Episode 104: Interview with Dr. Benjamin Winter

Dr. Wittman studies the doctrine of God and teaches at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. We discuss Baptists in theology, the role of theology in seminary education, and how to choose a college. Dr. Wittman's first book was published with Cambridge University Press, God and Creation in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, published with Cambridge University Press in 2018.

Timestamps:

5:30- Introduction to Bonaventure

17:31- Collations

24:21- The Faith and Reason Problem

39:57- Contemplation and Action

50:19- The Transcendentals

Episode Transcription

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello and welcome to a history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week will be my friend and former colleague at St. Louis University, Dr. Benjamin winter. Dr. Winter is a professor at the divine word College in Dubuque, Iowa. And he and I talk about St. Bonaventure, the seraphic doctor, a Franciscan monk from the 13th century, who was active about the same time as Thomas Aquinas. So I hope you enjoy that conversation. We talk about faith and reason we talk about humility, and intellectual pursuits. And it was a very enjoyable conversation with a friend of mine. So I hope that you will enjoy that as well. Looking forward, we do have episodes that we'll be recording with Dr. Hans Bergsma, who's out now at the Nash itoa house in Wisconsin, and he wrote a book called seeing God, it's about the beatific vision in Christian thought, and very excited about that conversation, it'll give a different sort of side of the position that we talked about with Dr. Philip carry on hearing in the Gospel. I'm also looking forward to an interview that I'll be doing with Dr. Michael McClymont. Dr. McClymont, wrote a work on universal salvation, and where it's sort of roots lie in early Gnostic and Christian texts, and how it has continued to be interest to theologians throughout the ages. And ultimately, Dr. McClymont thinks that it is not part of the sort of traditional orthodox position, Orthodox Christian position, but we will go into that, why he thinks that that's not the case and how prevalent this doctrine was throughout the ages. So I hope you'll look forward to that conversation with me. Both of those will be recorded in the next several weeks. And hopefully, I'll get to talk with Tom and Trevor as well. Thank you for listening. And if you do have any questions, please forward them along. I do. I did receive a question this week from a fella by the name of Richard Ellis. And he asked me some questions about Agustin and why Agustin seems to indicate that one needed to read Scripture once they had perfected the virtues of faith, hope and love. So I gave him a bit of an answer on there. But I will just say briefly in response to Richard Ellis on here, that I think that Augustine says this, because he thinks that that is ultimately what we are trying to do. we're ultimately trying to achieve these theological virtues as Christians, but I don't believe that Augustine would have thought that any of us could actually get there, this side of eternity. But, yeah, but anyway, that's probably what he was talking about there. But if you have other questions, please forward them along, I enjoy engaging with my listeners, and trying to get a sense of where you all are coming from. So I appreciate it. Please like us on iTunes, Facebook, and all these different things. You know, your your reviews are helpful, and we appreciate it. So thanks for listening. Without further ado, Dr. Ben winter, and we will see you next time. Well, so this week, I'm interviewing Dr. Ben winter. And Dr. Winter is Assistant Professor of Theology at divine word College, which I believe is in Iowa, although I can't remember

Benjamin Winter 3:22

Dubuque, Dubuque, Northeastern Iowa, a little slice of paradise up here.

Charles Kim 3:28

And Ben is also the editor in chief of conciliar, post a online website that seeks to bring in sort of an ecumenical website voices from throughout Christendom, or sort of the broader Christian life, I guess, people from different denominations and volunteerism and orthodoxy, and I've actually contributed a few pieces there. So,

Benjamin Winter 3:55

back as I think 2015 was maybe the first time that you started writing for us. Yeah. Wait,

Charles Kim 4:00

wait, wait back while I was. Well, well, and that also brings us to how I know. Dr. Winter, Ben. I know Ben because he and I both well, actually. Well, we both studied at St. Louis University together. Together at Ben is actually closer to my brother's age. Kind of funny. But, but Ben and I have kind of known, known each other known about each other for quite a long time. And so it's fun to have him on the podcast because he wrote his dissertation on someone that I don't know that we've ever mentioned Bonaventure, his name in five years in this podcast, which I'm sure is a pox on us. And a problem that I am rectifying today. He wrote his dissertation, called renewing disciplines of the mind that philosophical errors, virtue and the souls journey to wisdom and vision one of Bono ventures culottes, neonates and hexane marohn. So it's short title Unlike most dissertations,

Benjamin Winter 5:01

it's not going to be the final title. I hope I would like to transform that title into something a little bit more playful and thinking, a hex on the philosophers faith and reason in Bonaventure's Unfinished Master Work. Whoa, there we go. I like your title, because the abbreviation for this long text is texts. And it works very well with the question that he's answering in vision one, which is how should we engage with philosophical truth?

Charles Kim 5:30

Okay, so I mean, one of the so this dissertation this work actually, although it's very, it's an understudied elements of bonnet ventures, Oprah, but it, it actually touches on a lot of really significant themes. When people think about the the medieval period, the Middle Ages, one often thinks about the debates over faith and reason. One thing that I want to get to are the transcendentals. So for my many of my listeners come from a classical Christian school background, so many of us are familiar with the true good and the beautiful, but Bonaventure speaks most frequently about the one the true and the good. And so there's, there's even a little bit of, he has some things to say about these, so called transcendentals, what they are, what role they play. So we'll get into some of that later and says a little teaser there. But as I said, we have not mentioned Bonaventure on this podcast, in part because we've been going for five or six years now, I guess. And we haven't made it out of the fourth century. So but, but part of the fun about these interviews has been bringing in other voices who are significant in the tradition. So Bonaventure is a 13th century theologian, Franciscan, but other than that, what what Ben what what do what should Christians know? So my, my podcast is a little bit like conciliar post, I have people from who are Catholic, Orthodox Protestant, you know, probably predominantly Protestant, and I had never heard of Bonaventure myself probably before my PhD program. Maybe I didn't, my masters I don't remember but but yeah, so we don't know bone adventure. So what do we need to know about Bonaventure?

