Crucially, the implication of Bonaventure’s discourse is that belief or faith does not stand in opposition to reason and certainty. Instead, he labels belief as one possible form of knowledge. Moreover, as I shall discuss in details below the three modes of cognizing also identifies a progression in the stages of knowledge. Therefore, by placing belief at the beginning of his list, Bonaventure is identifying this mode of cognizing as the one at the beginning of the human quest for knowledge. If then contemplation marks the end and completion of the cognitive process by being its third and last stage, faith as a form of cognizing becomes the necessary prerequisite to any further level of knowledge – figuratively speaking, we could say that faith
