Theology as the Road to Holiness in St. Bonaventure

Can theology and prayer flow from each other? Must theologians forsake spirituality for the sake of academic rigor? More and more people are studying theology, but few works map out a spiritual path for the theologian. Saint Bonaventure (d. 1274) provides a solution: he defined theology as wisdom, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and insisted that the purpose of its study is to make us saints. Theology, then, can be a path to holiness. Charles Carpenter presents Bonaventure’s teaching in such a way as to uncover his deepest motivation: theology undertaken for the purpose of becoming holy, and how that spiritual transformation is brought about through theological study when it is subordinated to and integrated into the spiritual life. The book offers a key to the heart of Bonaventure the man and serves as an excellent introduction to all his works, a resource for anyone interested in Franciscan spirituality who seeks to harmonize theology and the spiritual life. This new edition presents all Latin footnotes in English. The book is also available in Spanish (Herder, Barcelona, 2002) and in French (Editions Franciscaines, Paris, 2013).