Benjamin Winter 7:16

I think you'll get your fill today. Hopefully it should carry you over for a while, but Bonaventure was a leader in the church during the 13th century, he was an intellectual luminary, quite on the level of St. Thomas Aquinas, although certainly not quite as popular as his angelic counterpart. He is known as the seraphic doctor, which is always a little bit of a one up that US Bonaventure, folks like to maybe rub in the face of the Aquinas people, perhaps a bit too much, but he's known as the seraphic doctor, because he reflected on a vision that St. Francis received. St. Francis famously spent a lot of time in prayer was very deeply connected to Christ, and Francis received a vision of Christ crucified, but it was sort of trans mutated or it was placed atop of a six winged saref. And Francis never really wrote too much about that vision. Bonaventure sort of picked up the mantle of many of the interesting experiences and insights that Francis had, and Bonaventure brought them into the academy. He himself Bonaventure was the seventh Minister General of the Franciscan order. So that's the seventh person to lead that group of men who are trying to rebuild the church, trying to embrace humility and poverty. But he did so in a way that also was respectful toward knowledge, and valuing of the classroom experience. When you think of St. Francis, you don't think of the classroom you think of the birds and the squirrels and brother, son and write for death. And that's what's attracted me to Bonaventure is just how he is living example of someone who seeks to balance out contemplation and action. He is both, as you mentioned before, a teacher and he is a minister. So maybe that's kind of all over the place. But that's sort of, I guess, some of the things that one would need to know about Bonaventure, very influential theologian, teacher, leader of the Franciscan Order and a mystic who was also highly educated in the University of Paris.

Charles Kim 9:46

Okay. Yeah, very good. So I mean, again, I'll go real simple here. Many of us have probably heard of St. Thomas, or excuse me, St. Francis of Assisi. And it you know, one thing I live in a very In Catholic area of St. Louis, as most are, and you can walk down the street and see in people's back gardens, often little statues of Francis or Mary Francis is often in the garden, maybe with a bird or something like that. So that's it. And so, Bonaventure is in that same order. And one of the most important features of our sort of like, Arizona store, go ahead.

Benjamin Winter 10:28

I thought you were like the charism of the order. Go ahead, though. Sorry. Oh, yeah, the charism of the order. Yeah, go for it. Oh, I just was anticipating that you were gonna say what does it mean to be a Franciscan? Right? I mean, as a Protestant I didn't know Franciscans existed. But you see him walking around in brown robes. And yeah, one of the care isms of the order is is care for creation, the current Roman Pope, namesake, the first one to take Francis as as his, as his namesake. He himself is Jesuit, though. So that's a whole separate can of worms. But yeah, that's just to briefly say that the defining characteristic or charism, or gift of the Franciscan Order is is care for creation and a lowercase s sacramental worldview that that seeks to find God in and through all things. But go ahead.

Charles Kim 11:18

No, that's great. And so what we have in Bonaventure is someone who sort of comes out of that order. But the the sort of the thing that rocked the world of the 13th century, or the translations of, of Aristotle into Latin, so they're coming, looks like they're coming from several different places. In some cases, they're coming from Spain, but often through Arabic, but then maybe some that were coming from Greek, straight into Latin, with some connections to the Byzantine Empire. So the 13th century is awash with conversations about, you know, how to interpret Aristotle, how does Aristotle fit into the sort of, we could call it the medieval syllabus, so there was only so much Aristotle that was even read, previous to the 13th century. So you know, for in large part, the, there's about eight or nine, or seven or eight centuries where a lot of literature and learning was sort of cut off because of the Roman Empire being split. And, you know, the technically I guess the Roman Empire exists up into the 15th century. In Byzantium, they call themselves Romeo, Roy. But, but nevertheless, in the in the West, and in the Latin speaking worlds. There's, there's this big break, and so eras Aristotle has not read. There's not a lot of translations, but so he comes in and is embraced by some and then that's that's actually where a lot of Ben's work comes in. To what extent is should the Franciscans Should Christians, people are being educated, I guess, in Paris? To what extent should they read philosophy? What is it helpful? And maybe should we pump the brakes on it some is that right? Yeah. What

Benjamin Winter 13:00

are the limits of philosophy? Your listeners may be familiar with the old, what has Jerusalem to do with Athens or vice versa? This is

Charles Kim 13:10

we did, you could check out our podcast on Tertullian.

Benjamin Winter 13:13

There you go. There you go. So the same debate continues. I'll be it through a slightly new lens. People were asking what has a cc you know, the home home of Francis, what has the CC to do with Paris? Okay. That's an interesting question. So there was a lot of change going on. As you mentioned, there is all this new knowledge flowing in and one of the most evocative passages in Bonaventure is corpus is when he slips into the first person. I have not seen another example of this, and I've read a lot of Bonaventure, Bonaventure slips into the first person. He says, When I first heard that Aristotle taught that the world was eternal, and I saw the reasons and arguments for this, my heart began to be troubled. And I wondered to myself, How can this be? And it's just that attracted me. I remember reading that back during my master's program at Villanova. And just thinking, wow, I can relate to this as a graduate student encountering some new knowledge that is still very much in flux. There's all sorts of things that we are challenged when we study any subject that just totally throw us off and disorient us and I could really relate to that. And I thought, wow, I want to imitate someone like Bonaventure who didn't just dismiss it, but he spent really the rest of his career trying to learn how to engage with these new philosophical and scientific ideas and then hear at the end of his life because this is the last thing he did the coalition's and Xand marohn. He is trying to diffuse some of that wisdom to a group of Franciscans who are as I described in the in the book, The 1%. Who are going to I know you made a joke about that, but they're the people who are going to go back and teach other Franciscans and Bonaventure is trying to impart his way of balancing faith and reason to them.

