Volume 83, Issue 1, Winter 2009
Ilia Delio, O.S.F.
Pages 3-22
Is Creation Really Good?
Bonaventure’s Position
The relationship between being and goodness is one of the most engaging philosophical questions, particularly in light of the new science, which points
to the interconnectedness of the physical world. The relationship between being and goodness is examined here in the thought of Bonaventure, who maintains
a primacy of the good. Bonaventure’s integration of philosophy and theology provides an understanding of being as goodness and hence an understanding
of being as relational and generative. Because being is good, created reality is intrinsically good and bears within it an inner dynamic toward the pleroma of
love. The implications of Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good for ecology and epistemology are explored.