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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
A sacramental ontology, informed by a ressourcement of the Church Fathers, informs the theology of the mid-twentieth-century Catholic movement of nouvelle théologie. Rejecting the neo-Thomist separation between nature and the supernatural, the nouvelle theologians focused on the sacramental presence of supernatural grace in natural realities. To be sure, differences among these ressourcement theologians cannot be denied: de Lubac and Bouillard emphasized the a-scending character of human participation in divine grace, while Balthasar and Chenu stressed the de-scent of the Incarnation into the created realities of time and space. Nonetheless, the four theologians shared a deep appreciation for the Greek Fathers, which enabled them to counter the neo-scholastic separation between nature and the supernatural with a sacramental ontology.
I am grateful to the Association of Theological Schools and the Henry Luce Foundation for appointing me as Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology for 2007–2008. I also appreciate the opportunity to present this paper at a meeting of the Christian Systematic Theology Group at the Annual Convention of the American Academy of Religion in San Diego in November 2007.
2 Cf. Boersma, Hans, “Sacramental Ontology: Nature and the Supernatural in the Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac,”New Blackfriars 88 (2007): 242–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 For the tension in Thomas's thought, see Boersma, Hans, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,”Evangelical Quarterly 79 (2007): 291–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 I have elaborated on the approaches of these theologians to the nature-supernatural relationship in more detail in Boersma, Hans, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 86–148CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Perhaps the best overall introductions (in English) to these two scholars are Wood, Susan K., Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998)Google Scholar and Guarino, Thomas G., Fundamental Theology and the Natural Knowledge of God in the Writings of Henri Bouillard (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1984)Google Scholar.
6 On the one hand, de Lubac is not naïve with regard to the real problems inherent in the Platonic tradition, and the Incarnation remains a central element of his theology, while Bouillard's Thomism gives him a real appreciation for the relative autonomy of the natural order. On the other hand, both Balthasar and Chenu have a genuine appreciation for the Greek Fathers, including the neo-Platonism of Denys.
7 Cf. de Lubac's warnings against secularism in Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans. Sheppard, Lancelot, introd. Dupré, Louis (New York, N.Y.: Crossroad – Herder & Herder, 2000), xxxv, 240Google Scholar. Through the events of Vatican II and beyond, de Lubac became more and more convinced that the threat came less from neo-Thomist extrinsicism than from secular immanentism, though of course he viewed both as based on the same premises. See de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, trans. Richard Arnandez (San Fancisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 1984). As Tracey Rowland comments: “For de Lubac, the idea of a pure nature contained dangerous Pelagian tendencies, since it meant that it would be possible to sever grace from nature and marginalize it under the category of the ‘supernatural’. The supernatural could subsequently be privatized and social life would then proceed on the basis of the common pursuit of goods associated solely with the ‘natural’ order” (Culture and the Thomist Tradition after Vatican II[London: Routledge, 2003], 94).Google Scholar
8 The title of John Milbank's book on de Lubac (The Suspended Middle) takes its cue from Balthasar's use of the same phrase in Von Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview, trans. Joseph Fessio and Susan Clements (San Francisco, Calif.: Communio – Ignatius, 1991), 14–15. See John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005). Milbank is incorrect, however, in assuming that in some sense de Lubac regards natural desire as already supernatural in character (ibid., 38–40). Balthasar himself points out that de Lubac never makes this move. For de Lubac, there is “no trace yet of supernatural grace” in the created spiritual nature, which is exactly why he was not interested in Karl Rahner's “supernatural existential” (Balthasar, Theology of Henri de Lubac, 71). Not unfairly, David Lyle Jeffrey points out that “in The Suspended Middle, de Lubac sounds more like Milbank than like himself” (Rev. of The Suspended Middle, by John Milbank, JAAR 75 [2007]: 715).
9 Just a glance at some of the titles of de Lubac's books illustrates the importance of paradox in his thought. See Lubac, Henri de, Paradoxes of Faith, trans. Nash, Anne Englund (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 1987)Google Scholar; idem, More Paradoxes, trans. Nash, Anne Englund (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 2002)Google Scholar; idem, The Church: Paradox and Mystery, trans. Dunne, James R. (New York, N.Y.: Ecclesia, 1969)Google Scholar.
