Benedict and Bonaventure

Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican, has written a helpful essay for ZENIT about Benedict XVI's deep and abiding love for St. Bonaventure, whose understanding of divine revelation and salvation history was the focus of then-Fr. Ratzinger's Habilitationsschrift in the mid 1950s. "In two weeks, on Sept. 6," Moynihan notes, "the Pope will go out of Rome to visit Bagnoreggio and Viterbo. ... Why stop in such a little, seemingly unimportant town? Because St. Bonaventure was born there in 1217.":

Ratzinger received his degree on Feb. 21, 1957, at nearly 30 years of age, but not without controversy.

The academic committee judging his work actually rejected the "critical" part of his thesis, so he was obliged to cut and edit it, and present the "historical" part only, centered on the analysis of the relation between St. Bonaventure and Joachim of Flora.

Ratzinger's professor, Michael Schmaus, thought Ratzinger's interpretation of Bonaventure's concept of revelation showed "a dangerous modernism that had to lead to the subjectivization of the concept of revelation," as Ratzinger himself recalls in his autobiography, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977. (Ratzinger felt, and still feels, that Schmaus's criticisms were not valid.)

What was it that Ratzinger found in Bonaventure that aroused such controversy?

For Ratzinger, Bonaventure's concept of revelation did not mean what it does for us today, that is, "all the revealed contents of the faith."

In Ratzinger's view, for Bonaventure, "revelation" always connoted the idea of action -- that is, revelation means the act by which God reveals himself, and not simply the result of this act.

Why is this important?

Ratzinger wrote in Milestones: "Because this is so, the concept of 'revelation' always implies a receiving subject: where there is no one to perceive 'revelation,' no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. By definition, revelation requires a someone who apprehends it."

And why does this matter?

"These insights," Ratzinger continued, "gained through my reading of Bonaventure, were later on very important for me at the time of the conciliar discussion on revelation, Scripture, and tradition. Because, if Bonaventure is right, then revelation precedes Scripture and becomes deposited in Scripture but is not simply identical with it. This in turn means that revelation is always something greater than what is merely written down. And this again means that there can be no such thing as pure sola scriptura ["by Scripture alone"], because an essential element of Scripture is the Church as understanding subject, and with this the fundamental sense of tradition is already given."

Read the entire piece.

The full account of Fr. Ratzinger's difficulty with the Habilitationsschrift (or habilitation) is found in chapter 8 of Milestones (pp. 103-114). The thesis is titled Theology of History in Bonaventure, and is also available from Ignatius Press. Fr. Maximilian Heinrich Heim, in Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology (Ignatius Press, 2007), discusses the significance of Ratzinger's research and thesis in his subsequent writings on ecclesiology and other theological matters in his biographical sketch of Ratzinger (pp. 160-63).

• Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Benedict XVI's Theological Vision: An Introduction | Monsignor Joseph Murphy | From the introduction to Christ, Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI
• Pope Benedict XVI, Theologian of Joy | Monsignor Joseph Murphy | An interview with the author of Christ, Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI
• Spe Salvi and Vatican II | Brian A. Graebe
• Vatican II and the Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger | Maximilian Heinrich Heim | Introduction to Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology.
• The Courage To Be Imperfect | Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D. | The Introduction to Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age
• The Theological Genius of Joseph Ratzinger | An Interview with Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.

Comments

[Rich Leonardi]

In Ratzinger's view, for Bonaventure, "revelation" always connoted the idea of action -- that is, revelation means the act by which God reveals himself, and not simply the result of this act.

Then I suppose I'm guilty of the same modernism, since that's how I described revelation during last Friday's segment on Dei Verbum for the Son Rise Morning Show. (We're in the midst of a new series called "Council of Continuity," in which we review the documents of Vatican II through the "hermeneutic of continuity.") In fact Dei Verbum itself is similarly "guilty," as it traces revelation through the action-oriented prism of salvation history. That said, I can see why this concept made -- and makes -- people nervous. If revelation requires a receiving agent, then there is a temptation to "relativize" it to that receiver.