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Comparing St. Bonaventure and Descartes - School Essays

Comparing St. Bonaventure and Descartes

Perhaps the most significant area of agreement between St. Bonaventure and Renee Descartes is that there is a supreme being, God. Beyond that point, for the most part, their beliefs about where God is to be found and what constitutes, in fact, proof that there is a good begin to diverge.
Even though Bonaventure was by far the earlier thinker, his concepts are much more complex and involved than those of Descartes. Perhaps this is because he was closer, in time, to the great Greek thinkers who influenced early (and even modern) philosophy, Bonaventure found that he had to find some way to blend their teachings with the more metaphysical teaching of the Church.
Bonaventure, therefore, ...

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to build a logical reason for the behavior of the natural world that he observed, Bonaventure could arrive at no acceptable logical explanation of the variety of the natural world, and therefore arrived at a notion that it is impossible for an eternal material world to exist. From there, he made the leap to this idea: since there is no possibility of eternality in a material world that is in constant flux and even experienced destruction (not to mention birth), then everything must proceed not from some logical, explainable base, but rather from a prime creator, God. In short, what Bonaventure observed led him in the direction of Creation as the explanation of all that can be observed. The next 'logical' step, then, is to propose that a Creator is also responsible for everything one cannot see-the mind, the soul and so on. (Bonaventure Web page)
Descartes derived almost polar opposite conclusions based on his observation of the world. Of course, Descartes was living in a much ...

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Added: 4/18/2016 03:57:52 AM
Category: Philosophy
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1045
Pages: 4

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