Bonaventure on Conscience and Synderesis (In Sent. 2.39.1–2) 1 ...

<strong>Bonaventure</strong> on Conscience and Synderesis (In Sent. 2.39.1–2)
Phil 769, Dr. T. Hoffmann
1. What are conscience and synderesis? (Definitions)
– Conscience (In Sent. 2.39.1.1–2):
• Conscience can mean three things [the genus]:
– The thing (concretely: the law) of which we are conscious.
– The habit 1 by which we are conscious. This is according to <strong>Bonaventure</strong> the most
usual sense of conscience.
– The power (potentia) of being conscious.
• It is cognitive (not affective); it concerns specifically practical knowledge [the
specific difference]
• As a cognitive habit, conscience is operative:
– At a general level, it is the habit by which we know the first moral principles
(prima principia moralia) [unlike <strong>Bonaventure</strong>, Aquinas attributes this function to
synderesis], e.g.:
• Do not do to others what you do not want to be done to you, 2.39.1.2
• One ought to submit to God, 2.39.1.2
• God is to be honored, 2.39.1.1
• God is to be obeyed, 2.39.2.3 ad 4
• Love of God, 2.39.1.2
• Fear of God, 2.39.1.2
• Parents are to be honored, 2.39.1.2
• One’s neighbors are not to be harmed, 2.39.1.2
[Notice the prominence of God in these first practical principles. For
<strong>Bonaventure</strong>, God is known naturally; 2.39.1.2 corollarium, p. 904a 2 ]
– At a particular level, concerning what I ought to do here and now, cf. 2.39.1.3
• Conscience as a habit is knowledge, not the act of applying knowledge to a specific
case (contrary to Aquinas, ST 1a.79.13.c).
• Conscience as a cognitive habit can mean
– A natural habit [→ it can only be right (this is implicit in 2.39.1.1 ad 1)]. As a
natural habit, it concerns the “first moral principles” (see above)
– An acquired habit → it can be right or not right (this is explicit in 2.39.1.1 ad 1).
As an acquired habit, it results from further instruction and concerns particular
actions (specialia operabilia,” 2.39.1.2)
– Synderesis:
• It can be taken to mean “power + habit” or only habit, but the most common
meaning is “potentia habitualis” (a power that is never separated from its habit),
2.39.2.1
• It is affective (not cognitive); it is a “natural pull” (pondus) directing the will to what
is to be desired, just like the intellect’s natural light directs it in knowing 2.39.2.1
• It inclines only toward what is morally good, 2.39.2.1
• It is the will insofar as the will moves naturally, not deliberately [voluntas naturalis vs.
voluntas deliberativa], 2.39.2.3
1 “Habit” translates habitus, which translates the Greek ἕξις. Literally, it is a “having” of something, not necessarily
in the sense of an acquired disposition. Scientia (demonstrative knowledge; science) is a habit as well. It is habitual
knowledge that is actualized when we actually think of something that falls under its subject matter.
2 Page numbers refer to Opera omnia, vol. 2. Quaracchi: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1885.

2. How do conscience, synderesis, and natural law differ? (2.39.2.1 q. inc. 1 et ad q. inc. 1)
– Natural law is related both to conscience and to synderesis:
• Natural law as the “habit in the soul”:
= a habit which comprises both conscience and synderesis (2.39.2.1, p. 911a)
• Natural law (more properly) as the “collection of the precepts of natural right”:
= the object of synderesis and conscience:
– Conscience dictates
– Synderesis inclines, i.e., desires or detests (appetit vel refugit) (p. 911a)
– Short definitions of each (p. 911b):
• Synderesis = an affective power directed (habilis) to and tending to the good
• Conscience = the habit of the practical intellect
• Natural law = the object of both.
3. What kind of work do conscience and synderesis do? (There may be agreement between
authors—e.g., between <strong>Bonaventure</strong> and Aquinas—about the work that conscience+synderesis
need to do, but they may distribute the roles differently to those two notions)
– Knowledge of natural law: task of conscience
– Instigation toward the good: task of synderesis
– Remorse: is the work of synderesis (as the power that experiences remorse, “sicut a
movente”), but it presupposes conscience (as that which judges that one must have
remorse, “sicut a dictante”), 2.39.2.1 ad 4.
4. Difficulties:
– Erring conscience (2.39.1.3):
• Does an erring conscience bind?
– In cases that are defined by God’s law?
• As proscribed
• As prescribed
– In cases that are not defined by God’s law (indifferent acts)?
• Am I to follow my (religious) superior or my conscience? (2.39.1.3 ad qq. connexas,
p. 907b)
– Permanence and downfall of synderesis (2.39.2.2–3):
• Synderesis cannot be extinguished, because it is something natural (2.39.2.2)
• Synderesis can be temporarily impeded in three ways (2.39.2.2):
– Blinding (obcaecatio): when something evil is believed to be good (e.g., heretics
who die for their heretic belief)
– Pleasure (delectatio): when someone is absorbed by carnal sins
– Obstinacy (obstinatio): the damned (souls and angels)
• have an impediment to be instigated to the good
• but they have the highest form of remorse.
• Synderesis cannot be corrupted by sin, but it can be “precipitated” [cf. Jerome’s Gloss
on Ezekiel] in that it loses its mastery (2.39.2.3). . . .
– Over reason when it is blinded
– Over the will [i.e., the deliberative will] when it is obstinate.
– Example: though a soldier sits firm on a horse, when the horse [reason and will]
falls, the soldier [synderesis] falls as well.