jfranciscan Institute publications PHILOSOPHY SERIES NO. 6 The psychology of love according to st bonaventure By Robert P. Prentice, O.F.M.,Ph.D. / Second Edition Publishedby THE FRANCISCAN INSTITUTE ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. and E. NAUWELAERTS F.SCHDNINGH LOUVAIN, BELGIUM PADERBORN, GERMANY '957 Imprimatur: J.F.O'HARA.C.S.C. Episcopus Buffalensis Feb. 17, 1949 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE INTRODUCTION 7 PART I. AFFECTION IN GENERAL 15 CHAPTER I. EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY 17 I. EXISTENCE OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY ... 17 A) THE NECESSITY OF POTENCIES IN GENERAL 17 B) THE EXISTENCE OF THE AFFECTIVE PO TENCY 18 C) THE DISTINCTION OF THE AFFECTIVE POTEN CY FROMTHE SOULAND FROM THE COGNITIVE POTENCY 25 II. NATURE OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY 30 A) THE AFFECTIVE POTENCYAS RATIONAL APPE TITE 31 B) MODES OF OPERATION 36 C) THE UNITY OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY . . 44 PART II. LOVE IN PARTICULAR 47 II. THE OBJECT AND ACT OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY 49 I. THE OBJECT OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY—THE GOOD 49 II. THE ACT OF THE AFFECTIVE POTENCY — AFFEC TION 55 5 6 Table of Contents III. LOVE AS AFFECTION 64 I. PRIMARY CONCEPT OF LOVE 64 II. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRIMARY CONCEPT OF LOVE 71 A) TRANSFORMATION THROUGH LOVE 72 B) LOVE, THE PRINCIPLE OF SIMPLICITY AND COMPOSITION 77 C) THE SUBJECTION OF LOVE 79 D) LOVE, THE GREATEST OF THE AFFECTIONS 80 E) LOVE, THE PRINCIPLE OF RECTITUDE AND OBLIQUITY 32 IV. DIVISIONS OF LOVE 84 I. NATURAL LOVE 87 A) THE NATURAL LOVE OF SYNDERESIS .... 89 B) THE LOVE OF ONE'S OWN CONVENIENCE (AMOR LIBIDINOSUS) 90 C) FAMILY LOVE 91 II. SELF-CENTERED LOVE 95 III. ALTEROCENTRIC LOVE 97 IV. ORDINATE LOVE 97 V. EGOCENTRIC LOVE 99 I. MOTIVE 99 II. OBJECT 105 III. DEGREES 109 IV. EFFECTS 112 VI. ALTEROCENTRIC LOVE 117 I. OBJECT 117 II. MOTIVE 127 III. DEGREES 138 IV. EFFECTS 144 CONCLUSION CONCLUSION 149 INDEX INDEX 155 INTRODUCTION The first and most important point of this introduction deals with the aim and method of the work. The aim is to present the psychology of purely human love which may be discerned in the writings of St. Bonaventure. We have restricted ourselves to natural love and have not considered any love at all that is based on the supernatural. We speak only of that love which man may exercise independently of his elevation to a supernatural state. Anyone who has read St. Bonaventure will know the limits that this restriction imposes. St.Bonaventure, like most ofthe Scholastics, devoted much attention to the consideration of charity. Within his treatment of charity there is a whole philosophy of habits, an enor mous dogmatic background of justification and the flowering of mystical theology. Accordingly the field of charity is vast and almost without limits; it could scarcely be done justice within the space of one volume. But the field of human love in St. Bonaventure's works that is another matter! There does not exist one exprofesso treatment in all his writings which could cover one page of his Commentary on theSentences!Yet inspite ofthisfactwe aim to propose a psychol ogy of love that is based almost entirely on St. Bonaventure. The question of method in such a case is of pressing importance. In fact it could be crucial; for if such a lack of ex professo treatment exists, how is it possible to build up a psychology of love? We might propose the problem in an even stronger form. We find neither a specific treatment of the problem of human love nor an adequate incidentaldiscussionofitwhereotherrelated questionsareelaborated. Texts on charity abound, but texts on human love are comparatively infrequent and invariably sketchy. Yet we intend to build a psychol 7 8 Introduction ogy of love on such sources. Accordingly it is necessary to indicate the method that has been followed. Clearly we cannot follow a natural method in which the subject automatically unfolds itself in the analysis of substantial texts which deal with the specific questions relative to human love. The lack of such material accordingly imposes an artificiality of method. This artificiality is revealed in two ways: first, in the arrangement of the texts themselves and secondly, in the arrangement of the subject matter as a whole. First of all we have gathered together chance remarks which are only incidental to the question that is being specifically treated (such as charity, parental and filial obligations, nobility of the will etc.) but which illustrate certain aspects of human love. We have then grouped this material so gathered under certain headings accord ing to the aspects that they illustrate, such as the motive of love, the forms of love, the effects of love, etc. Actuallyit is not so grouped in the writings of St. Bonaventure, for in our reconstruction it will happen that a text from the Sentences will stand side by side with a text from his Sermons. Then within these headings we have often analyzed the texts far beyond their literal content. This is probably the most serious charge