perhibetur. Non tamen si hoc nomen antequam ipse institueret non erat, ideo vel res ipsae non erant, quas ideas vocavit, vel a nullo erant intellectae; sed alio fortassis atque alio nomine ab aliis atque aliis nuncupatae sunt; licet enim cuique rei cognitae, quae nullum habeat usitatum nomen, quodlibet nomen imponere. Nam non est verisimile sapientes aut nullos fuisse ante Platonem aut istas quas Plato, ut dictum est, ideas vocat, quaecumque res sint, non intellexisse, siquidem tanta in eis vis constituitur ut nisi his intellectis sapiens esse nemo possit. Credibile est etiam praeter Graeciam fuisse in aliis Gentibus sapientes, quod etiam Plato ipse non solum peregrinando sapientiae perficiendae causa satis testatur, sed etiam in libris suis commemorat. Hos ergo, si qui fuerunt, non existimandum est ideas ignorasse, quamvis eas alio fortasse nomine vocitaverint. Sed de nomine hactenus dictum sit. Rem videamus, quae maxime consideranda atque noscenda est, in potestate constitutis vocabulis, ut quod volet quisque appellet rem quam cognoverit.

2. Ideas igitur latine possumus vel formas vel species dicere, ut verbum e verbo transferre videamur. Si autem rationes eas vocemus, ab interpretandi quidem proprietate discedimus; rationes enim Graece appellantur non ideae: sed tamen quisquis hoc vocabulo uti voluerit, a re ipsa non abhorrebit. Sunt namque ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quae ipsae formatae non sunt ac per hoc aeternae ac semper eodem modo sese habentes, quae divina intellegentia continentur. Et cum ipsae neque oriantur neque intereant, secundum eas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interire potest et omne quod oritur et interit. Anima vero negatur eas intueri posse nisi rationalis, ea sui parte qua excellit, id est, ipsa mente atque ratione, quasi quadam facie vel oculo suo interiore atque intellegibili. Et ea quidem ipsa rationalis anima non omnis et quaelibet, sed quae sancta et pura fuerit, haec asseritur illi visioni esse idonea, id est, quae illum ipsum oculum, quo videntur ista, sanum et sincerum et serenum et similem his rebus, quas videre intendit, habuerit. Quis autem religiosus et vera religione imbutus, quamvis nondum haec possit intueri, negare tamen audeat, immo non etiam profiteatur, omnia quae sunt, id est, quaecumque in suo genere propria quadam natura continentur ut sint, auctore Deo esse procreata, eoque auctore omnia quae vivunt vivere, atque universalem rerum incolumitatem ordinemque ipsum, quo ea quae mutantur suos temporales cursus certo moderamine celebrant, summi Dei legibus contineri et gubernari? Quo constituto atque concesso, quis audeat dicere Deum irrationabiliter omnia condidisse? Quod si recte dici vel credi non potest, restat ut omnia ratione sint condita, nec eadem ratione homo qua equus; hoc enim absurdum est existimare. Singula igitur propriis sunt creata rationibus. Has autem rationes ubi esse arbitrandum est nisi in ipsa mente Creatoris? Non enim extra se quidquam positum intuebatur, ut secundum id constitueret quod constituebat; nam hoc opinari sacrilegum est. Quod si hae rerum omnium creandarum creatarumve rationes divina mente continentur, neque in divina mente quidquam nisi aeternum atque incommutabile potest esse, atque has rationes rerum principales appellat ideas Plato, non solum sunt ideae, sed ipsae verae sunt, quia aeternae sunt et eiusdem modi atque incommutabiles manent. Quarum participatione fit ut sit quidquid est, quoquo modo est. Sed anima rationalis inter eas res, quae sunt a Deo conditae, omnia superat et Deo proxima est, quando pura est; eique in quantum caritate cohaeserit, in tantum ab eo lumine illo intellegibili perfusa quodammodo et illustrata cernit non per corporeos oculos, sed per ipsius sui principale quo excellit, id est, per intellegentiam suam, istas rationes, quarum visione fit beatissima. Quas rationes, ut dictum est, sive ideas sive formas sive species sive rationes licet vocare, et multis conceditur appellare quod libet, sed paucissimis videre quod verum est.

Comment: This is germane to debates with the EP (energetic procession) crowd, as the ultimate root of their disagreement and scorn of Augustine seems to be that he has been corrupted by "platonism" at least on the issue of divine simplicty. However, he does something no platonist would do, in placing the divine ideas in the divine mind. For the likes of Proclus and Plotinus, there is no divine mind in the One, no thought or awareness of any kind on the part of the One. Plotinus after all is famous for criticizing Aristotle's notion of the prime mover as thought thinking itself because it introduces the duality of subject and object into the One, something Plotinus thought incompatible with divine simplicity. So, although Augustine does indeed hold to divine simplicity (and I can only construe EP rejection of divine simplicity to mean that God is a composite of essence and energy found in a potency-act relationship), it is not the bald-faced uncritical adoption of platonism that they would have us believe and in the end probably not so unlike the whole-scale adoption of Proclus undertaken by the pseudo-Dionysius.

A Well-Known Latin Distich

Bernardus valles, montes Benedictus amabat,
oppida Franciscus, celebres Dominicus urbes

Quoted in Francesc Eiximenis: An Anthology, p.8

Aertsen on Unitive Containment

From "Being and One: the Doctrine of the Convertible Transcendentals in Duns Scotus", in John Duns Scotus (1265/6-1308) Renewal of Philosophy, 25-6:

"The notion of 'unitive containment' expresses a real identity and a real difference of a specific nature that deserves further attention. Scotus traces the origin of the notion to Dionysius the Areopagite's work De divinis nominibus. The passage he has in mind is chapter 5, where it is said that 'in the divine goodness are being itself, the principles of beings, all beings and whatever contains being (esse continentia); and they are in it in an irrepressible, comprehensive and unitive way (unitive). Dionysius wants to make clear that all beings are in God, not, however, as they are in created things, where they possess diversity and plurality, but unitively. From the Dionysian idea Scotus framed the notion of 'unitive containment'. He employs it in the discussion of the question concerning the relation between God and his many attributes, but also applies it to other problems. One of these is the relation betwen being and the convertible transcendentals.

Scotus elaborates the concept of 'unitive containment' in several passages of his work. What is unitively contained are not perfections that are altogether identical, for those are not united but are one. Union presupposes some distinction. Neither are perfections unitively contained that are really distinct in the sense that they are different res, because those are contained mulipliciter or dispersim. The distinction presupposed by unitive containment is, as we have seen, 'a minor real difference,' that is a difference not constituted by the intellect. Elsewhere Scotus calls this difference a 'formal' distinction, because it exists between different formalitates or realititates, which are not things but quiddities independent of the intellect. Thus the model of 'unitive containment' connects a real identity with a formal non-identity. These two features hold for the relation between being and the convertible transcendentals. Scotus's answer to the question whether the transcendental one expresses some other res than being is thus affirmative, provided that 'thing' is understood in the sense of realitas or formalitas."