Maurice Blondel and the Mystic Life

Michael A. Conway St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland

“It is by those who have suffered that the world is advanced” Leo Tolstoy

When, in the early nineteen twenties, Maurice Blondel came to reflect on the mystic life, he was concerned to take into account discussions on at least three significant fronts: the academic, the ecclesial, and the personal. All three contributed to his understanding, stimulated his reflection, and offered positions, which he would critique, reject, or, even, integrate into his own position. The exceptionally complex material would eventually lead to one of his most extraordinary publications, The Problem of the Mystical, in 1925, which is his major contribution in terms of a systematic philosophical approach to the mystic life1. This paper wishes to consider these three fronts in order to better understand Blondel’s treatment of mysticism, which would have a major impact on his subsequent philosophy2. The paper will consider the three fronts, taking the major figure that emerges on each one as the leading dialogue partner. I will explore first Blondel’s interaction with the discussions of the university, where, by the twenties, Jean Baruzi had emerged as the leading figure. Blondel engaged with his work and a number of key determinations emerged as regards understanding the mystic life. The second front is the ecclesial one, which is the most complex on the philosophical plane as it involved critiquing the position of a regnant neo-Thomism that treated Blondel’s work as the

1. The work appeared in 1925 in the 3rd Cahier de la Nouvelle Journée, Qu’est-ce que la mystique? It was the highest selling issue of the series (2,656 copies) with two editions in 1925 and in 1928 (on the occasion of Cahier 12, which was dedicated to Blondel’s philosophy). M. Blondel, Le problème de la mystique, in Qu’est-ce que la mystique? Quelques aspects historique et philosophique du problème (Cahiers de la nouvelle journée, 3), Paris, Bloud et Gay, 1925, 2-63 (I will quote from this original text). The text is also available in: G. Berger – M. Blondel – L. Lavelle et al., Chant Nocturne: Saint Jean de la Croix mystique et philosophie, ed. M.-J. Coutagne – Y. Périco, Paris, Éditions Universitaires, 1991, 25-58. 2. For competent discussions of the emergence of interest in the mystical in France in the early twentieth century, see B. Minvielle, Qui est mystique? Un demi-siècle de débats (1890-1940), Paris, CLD éditions, 2017; É. Poulat, L’université devant la mystique: Expé- rience du Dieu sans mode; Transcendance du Dieu d’Amour, Paris, Salvator, 1999; see also H. Wilmer, Mystik zwischen Tun und Denken: Ein neuer Zugang zur Philosophie Maurice Blondels, Freiburg i. Br., Herder, 1992. 662 M.A. CONWAY bête noir of modern philosophy. As regards the mystical, Jacques Maritain becomes the envoy in the public forum for this neo-Thomism, and he critiques on numerous occasions Blondel’s approach. The third front is a personal one. The discussion here takes place in the context of a friendship with Lucien Laberthonnière that, rather tragically, had begun to grow sour, and in which the discussion itself of the mystic life was reflected in the more personal exchanges between the two friends. In a perceptive comment in The Problem of the Mystical, Blondel remarks that, to date, no one has really been able to undertake “the literary history” and psychology of “the religious sentiment” without compromis- ing transcendence and the purity of mystic gifts3. It is this issue, above all, that he wishes to discuss and clarify. The mystic life is profoundly subjective and cannot be adequately understood through a detached or neutral methodology. The crucial insight is that if one hopes to achieve any real competence in terms of understanding the mystic life, then one must participate to some degree in the experience itself. This is the key methodo- logical feature of Blondel’s discussion. It means that his contribution still has something considerable to offer in the face of much subsequent research such as that, say, from Michel de Certeau4. You could argue, for example, that whereas de Certeau presents a study of mysticism that is attentive to the diachronic moment, concerned with the rich social, cul- tural, linguistic, and historical contours of the phenomenon as it emerged in a particular period, Blondel is concerned with a synchronic investiga- tion of the very dynamics that constitute the mystic state as a present reality, and, therefore, penetrates more deeply into the experience itself.

