Saturday, February 17, 2024

Bonaventure for Lent IV

 Every creature is either a mere vestige of God -- as is corporeal nature -- or an image of God, as is the intellectual creature. Each of tehse gives witness to the trinity. However, that which is but a vestige does so, as it were, from afar. Every creature has measure, species, and order; or unity, truth, and goodness; or measure, number, and weight, which by appropriation correspond to the trinity of persons and thus give witness to the fact that God is a trinity....

But that creature which is an image -- such as the intellectual creature -- testifies to the threefold character of God, as it were, from near at hand, because an image is an express similitude. The intellectual creature has memory, intelligence, and will; or mind, knowledge, and love; mind like a parent, knowledge like an offspring, and love like a bond proceeding from both and joning them together. For the mind cannot fail to love the word it generates....

[Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity 1.2, Hayes, tr., The Franciscan Institute (St. Bonaventure, NY: 2000) pp. 128-129.]