that can be made against the method used. For at times St. Bonaventure has said only a few words and we have tried to read behind these few words and have therefore devoted considerably more space to them than they occupy in St. Bonaven ture. The question then naturally arises: is what we have written really St. Bonaventure's opinion or have we only read into his words our own opinion? That is to say, have we used St. Bonaventure only as a spring-board, as it were? In answer to this charge we should say that we had in mind only to explicitate what is contained implicitly in St. Bonaventure. This is an undeniably valid procedure in certain caseswherehehad condensed intoasortofmaximawholebackground of Aristotle or St. Augustine or Dionysius or Hugh of St. Victor. In certain places we have specifically indicated where this has happened and thereforein theseinstanceswecannot be criticizedfor our exten sion of the texts. In other places we have gone on the principle that we must interpret the author at his best possible sense or that it is Introduction 9 to be presumed that he knew the implications of what he wrote. It is these latter instances which are open to abuse. Whether we have been guilty of such abuse is up to the reader to decide. Secondly, the whole subject matter is reconstructed according to a plan which it does not enjoy in St. Bonaventure. We have dis posed it into two parts. In the first part we have given an analysis of affection in general. We have done this in order to give a solid foundation to our study of love. A work on love is always in danger of becoming airy and frothy or of being merely lyrical without being serious. We have triedto avoid these dangers bygivingasolid psychological foundation in the first part to what we have written in the second part on love. We must confess that in this first part we have enjoyed the luxury of a selection of material which deals specifically with the problems under consideration; for in the Commentaries on the Sentences there are always special articles devoted to the nature of the will and there are at least special questions devoted to the consideration of the nature of the good. Hence in this section, which serves as an elongated introduction, we have not been forced to reconstruct anything from abbreviated texts. The only thing that has an artificial touch is the order in which the material has been arranged. The second part of the work is more important and it is in this section particularly that we have experienced the problem of recon struction, both with regard to the doctrine, as was said above, and here with regard to the order. We have finally chosen the following order. First we have discussed love in general; here we consider the generic essence of love. Then we have outlined the specific forms of love. This naturally led to the discussion of the most important of these forms, namely, ego-centric love and altero-centric love. Thus we have started with the most general observation on love and proceed thence in order to those things that may be said about its highest specific form. It is hoped that there is therefore a general flow in the material which should roll to its climax in the discussion of altero-centric love. It is to be hoped also that this same general flow will exist in fact throughout the whole work which starts out with the most basic considerations of affection in general, whence 10 Introduction love takes its source, and moves on to the same climax in the highest form of love. The second introductory point which we should like to make, treats of the historical influences at work in St. Bonaventure's con ception of love. These may well be grouped into two classes which run parallel to the two parts of this work. In the first part, that is, in the section on affection in general, the greatest influence is undoubtedly that of Aristotle. St. Bonaventure has been described traditionally as more Augustinian than Aristote lian. In modern times the accuracy of this description has been seriously questioned. Whatever may be said about his tendencies elsewhere it is certain that in this one instance St. Bonaventure is decidedly more Aristotelian than Augustinian. His whole orientation, his whole arrangement, his whole argumentation go back to Aristotle and not to St. Augustine. Certainly there are themes that are Augus tinian but the main trend of the work is Aristotelian. Besides these two influences there is that of his Franciscan predecessors in Paris. First among these is Alexander of Hales. Then also he has borrowed from the Summa Fratris Alexandri. We leave open the question of the authorship of this work.1 In any case it is certainly the product of the early Franciscan school and for the most part it reflects, ifitdoesnot come directlyfrom the mind ofAlexander of Hales. Because of the controversy of authorship, we list it here as a separate source. Among other predecessors of St. Bonaventure who merit mention as having a definite influence on him are Odo Rigaud and John de la Rochelle. The second part, which deals with love in particular, sees the same Aristotelian and Augustinian influences but also draws from great christian affective writers other than