The role of “semiotics” in the Journey of the Mind to God by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the relationship between the signum Dei in Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and the possibility of articulating a semiotic framework through the interpretive lens of Charles Sanders Peirce. In contrast to the prevailing scholastic paradigm of his time, Bonaventure proposed an itinerary for the knowledge of God rooted in a distinct philosophical and theological vision. Drawing upon Francis of Assisi as the archetype of Christian life and spirituality, Bonaventure centers his thought on the pivotal mystical event in the life of the Poverello—his reception of the stigmata through a six-winged Seraph in the form of the Crucified Christ—as the foundational image for structuring the soul’s ascent to God. From the signa Dei manifested in the sensible world and their vestigia, and through the recognition of the self as imago Dei, the human being is drawn toward the desire for likeness to and union with the divine. The contemplation of these signs within the created order thus becomes a means of spiritual elevation. Within this perspective, it is possible to discern the contours of a Bonaventurian semiotics—an interpretive path in which the signs embedded in creation mediate the soul’s journey toward God. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the role of “semiotics” as operative within the sensible world and its function in orienting the human being in the quest for God, as articulated in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum

Keywords: Semiotics. Bonaventure. Peirce. Mystical Philosophy.