The question of ecology is fundamentally a question of relatedness. Is the Christian tradition, at once incarnational and other-worldly, responsible for the ecological crisis? This article examines the position of Bonaventure whose unique theological-philosophical synthesis leads to a new understanding of created reality, which I term ‘kataphysics’. The foundation of kataphysics begins with Bonaventure's understanding of philosophy as a heteronymous discipline, insofar as philosophy is completed and perfected in theology. From this position he develops an understanding of Being as Goodness based on the Trinity. Bonaventure's integral relationship between Trinity and creation leads to an understanding of created reality as essentially good and intrinsically relational. The integral relation between Trinity and creation through the divine Word gives rise to a theological metaphysics; the metaphysical question becomes the christological question and hence a new understanding of created reality, kataphysics, emerges which involves relatedness. It is suggested that kataphysics undergirds a Christian philosophy of nature which has implications for an ecological stance today.

In the Middle Ages, the destiny of the historical process was a subject of intense thought, fueled by an overarching notion of historical change and the impending final age. Of the many theologians who contributed to this discussion none stands out in more colorful form than the Cistercian abbot, Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202). Joachim made his mark by describing history as a process of patterns unfolding according to the relationships of the Trinity. For Joachim, history was an ongoing work of the living God, and he sought to elucidate the innermost mystery of the trinitarian relationships in the working-out of history. The whole process of history, he maintained, was progressing toward a higher spiritual level that would be characterized by the image of the mystical body of Christ in the final age, an age that he held would take place in this world. Although Bonaventure dismissed Joachim early in his academic career as ignorant and simplex, his rise to minister general in an order divided by radical Joachimism may have influenced his view of the abbot's theology. E. Randolph Daniel has shown that Bonaventure borrowed one of Joachim's patterns of history to define his eschatology more clearly in terms of Christocentricity. Like Joachim, Bonaventure held that the final age would take place in this world, and would be characterized by mystical peace. Potential Joachimist influence may also be detected in Bonaventure's Legenda maior.