Medieval Philosophy

by Peter S. Adamson

and weaving (§2). Even these arts are a “light” given to us by God, though merely an “external” light, because they involve us with things outside ourselves. Every human enjoys the gift of two further lights within his or her own nature: the “lower” light of sensation and the “inner” light of philosophy. Crowning them all is the light of grace, which offers salvation. But all four lights are given by God (§1). Bonaventure also detects images of the divine within all these arts. When a blacksmith makes a horseshoe, he tries to fashion something that represents as well as possible the idea of a horseshoe in his mind, in an unwitting imitation of God’s creation of things through the divine Word (§12). Even when we look at something, the visual image we receive is a so-called “similitude” begotten by whatever it is we’re seeing, just as God the Son is begotten by God the Father (§8). Parallels of the same sort are discovered in the various philosophical sciences. When he comes to logic, Bonaventure takes his cue from the Aristotelian account of words as representing mental concepts. He points out that linguistic signs make our ideas known in physical form, that is, in the sounds we make when we talk. Just so was the divine made known in the Incarnation (§16).