I. First Front: Mysticism at the University

The surprising emergence of a scientific study of mysticism in the university during the early decades of the twentieth century has its origin in the previous three decades, when the mystical was studied, first, by medical professionals, followed, by psychologists, philosophers, ethno- sociologists, and, finally, historians of religious literature5. The major initial contributions came from Jean-Martin Charcot, Théodule Ribot, Ernest Murisier, and Pierre Janet. The earliest work treated the mystical

3. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), p. 60. It is of note that Henri Bremond – a correspondent of Blondel’s – was in the process of publishing his magnum opus Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France. The second volume, titled L’invasion mystique (1590-1620), appeared in 1923. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), p. 42, n. 1. 4. See M. de Certeau, La fable mystique: XVIe-XVIIe siècle, Paris, Gallimard, 1982. 5. For literary details and discussion, see Minvielle, Qui est mystique? (n. 2), pp. 39-61; see also A. Desmazières, L’experience mystique de saint Jean de la Croix à l’aune des sciences humaines, in Vingtième Siècle: Revue d’Histoire 130 (2016) 59-75. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 663 as (religious) pathology, where the basic diagnosis was that of a discon- nect with reality since the mystic took a turn to an interior life that was imaginary and the source of a range of pathological states and conditions. In time the initial clinical assessment would give way to a more positive one, so that someone as influential as Émile Boutroux would question in the Revue bleue of 1902 the all-inclusive reading of this pathological thesis. He even acknowledges that the study of mysticism is of interest not just for science, but in terms of “the life and destiny of individuals and of humanity”6. The major figure in the re-appraisal of the mystical is Henri Delacroix, who initiated a philosophical study of the mystics that was based solely on a critical reading of the historical sources. In this, he is at once attentive to the historical context of each mystic, has a real appre- ciation of the achievement of mystic experience, and claims that it is possible to have an adequate scientific reading of the phenomenon without having any recourse to a supernatural order. He affirms against the psy- chopathological tradition that the authentic mystic life leads in fact to a progressive enrichment of consciousness and personality. While acknowledging Delacroix’s achievement, Blondel would react and express a series of reservations vis-à-vis his treatment of the mystic state7. Following Delacroix and after some fifteen years of intensive research, Jean Baruzi (1881-1953) presented his seminal work in 1924, entitled St. John of the Cross and the Problem of Mystic Experience8. It was by far the most significant publication of the period as regards the critical study of John of the Cross and would make Baruzi a pioneer in the philosophical study of mysticism. It is clear that Baruzi saw his study as a continuation of the investigations of Henri Delacroix, but with the focus now specifically on John of the Cross9. For Baruzi, mysticism was not

6. See É. Boutroux, La psychologie du mysticisme, in Id., La nature et l’esprit, Paris, Vrin, 1926, 173-190, pp. 175-176; 190. 7. I have already discussed Blondel’s reaction to Delacroix’s work in an earlier paper: see M.A. Conway, Intelligence and the Mystic Life for Maurice Blondel, in ETL 90 (2014) 1-39; see also Minvielle, Qui est mystique? (n. 2), pp. 45-48. 8. This was his principal doctoral thesis, accompanied by a complementary thesis (as was customary at the time), entitled, Aphorismes de saint Jean de la Croix. The work was published in two editions; the first, in 1924, after the soutenance of the thesis, and, the second, in 1931, which was “revue et augmentée”, without, however, having made any substantial changes to the original text. A more recent re-edition of this second edition has appeared with a very helpful introduction from Émile Poulat: J. Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de l’expérience mystique, introd. d’É. Poulat, Paris, Salvator, 1999; Id., Aphorismes de saint Jean de la Croix, texte établi et traduit d’après le manuscrit auto graphe d’Andújar et précédé d’une introduction, Bordeaux, Féret et fils, 1924. See also Poulat, L’université devant la mystique (n. 2). 9. See Baruzi’s introduction to the chapter on Henri Delacroix in: J. Baruzi, Philo sophes et savants français du XXe siècle: Extraits et notices, Paris, Alcan, 1926, pp. 153-156. Baruzi had already published a significant work on Leibniz (1907), directed by Boutroux, from whom he learned, in addition, to appreciate the value of the mystical in its universal significance: J. Baruzi, Leibniz et l’organisation religieuse de la terre, Paris, Alcan, 1907. 664 M.A. CONWAY beyond understanding, but, rather, was the expression of the highest form of intelligence, which permitted an understanding of the whole through a central and global vision10. The following year, 1925, at the request of Xavier Léon, Baruzi sent a set of propositions for discussion to La Société française de philosophie for a meeting to be held on the 2 May 1925 on “Saint John of the Cross and the Problem of the Noetic Value of Mystic Knowledge”11. For his part, Blondel would send a letter to the meeting, which is published as an appendix to the proceedings12. It is interesting to note that just over two weeks after this meeting of the society, Baruzi writes to Blondel, observing: “I had the joy of reading Le Problème de la mystique, of reading and rereading. And I have not finished with rereading”13.