10 Cf. de Lubac's historical theological investigations regarding human nature as tripartite, i.e., consisting of body, soul, and spirit, the latter being the locale of the imago dei. See Lubac, Henri de, “Tripartite Anthropology,” in Theology in History, trans. Nash, Anne Englund (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 1996), 117–200Google Scholar. Cf. idem, Brief Catechesis, 26–27.
11 Cf. Lubac, Henri de, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Sheed, Rosemary, introd. Schindler, David L. (New York, N.Y.: Herder & Herder – Crossroad, 1998), 98–100, 108Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., 175.
13 Ibid., 178.
14 The controversy is traced in Karl-Heinz Neufeld, “Fundamentaltheologie in gewandelter Welt: H. Bouillards theologischer Beitrag,”Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 100 (1978): 417–40; Étienne Fouilloux, “Dialogue théologique? (1946–1948),” in Saint Thomas au XXe siècle, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino, et al. (Paris: Saint-Paul, 1994), 153–95; Aidan Nichols, “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,”Thomist 64 (2000): 1–19; Richard Peddicord, The Sacred Monster of Thomism: An Introduction to the Life and Legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (South Bend, Ind.: St Augustine's, 2005), 146–60; Mettepenningen, Jürgen, “Truth as Issue in a Second Modernist Crisis? The Clash between Recontextualization and Retrocontextualization in the French-Speaking Polemic of 1946–47,” in Theology and the Question for Truth: Historical and Systematic Theological Studies, ed. Lamberigts, M., Boeve, L., and Merrigan, T., Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium, 202 (Louvain: Leuven University Press; Louvain: Peeters, 2007), 119–42.Google Scholar
15 E.g., Labourdette, Marie-Michel, “La Théologie et ses sources,”Revue thomiste 46 (1946): 364–67Google Scholar. Cf. Guarino, Thomas, “Henri Bouillard and the Truth-Status of Dogmatic Statements,”Science et esprit 39 (1987): 335Google Scholar. Cf. for much of the following controversy Labourdette, “La Théologie et ses sources,” 353–71; “La Théologie et ses sources: Réponse,”Recherches de science religieuse 33 (1946): 385–401Google Scholar; Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald, “La Nouvelle théologie, où va-t-elle?”Angelicum 23 (1946): 126–45Google Scholar; idem, “Vérité et immutabilité du dogme,”Angelicum 24 (1947): 124–39Google Scholar; idem, “Les Notions consacrées par les Conciles,”Angelicum 24 (1947): 217–30Google Scholar; idem, “Nécessité de revenir à la définition traditionnelle de la vérité,”Angelicum 25 (1948): 185–88Google Scholar; idem, “L’Immutabilité du dogme selon le Concile du Vatican, et le relativisme,”Angelicum 26 (1949): 309–22Google Scholar; idem, “Le Relativisme et l’immutabiltité du dogme,”Angelicum 27 (1950): 219–46Google Scholar; idem, “La Structure de l’encyclique ‘Humani generis’,”Angelicum 28 (1951): 3–17Google Scholar. The debate between Labourdette and the nouvelle theologians was republished in Labourdette, M., Nicolas, M.-J., and Bruckberger, R.-L., Dialogue théologique: Pièces du débat entre “La Revue Thomiste” d’une part et les R.R. P.P. de Lubac, Daniélou, Bouillard, Fessard, von Balthasar, S.J., d’autre part (Saint-Maximin: Arcades, 1947)Google Scholar.
16 Bouillard, Henri, Conversion et grâce chez S. Thomas d’Aquin: Étude historique (Paris: Aubier, 1944), 219–24Google Scholar. Cf. Guarino, Thomas G., “Henri Bouillard and the Truth-Status of Dogmatic Statements,”Science et esprit 39 (1987): 331–43Google Scholar; idem, “Fundamental Theology and the Natural Knowledge of God in the Writings of Henri Bouillard,” Ph.D. diss. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1984), 20–27Google Scholar. Thomas Aquinas had stated “that these names signify the divine substance, and are predicated substantially of God, although they fall short of a full representation of Him” (Summa theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province [1948; repr. Notre Dame, Ind.: Christian Classics – Ave Maria, 1981], I q.13 a.2).