Charles Kim 15:06

Okay. Very good. Very good. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's sort of funny to think about Aristotle as being kind of knowledge cutting edge.

Benjamin Winter 15:21

As you said, though, it was just largely lost for centuries upon centuries. And there were many mistakes as well, where Neoplatonic writings were assumed to be written by Aristotle, such as the book of causes, and you know, there was just a huge mess. And we can think people like Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, you know, all these folks were really on the front lines before the infamous condemnations of 1277, which was a real turning point in the history of the church's relationship to science. As many of your listeners have heard, those condemnations were I think there were almost 300 of them. And it was a sort of a banhammer, if you will, where the church said, here are a bunch of propositions that you cannot teach, and you cannot believe these things. And actually, some of the things Aquinas taught were in there. And one of the goals of my dissertation is to extract Bonaventure from this narrative of him as a regressive, conservative, Augustinian as

Charles Kim 16:26

Sure. As Augustinians on this podcast, I just need to throw that out there.

Benjamin Winter 16:29

Yeah, I guess that's fair. Yeah. squarely Augustinian in many ways, but that doesn't mean he's regressive. Right. I think you would agree with that Augustine is not a regressive or reactionary thinker who wants to close in and, you know, so anyway, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here. But that was one of the aims of the original dissertation was to extract Bonaventure from the largely negative narrative where he is portrayed as someone who is anti philosophical because of some of his sharp rhetoric in this final book, but I'm kind of arguing that that is taken out of context by people who don't read the whole thing.

Charles Kim 17:07

So yeah, well, no, I was making the joke that I mean, if anything, this is a terribly, this is an extremely Augustinian podcast. That's if we, we talked about Agustin way more than anyone else.

Benjamin Winter 17:19

I'll be right at home then.

Charles Kim 17:20

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, I think we spent like nine months on the confession. So

Benjamin Winter 17:25

that's a good amount of time. You spend at least a couple on on the book on time.

Charles Kim 17:31

Yeah. Well, we did. We did a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I've written some on it. And yeah, yeah. Anyway, well, let's let's get into the dissertation a little bit. I wanted to read some stuff from Bonaventure himself. And this seems to be maybe a pretty well, actually, before I even read this quote, actually, I'm gonna read the quote, and then I'm going to have you explain what we're reading. Well, let's let's do the quote then you tell us like what are the collations in hex Samara and why is that the title? And but this quote really encapsulates in my mind, a lot of what you were trying to elucidate for us from from Bonaventure, so this comes from hex three two. Therefore, the key to contemplation is a triple understanding, namely, understanding of the uncreated Word, through whom all things are made the Incarnate Word through whom all things are repaired, and the understanding of the inspired Word through whom all things are revealed for unless a person can consider these things, how they are originated, how they are reducted how they're led back to the end, and how God is reflected in them one cannot have understanding. So that seems to be a key passage for you and a key part of these coalition's so why don't you tell us a little bit what are the collations? And then maybe why is this quote important?

Benjamin Winter 18:55

Certainly, you picked one of the one of the best possible quotes there, but it's also a mouthful, so it's not gonna be easy to unpack all of it. But first, yeah, fair enough. Well, you have to read on stage. No, it's great. But the first I guess the genre of coalition's it's kind of a hybrid between a disputation in a sermon. It's a scholastic sermon. And it was a developing form that was popular during Bonaventura era. And oftentimes, these little talks, I guess, is what we would describe them as they're also known as conferences, because comes from confrere, bringing people brothers together, he would get together with a group of brothers and would give a speech to them. But it was also liturgically grounded. So in the first three conferences, which you just read from conference number three, Bonaventure reflects on Scriptural passages that he derives from the church calendar because As many of these were given during the Lenten season, so he would often give a morning talk and an evening talk. And so just as a practical note, for example, conference number one, it's divided into two in the manuscript tradition, and the first half of that was delivered during the morning, the second half of it was delivered in the evening. So it was kind of a way for the brothers to start and end their day. With the wisdom of Bonaventure, he is trying, like I mentioned before, to give them a roadmap to help explain what they're doing in the academy. And ultimately, why they're charism as Franciscans involves doing what that quote says, which is looking at all created things through this lens of beginning, middle, and end in God, all of that, of course, through through Christ, who is the mediator or the exemplar of truth? Uh huh. Very good. Very good.

Charles Kim 20:59

Yeah. So I mean, it is sort of one of the interesting things about reading through your dissertation. You, you kind of you recognize that but for Bonaventure, like, you know, it really encapsulates all of the Christian life in terms of there's some mystical contemplation, so sort of communion with God, there's intellectual pursuit, understanding the place of Aristotle and the things that, you know, I mean, Bonaventure is, is what welcomes things that he can learn from Aristotle, but also you are quick to point out, especially in chapter six, but maybe towards the end of the dissertation, the sort of the action that proceeds from all of this. And typically, I guess it sort of contemplates CO at Axio or something. But in some respects, we could also, you know, we could think about almost three different things, sort of philosophical investigation as maybe another one, but it seems like for Bonaventure, that's really subsumed in contemplation. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, so Bonaventure, kind of has a lot to teach us in every aspect of life is, you know, I'm sure you're not going to disagree with that. But

Benjamin Winter 22:09

I think Bonaventure would look down upon me with disfavor. He is my patron saint. When I became Catholic, I took his name, so

Charles Kim 22:17

he's no disfavor.

