(CHRISTIAN REACTION TO THE HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY)

 Born on November 2, 1861 in Dijon, France.

 As a young student he was naturally inclined to
philosophy.
 Studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure under
Leon Olle-Laprune.
 Became a established professor in 1897.
 Wrote his “L’Action” (Philosophy of Action) wherein
he integrated the classical Neoplatonic thought
with modern Pragmatism in the context of a
Christian philosophy of Religion.
 Term action was comprehensive referring to the
dynamism of life in all its manifestations: includes all the
conditions that contribute to the gestation, birth, and
expansion of the free act.
 A theory of human destiny and action, according to which
no insurmountable division exists between thought and
experiential reality.
 Truth cannot be known by intellect alone and can be
attained only through active self-synthesis in accordance
with divine will.
 The question is not proving God’s existence, but rather
determining what should be the attitude of a man
regarding the possibility of his receiving eternal life with
God.
 His thoughts may be considered as a revival of the
Catholic thought.
 His originality is shown in his treatment on the “principle
of immanence” opening it with the Transcendence and
historical Revelation of Christianity.
 His influence could be seen in what we call today the
“New Theology” or the Transcendental Philosophy of Karl
Rahner.
 It marked the movement of the revival of Catholic
theology amidst the crisis of Modernism and Vatican II.
 Like Kierkegaard, Blondel appeals to Christianity to
explain human existence. However, differs from K’s “leap
of faith.”
 He saw the need for an autonomous Christian
Philosophy: not a philosophy that is a servant of
theology, i.e., one dictated by theology or by
ecclesiastical authority.
 For him, this is not philosophy at all, but theology in
disguise.
 Thus, the need to redefine the relationship between
Philosophy and Religion.
 Christian philosophy has to be autonomous. He
clearly states: “an integral philosophy wholly
appropriate to Christian belief, but only in so far as
that philosophy would be autonomous.”
 His existential approach in Christian philosophy
exhibits man’s lack of self-sufficiency and his opening
to the Transcendent Being. This is called the method
of Immanence.
 Through this method, he is led to the affirmation of
the Transcendence – an objective reality which is not
dependent on human consciousness.
 He has developed this thesis in his major work
“L’Action”.
 It represents “an aspect within Catholic thought that
has been called “pragmatism” – different from
American pragmatism.
 He does not belong to the Thomist nor Scholastic
school.
 The context of L'Action is characterized by this
strong struggle to separate philosophy from
theology.
 What dominated the entire life of France during
the time of Blondel were the humanistic ideals
and the strong secularism that was brought
about by the influence of Comte, Taine, and
Renouvier.
 Some considered it as philosophy's attempt to
defend the scientific value of theology.
 Originally, L'Action was presented as
a doctoral thesis in Sorbonne on June
7, 1893. It has undergone many
revisions.
 L'Action was a youthful production. In
a revised form, it would later become
the five- volume of the Trilogy on
Thought, Being, and Action.
 In L'Action, he opens up the question: "Yes or
no, has life a meaning, has man a destiny?"
 Blondel gives answer by phenomenologically
analyzing human action.
 What he showed was the inner dynamics of
human consciousness and activity opening itself
towards the Transcendent Being.
 The term “action” does not carry the ordinary
meaning of action or activity.
 In the ordinary sense, action is preceded by
thought or is accompanied by it.
 Action is distinct from thought
 Blondel: action and thought are not distinct.
Thought itself is a form of action:
 For Blondel: action and thought are not
distinct. Thought itself is a form of
action:
 “All our ideas, even our idea of God, are
fruits of past actions and seeds of
consequent action.”
 Therefore, there is continuity and basic
orientation. It does not refer to various
activities of man taken separately.
 Action is (a) the movement of life, (b)
the dynamism of the subject or of the
whole person, seeking for fulfillment.
 Blondel links this action, this total movement
of man towards fulfillment, with Willing.
Action involves willing.
 Not limited to the external execution of an
intention to the deed.
 It includes the deeper action of the spirit
which goes beyond every concrete
embodiment and is the condition for the
possibility of every particular act and choice.
 Similar to Augustine, his philosophy is a
movement from the exterior to the interior,
and from the interior to the superior.
 Blondel's subject is not the same as the Cartesian Ego
or Transcendental Ego of the German Idealism.
 His subject is not reduced to the knowing subject.
 The subject is the "human composite, the synthesis of
body and soul, whole life is action understood in its
totality. Thus, man is not only an intellectual/knowing
subject (cogito).
 He considers the human person in his totality as an
acting subject, prior to its specification into separate
functions of will and intellect.
 Experience shows that these functions have a common
source the human subject.
 Intellect as the light of the will and the will as driving
force of the intellect, both are united in the subject as
act.
 The subjective act is conditioned by the objective
elements.
 Yet no exhaustive knowledge of these objective
elements can adequately define the act, because it
always exceeds the scene of its conditions.
 The subjective is not merely one element among others
in the structure of a phenomenon.
 It is the act which produces the phenomenon, rather
than the phenomenon itself.
 Blondel's human subject is not understood in terms of
its nature, its being, but rather in terms of its acting.
 The subject is act. It is in acting that the human subject
discovers his\her own insufficiency and thus the need
for a transcendent fulfillment.
 Therefore, with this perspective, it is not so much
the question of discovering the Absolute as the
goal.
 Rather it is more of the question of man’s
awareness of this process or dynamism towards the
Absolute Transcendence.
 In that context, the human subject discovers
himself/herself as insufficient and in need to the
Transcendence.
 The transcendent is discovered exclusively in the
existing insufficiency – not in the necessity of
fulfillment.
 Freedom in Act is the most essential feature of the
Acting Subject.
 As the subject is immersed in the concrete, freedom
is not abstract nor considered independently of a
system of determinations.
 However, Freedom is not determined by a system
of determinations.
 On the contrary, freedom transcends its
determinations. It penetrates the deterministic world
of facts and reshapes it in accordance with its own
spiritual intentions.
 It is in freedom that man has to make a decision to
affirm or deny the reality of God.
 "Those most united to the Passion are also the
most active and the most human. Indeed, pure
detachment attaches us again to everything. It is
not by our fulfillments that we reach that emptiness
which is our salvation. Rather it is within that
emptiness that we find our fulfillments in God, and
through Him all things else besides." (Maurice
Blondel et le Pere Teilhard de Chardin; Memoires
echanges en decembre 1919, presentes par H. de
Lubac," Archives de Philosophie, XX1V (1961),
150)
 Philosophy covers all phenomena of consciousness
including religious consciousness. From religion, the
essence of revealed religion is its transcendent
character.
 For Blondel, Philosophy can never discover the
Transcendent order as a reality - the whatness of that
transcendent reality.
 However, even if the supernatural's actual reality is
beyond the scope of immanent reflection, as a
necessary hypothesis it becomes essential part of an
immanent philosophy.
 Using immanent method, Blondel reflected on the living
movement of action, and discover the insufficiency of
his actions and the necessity of God.