Rahner and DeLubac On Nature and Grace

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RAHNER AND DE LUBAC ON NATURE AND GRACE
S. Joel Garver
Much of 19
th
century and early 20
th
century Roman Catholic theology was dominated
by a carefully drawn distinction between nature and grace and between nature and
supernature. This distinction was often drawn in such a way as to dichotomize the two
realms as extrinsically and externally related to one another to the point that the
supernatural could almost never been seen as bearing upon the natural.
Overcoming this extrinsicism was a central element in the theology of Karl Rahner,
rooted as it was both in Thomistic thought such as that of Marchal and in the
existentialism of thinkers like Heidegger. Thus Rahner was able to assert, maintain,
and defend the essential integrity of nature and grace, nature and supernature.
Nonetheless, Rahners version of integralism was not the only way in which
theologians attempted to surmount the former extrinsicism
1
Another kind of
integralism was developed by Henri de Lubac, rooted in the thought of Maurice
Blondel and filled in by other participants in the nouvelle thologie (e.g., Hans Urs von
Balthasar).
2
The difference between Rahners approach and that of de Lubac (and the
nouvelle thologie) can be summarized, very roughly and schematically, in the following
way: while Rahners thought tends to naturalize the supernatural, de Lubac tends to
supernaturalize the natural. Thus, where Rahner begins with the subjectivity of the
human person, the individuals infinite spiritual horizon, and its continuity with Gods
nonetheless gracious self-revelation, the nouvelle thologie begins with God and his self-
revelation as Trinity in the event of Christ as both fulfilling every human aspiration
and yet totally unexpected and incomparable.
3
In this essay, I will summarize these two versions of integralism, placing them in
historical context and noting both points of comparison and the ways in which they
contrast. I will also evaluate each version in terms of the way in which it has been
criticized from outlook of the other version. Out of this evaluation I will attempt to
show that Rahners version of integralism, though in many ways impressive, still
contains significant problems that render it a less helpful theological construct,
especially in a post-modern context. De Lubacs version of integralism, on the other
hand, despite some weaknesses and the ways in which it has sometimes been deployed
by conservative theologians, has within it, I will argue, the resources for developing a
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radically orthodox postmodern theology. In this latter assertion I find myself in
sympathy with certain trends among contemporary theologians such as John Milbank.
I
Before turning to the details of either Rahner or de Lubac, we can begin by tracing the
outlines of the kinds of extrinicism against which they are reacting, the neo-scholastic,
two-tier account of nature and grace. In this view the addition of grace was seen
as super-added to a human nature that was already complete and sufficient in itself
and apart from any intrinsic human need, thereby vindicating, it was thought, an
Augustinian emphasis upon the sheer gratuity of grace against all forms of
Pelagianism. In taking this step, however, the patristic and medieval notion of a
natural desire for the beatific vision (desiderium naturale visionis beatificae)that human
persons were somehow naturally apt for life with Godbecame eclipsed and the
relationship between an extrinsically related nature and grace developed into a
problem. Grace came to be conceived as a stuff that functions as an addendum to
our nature, but also transforms that nature, yet in a way that lies outside of conscious
experience.
The diagnoses of both Rahner and de Lubac offer similar descriptions and implicit
criticisms of this picture. Rahner writes that on such a view:
...grace is a reality which we know about from the teaching of the faith, but
which is completely outside our experience and can never make its presence
felt in our conscious personal life. We must strive for it, knowing as we do
through faith that it exists, take care (through good moral acts and reception
of the sacraments) that we possess it, and treasure it as our share in the divine
life and the pledge and necessary condition for life in heaven. (1992:97)
Or as de Lubac notes, within the neo-scholastic perspective the supernatural order
loses its unique splendor; andoften ends by becoming no more than a kind of
shadow of that supposed natural order (1998:36). In doing this, the tendency of
theology is to see
...nature and supernature as in some sense juxtaposed, and in spite of every
intention to the contrary, as contained in the same genus, of which they form
as it were two species. The two were like two complete organisms; too
perfectly separated to be really differentiated, they have unfolded parallel to
each other, fatally similar in kind. Under such circumstances, the supernatural
is no longer properly speaking another order, something unprecedented,
overwhelming and transfiguring... (1998:37)
While the diagnoses of Rahner and de Lubac are, for the most part, quite similar, we
can begin to see already where they will eventually diverge, especially in de Lubacs
emphasis on the unprecedented character of grace. With that in mind, we can turn
to their specific accounts of integralism.
II
Lets begin with an overview of Rahners version of integralism. In his attempt to
overcome the extrinsicism of neo-scholastic theology, Rahner utilizes the insights and
tools provided by Joseph Marchals post-Blondelian Kantianism and Martin
Heideggers existentialist phenomenology. From Marchal in particular Rahner
acquires the epistemological insight that every act of human understanding contains
within it an orientation toward infinite Being as the a priori condition of that
understanding.