Benjamin Winter 22:21

No, let's not get into the chat. And I've had conversations before about St. Louis intercession and things like that. But no, I think one of the things that drew me into this topic was just little notes that Bonaventure makes early on in this book about the connection between metaphysics and morality. So that's, that's kind of a theme that you were just touching on right there. Because really, what was happening in in the academy at the time was that there were a bunch of people like CJ of Bravo, and a couple of others who were kind of stepping out of the traditional bounds of what the disciplines were, were perceived to do, sort of remaining as masters of philosophy rather than advancing into law or medicine or theology. And that is sort of what led eventually to those condemnations that I mentioned earlier was just sort of this idea is philosophy, its own autonomous discipline that does not need any relationship to faith. And some scholars have even called this the birth of the modern mind after the hack to the condemnations of 1277. I think that's a little bit myopic. And, you know, those sorts of broad brush paintings of the past are often anachronistic. But there is something that changed right around this time when there was so much new knowledge coming in. It's kind of like, reminding me of the reaction to the theory of evolution, and how we're still sort of dealing with well, how much should Christians embrace this? And is there a way to live in this tension where there's certain principles of natural knowledge that seem directly opposed to theological truth? I mean, that's what captivated me about Bonaventure, his approach because he didn't just stay on the intellectual level. He brought it all back to how we live life, and what kind of attitude we should have toward God and toward toward our fellow man. So.

Charles Kim 24:21

So what is the so what is the Bonaventure solution to the reason and Revelation problem or the faith and reason problem? How does he How does he think that that's solved?

Benjamin Winter 24:33

Yeah. Oh, man, I think easy.

Charles Kim 24:37

For us, it's an easy question. Come on course.

Benjamin Winter 24:43

Why are we even here? I mean, yeah, it's already all been solved for us. Why are we even talking right now? I think this is a valiant effort, his his final set of work here which by the way, it is unfinished. He only made it through four out of the seven days of creation that was put Alysha something I should have mentioned before is that technically, he's doing a commentary on the seven days of creation. But there's not very much in it that actually relates to that he's he's, he's more or less, framing his insights about the state of the academy, at least in this first vision that I studied. He's using Genesis as a way in is using that to provide some structure to his treatment of the relationship between faith and reason. Now, he doesn't have any ready made solution for this. He does not want to go too far in either direction. And it's important that on the one hand, he does not name or call out any philosophers that he disagrees with. He was a very powerful person at this point in his life. This is the zenith of his career directly after he delivered the these coalition's he actually went and represented the Catholic Church at the second, I think, is the second Council of Leona's, it was the council where the East and the West were actually rectified on paper. Aquinas was there as well. Anyhow, that's just to say that Bonaventure was a very influential person at this time. And I find it striking that he does not actually call out or rule out the type of philosophical work that's being done in in the arts faculty at the University of Paris, he is very positive about Aristotle, and I go to great lengths in the dissertation to show just how much he relies on Aristotle, it's something like 75% of the times he mentions Aristotle, it's a net positive. And at the same time, though, you know, he's, on the other hand, encouraging the pursuit of wisdom. And he's recognizing that when we're looking for knowledge, we are not ultimately ending in the things themselves. He's very Augustinian in that sense, I'm sure your readers know of the 80 freeway distinction, right earthly things, we should use them, we should not delight in them. And so he has this concern that as more and more philosophical, scientific or natural philosophy, as more and more of that knowledge is spread. There is a growing arrogance that he detects. And he's very worried that it's going to puff people up, and make them think that any question can be answered without resort to mystery, and ultimately, to sacramental reality where signs convey the truth about God, but they don't contain the entire truth. There's, there's always got to be that standing of the creature before the divine ineffable depth. So he or he remains a good a good mystic in that way. It's kind of all over the place, but go ahead. Yeah, what's your what? You

Charles Kim 27:50

know, it's great. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that you highlight in there, there's just, there's just so much it's a it's a, it's a rich text. And there's so much that we haven't explored in the podcasts in the past. And really, in some respects, you know, I haven't explored either. So that's, you know, one of the things I wanted to learn from you, in this in this podcast, it's, it feels there's like, a very rich soil, right, whatever the metaphor,

Benjamin Winter 28:20

certainly or rich fleshpots. You could even say, a dainty fleshpots of Egypt that we need to plunder. Yeah. Well, there

Charles Kim 28:26

you go there. Yeah. Well, so what are the I mean, one of the things that this is that this, that this, these correlations were meant to refute. Were the three errors. Yes. And you've mentioned one explicitly, which is that Aristotle thought that the world was eternal. And so Bonaventure says that, that, you know, that that's wrong in the Christian tradition, as Genesis teaches, and as the Patristics Gustin among others have said that that's that's can't We can't hold that as a Christian. So what are the errors that he's trying to refute?