17 Cf. Boersma, Hans, “Analogy of Truth: The Sacramental Epistemology of nouvelle théologie,” in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth Century Catholic Theology, ed. Flynn, Gabriel and Murray, Paul D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), forthcomingCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Henri Bouillard, Karl Barth, vol. 1, Genèse et évolution de la théologie dialectique, Théologie, 38 (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1957); idem, Karl Barth, vol. 2, Parole de Dieu et existence humaine, 2 parts, Théologie, 39 (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1957). Bouillard published a number of shorter essays in which he summarized particularly his disagreement with Barth's rejection of natural theology. See idem, “La Refus de la théologie naturelle dans la théologie protestante contemporaine,” in L’Existence de Dieu, by Henri Birault et al., Cahiers de l’actualité religieuse, 16 (Tournai: Casterman, 1961), 95–108, 353–58; idem, “La Preuve de Dieu dans le ‘Proslogion’ et son interprétation par Karl Barth,” in Congrès international du IXe centenaire de l’arrivée d’Anselme au Bec, Spicilegium Beccense, 1 (Le Bec-Hellouin: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec; Paris: Vrin, 1959), 190–207; idem, The Logic of the Faith, trans. M. H. Gill and Son (New York, N.Y.: Sheed and Ward, 1967), 59–137; idem, “Karl Barth et le catholicisme,” in Vérité du christianisme, ed. Karl H. Neufeld (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1989), 101–16; idem, The Knowledge of God, trans. Femiano, Samuel D. (New York, N.Y.: Herder and Herder, 1968), 11–62Google Scholar.
19 Bouillard, Karl Barth III.200.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 203.
22 For overviews of Balthasar's main patristic publications, see Daley, Brian E., “Balthasar's Reading of the Church Fathers,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed. Oakes, Edward T. and Moss, David (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 193–95Google Scholar; Kannengiesser, Charles, “Listening to the Fathers,” in Hans Urs Von Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. Schindler, David L. (San Francisco, Calif.: Communio – Ignatius, 1991), 59–63Google Scholar.
23 Mongrain, Kevin, The Systematic Thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Irenaean Retrieval (New York, N.Y.: Crossroad – Herder & Herder, 2002), 61Google Scholar.
24 Brian Daley also draws attention to Balthasar's quest for a “sacramental understanding” of the world in his engagement with the Church Fathers, an understanding that does not just press “through worldly images” but “recognizes the presence of transcendent holiness in sensible things” (“Balthasar's Reading,” 190–91). Cf. also Ben Quash's comment on the “almost sacramental character” of the mediation of the “differentiated diversity of material things” (“Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918, 3rd ed., ed. David F. Ford with Rachel Muers (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 111. Rodney A. Howsare also speaks of Balthasar's “‘sacramental’ sensibilities” (Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Protestantism: The Ecumenical Implications of His Theological Style[London: T&T Clark – Continuum, 2005], 107Google Scholar; cf. ibid., 191, n. 15).
25 Cf. also Balthasar's cautionary comments about a repristination of the Fathers in Presence and Thought: An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa, trans. Sebanc, Mark (San Francisco, Calif.: Communio – Ignatius, 1995), 9–13Google Scholar. Cf. Carabine, Deirdre, “The Fathers: The Church's Intimate, Youthful Diary,” in The Beauty of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed. McGregor, Bede and Norris, Thomas (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 74–75Google Scholar.
26 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, vol. 2 of The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, trans. Louth, Andrew, McDonagh, Francis, and McNeil, Brian, ed. Riches, John (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 1984), 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe according to Maximus the Confessor, trans. Daley, Brian E. (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 2003), 207Google Scholar.