4
This focus upon self-transcendence was no doubt further focused by
Rahners study of Heidegger, but always remained in conversation with Aquinas and
the traditions of Thomistic theology. In this construction, Rahner attempts to move
beyond older categories of thoughtespecially overcoming its extrincisismin order
both to give Aquinas a more authentic reading and to speak theologically to a modern
world.
Rahner builds up his integralist picture in several steps. First, he is concerned that
grace remain grace, not something that human persons can require from God, but
rather receive only ever as gift. In order to be able to receive it, however, they must
have a capacity for receiving it. This fundamental capacity for God, for receiving his
grace and love, is what Rahner refers to as an existential, a basic aspect of what it
means to be authentically human (1992:112).
Second, Rahner insists that this existential is, nonetheless, supernatural rather
than natural for human beings. Only by maintaining its supernatural character can
the existential be seen as freely bestowed, rather than obligatory, and therefore the
grace that it receives be seen as truly grace (1992:112).
Third, Rahner still must retain the concept of a pure nature as a formal distinction
with regard to human persons, in order to safeguard the true gratuity of grace as
something not required by that pure nature in itself. Nonetheless, for Rahner, no
pure nature ever really exists in any actual human experience apart from the
supernatural existential. Thus this pure nature is only a postulatein Rahners
terms, a remainder concept (Restbegriff)having a regulative function, and is never
able to be isolated and delimited in any real concrete situation. Nonetheless, the
postulate of a pure nature is a necessary and objectively justified one, if one wishes to
achieve reflexive consciousness of that unexactedness of grace which goes other with
human beings inner, unconditional ordination to it (1992:114). Thus the existential
must be experientially interpreted as supernatural in order for grace to remain received
as grace.
Fourth, the supernatural existential is not to be identified with any potentia
obedientialis that is proper to human nature, but the notion of a potentia obedientialis is
not for that reason to be rejected. This potentia is, for Rahner, a movement or
ordination within the postulated pure nature that constitutes an openness for the
supernatural existential (1992:114). As such, this potentia must be interpreted as more
than a mere non-repugnance. It must also be seen as an active longing for God that
is present in the human pre-apprehension (Vorgriff) of everythingan openness for
the whole realm of beingthat is granted in every act of understanding and
constitutes the uniqueness and self-transcendence of the human subject (1978:18-20).
Fifth, although this natural self-transcendence and the supernatural existential are to
be held as formally distinct, in any actual concrete experience the supernatural
existential may already be at work rendering the ordinary lived experience of the
potentia obedientialis as one already laced with traces of actual grace (1992:115). In this
way we continue to preserve the gratuity of grace without thereby falling into
extrinsicism.
Thus far we have Rahners integralist visionand an imposing one at that, deploying
the tools of transcendental philosophy in the service of theology. Before drawing out
further implications of Rahners views and leveling criticisms, however, let us outline
de Lubacs alternative integralism.
III
Where Rahner is making use of Martin Heidegger and Joseph Marchal, de Lubac is
building more directly upon Maurice Blondel, particularly his watershed work Action.
5
In this book Blondel develops a phenomenology of human action that seeks to
demonstrate that human volition is never equal to itself and that its natural desires
and capacities require something moretranscendent and supernaturalwhich,
nonetheless, cannot be demanded but only accepted as a free gift. While this may
sound analogous to Rahner, the difference lies in the fact that whereas Rahner sees
this self-transcendence accompanying each and every particular action (or act of
understanding) as an a priori condition of possibility (and thus as general), Blondel
places this self-transcendence precisely within the particular, historical human actions
themselves where what we desire or will permanently escapes us in the doing of it
(and thus not in an a priori structure).
6
But this will become more clear as we proceed.
De Lubac builds upon Blondels basic outlook in his own version of integralism, first
in his 1946 work, Surnaturel, but then more decisively in his 1965 book, Le Mystre du
Surnaturel.
7
While de Lubacs earlier book had been charged with undermining the
gratuity of grace (and Rahner was among its critics), his later work attempts to
vindicate his earlier thesis. His argument moves forward in the following manner.
First, he argues that in the Fathers and medieval theologians there is a fundamental
continuity between human action and supernatural grace so that the natural desire for
the beatific vision is a sign of grace that is always-already present and acting in us, not
just a bare possibility of grace being given (1998:24ff., 207ff.). Thus the character of
grace must be conceived by way of paradox: that human nature, by nature, has a
supernatural end and yet this end cannot be seen as in any way owed to human beings
as a debitum, but rather must always be received as pure gift.