Benjamin Winter 29:06

Good, I'm glad you asked that, because that actually fits with the sort of three fold structure that was mentioned in that quote that you read, the beginning, the middle and the end. That was one of the contributions of my dissertation was to say that Bonaventure is deliberately framing these three errors in terms of an error against the beginning, the middle and the end, so I'll get into what they are. But I think that's important to note is that there were any number of philosophical errors circulating at the time. And as I mentioned, when we get to 1277, three years after this book after this conference was or after these conferences were delivered in 1274. So three years later, boom, huge list, almost 300 errors. Bonaventure picks just three, and they are the eternity of the world, that the world has always existed. They are the unity of the intellect, which is this idea of There is only one intellect. And we humans participate in this sort of world, soul or mind. That's the error in the middle because that's how knowledge is mediated. That is the way that we relate to things that we know would be through this universal intellect not, that's not what the Christian tradition teaches, we teach that we have an individuated soul that is illuminated to us, Augustine is words by God through Christ. And then finally, the third error, which is the least studied in in Bonaventure scholarship. But I think maybe the most important is this idea of fated necessity. This notion that the ethical sphere is, in some ways, what we would describe today as pre determined that that actions cannot be praised or blamed. And there's many different reasons that are that are given as to why perhaps one should reserve judgment on delineating a good or a bad label for an action. And that is the one that I think concerns Bonaventure, the most however, he doesn't spend that much time on it. So that was one of the tasks that I had was to sort of tease out, how is that error, which is an error against the end? Because it relates to the final fate of a person, right? You're known by your fruits. So how does that error kind of wrap back around to the beginning? How are all three of these these errors that Bonaventure chooses to highlight? How are they connected? And how do they inform his treatment of philosophy, because most of the readers of Bonaventure have noticed that he has a very strong invective against these errors, but I don't think that they've quite properly contextualized where that polemic fits into the vision that Bonaventure is painting of knowledge of the natural world. So

Charles Kim 31:53

one thing that just struck me as you were talking, in that third air, I didn't focus as much on that, when I was reading through your work, because I got sidetracked by how interested I was in the transcendentals, which I want to get to. But so the problem for him and with, like, faded necessity or whatever the problem of in the if we were to do something whether or not it's predetermined, but you said as much as anything it has to do with the judgment of whether or not an action is good or bad. So it's, is it is the emphasis less on sort of a question of free will, to put it really simply. And as much a question on whether or not one could know whether the action was good or bad it can you.

Benjamin Winter 32:41

Yeah, the question of free will actually comes in more directly in the second error, because that involves how we make decisions, how we know things. The third error is a bit more nebulous. And I love using that word, because the third person of the Trinity is also very nebulous. And just briefly, then, you know, why is it so important to Bonaventure because it affects the way that one lives life. And he is very strongly putting forward this idea that intellectual mistakes ultimately can be sourced in the aspect, which the aspect is something that we don't have a good word for in English, but it's like the heart. And so Bonaventure doesn't have a problem with people learning about interesting arguments about the eternity of the world, or the unity of the intellect. He himself spent years studying these things and teaching them and debating them. It is that third element of fated necessity, this idea that the actions that you're doing aren't going to have any kind of consequence, or that we just can't know. And so it to him, it's, um, it's a, what do you call it diminishes virtue, that's what he is most concerned about is is trying to form these brothers that he's speaking to, to be ministers to be people who are bringing Christ into the world. And, you know, let's face it, most people that you meet aren't going to care about the eternity of the world and the unicity of the intellect, but they are going to care about whether they can find happiness and what their actions actually on a day to day basis. What they do. So, anyway,

Charles Kim 34:25

so Okay, so I see. So the implication is not it's not some sort of like, I mean, both, both Ben and I went to a Presbyterian school. And we would always, it seemed like every year so I grew up Southern Baptist, my dad was was not a Calvinist. And we always had to have the debate over predestination. And so to go a little bit simple here, you're not saying that the question for Bonaventure is simply one of whether or not salvation or something or even our actions are predetermined. Really, this is a point about a I guess how Aristotelian 's were looking at people who are reading Aristotle thinking that there were certain things that we should be circumspect about, and then therefore inhibiting action.

Benjamin Winter 35:11

I have, I have two very short thoughts that will help clarify that. The first is that up until recently, scholarship has been talking about this controversy in terms of Aveiro ism, or anti Aristotelianism. But more recently, a new framework has emerged, which is called philosophical asceticism, this idea that philosophy as a discipline is sufficient for making a person happy. So that is sort of the framework that scholars have now begun to understood why people cared so much about these errors, because it's not just an intellectual question, it it trickles into daily life. Okay. Second thing I'll say about this is I have a little quote here, that I that I wrote from chapter three, and so for Bonaventure, here's the quote, I would say this, the primary obstacle that stands in the way is not others, but disorder in one's own soul and the corresponding effect it has upon community. This is manifest by the overwhelming amount of time Bonaventure spends discussing the virtues, as opposed to the shorter but more bombastic remarks he has for those who have abandoned intellectual moderation. So in conference six, and seven, he deals with these errors. He says, okay, look, here's the three errors. That takes up four sections. But then the remaining 25 sections in each conference, are a discussion of the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues respectively, conference six, and conference seven, and no scholar has ever made that connection before. Everyone just talks about, oh, wow, he hates these errors, but they don't realize that his next move is to discuss, okay, what can philosophy do for you? Here's the four cardinal virtues. Okay, what can theology do? Here's the three theological ones. And then that is where we begin the healing process of addressing intellectual oversteps. We don't start just in the academy, we start in the heart is what you would say. So, yeah. Hope that's helpful to listeners.

