Dr. Jay Hammond: St. Bonaventure and Mystical Union with the Trinity

Guest:

How do knowledge and love relate to one another in mystical union? How does St. Bonaventure’s imagery in the “Itinerarium Mentis in Deum” guide the reader to mystical union with the persons of the Trinity?

Dr. Jay Hammond, Associate Professor of Medieval Christianity at St. Louis University, argues that St. Bonaventure does not prioritize either intellect or will in his understanding of mystical union contra many current scholars who place St. Bonaventure in the voluntarist camp in his talk entitled “Trinitarian Mystical Union: A Rereading of Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum”. Dr. Hammond’s talk was part of the St. Bonaventure Workshop at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

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