1. The Mystic Life and Ordinary Christian Life A key question in the various discussions on mysticism is the relationship between the life and person of St. John of the Cross, the mystic saint, and ordinary Christian life. Is there a radical discontinuity that would place the saint in a separate category, endowed with a special supernatural

10. See J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, Présentation, in J. Baruzi, L’intelligence Mystique, textes choisis et présentés par J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, Paris, Berg International, 1985, pp. 13, 30. 11. This transpired to be an exceptional meeting of the Society and resulted in a double printing of issue of the Bulletin. Apart from Baruzi, those present would include: Henri Delacroix, Eduard Le Roy, Lucien Laberthonnière and Raymond Lenoir. J. Baruzi et al., Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de la valeur noétique de l’expérience mystique. Séance du 2 mai 1925, in Bulletin de la Société française de Philosophie 25 (1925) 25-88, pp. 25-28. The Theses (together with remarks made by Baruzi to open the discussion) are also available in: Baruzi, L’intelligence Mystique (n. 10), pp. 59-68. 12. On this letter, he would later remark to Bremond: “You know without doubt that the Société française de Philosophie had a séance on The noetic value of mystical experience and the theses of Baruzi: I sent my protestations against 9 or 10 defective points of his thesis”. See M. Blondel, Lettre de M. Maurice Blondel, in Baruzi et al., Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de la valeur noétique de l’expérience mystique (n. 11), pp. 85-88; M. Blondel, Letter to Henri Bremond, 20 August 1925, in H. Bremond – M. Blondel, Correspondance. Vol. 3: Combats pour la prière et pour la poésie (1921-1933), ed. A. Blanchet, Paris, Aubier, 1971, 211-214, pp. 212-213. We are at the height of the modernist crisis. Blondel writes to Wherlé on 4 May 1925: “I have improvised a pretty extended note for Baruzi, who communicated to me in extremis the programme of his exposé to the Soc. of Philosophy (2 May) on ‘the noetic value of the mystic experience’. I had a good many rectifications to indicate” (M. Blondel, Letter to Joannès Wehrlé, 4 May 1925, in Id. – J. Wehrlé, Correspondance, ed. H. De Lubac, vol. 2, Paris, Aubier, 1969, 603-604, p. 603. It is in this letter that Blondel deals most explicitly with St. John of the Cross, who features only near the end of Le problème de la mystique (n. 1). 13. J. Baruzi, Letter to Maurice Blondel, 16 May 1925, Archives Maurice Blondel (Louvain-la-Neuve), B-CXCVII/90, 37735, as quoted in E. Tourpe, La mystique chez Maurice Blondel: Le débat sur «expérience mystique et philosophie» autour du «Saint Jean de la Croix» de Baruzi, in P. Capelle (ed.), Expérience philosophique et expérience mystique, Paris, Cerf, 2005, 269-283, p. 278. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 665 grace that is not available to the ordinary Christian? Or is the mystic life a possibility for every Christian so that it is a question only of degrees in the realization of Christian living? Baruzi suggests that, on the one hand, we must study the experience of individual mystics in all their complexity, and, yet, on the other hand, we must constantly go beyond the limits of isolated cases through the means given us by history and criticism14. For him, however, John of the Cross is the preeminent figure in the study of Christian mysticism: he is the one “who goes directly to the unadorned (dépouillé) and perfect life”15. Because of this, John of the Cross’s work demands an attention that is of the metaphysical order, seeking the solution to the problem of knowledge of God and of our relationship to the absolute16. He is the mystic par excellence and, as an extreme case, gives us the most complete perspective on Christian mysticism. He is the one who has plummeted the depths of the mystic experience, purged it of all ancillary phenomena, and has gone right to the heart of what Baruzi will term “abyssal faith”17. Blondel is largely in agreement with Baruzi’s position, but underlines the universal character of the mystic life itself that cannot be limited to the level of individual subjectivity. In terms of methodology there is no doubt that the study of the mystical is a study of individuals and so is a matter of the concrete and the singular; but it is also a matter of the universal and the total18. Blondel suggests that two further points need to be made to this position of studying the mystical through individual mystics. Firstly, given that there can be no “exhaustive” analysis or science of lived reality, the only decisive competence in the matter of the mystical is real participation in the spirit itself, which effectively inspires mysticism. This means that, for Blondel, it is incorrect to over-emphasize the difference between individual mystics or even between mystics and what might be termed ordinary souls. However infinitely diverse the expressions of the mystic life may be, there remains intact a hidden structure that is both necessary and stable. Baruzi himself, Blondel remarks, presents St. John of the Cross as an “extreme case”, which implies in essence that he is at the term of a series and that there are degrees; and, therefore, there is continuity in the expressions of the mystical. This, in turn, marks out that