Charles Kim 37:07

Oh, that's really good. That's really good. And I mean, it's one of the things that, that I enjoyed towards the end are our listeners, the the most recent podcast I released was divine humility, God's morally perfect being with, right, yeah, with Wilcoxson. Yeah. And Dr. Wilcoxon helped us sort of think through what does it mean to call Christ humble, and you know, whether and whether or not that that says something about the Trinity, in say, like, in itself, and anyway, regardless, humility is a bit of a preoccupation of mine. It was it played a central role in my dissertation, as well as Dr. Wilcoxon. So that for Bonaventure, and for you was one of the I mean, it's interesting, humility is neither one of the cardinal or theological virtues, but it does have a sort of central role in this, in sort of the movement may be from philosophic, philosophical asceticism towards action in life or in even the question of happiness by it sounds like for for Bonaventure, and I mean, happiness, maybe more in the bath Avita. Sense, or yo dionaea? And the Aristotelian way, not not just like, do you feel happy this moment?

Benjamin Winter 38:28

Yeah, it sure doesn't even that goes back to St. Francis. There's a really great passage in Bonaventure, his life that he wrote a Francis where he describes that vision I mentioned earlier, where Francis is on top of Mount Alverno, and he sees the Crucified One atop the six wing. saref. Bonaventure says Francis didn't go up there ascending to the heights as one pridefully, seeking to open his eyes to the Divine Light. No, he was a humble servant, who received these these wounds, actually, he was wounded by God, he was struck to the core, and that inspired him to to love others rather than to separate himself and stay up on the mountaintop. I'm thinking of maybe Plotinus and his his own interactions with the one, you know, the seven times in his life that he reached that height, that wouldn't be enough for Bonaventure, and that what was what's happening in this time was people were enjoying natural contemplation and reaching these fabled heights of oneness. And Bonaventure is trying to say, Okay, but what do you do when you come back down? You know, how is that going to affect your behavior? Are you going to pursue curiosity and carnality? Are you going to lead people into a sense of pride that they can just know everything? So anyhow, it's all related exactly as you were saying, humility is sort of a precondition for all the virtues and certainly for for prudence. I would say humility is necessary to rightly judge the relationship between knowledge and action.

Charles Kim 39:57

So well, so So here's a simple question. I think you might have answered it a little bit in the dissertation. But it's sort of interesting. You know, it sounds like another kind of theme that we're touching on here that might have sort of broader interest. You know, a lot of people will say, you know, I think I even saw a tweet about this the other day where someone said, I always thought that being a good pastor was about, you know, whether or not I preached the right things or taught the right things. But I realized the most important thing is whether I do the right things. And then one of the responses I saw was, well, why think that you should have why? Well, I think that one is at the exclusion of the other. But maybe one one other question that you might ask, and that I think Bonaventure might have an answer to, does one have to precede the other? That is, does what should one contemplate before one acts? Is there a kind of order for this that, you know, you need to contemplate first before you act or the other way around or something like that? So, you know, what is the relationship here? In terms of maybe even just chronologically?

Benjamin Winter 41:03

Yeah, that's a great question. And I don't think Bonaventure is ever going to be giving a simple answer to that. I'm thinking about some recent work that was done by Robert Davis, it was a book about an effect in Bonaventure, if you look that up, just Davis effect a FF E. C. T, in Bonaventure, he talks about the root of one's conscience, and this is something I encountered in Bonaventure, his work as well, just as an example, you know, Bonaventure believes that we have an innate moral sense. But where does that come from? He's very Augustinian. And he will say that ultimately, it comes from an exposure to truth itself, who is the person of Christ? So there's always going to be an interplay for for Bonaventure, between the things that we know and the things that we do, it's not possible to separate those things. But I think it really depends on his audience in the end, right. You know, this audience here that he speaks to is this group of Franciscan brothers. And he has a platform where he can encourage them to be prudent to pray to study the Scriptures, you know, not to dwell and become curious, but to use philosophy and the works of theologians as tools to become more holy, and that's really the emphasis that he gets to toward the end of his lectures. However, when he's speaking to students, Bonaventure is also very clear that right knowledge and right action are going to go together. He has the strong belief that there is a beauty and a fittingness to the truths of faith. Some of the examples I gave him in the text are, he'll use Aristotle, to try and prove the Trinity. Even though Aristotle knew nothing of the Trinity, and neither did Plato for that matter. Bonaventure has no qualms about taking some of their principles, some of their what we would call epistemological assumptions and saying, Oh, look how this points, for example, to the perfect emanation of of the sun from the Father. emanation is not maybe the right word, the perfect. What would be a better word than emanation because Bonaventure uses that, but that has a kind of a, you know, sitz procession. Yeah. The perfect relationship, the bond of expression between the father and son. Yeah, he'll use Aristotelian cognition to describe that process, you know. So he's, he's very optimistic that the ancient philosophers have something of, of, of fittingness is the word you would use that can teach us about the truths of faith? Yeah.

Charles Kim 43:51

Oh, that's good. No, I mean, it's, again, it's one of those sort of perennial questions. And I would say that, one of the reasons that I studied the thing that I studied, for my research was, in part my own I think it's sort of a problem that I have almost and and it seems like, it's a perennial problem. I mean, part of what I'm learning from Bonaventure, in from you, is just how recurrent the theme is that people like me, who liked to study who liked to read theology and philosophy, you know, we can't use that as an excuse to ignore the world around us. And we actually, you know, and how we treat people or, you know, be there. I'm sure there are countless examples, but, but, but we also can't let that puff us up. Right. I mean, we can't, you know, and I think Augustine is really good on this, like, the prices have to be brought low. And I just saw paper the other day about Monica as Mr. Gog. And, and I think about, you know, Agustin, his mother who didn't have the education that he did have teaches even the people that were Catholic High Come with Agustin It's Monica who teaches them a lot about ascending to God. And, you know, it's I think there's, you know, there's that kind of corrective. It sounds like Bonaventure is offering that's very Augustinian current problem, and maybe especially and one of the things I mean, I know Agustin says this But it's a problem that sort of pagan and I use this word advisedly pagan philosophy that is non Christian philosophy doesn't really address there isn't a need for humility and Plato, right. This is something that says in the city of God, and why in other places, but there isn't the same imprecation exhortation to humility, because for Augustine, for Bonaventure, God is humble. And so that being the case, that it's incumbent upon us to do likewise. And it's also funny, I always just think about the fact that I wrote a dissertation about humility. And I had used the most arrogant and like, sort of scholarly, erudite language that I could possibly use. And in a way, you know, it's just always sounds counterintuitive, but I'd like to have

