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in the past.” 51 Bonaventure vehemently rejects pantheism and the notion of a created but eternal
universe. In fact, the idea of an eternal creation seems to Bonaventure so clearly contradictory
that he cannot believe even the poorest philosopher 52 could advocate it. Bonaventure’s treatment
of Aristotle in the Sentences is more charitable than his later evaluation. Bonaventure presumes
that Aristotle considered the world to be made by God from preexistent matter, and hence
Aristotle’s position on the origin of the world is rational. However, Bonaventure attributes to
Aristotle the double error of eternity of matter and ignorance of creation ex nihilo. 53
On the other hand, Aquinas approaches the question of the eternity of the world on
strictly philosophical terms and adopts “an attitude of cautious reservation in the controversy by
admitting the theoretical possibility of an eternally created world.” 54 Aquinas distinguishes three
aspects of the notion of creation. First, creation presupposes nothing in the thing created, neither
matter nor subject. Second, in the thing created non-being is prior to being, not in the sense that
there is a priority of duration, as if being must come after non-being, but in the sense of priority
of nature meaning that if the created thing were left to itself it would cease to be. 55 Third, the
created thing possesses a finite temporal duration. Aquinas holds that the first two aspects are the
proper characteristics of creation and can be known by reason alone. However, the requirement
of temporal beginning, which he does not include in the notion of creation, is not accessible to
reason alone and can only be known by faith. 56 For Aquinas, therefore, the heart of creation is
the total ontological dependence on God but not the temporal finitude. 57 “To be created is, in the
51
Ibid, 293.
“nullum philosophorum quantumcumque parvi intellectus” in Kovach, “The Question,” 149.
53
Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure (London: Sheed & Ward, 1940), 187.
54
Bernardino M. Bonansea, O.F.M. "The Question of an Eternal World in the Teaching of St. Bonaventure."
Franciscan Studies 34 (1974): 7.
55
Noone, "The Originality,” 297.
56
Ibid, 298.
57
Ibid, 299.
52
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