As the Cambridge Dictionary says, order denotes “the way in which people or things are arranged, either in relation to one another or according to a particular characteristic.” If it is true that, for us moderns, at the root of reality are the will to power from above or evolution by a process of selection from below, then the way any order is arranged must ultimately be either by imposition or by chance. Both are forms of arbitrariness that turn any order into an imposed arrangement devoid of truth and goodness. It is worth re-sourcing St. Bonaventure (d. 1274) for a different view of order.
To begin with, order simply implies a multitude of people or things in an ordered relation. For the human intellect to recognize that a multitude is ordered, its parts must have something in common that also constitutes its intelligible ordering principle. In a natural order this principle is the common substance that belongs equally to the members of that natural order. Adam and Eve share a common humanity; the divine persons share divinity. Because of that shared item, the mind sees the order that a multitude has. And through it an order’s unity and equality become discernable. For Bonaventure, in the Trinity, there is perfect unity and equality, as the consubstantial divine persons equally and perfectly share in the single divine essence. Whereas in creatures there is unity and equality only in a limited sense, because created things are not a single substance and can therefore deviate from their ordering principle and tend towards disorder and confusion due to their lack of perfect unity.
For Bonaventure, an ordered multitude cannot be explained as a collection of a random number of things that have simply been brought together by imposition or by chance. He states, most fundamentally, that an ordered multitude must have a beginning, middle, and an end. (That is one of the reasons, for him, that three is the perfect number in an ordered multitude.) Crucial for Bonaventure is that the beginning or first of the multitude is not simply one among the multitude, who happen to be together in the same order, be it imposed or random. The first has the greatest influence, he says. The Latin word is influentia, which denotes a kind of flowing into or communicating of oneself. This means that the first member in an order is first by flowing into and giving itself to the others, thereby establishing the order in the first place. One can thus say that the first is the origin of the order in virtue of his truth and goodness: true gift of self out of love.
In Bonaventure’s Trinitarian theology, the Father is “at first” identical with the substance. He is first as “innascible,” i.e., born from no one. He is his substance that he “then” shares with the others who proceed from him. The first person of the Father in his goodness and liberality is the reason why the Son and the Holy Spirit from all eternity equally share in the same divinity with the Father: He is the absolute first who has the highest influence in every way. The Father “imposes” the order as it were. But he does so by giving and communicating most perfectly what he is and what is his own: his substance. He “influences” it. This divine substance is the most personal property of the Father, his fortune, his livelihood, as it were, but he has and is it first only as always already given away to the consubstantial Son and the Holy Spirit. Order thus does not result from arbitrary imposition. Rather, order is originally shaped by personal self-communication and love.
The below excerpts from the writings of St. Bonaventure are quoted according to the Jonathan Bieler’s own translation of the critical edition of the great Franciscan theologian’s works published by Quaracchi in Florence, 1882–1902.
Beauty consists in order.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard II, d 9, a un, q 6, ad 3 (II, 252b)
Order is necessary in the Church for two reasons, because of beauty and because of rectitude.—Since there is a great multitude in the Church, if there were no order, there would manifestly appear confusion, and this is the abomination of multitude. Therefore every wise person, who, simply because he is wise, is also a lover of beauty, does not produce many things without order; and therein appears the wisdom of God to the highest degree, which among all his works is manifested in the constitution of the Church.—Order is also necessary because of rectitude. Since multitude, as it is in a state in which it can deviate from the right path, goes astray, if it does not have a leader or ruler [...] Since thus the multitude that is the Church is in a state in which it can deviate from the straight path, it needs a head and rule.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard IV, d 24, p l, a 2, q I, Resp. (IV, 614b)
For this is the order [of divine wisdom] that the divine law executes and conserves in all its works, that it leads the lowest things through things in a middle position to the highest things.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard II, d 11, a l, q l, Resp. (II, 277b)
To the objection that this hierarchy [of the angels] represents the highest hierarchy, we respond that it does represent it, as far as it is able. And indeed in that supreme hierarchy there exists perfect order and beauty in the highest unity and equality, but these could not simultaneously coexist in a created hierarchy due to the limitation of the creature: we therefore must posit there an order and a beauty together with diversity and a certain inequality, so that what cannot take place there due to the lack of unity, is at least completed through the diversity of many.—And this is the reason why God, while he has one Son, still did not produce a single angel, but many, because the Son perfectly fulfills the Father and imitates him, but the angel does not perfectly express the Creator: therefore it behooves God to create them in a great multitude or in a manifold order.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard II, d 9, a un, q 8, ad 4 (II, 256b)
Where there is perfect order, there is a principle of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Otherwise disorder would come about in the divine things. It is necessary therefore that because of the principle of order there are three persons [in the Trinity].