Benjamin Winter 46:15

that I have that same problem, Chad, I think it's something we all wrestle with. One of the things that attracted me to Bonaventure and and Augustine is that they they hit it square and hit the nail right on the head. It's like, Hey, what are we even doing here? Why are we spending our time going through these debates? What's the point of all of this and that's where the the Franciscan charism of poverty, you know, they are known as the lesser brothers. Bonaventure is really wrestling with this, right? What does Assisi have to do with Paris? Is it okay for people who claim to be servants of the servants to be in the classroom, you know, to be spending our time poring through tomes and right. And so he's trying to chart this middle way where he's trying to say, look, you can contemplate the beauty of the natural world but you should see it as he calls it, a house of mirrors and he calls it a glowing coal emitting light. There's got to be some way of where in emptying yourself and encountering the fire of the heavenly furnace of Jerusalem is what he describes it as at the end of so many of his works. They, they they they culminate in mystical death. That's one place where he's a little bit more bold than Aquinas. Almost every of every one of Bonaventure, his major works ends with him dying. And he says, he says, Let us pass now into the super luminous darkness. He's very Dionysian, in that in that sense, he always ends with the cessation of knowledge what he calls in coalition cynics, Emraan, Nola form, wisdom, wisdom that completely transcends our our mind and unites us into the divine life. There is a deformity that happens in the weight of love as we are pulled into communion with this, this this beautiful mystery of the the Trinity. So he gets mystical, as I've mentioned before, but he's also very rigorous. And he says, Look, Jesus was fully human, just like us. And that's why we've got to know how humans know things. We've got to learn our Aristotle, we've got to emphasize the fact that all of this comes to us first through the senses. This is not some, you know, path toward the one that is disconnected from daily life and from service to to others for him. So he tried, he tries to tie it all together. I think he does a good job. But you know,

Charles Kim 48:34

two more questions. Sure. And they could, you know, I'm sure each one could take our remaining time about 15 minutes or so. Okay. But let's see, so, okay, real quick. So the, these are conferences in the HEC Sam ROM that is more or less about Genesis right

Benjamin Winter 48:53

now, even though he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about it in the vision that I discussed. Yes. Yeah, ostensibly.

Charles Kim 49:01

Alright, well, that even answers my question. Did he write much about Genesis outside of this?

Benjamin Winter 49:07

No. Okay. Yeah, I think that might be part of the reason that this book has been sort of overlooked. You know, this. This is really the first. It just was recently translated by Jay Hammond who directed my dissertation. But it hasn't seen a lot of scholarship up until just recently. I think it's kind of a chimera of sorts and bond ventures corpus. There's a lot of contradictions. It's very convoluted. It's a very difficult text to read. It survives in any way, but it's a difficult text. I will say that I've read almost everything. Bonaventure is written, and this is by far and away the most. I would never recommend this to a reader. If you want to read Bonaventure, start with his revolution. That's his little book of theology. That's where he goes through seven parts of theology, the Trinity, creation, sin, incarnation, Grace, sacraments and final judgment, and he just It's just brilliant and beautiful. And that is where you should start with with Bonaventure, I teach that to intro theology students and every every year it just it keeps getting better and better the more I read it. So anyhow, neither here nor there, but I think that it's good to note for listeners, like don't go pick up the coalition's and exam or on please. Right.

Charles Kim 50:19

Well, that was that was gonna be another question that I hadn't I'd forgotten. All right, last one. I've teased this a little bit and it may be actually is the question that interested me the most? Which was the question over transcendentals. I mean, sure. I like so the podcast started three with was three of us who all taught at the classical Christian School. And in a lot of these classical Christian schools, they'll have on their wall, the the true, the good, and the beautiful. And, you know, it's sort of taken as axiomatic that those are the transcendentals. But in fact, there are more or different ordering formulation.

formulations. Yes. There's a whole kind of debate. One of the being whether or not beautiful should be subsumed into the good. And you know, and if you have true good and beautiful, you're missing one, which is important for Bonaventure. So tell us something, what what should we think about the transcendentals? And how is that important for Bonaventure? Yeah, sure.

