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

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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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