"In rereading the 1955 thesis Bonaventure's Understanding of Revelation and the Theology of History I got the impression that its answers are well-founded, although it has been superseded in many of its details, and that it still has something to say today. Above all I realized that the question of the essence of Revelation and the fact of posing it again, which is the theme of the book, still have urgency today, perhaps even more so than in the past."
Pope Benedict XVI preface to the 2009 publication of that previously unpublished thesis.
It is largely a question of God and truth and man's knowledge thereof.
The investigated topics in that hitherto unpublished first part of the thesis include:
- the difference between a concept and a thing
- manifestatio
- theologia naturalis
- speaking of God
- expressio
- faith and history
- nature/law/grace
- faith and church/revelation and tradition
- revelatio
- theology as expression of faith
- traditio
- doctrine
- veritas et virtus
- fides et virtus
- intellect and will: carriers of the virtue of faith
- fides informis/fides obiectiva
- doctrine in the theology of history
- Christ-centered
- logic and history
- logic and theology
- unicity and duration of history
- nature and supernature/grace
- definition of and proper order between wisdom, theology and philosophy
- desiderium naturale
The second part of that thesis (which ended up being the approved 1959 published version of the thesis) is the theology of history of Bonaventure. There the topics include:
- historical academic schema
- the ages of history
- ordo ultimus and ordo futurus
- pax et revelatio
- sapientia multiformis, allegorical understanding of Sacred Scripture
- sapientia omniformis, creation and revelation
- sapientia nulliformis, mysticism and revelation
- Bonaventure (1221-1274), 2, 3
- Saint Augustine (354-430), 2, 3, 4, 5
- Boethius (480-525)
- Pseudo-Dionysius (late 5th - early 6th century)
- Hugo of Saint Victor (1096-1141)
- Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202)
- Alexander of Hales (1185-1245)
- Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2, 3
Herder Verlag