8
Second, in order to substantiate this claim, de Lubac examines the teaching of a
number of Fathers (Origen, Augustine, etc.) and medieval theologians (Thomas
Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, etc.). He demonstrates that the Aristotelian
notion of a nature is importantly revised by these figures since for Aristotle, it
seems, the natural end of a creature must be in principle attainable by the creatures
own resources and cannot be impeded by anything external to the creature.
9
But this
is precisely what Christian thinkers have denied, perhaps most fully in Aquinas real
distinction between existence and essence in the creature and his assertion that it can
be the second act of a creature that is most proper to it.
10
Applying this to the question of nature and grace, this means that what is most unique
and proper to a human being is the desire for God, despite the fact that this desire
cannot demand its own fulfillment without destroying the very nature of that fulfillment,
which lies in the freely given gift of Gods grace and love. Thus what is most intimate
to us as human beings is, paradoxically, supernatural to us and only to be enjoyed as a
gift (1998:101-118). In support he draws upon many sources, for example, quoting
Bonaventure, Because [the human soul] was made to participate in beatitude...it was
made with a capacity for God and thus in his image and likeness and Since all
creatures were made for God [propter Deum] according to the verse, The Lord has
made all things for himself [propter semetipsum] (Prov 16:4), the rational creature alone
was made to enjoy God, and to be beatified in him, for it alone is in the likeness
(1998:99).
11
Likewise, de Lubac cites Thomas Aquinas, Man was made in order to
see God: for this purpose God made him a rational creature, so that he might
participate in his likeness, which consists in seeing him (1998:100).
12
Third, this version of integralism gives a significant place to the particularity of the
historical, which one would expect, building as it is upon Blondel. In particular, the
event of Christ is seen by de Lubac as the place in which the natural desire to see God
finds its fulfillment since, in Christ, humanity is united to God by nature, although the
event of Christ itself is wholly gratuitous. All other events and actions in which human
nature self-transcendently desires God are to be seen by analogy with the event of
Christ either as typological anticipations of Christ or the historical outworkings of
what Christ accomplished in his own life (1950:55-59).
In this way, then, de Lubac outlines a form of integralism that is in many respects
analogous to that of Rahner, but which diverges at a number of points and appears to
make less use of the categories of existential phenomenology.
IV
With these points in mind we can now move on to critical interaction between the
integralisms of Rahner and de Lubac. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there was little
direct and explicit interaction between the writings of these two thinkers aside from
some scattered remarks and a few early essays. Nonetheless, there is in both authors
what seems to be a significant amount of posturing over against unnamed
interlocutors whom, we can gather, represent the alternative form of integralism. Thus
some implications can be drawn out from these passages. Lets start, however, with an
evaluation of de Lubac from a Rahnerian perspective.
In 1950 Rahner did write a review of de Lubacs earlier work, Surnaturel, and that
review is a good place to start.
13
While Rahner expressed much appreciation for de
Lubacs effort and even agreement insofar as de Lubac was rejecting the older
extrinsicism, he was worried that de Lubacs integralism too easily conflated the
gratuity of creation with the gratuity of divine revelation. In doing so, Rahner
suggested, de Lubac was confusing nature and grace and, thereby, put the true
gratuity of grace at risk. This is precisely what Rahners alternative, the supernatural
existential, was designed to avoid. We will return to this below.
Other comments from Rahner include some passing references, for example, that de
Lubac scorns the notion of the potentia obedientialis (1992:114) or that even de Lubac
must hold that a spiritual life toward God as an end approached merely
asymptotically is not to be dismissed as meaningless from the start (1992:115). But
these passing comments are less than helpful.
For one thing, de Lubac points out that these statements appear to be mistakenly
directed at an article in German that he did not in fact write. De Lubac goes on to say
that he must also make it quite clear that I have never scorned the concept of
potentia obendientialis except in the very sense in which [Rahner] himself resolutely
rejects it (1998:107), that is, either reduced to a mere non-repugnance or as
something that is actually able to be delimited as part of a pure nature.
With regard to the category of a pure nature, it is true that de Lubac rejects it even
as a remainder concept or formal distinction. Against Rahner, de Lubac asserts that
his view does not completely naturalize the supernatural or confuse the gratuity of
creation with the gratuity of revelation, thereby conflating nature and grace. Rather, de
Lubac sepaks of a twofold gratuitousness or twofold initiative or twofold gift
of God (1998:51). While this double movement of grace (creation and elevation) needs
to be asserted, that gift of grace is, for de Lubac, given in the single creating act of God
with no need to posit any additional re-supply of grace.
But this does not, he thinks, result in a conflation of nature and grace. To assert that it
does is, de Lubac suggests, to confuse the integrity of human nature with a purported
purity of human nature. On this view, Schindler says, the integrity of [human] nature
is to be found only within and not outside the existential conditions of the one concrete
order of history, hence only as always-already affected by both grace and sin (de
Lubac 1998:xxiv). This returns us to my original assertion that de Lubacs integralism
actually tends to supernaturalize the natural.
