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Divine Presence In Bonaventure's The Journey of the Mind to God - College Paper

Divine Presence In Bonaventure's The Journey of the Mind to God

Bonaventure proposes that only through divine presence is the human mind capable of understanding the world. His argument, contained within Chapter Three of The Journey of the Mind to God, rests on two fundamental yet fallible presumptions: one, that God exists, and two, that the human mind is dependent on spiritual presence for knowledge, intellect, and understanding. Bonaventure also suggests that it is necessary to define all things as extensions of the divine; every substance or thought arises from a perfect, divine source. Moreover, Bonaventure polarizes the world into the perfect and the imperfect, with God at one end of the spectrum and material reality at the other. This indicates ...

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broken down into its constituent elements; even human consciousness can be reduced to synaptic functioning if one's view is essentially materialistic. Even if divinity underlies all concrete and abstract matters, human knowledge can still progress independently of it. Therefore, while the human intellect is utterly dependent on an increasing generalization of terms, it is not dependent on any real or imaginary spiritual reality.
Correct in asserting that definition is a function of relationship, rather than on absolute truth, Bonaventure proceeds to contradict himself. On the one hand he acknowledges that understanding arises from the ability to arrive at more and more general terms to describe something. Yet on the other hand, the philosopher claims that no definition is possible without arriving at a specific definition of Being. Although "being" can be considered a general state, Bonaventure's notion of "being" is ultimately narrow and specific in nature because it implies the ...

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Divine Presence In Bonaventure's The Journey of the Mind to God. (2016, February 13). Retrieved January 11, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Divine-Presence-Bonaventures-Journey-Mind-God/105429

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 2/13/2016 06:52:40 AM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1231
Pages: 5

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