28 Howsare goes so far as to suggest that Balthasar engaged Barth because he “recognized in Barth's critique of Liberal Protestantism a concern not unlike de Lubac's critique of neo-Scholastic dualism. In other words, it was not primarily to defend the Catholic understanding of analogy to Barth that Balthasar wrote this study. Rather, it was to show his fellow Catholics the dangers inherent in the doctrine of analogy when it is totally removed from the context of theology proper” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, 83).
29 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Edward T. Oakes (San Francisco, Calif.: Communio – Ignatius, 1992), 197. See also ibid., 234, 341; idem, Theology of Henri de Lubac, 118. Cf. Edward T. Oakes, Pattern of Redemption: The Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (New York, N.Y.: Continuum, 1994), 66–67. Balthasar may well have taken the imagery of the hourglass from Oscar Cullmann, who used it to describe salvation history as narrowing in Christ, broadening out from there. See Balthasar, Hans Urs von, The Spirit of Truth, vol. 3 of Theo-Logic, trans. Harrison, Graham (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 2005), 287Google Scholar.
30 The sacramental cast of Balthasar's Christological analogy has far-reaching implications, particularly for the doctrine of the Trinity and for atonement theology, since Balthasar insists that Thomas's “real distinction” between being and essence in some way goes back to the Trinity, so that suffering and other aspects of human becoming get taken up—in analogical fashion—in the triune God. For further discussion, see Bernhard Blankenhorn, “Balthasar's Method of Divine Naming,”Nova et Vetera, English edition 1 (2003): 245–68; Levering, Matthew, “Balthasar on Christ's Consciousness on the Cross,”Thomist 65 (2001): 567–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Franks, Angela Franz, “Trinitarian analogia entis in Hans Urs von Balthasar,”Thomist 62 (1998): 533–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O’Hanlon, Gerard F., The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 For an excellent bibliography, see Potworowski, Christophe F., “Bibliography of Marie-Dominique Chenu,” in Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu (Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), 237–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 We can think here of Chenu's engagement with the jocistes in the 1930s, with the worker-priest movement in the post-war years, and with Christian-Marxist dialogue throughout much of his career The jocistes—a term deriving from Jeunesse Ouvrière Catholique (JOC)—were lay Catholic Action groups involved in mission work among the working classes. Cf. Chenu's 1936 essay, “La J.O.C. au Saulchoir,” in La parole de Dieu, vol. 2, L’Évangile dans le temps (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 271–74. The worker-priests were priests who also felt called to be involved among the working classes. Chenu's involvement with the worker priests led to him being exiled from Paris to Rouen for a brief period of time in 1954. See Chenu's 1954 essay, “Le Sacerdoce des prêtres-ouvriers,” in ibid., 275–81. For an historical account, see Arnal, Oscar L., Priests in Working-Class Blue: The History of the Worker-Priests (1943–1954) (New York, N.Y.: Paulist, 1986)Google Scholar.
33 Chenu recounts that people would sometimes think there were two Chenus, “one old medievalist, who does palaeography, and a kind of scoundrel who runs in the lines of fire of the holy Church” (Un théologien en liberté: Jacques Duquesne interroge le Père Chenu, Les interviews [Paris: Centurion, 1975], 61). For an analysis of how Chenu regarded the relationship between praxis and theory in an increasingly secularized France, see Potworowski, Christophe, “Dechristianization, Socialization and Incarnation in Marie-Dominique Chenu,”Science et esprit 93 (1991): 17–54Google Scholar.
34 Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir (Kain-Lez-Tournai: Le Saulchoir, 1937)Google Scholar. Chenu's book was re-published in 1985: idem, Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir, with contributions by Alberigo, Giuseppe, Fouilloux, Étienne, Jossua, Jean-Pierre, and Ladrière, Jean (Paris: Cerf, 1985).Google Scholar For further analysis of the book and its historical context, see Potworowski, Contemplation and Incarnation, 46–55; Kerr, Fergus, “Chenu's Little Book,”New Blackfriars 66 (1985): 108–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Chenu, Une école (1985 ed.), 123.