Collations on the Hexaemeron (The six days of Creation: Genesis 1), c 11, n 7 (V, 381a)
[In the Trinity] it is necessary to posit a producing one and a produced one simultaneously, so that they are united. Otherwise there would be distinction in the divine persons without order. Distinction without order, however, is confusion. Furthermore it is necessary that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both.
Collations on the Hexaemeron (The six days of Creation: Genesis 1), c 8, n 12 (V, 371a)
It is fitting [that there are three persons in the Trinity] due to the number three, because that number, the one that consists of three, has in itself the first and highest perfection, when it is either considered in itself, or in continuous quantity, or in the creature. In itself it has the first perfection, because it is the first number that consists of all its parts, that is unity and duality, which together make three. [...] Likewise, if that number is considered in continuous quantity, it has in itself the first and highest perfection: the first, because every quantity has a beginning, a middle, and an end. […] Likewise, if that number is considered in the creature, it has in itself the first and highest perfection: the first, because in any creature we can find a trinity that belongs to the vestige [of the Trinity], however small, however little. The number three also has the highest perfection in itself, because the highest and most noble perfection of the creature, namely beatitude, is considered according to the reformed and deiform trinity that belongs to the image.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard I, d 2, a un, q 4, Resp. (I, 57b–58a)
Neither does the divine intellect comprehend something greater than himself nor another God, nor a plurality of persons beyond the number three—not because he is limited, but because he is infinite in the most perfect way.
Disputed Question on the Mystery of the Trinity, q 4, a 2, ad 10 (V, 87b)
To the objection that the divine persons are either all equally first or not at all first, we respond that they are called “first” according to a lack of anteriority in the Trinity. In another way, “first” is said according to the lack of an origin. If “first” is said according to the lack of anteriority, then the divine persons are all equally first, because no person is before or after the other in the Trinity. However, if “first” is said according to a lack of origin, because that “first” stems from nothing, then the principle of firstness principally resides in the person of the Father, because in himself is the fontal plenitude to produce all the other persons.
Disputed Question on the Mystery of the Trinity, q 8, ad 4 (V, 115a)
The word of the Philosopher also moves us [to say that the Father is the principle of the whole divinity, because he is from no one]; he says that the principles that are more prior are the more powerful—and that the first cause has more influence—and the one that is simply first, has the highest influence in every way. If we thus see in the order of causes, among which there is the essential order, that firstness is the reason why a cause has the highest influence, there will also be a greater influence [in the cause that is first] according to essence. For the same reason, in the order of persons, the firstness in the first person is the reason for it to produce the others. And because innascible [i.e. the innascible Father, who cannot be born] means firstness, it means a fontal plenitude in relation to the production of the other persons [in the Trinity]. And as a sign of this we see that the first things in any genus are the principles of the others that follow, and the things that are simple among the many, have an infinite potency so that in them there is a place to come to a halt for the others, like the point in relation to the lines, and unity in relation to numbers. So also the divine essence is a place to come to a halt, because it is first in relation to creatures.
Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard I, d 27, p l, a un, q 3, ad 3 (I,471 a)