While there is further disagreement between Rahner and de Lubac in how they work
out the implications of their respective integralisms (e.g., with regard to anonymous
Christianity, the relation between church and world, and so on), these issues will be
better discussed after having outlined de Lubacs criticisms of Rahner regarding
nature and grace.
In point of fact, de Lubac says very little that is directly negative about Rahners
integralism. Of the nine or so references to Rahner in his The Mystery of the Supernatural,
they are all positive quotations of or at least neutral allusions to Rahners work.
14
Even in as late a work as his A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, de Lubacs few
passing references to Rahner seem innocuous.
15
Nonetheless, there are some hints of
an underlying dissatisfaction with Rahners formulation of integralism, particularly de
Lubacs passing mentionin Rahners language...existential...followed by a
footnote that reads, in part, Really, to the extent that this existential is conceived as a
kind of medium or linking reality, one may object that this is a useless supposition,
whereby the problem of the relationship between nature and the supernatural is not
resolved, but only set aside (1998:102). And this serves as key whereby we can detect
the places in which de Lubacs other comments are likely directed against Rahners
transcendental integralism.
The essence of de Lubacs critique seems to be the following. Adding another grace-
given level of desire for grace (the supernatural existential), in fact does nothing to
overcome the paradox of the sheer gratuity of grace and the rejection of extrinsicism.
What Rahner achieves is a new two-tier system to replace the old, except now it is
expressed in terms of transcendental philosophy rather than neo-scholastic
metaphysics.
16
In point of fact, the structure of the supernatural existential is scarcely
distinguishable from the purely natural self-transcendence present in the human pre-
apprehension (Vorgriff) of limitless being. The concrete experience of both the Vorgriff
and the supernatural existential turns out to be, more or less, a longing for something
beyond our finitude. The object of that longing, however, is still distinguished by
Rahner as a formal object whose content remains unspecified until made explicit
through Christian revelation.
17
On Rahners view, from de Lubacs perspective, it seems that apart from this
revelation of grace, universally available as the object of our longing, the historically
particular events of gracethe life, death, and resurrection of Jesuswould remain
extrinsic to us. How is the role of revelation, making explicit the content of our
longings, supposed to preserve the absolute gratuitythe unexpected and
incommensurable characterof grace? Does not the Rahnerian solution, instead,
reduce grace to our merely natural expectations (paralleled in the supernatural
existential without real differentiation) and thereby naturalizes it, precisely as Rahner
implies de Lubac is guilty of?
This is where Blondels phenomenology of human action and historical events rises to
the surface of de Lubacs integralism. For de Lubac, and his followers, it is precisely
and only within and by reference to certain historical events, actions, and symbols, that
the supernatural can be identified in all of its unexpected and incommensurable
gratuity. De Lubac will not begin, as Rahner, with something universal for every
person, inscribed into the a priori structure of knowledge, but with the unique
supernatural revelation of God in Christ that, while it does satisfy our natural longings,
does so by shattering them with the Good News of God in the flesh to which the
proper reaction is to be struck dumb with amazement (1998:132-139). Only in light
of this supernatural revelation can the full gratuity of the end of human nature be truly
known. This perspective is aptly summarized by Medard Kehl,
Even if the creature represents a presupposed reflection of the creator and
his love, the historical event of God redeeming us in Christ does not result
from this presupposition. The positive content of the analogous
correspondence between the created order of nature and the historical order
of salvation lies precisely in the (gratuitously given) openness for the, once
again, totally other, underivable completion of the self-revelation of God in
Christ which could never be calculated from creation itself and which is thus
to be received only as pure gift. (1982:22)
18
This integralist perspective is why I initially referred to de Lubacs position as
supernaturalizing the natural and Rahners as the opposite, since the tendency of the
latter seems more to stress the continuity between grace and human expectation.
Therein lies de Lubacs difficulty with it.
Much of this kind of critique of Rahners integralism, however, is merely implicit in de
Lubacs own writings. It does become quite clear and pointed, however, in the writings
of de Lubacs colleague, Hans Urs von Balthasar. He writes, for instance, that
Gods saving acts in history are not transcendentally (hence known but
not in consciousness) etched into this [natural human] longing [for God]
even if it had always been under the guidance of grace (supernatural
existential)in such a way that a person, on witnessing Gods mighty deeds,
for example, Jesus resurrection, would not be impelled to wonder and adore,
but could say to himself, After all, on the basis of my own constitution, I
have actually been expecting this all along. (1986:85)
19
Of course, this is something of a caricature of Rahners own views, emphasizing
certain tendencies in abstraction from his wider body of writings.
20
Nonetheless, it
does point to a serious question, one that de Lubac had begun to raise for some time
already.