36 Chenu's book speaks of a “discrete relativism of the framework of the most coherent and most unified systems” (ibid., 125–26; cf. ibid., 148). Claude Geffré rightly observes, “In the context of the time, this relativizing of dogma was a real provocation” (“Théologie de l’incarnation et théologie des signes du temps chez le Père Chenu,” in Marie-Dominique Chenu: Moyen-Âge et modernité, ed. Joseph Doré and Jacques Fantino, Les cahiers du Centre d’études du Saulchoir, 5 [Paris: Cerf, 1997], 134–35). In 1938, Chenu was forced to sign ten propositions, which clearly were designed to exclude any kind of relativism. The first proposition stated: “Dogmatic formulations express absolute and immutable truth.” Cf. Kerr, Fergus, “A Different World: Neoscholasticism and Its Discontents,”International Journal of Systematic Theology 8 (2006): 128–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For historical accounts of the events surrounding the 1942 censure of Chenu—as well as Louis Charlier and Henry Duméry—see Guelluy, Robert, “Les Antécédents de l’encyclique ‘Humani Generis’ dans les sanctions Romaines de 1942: Chenu, Charlier, Draguet,”Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 81 (1986): 421–97Google Scholar; Fouilloux, Étienne, “Autour d’une mise à l’Index,” in Marie-Dominique Chenu, ed. Doré, and Fantino, , 25–56Google Scholar.
37 Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Is Theology a Science? trans. Green-Armytage, A.H.N. (New York, N.Y.: Hawthorn, 1959)Google Scholar, 46. Cf. ibid., 63, where Chenu insists that the “aim of the theologian remains from start to finish the attainment of a beatifying knowledge of God and a full life of grace in the world.” For a discussion of Chenu's understanding of theology, see Boersma, Hans, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011), 170–84Google Scholar.
38 With the help of Denys, Chenu was, on the one hand, able to maintain that the gradual ascent to perfection involved an essential moment of discontinuity in faith. If, on the other hand, the passive character of contemplation was its one, essential element, this also meant for Chenu that mystical contemplation was not characterized by immediate spiritual contact. See Conticello, Carmelo Giuseppe, “De contemplatione (Angelicum 1920): La thèse inédite du P. M.-D. Chenu,”Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 75 (1991): 414Google Scholar.
39 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, preface Etienne Gilson, trans. and ed. Jerome Taylor and Lester Little, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 37 (1968; repr. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 124–28. Cf. ibid., 82: “The ‘sign’ of Augustine and the ‘symbol’ of pseudo-Dionysius belonged to two quite different Platonisms.”
40 When stumbling across Chenu's repeated and often unqualified denunciations of Platonic idealism, we need to keep in mind, therefore, that Chenu takes aim at the Augustinian tradition, not at the Dionysian tradition.
41 Komonchak, Joseph A., “Returning from Exile: Catholic Theology in the 1930s,” in The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview, ed. Baum, Gregory (New York, N.Y.: Orbis, 1999), 41Google Scholar.
42 Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society, 5, 14, 127, 265.
43 Cf. especially Marie-Dominique Chenu, “Les Signes des temps,” in Peuple de Dieu dans le monde, Foi vivante, 35 (Paris: Cerf, 1966), 35–55Google Scholar. The background to Chenu's interest in the “signs of the times” lay in the idea of a “continued Incarnation,” a notion for which Chenu was indebted to Tübingen theologian, Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838).
44 Komonchak accurately points out four differences between Chenu and de Lubac: (1) de Lubac was less enthusiastic about the Thomistic achievement, which had made possible a later compartmentalized anthropology; (2) de Lubac insisted less on the autonomy of the created order and more on the supernatural finality of creation; (3) de Lubac placed less emphasis on economic questions and was more reserved about alliances with Marxism; and (4) de Lubac was more critical of the post-conciliar situation than was Chenu (“Returning from Exile,” 44–45). Potworowski adds to this that Chenu's approach to “signs of the times” makes him less sensitive than de Lubac to problems associated with the question of evil (Contemplation and Incarnation, 178–79).