14. See Baruzi, Preface to the first edition, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), p. 46. In 1902 Boutroux had already attempted to sketch the rudiments of the mystic life and mark the stages of its development (see Boutroux, La psychologie du mysticism [n. 6], pp. 175-190). 15. Baruzi, Preface to the first edition, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), p. 49. 16. Ibid., pp. 49-50. 17. Ibid., p. 499. 18. For Blondel, a central issue in this entire discussion is resolving how one might think the relationship between the singular and the universal so as not to fall into an atomistic individualism, on the one hand, or a totalizing monism, on the other. For a discussion of the dialectic relationship between the singular (or particular) and the universal in L’Action (1893), see M.A. Conway, The Science of Life: Maurice Blondel’s Philosophy of Action and the Scientific Method, Frankfurt a. M., Peter Lang, 2000, pp. 293-296. 666 M.A. CONWAY the mystical life is a matter of a movement per gradus debitos et continuos (through due and continuous steps). This means that even among recognized mystics there are gradations: Blondel does not see J.-J. Surin, for example, as being on the same level as St. John of the Cross. St. John of the Cross’s great contribution is that he has managed to point out false directions, to purge mysticism of all ancillary phenomena, and to liberate us from all that is nothing (nada) so as to lead us to the only all (todo). He shows us the most direct route to that necessary and sufficient Unique, where we find the universal and singular truth of integral reality19. Blondel affirms, secondly, that even though the science of mysticism is apparently incommunicable, it is not a matter of isolated individuals, who have nothing in common. He insists on there being an element of the universal to be had in every genuine experience of the mystical, and it is the same universal that is diversely incarnated in them. Indeed, Blondel will, in the second major part of his study outline a specific logic of the mystical that corresponds to this universal structure20. He remarks that one of the most significant results of the recent study of the mystical is the realization that the life of contemplative union is not outside or alongside the normal path of the spiritual life, so to speak, but is its prolongation. And this means that everyone can or even ought to strive for that which makes it possible because this union is the supreme blossoming in this world of the first grace and the prelude to future union; it is salvation already initiated in us21.

2. Plotinian Return and Henosis Baruzi frequently compares John of the Cross’s mystic path to the return to the divine essence that one finds in Plotinus: “one can discern in John of the Cross a purity of line that recalls the Plotinian construction”22. This is understood as a final absorption of the whole of nature into the one23. He even suggests that the Carmelite’s lyrico-mystic synthesis is an integration of the rhythm of Plotinian return and the Thomist aspiration to the universal24. Thus, Baruzi likens the mystic state to a Dionysian joy that saturates the divinised soul in a union, which, he claims, can be termed noetic since it leads us beyond every human notion into knowledge of God25. He claims, for example, that the Ascent of Mount Carmel is

19. Blondel, Lettre de M. Maurice Blondel (n. 12), pp. 85-86, majuscule reflects original. 20. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), pp. 47-57. 21. See ibid., p. 44. 22. See Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), p. 731. 23. He acknowledges, however, that the term itself, the One, does not figure in the language of St. John of the Cross (see ibid., p. 730). 24. See ibid., p. 715. 25. See ibid., p. 723. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 667

isomorphic to the contemplation of the One in Plotinus. The fundamental character of this path is that the soul accomplishes an ecstatic interior journey that incorporates knowledge of the Deity26. He does not see this as simply a matter of a neo-platonic influence (via, say, Denys the Areop- agite), but rather corresponds to the most secret movement of the Spanish mystic’s thought27. Baruzi does not, however, equate John of the Cross’s position exactly with that of Plotinus. Despite having much in common, he affirms, for example, that whereas the Plotinian ecstatic union produced an aesthetic happiness, a joy of love, and an exaltation in solitude, all of which reso- nate with John of the Cross’s experience, the Neo-Platonist did not experience the ultimate and direct combination of a human life and of a divine life28. This insertion of a human life that is deified at the interior of divine Being is not a gentle surrendering into the One, but the “violent and dazzling” meeting of divine love and of human love29. Blondel, for his part, is concerned with characterizing the precise nature of the union that characterizes the mystic state. He is keen to reject any semblance of a unification, whereby personal identity would be sacrificed for the sake of a passive and anonymous union with the divine. The union is not of essences but of wills that understand and love each other. This underscores that mystical union is not simply a return of an essence to the Essence of the divine. Against Plotinian henosis – read as a union of return to or even absorption in the One – mystical union, Blondel maintains, is a matter of ascension and assumption30. It requires a spiritual work of purification and of growth. Thus, it is not an automatic achievement, whereby it would simply be a matter of removing some inopportune obsta- cles or fictive barriers. There is a considered journey to be made that involves effort and the investment of one’s freedom and the overcoming of difficulties, etc. As opposed to an annihilation of the person, it is a union without confusion. Rather than be absorbed into the divine, there is an assimilation of one’s own will in freedom to divine willing. Impor- tantly, there is no loss of our essential identity. The human subject is not