This criticism of Rahners integralism from the standpoint of de Lubacs is also the
root of further differences between the two perspectives regarding a wide range of
issues from the nature of salvation to the relationship between the church and the
political order. And it is here, especially, that I think de Lubacs perspective is
vindicated by its implications for a post-modern theology.
V
Lets return to Rahners version of integralism for the time being in order to see the
way in which he works out the implications of that integralism with respect to history,
the social, the community of the church, and some of the consequences of that.
Despite the criticisms of de Lubac and von Balthasar, it is not true that Rahner
ignores or displaces the historical and social dimensions of the Christian faith. Rather
the difficulties lie in exactly how those elements fit into his larger transcendentalism
and how that works itself out in terms of further implications.
With regard to history, particularly salvation history, Rahner does give much attention
to the historically mediated nature of Gods self-communication to individuals and the
way in which those individuals are thoroughly situated in history, in human
communities, in interpersonal relationships, and so on. Thus Rahner can write,
The divinized transcendentality of man, who actualized his essence in history
and only in this way can accept it in freedom, has itself a history in man, an
individual and a collective historyman as subject and as person is a
historical being in such a way that he is historical precisely as transcendent
subject; his subjective essence of unlimited transcendentality is mediated
historically to him in his knowledge and in his free self-realization. (1978:138-
140)
Rahner goes on to speak of the ways in which transcendence itself has a history as
does the supernatural existential.
He also stresses that the Christian faith is irreducibly social in nature and thus requires
the formation of a religious community. Rahner writes,
If man is a being of interpersonal communication not just on the periphery,
but rather if this characteristic co-determines the whole breadth and depth of
his existence, and if salvation touches the whole person and places him as a
whole in with all of the dimensions of his existence in relationship to God,
and hence if religion does not just concern some particular sector of human
existence, but concerns the whole of human existence in its relationship to
the all-encompassing God by whom all things are borne and toward whom all
things are directed, then this implies that the reality of interpersonal
relationship belong to the religion of Christianitythe Christian
understanding of religion is necessarily ecclesial religion. (1978:322-323)
Thus Rahner is well aware of the essentially social nature of the Christian faith and he
stresses this explicitly over against the Enlightenment notion of the individual in which
it might perhaps have looked as though a person could appropriate his religion in a
kind of private interiority. Indeed he notes that today, post-Enlightenment, we are
awarein quite a new and inescapable way that man is a social being, a being who
can exist only within such intercommunication with others through all of the
dimension of human existence (1978:323).
Thus, it is not fair to Rahner to criticize him as if he pushed such issues to the side or
downplayed the importance of history and of the social. Still, there is a troubling
tension within Rahners overall outlook that, one can argue, does implicitly displace the
social and historical. This can be seen in several ways.
First, there is the problem of Rahners methodology. By building his theology largely
from below, Rahner makes his starting point a metaphysics of human subjectivity
that is, in the first instance, purely general, apparently ahistorical, and universal for
each individual. While Rahner does qualify this with a discussion of the historicity of
the human transcendence, of the supernatural existential, and so on, this subsequent
discussion often has the appearance of supplementing an account that is already
largely complete in itself. Rahner notes this difficulty himself,
...if God as he is in himself has already communicated himself in his Holy
Spirit always and everywhere and to every person as the innermost center of
his existence, whether he wants it or not, and if the whole history of creation
is already borne by Gods self-communication in this very creation, then there
does not seem to be anything which can take place on Gods part. (1978:139)
It would seem, then, that in Rahners theology the events of salvation history only
serve to make explicit something which was already present in its fullness from the
outset (1978:139).
While Rahner does give an extended reply to this objection (that he himself raises) and
the reply is, in terms of Rahners own system, the correct one, it is still the case that
we are left with the impression that history and society are only the out-working and
open manifestation of what was always-already the case. Thus, for Rahner, the Vorgriff
of being in human experience and of the supernatural existential universally reveal
the general (albeit historical) fact of Gods absolute self-communication while
maintaining hidden the holy mystery. It is in history that human beings actualize
their already-present transcendentality (1978:345).
This, in turn, is something that is merely made manifest in salvation history in
Gods power to enter into the time and the history which he as the Eternal One has
created (1978:142). Even the Incarnation seems to be presented as something
generally continuous with the already-given pattern of human experience of the divine
as the place in which the historicity of Gods revelation is experienced most clearly
and comes to light most clearly, as if simply a more obvious instance of something
already present (1978:142).
It is when he speaks in this manner that one begins, like de Lubac, to suspect that
Rahner is uncomfortable with fully committing grace and the supernatural into the
hands of human action and the historical in all its particularity, incommensurability,
and, especially in the case of the Incarnation, unexpectedness and unpredictability. It is
not that Rahner would necessarily deny any of this, but that his mode of expression is
too often ambiguous at best and at odds with such a picture at worst. This uneasiness
on Rahners part plays itself out further in his notion of the social and his situating of
the individual in relation to larger communities.
Again, upon reading Rahner, one can be left with the impression that his account of
the social nature of religion is something that must be fit into an already essentially
complete account of the individual subject and the a priori structure of human
knowledge for any given person. Thus, while Rahner maintains that Christianity is
necessarily ecclesial in its understanding of religion, this ecclesiality is, in turn, rooted
in his incipiently individualist transcendentalism. Thus he writes that if a person
...could not attain [faith, love, the entrusting of oneself to God in Christ], if he
could not really realize them in the innermost depths of his existence, then
basically his ecclesiality and his feeling of belonging to the concrete church
would only be an empty illusion and deceptive facade. (1978:324)
After all, for Rahner, Gods salvific work is offered in principle to all people quite
apart from membership in the church or any religious organization (thus de Lubacs
critique of the idea of anonymous Christianity). This, of course, does not mean for
him that religious orgainizations are unimportant, much less the Christian church, but
it does suggest that such organizations form as an addition (even if, in some sense, a
necessary addition) to what is true of us most fundamentally apart from them.
Therefore Rahner repeatedly speaks of the church as a social entity through which
salvation is mediated or as an entity over against the individual that is necessary in
order to manifest the confrontation between Gods self-communication and the
individual.
These expressions, however, embody similar ambiguities to those we encountered
earlier with reference to the historicity of the Christian faith, now expressed in terms
of the relationship between the pure general structures of the individual subject and
the historical particularities of a social organization. Part of the difficulty here is, I
suspect, the Kantian underpinnings of Rahners metaphysics (filtered through
Marchal) which tends to isolate some one thing as an a priori category of
understanding, in Rahners case the whole machinery of the Vorgriff of being and the
supernatural existential as they function in the individual consciousness. When this is
the starting point, problems are naturally going to arise with respect to the historical
and social.
My ill-ease here may best be elucidated by outlining what I see as the alternative
offered by de Lubac. Where, for Rahner, the tendency is to present the social aspects
of salvation as something in addition to the individual and to see the church the
mediating structure by which that salvation is confronted, for de Lubac salvation is
presented as inherently social and the church is seen not just as a mediator of salvation,
but as the very goal of salvation. De Lubac picks up the Gospel theme that
reconciliation with God and reconciliation with ones neighbor are united in a single
movement so that the reconciled community of the church together in God is the
very content of salvation. Thus salvation requires a historical event of being enfolded
into the narrative of the historical people of God in relation to the unique events of
the Incarnation and redemption wrought by Christ (1950:50ff.).
In terms of the manifestation of salvation in history, rather than positing some kind of
anonymous free response to grace on the part of certain individuals, de Lubac
situates salvation historically in relation to human events. Recall that de Lubacs
conception of the relation between nature and grace is built upon Blondels account of
human action as the event of desiring God and accepting grace, not as something that
is universally present alongside each action, but as the very particularity of action itself.
As such human persons experience the reality of salvation in that particularity insofar
as their actions are connected to the historical event of Christ, whether shaped by his
influence, by anticipation and preparation, or by some other real, historical (even if
unseen) connection.
Moreover, de Lubacs account does not offer a generalized salvation that is identical
for each and every individual, but, in its being historically situated, is unique for the
person in how it is offered and in the individual response, incorporating that person
into salvation with a particular narratological relation to both the past history of
Gods people and what he or she will contribute to its future. This also overcomes any
dichotomy between the individual and the ecclesial since the particularities of salvation
for this or that individual are indispensable from the overall shape of Christian history
and thus the particularities of salvation for everyone elseeach is indispensable for all.
(1950: 253-258)
The differences here between de Lubac and Rahner have implications not only for the
place of history and the church, notions such as anonymous Christianity, and the
like, but also with regard to the shape of Christian ethics and politics. While I cannot
take the space here to trace out these implications, the suggestion is that de Lubacs
integralism more successfully overcomes traditional tensions between the individual
and society, between natural law and Christian ethics, and between the church and
the state. We have already just seen some of these implications with regard to the
individual and society.
With regard to natural law, part of the question here is how we conceive of natural law
as something that is, in principle, available equally to all as the human rational
participation in divine practical reason. And, in particular, what is the relationship of
that natural law to the specific content of Christian faith? Do we wish, with Rahner, to
think of Christian faith primarily in terms of a motivating force behind our fulfilling of
what is humanly rational by virtue of natural law?
21
Or, without at all denying the
notion of natural law, do we wish to maintain that the Incarnation, life, and death of
Christ in themselves define the content of natural law and thereby transform
human action? The latter seems more in keeping with de Lubacs integralism.
22
When it comes to the relation between the church and the state, and the development
of a distinctively Christian politics, similar questions also arise. While one can suggest
that neither Rahner nor de Lubac consistently worked out a political theory on the
basis of their differing integralisms, it is arguable that their different perspectives
would give rise to respectively different politics. In the case of Rahner, his thought has
often been taken up into the outlook of Latin American liberation theologians,
frequently with very mixed results. In particular, it has been argued that Rahnerian
themes have regularly led liberation theologians to think of salvation in too
individualistic and ambiguously non-social terms, tied too closely to the experience of
transcendence as captured in the Vorgriff and supernatural existential. As a result, the
social realm comes to be introduced as a supplement to the individual and the
religious, allowing theology to baptize the human aspirations already present in
Marxist discourse as the will of God and having salvific import.
23
Rahner, perhaps,
would distance himself from these implications, though they do accurately represent, I
think, certain tendencies in his own thought, even if they remain undeveloped there.
De Lubacs integralism would obviously move in a somewhat different direction.
24
From the perspective of de Lubacs integralism, then, the Rahnerian epistemological
and transcendentalist apparatus can be jettisoned as implicitly marginalizing the
historical and the social, even if ambiguously so. Against Rahner, the supernatural for
de Lubac is not present within a particular formally distinguished space within
human existence (and thus we leave behind the empty category of a pure nature)
since human existence is not a matter of metaphysics (traditionally conceived), but
of historical action. Thus, certain events of salvation history may be privileged as
defining what is basic to being human and to human history, functioning to transform
all of that history, and constituting of salvation as a fully social phenomenon. Rahners
work does form a monumental corpus that is as insightful and challenging as it is
breathtaking. Nonetheless, I am convinced that it is de Lubacs integralism which
provides resources for an account of the Christian faith that is more helpful in
constructing an authentic post-modern orthodoxy, in contrast to Rahners version
which still seems too often caught in the matrices of certain modernist tendencies.
25
Notes
1. "Integralism" should by no means be confused with "integrism," the pre-conciliar
tendency sometimes to collapse the ecclesiastical sphere into the social and political
one, or vice versa.
2. The term "nouvelle thologie" or "new theology" was actually coined by the
traditionalist critic of de Lubac, the Dominican thomist, Garrigou-Lagrange. The term
was, however, quickly adopted by the movement itself, which also included figures
such as de Montcheuil, Danilou, and Bouyer.
3. Unfortunately, I have found there to be very little written directly to address the
relationship between these two forms of integralism, beyond some scattered remarks
made by various authors in the process of explaining the views of one or the other of
these thinkers. A notable exception to this generalization is Stephen J. Duffys helpful
book, The Graced Horizon: Nature and Grace in Modern Catholic Thought 1992.
4. See Marchals comparison of the a priori in Aquinas and Kant, 1970:117ff.
5. This 1893 work is available in a wonderful translation by Oliva Blanchette (1984).
6. From this point Blondel proceeds to argue that in every action there is contained a
"faith" that our actions, though they surpass our intentions and become other to
themselves, will nonetheless form a satisfying synthesis. And this requires that an
always present divine grace be granted to bring everything to its final end, not just as a
transcendental condition for action, but in the particularity of action itself. But now
Im going beyond the limitations of my present topic. See Bouillard 1969.
7. My references will be to Rosemary Sheeds 1967 translation, The Mystery of the
Supernatural, recently re-issued with new introductory material (1998).
8. De Lubac argues in a similar way that the knowledge of God is paradoxical, a
matter of both reason and faith, nature and grace, natural theology and revelation, and
so on; see his The Discovery of God 1996.
9. A point made repeatedly by Aristotle, but probably most easily seen in the
conclusion to his argument that there is one highest end for humans in Nicomachean
Ethics I.2 (1024a20).
10. The point regarding Aquinas is my own rather than de Lubacs per se, though he
anticipates it somewhat. It can be found exposited more fully in te Velde (1995:201-
33) and Milbank and Pickstock (2000:24-39).
11. The former quote is from Bonaventure, In 2 Sent., 18.1.1 and latter from In 2 Sent.
19.1.2.
12. The quote is from De Veritate 18.1.
13. Rahners reply was entitled "Eine Antwort" and was published in Orienterung
14:141-45. My synopsis is largely drawn from David Schindlers synopsis in the new
introduction to the 1998 edition of The Mystery of the Supernatural.
14. In a footnote, de Lubac even makes reference to his "profound estimation for
Karl Rahners theological work and strong personal affection for him" (1998:107).
15. The work dates, in the original French edition, from 1980. He does, however, refer
to Rahners writings as "somewhat contorted explanations" (1984:35) not an unfair
description, the honest reader will admit, I think.
16. Indeed this might be just what we would expect given that transcendental
philosophy itself is an outgrowth of the very neo-scholastic categories that Rahner is
attempting to use it to undermine. See the accounts of Gillespie 1995 and Montag
1999.