Benjamin Winter 51:21

That's a great question. A lot of this goes back to bond images, Trinitarian theology, specifically, he wrote about this in disputed questions on the mystery of the Trinity. And I think he has a very clear articulation of how the different persons in the Trinity play their roles, what their what their energies, I guess we would describe that in using some Greek parlance. But, you know, the the father is the unforgotten one, the source of everything. The darkness, the sun is the begotten one, the expression, the voice, the light, the word however, you want to call it, the speech, the idea any of these metaphors all work the art of this unknowable father, and then the Spirit is the bond of love, the the the goodness, that that brings together their perfect and eternal relationship of expression. That is Bonaventure starting point when he talks about where theology should begin, he says, look, we've got to have this framework of emanation eggs and clarity and consummation, a beginning, a middle and an end, from the highest through the highest and to the highest. That's one of the more famous quotes from the coalition's and exam right, he says, that's our entire metaphysics to proceed, or to come from the highest to proceed through the highest and to return, or to be reformed, refashioned to the highest. And all of this happens through Christ, who he describes as the uncreated word, the one, you know, the source of all things through his relationship of expression to the Father. He describes him as the Incarnate Word, the one who enters the center of our own experience, coming down into the depths, even of absence, when he dies on the cross Christ goes to the very center of the Earth, becomes fully identified with even those who feel that they're apart from God. And then finally, the inspired the inspired Word, the Word that rectifies and brings us back into right relationship through sanctification. So I think for Bonaventure, then those are the concerns that he has the considerations in the background when he talks about the one the true and the good. He's thinking about this idea of a beginning, a middle and an end, all mediated through Christ, who can be described as all three of those things. Christ is the one that we approach the Father through, right. I mean, we don't Agustin says this right that we come to know the Divinity first through the humanity. I'll pause for a minute there and see what your follow up might be. But all the background to know why Bonaventure chooses one true and and good there.

Charles Kim 53:59

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's all really helpful. I mean, it's also just, it's a different way of thinking about it, because sometimes they're used as sort of a slogan, and sort of like, oh, yeah, we teach the true good and beautiful. And there's a whole lot more depth in what you just explained from Bonaventure, but that does, you know, so, Bonaventure, subsume beautiful into the good or how do you how do you understand

Benjamin Winter 54:25

I've actually thought about that when you ask the question, I would actually say if anything, it fits better in the center. Because Christ is the one who ties all of these things together. I mean, for for Protestant listeners, you know, you can kind of hang your hat on Bonaventure is Christo centrism. Yeah, sure. You really, really can. And there's a small section of the dissertation where I briefly engage with Augustine on on wisdom and the truth of number, and it just makes me think about Bonaventure, his whole metaphysics of divine ideas, that that the word is the perfect expression of Every every thought or every, the whole the entire being of the father, he's con substantial, right? This is what we say those of us who are Nicene. That's that's the first big debate in the history of Christianity is how do we describe the Son of God? Is the son equal to the Father? And the answer is yes. And how does that happen? There is a beauty in this there is a wonderful fittingness about the relationship of expression between the unknowable father and the knowable son who, who brings light to all of us, not only in an abstract philosophical sense, but in our daily lives as we are inspired by the humility of Christ. Because, look, Socrates was great. I mean, Socrates is a Christ like figure, in many ways, but there are many things in philosophy that make you wonder, for example, should you value your blood and your family? Or should you turn away from enemies? Right? Where does your honor lie? Those types of questions aren't answered only by philosophy. For a Christian, we would ultimately say, as hard as it is, Christ wants us to pray for our enemies. Christ wants us to be willing to die, to give up our life. And it's things like that, that just kind of make you take a pause and think there is something so beautiful and paradoxical. About the Son of God taking on our flesh, and literally experiencing God's absence, it just being, I don't know, just the whole moment, I'm drawing from Hans urs von Baltazar a little bit Holy Saturday, and that it just struck me so deeply recently of Christ. Understanding and feeling the pain of death is beyond what I can even imagine how a perfect being would do that. Anyway, now I'm getting a little bit emotional. We want to avoid that, but or do it?

Charles Kim 56:48

I mean, for listeners who are interested in fully Saturday, I do a podcast with Dr. Matthew Emerson, who wrote a book on the descent to the dead, Protestant, active and he was that I just said, Excellent. Yeah. So he, you know, he actually mentioned the balances are at the end of that book takes a little bit of an issue with both his are actually on how he understands it, but but may. It's helpful, if you want to hear more thoughts on that book, actually, just one, just won an award from Christianity Today, the 2020, like book of theology of the year or something. So, so we were lucky enough to have Dr. Emerson, from my alma mater. On so check that out, but I don't want to spend too much time on that. Yeah, I think that's that's all really helpful, though. And as far as the beautiful, it's just an interesting, like I say, to me, it's just, it's just sort of interesting how these phrases that we use, you know, and then sort of slogans and then almost devoid of content, because we don't think them through but there are people like Bonaventure, who can help us see the, the Trinitarian nature of these and I've also sort of wondered, what do we lose by ignoring the oneness? And I think that, you know, that could be that's a conversation that I want to have more, maybe, maybe on this podcast, but we'll see. But about what exactly are we missing by by emphasizing just the true the good and beautiful, and ignoring the one?

Benjamin Winter 58:23

I think it could open up more channels of dialogue at the minimum to focus on oneness because we are living in strange times. And it's becoming more and more difficult to relate to other people. Sadly, I mean, there's a lot of polarization that's my my other side project conciliar post is trying to rectify or at least acknowledge the fact of theological polarization that's happening among Christians, a house divided against itself cannot stand. So perhaps that is an application of focusing on oneness is trying to find something that we do have in common and Bonaventure is a common figure he exists, you know, centuries before the Reformation, you should be someone that Protestants and Catholics alike could benefit from from reading.

Charles Kim 59:08

Yeah, well, um, I want to say thank you to Dr. Winter, and I've learned a lot this podcast I've learned a lot from Ben throughout the years, so it has been fun to chat with him for a while. So thanks.

Benjamin Winter 59:24

Well, thank you, Chad. In the feeling certainly mutual, I owe you a major debt of gratitude for spending time looking through this text giving me suggestions, helping me with Latin, many other things, Chad to an esteemed Latinus. Certainly, if anything, that is something that you are. So thank you for bringing me on is real pleasure to be here. Yeah, and thanks, everybody for listening. All right.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai