Bonaventure, Saint
St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) pursued philosophy as a scholastic thinker and a prominent Franciscan friar and educator, eschewing the separation of faith and wisdom that he associated with certain prevalent forms of Aristotelianism and embracing a reinvigorated path to wonder at the beauty of creation that he had discovered in St. Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Anselm, and their defenders in the medieval Latin tradition. His thought includes reflections on faith and reason, the existence of God, and the nature and attributes of the divine being (including God's eternity). He also brings to the fore in a rigorous and architectonic fashion the goodness and love that one can with the proper propaedeutic find in God's work of art, i.e. the harmonious order and very fabric of created reality.