17. De Lubac develops his own epistemology as an alternative to that of Rahner in his
The Discovery of God 1996 (a 1956 development and expansion of his 1945 book, De la
connaisance de Dieu).
18. In reality, Medard offers this as a summary of von Balthasars position, but it
equally applies to that of de Lubac, especially as seen in de Lubac 1950.
19. For more on the relationship between Rahner and von Balthasar, see Rowan
Williams essay "Balthasar and Rahner" (1986:11-34) which traces some the history of
their disagreements.
20. Though the same could not be said with regard to some Rahnerians, e.g. Dupuis
1991.
21. See, e.g., Rahner 1992:299-305 and Fuchs 1980.
22. See Schindler 1994; Murphy 2000; also Hauerwas and Pinchas 1997 provide a
helpful Thomistic account of how the shape of the Christian faith can completely
convert every natural virtue.
23. In this regard Milbank provides a trenchant critique of the Rahnerian bent of
much of liberation theology in 1993:228-245, particularly Gutierrez, Segundo, and
Boff. See also an analogous critique of American neo-conservativism (Murray,
Neuhaus, Novak, Wiegel) from the perspective of de Lubacs integralism in Schindler
1996.
24. Unfortunately, de Lubac provides no real alternative in his own writings,
sometimes draws back from the radical implications of his own starting points, and
has too often been coopted by conservative schemes. Nonetheless, it is arguable that
against the backdrop of Blondel and with the fine-tuning of von Balthasar, de Lubacs
i ntegralism provides the resources for an alternative ecclesiology that sees the church
as the polis that displaces and re-narrates every human polis, paving the way for a post-
modern social theology that is genuinely "socialist" (in the vein of Proudhon and
Buchez). See Milbank 1993:206-255, 380-438; 1997:268-292; and Cavanaugh 1999.
25. Again, consult the arguments of John Milbank, particularly "An Essay Against
Secular Order" 1987 and his Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason 1993 (esp.
chapter 8).
Works Cited
Blondel, Maurice. 1984 [1893]. Action: Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice,
trans. by Oliva Blanchette. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Bouillard, Henri. 1969. Blondel and Christianity, trans. by James Somerville. Washington,
DC: Corpus Books.
Cavanaugh, William T. 1999. The City: Beyond Secular Parodies in Radical Orthodoxy:
a New Theology, ed. by John Milbank, C. Pickstock, and G. Ward. New York:Routledge,
182-200.
de Lubac, Henri. 1950. Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. by
Lancelot Sheppard. London: Barns and Oates.
------. 1984. A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace. San Francisco, Ignatius.
------. 1996. The Discovery of God, trans. by Alexander Dru. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans.
------. 1998. Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. by Rosemary Sheed. New York: Crossroad
Herder.
Duffy, Stephen J. 1992. The Graced Horizon: Nature and Grace in Modern Catholic Thought.
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
Dupuis, Jacques. 1991. Jesus Christ at the Encounter with World Religions. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis.
Fuchs, Joseph. 1980. Is There a Specifically Christian Morality? in The Distinctiveness of
Christian Ethics (Readings in Moral Theology 2) ed. by C. Curran and R. McCormick. New
York: Paulist Press, 3-20.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. 1995. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Durham, NC: Duke.
Hauerwas, Stanley and Charles Pinchas. 1997. Christians Among the Virtues: Theological
Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press.
Marechal, Joseph. 1970. A Marechal Reader, ed. and trans. by Joseph Donceel. New
York: Herder and Herder.
Milbank, John. 1987. An Essay Against Secular Order in The Journal of Religious Ethics
15:199-224.
-----. 1993. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell.
------. 1997. The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milbank, John and Catherine Pickstock. 2000. Truth in Aquinas. New York: Routledge.
Montag, John. 1999. The False Legacy of Suarez in Radical Orthodoxy: a New Theology,
ed. by John Milbank, C. Pickstock, and G. Ward. New York:Routledge, 38-63.
Murphy, William F. 2000. Henri de Lubacs Mystical Tropology in Communio:
International Catholic Review 27.1:171-201.
Rahner, Karl. 1978. Foundations of the Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of
Christianity, trans. by Willima Dych. New York: Crossroad.
------. 1992. Karl Rahner: Theologian of the Graced Search for Meaning, ed. by Geffrey Kelly.
Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
Schindler, David L. 1996. Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology,
Liberalism, and Liberation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
------. 1994. The Culture of Love in The Catholic World Report. October, 42-49.
te Velde, Rudi. 1995. Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas. London: E.J. Brill.
von Balthasar, Hans Urs. 1986. New Elucidations. San Francisco: Ignatius.
Williams, Rowan. 1986. Balthasar and Rahner in The Analogy of Beauty: The Theology of
Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed. by J. Riches. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

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