St. Augustine. Again there is no doubt that the primary influence is that of Aristotle, from whose Ethics St. Bonaventure has borrowed his general outline of love. The influence of St. Augustine is again next in importance. But this time to these two must be added the names of other great affec- 1 Confer Victorin Doucet, O.F.M. "The History of the Problem of the Authenticity of the Summa," Franciscan Studies, Vol.7, 1947, 26—41; 274—312. Introduction 11 tive writers of christianity who have played a part in the formation of St. Bonaventure's concept of love. The influence in this part shifts from his Franciscan predecessors to Dionysius, St. Bernard, St. Anselm and Hugh of St. Victor. From the fact that so many influences are at work the conclusion should not be drawn that St. Bonaventure has nothing of his own to offer. If he has borrowed much from Aristotle, his concept is not that of Aristotle alone, for he has added to that the treasures of christianity. If, further, he has borrowed from the christian affective writers, he has added to them his own spirit, which is quite an ex ceptional one in the history of scholasticism. There is no doubt that St. Bonaventure is not the profoundest of the scholastics, at least in so far as can be ascertained from the writings which he has left. But there is likewise no doubt that he is the most artistic of them. Noneofthewell-knownscholasticscan matchhimforimageryorcharm of style; nor can any of them reach his poetical insight. From this poeticalsoulhehasbroughthisartisticacumentobearon thequestion of love, which may be considered one of the general themes of his whole works. His concept is enriched with details of description that are his and his alone. St. Bonaventure has much to offer in the way of such poetical and artistic approach, for he has an almost incurable tendency to the beautiful. That is whywefind in hisworks the con stant recurrence of favorite themes, all of which have to do with some sort of beauty. Thus, to cite but a few examples, he will hark back at the most unsuspected times to the concept ofnobilitas which must have had a strong attraction for him, living, as he did, in feudal times. He insists often on the excessus which is a sort of background theme that is never far from his mind. So also with the imago Dei. Certainly this concept received much attention from all of the scho lastics, but in St. Bonaventure, besides the treatment that it gets in the ordinary place in the Sentences, it runs through his whole works as a much-loved leit-motiv. Love is one of these themes that St. Bonaventure so often introduces simply out of his attraction for the beautiful. With such an attraction there is usually given an insight into the heart of the subject that is denied to others who do not havethe same natural predilection and who thereforebring to it 12 Introduction only an intellect unmoved by the warmth of love. It isfor this reason that St. Bonaventure may be studied with assiduity to see how he has conceived love. A study on any of his favourite themes could just as well be made and they would certainly be profitable. Here we have chosen the theme of love as being important and fruitful. It is to be hoped that we shall bring out in the course of this work that which St. Bonaventure himself contributes to the enrichment of the concept of love. Fr. Alszeghy means to do something of this sort in his work, Grundformen der Liebe— Die Theorie derGottesliebe bei dem hi. Bona- ventura. He sets out to show what St. Bonaventure has to contribute to the understanding of the basic forms of love in their relation to the theories of the love of God. He orientates his work to the problem of the "amour desinteressS" which has received considerable atten tion in recent times because of the excellent work of Fr. Rousselot, who studied the problem according to the mind of St. Thomas. Fr. Alszeghy has in mind to show what St. Bonaventure has to contribute to the understanding of this problem. Actually, however, the work has a much broader scope than is suggested by this aim which he outlines in his introduction. If theworkcan becriticized at all it is from this point ofview, that he has spread himself too much, with the result that at times he gives the impression that the matter is somewhat undigested. However, he is deserving of much praise for the amount of work that he has put into the subject and for the excellence of his scholarship. But apart from all this, we have our own special problem posited by thework that he has done. And this is the third point which we want to make in this introduction. In the first place, because of the existence of this work we do not intend to treat the problem of the amour disintiressi for he has covered this matter at great length. Secondly,we should like to point out that although there is a certain amount of unavoidable overlap ping, it does not amount to a greatdeal. In most instanceswhere we have overlapped, it is where we have analyzed in detail a point that he has taken for granted — which is certainly legitimate for him if one considers the vast scopethat he has allowed himself. For the rest, he has devoted much more attention to supernatural love than to