26. See ibid., p. 730. 27. See ibid., p. 732. 28. See ibid., p. 732, emphasis reflects original. 29. See ibid., pp. 732-733. On this point, it is not quite correct to claim, as André Bord does, that Lucien Laberthonnière reproaches Baruzi for his Plotinian interpretation of St. John of the Cross. On the contrary Laberthonnière commends Baruzi for differentiating the mysticism of St. John of the Cross from an exclusive Plotinian and Dionysian reading; and adds that he would have wished that he had gone further in this direction (see Baruzi et al., Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de la valeur noétique de l’expérience mystique [n. 11], pp. 43-75, and esp. pp. 48-49; A. Bord, Jean de la Croix en France, Paris, Beauchesne, 1993, p. 152). 30. Elsewhere he speaks of “assimilation” (for a discussion, see J. Le Grys, Blondel’s Idea of Assimilation to God through Mortification of Self, in Gregorianum 77 [1996] 309- 331). 668 M.A. CONWAY sacrificed in this fusion of wills, but maintains its independence in the union. Neither is it a matter of passing from oneself to God as if it were some kind of human achievement. Rather the mystic suffers (pâtir) God, which is not a configuring of the divine to the human, but a configuring of the human to the divine.

3. The Unique Symbol of the Dark Night? Baruzi sees the various symbols used by John of the Cross – pre-eminently the dark night – as belonging to the transition from the ungraspable experience of the mystic to an organized doctrinal statement31. He even observes that “in a sense, the night will be the unique symbol, through which we will have to understand … how our apperception of things is annihilated in us”32. The “dark night” is particular to John of the Cross and as a symbol is sufficiently independent so that it can be presented and interpreted as part of a doctrinal construction. Expressions such as “night of the senses (la nuit du sens)” and “the night of the spirit (la nuit de l’esprit)” show how important the symbol is for John of the Cross, so that it is at the heart of his analytic exposition. The doctrine, however, cannot be extracted from the symbol, and, although it is considered rich in meaning – harbouring even a multiplicity of possible meanings – it cannot be taken as a sort of implicit doctrine that might be open to an integral devel- opment33. In the “night of the spirit” everything is taken away from us in our senses and in our understanding, but only so that the soul might enter the “abyss of faith”34. This is not, however, a totally negative destruction of our being, but, rather, is destined to enable the full blossoming of the spiritual life. There is a rhythm of affirmation on a path that appears only initially to be a strict negation35. It is only possible to enter what is unknown and incomprehensible through the “dark night”, which facili- tates the journey into mystic union. When it comes to the evocative word “night” for St. John of the Cross, Blondel suggests, interestingly, that it is only a metaphor, which is expres- sive and useful because the majority of the terms of science are drawn from the sense of sight. It needs, however, to be complemented by other images drawn, for example, from hearing and touch. All such images serve to eradicate all forms of harmful individuality in preparation for the personal union by fusion, which is the heart of the mystic life36.

31. Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), pp. 347-417. 32. Ibid., pp. 349-350, emphasis original. 33. See M. Bataillon, Review of Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix, in Bulletin Hispanique 27 (1925) 264-273. 34. Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), p. 498. 35. See ibid., pp. 497-498. 36. Blondel, Lettre de M. Maurice Blondel (n. 12), p. 86. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 669

4. The Way of “Not-Seeing”: Epiphenomena In the discussion of the mystical a central place is frequently given to a range of phenomena (visions, ecstasies, elevations, private revelations, stigmata, etc.) that are deemed to be indicative of the mystic state. Against this position, both Baruzi and Blondel appreciate that St. John of the Cross pays little attention to such epiphenomena. Rather, the Spanish mystic insists on the importance of eliminating all sensual and intellectual supports. These include detachment from all sentiments of illumination, of presence, or of divine contact. They are not to be treated as the character- istic features of the mystical life, but remain in a sense within the remit of the unhealthy or pathological, and are best treated as such. For Baruzi, there is an exceptional clarity in John of the Cross with regard to what are termed “distinct apprehensions”. He underlines that, unlike, for example, Saint Teresa of Avilla, John of the Cross has little or no regard for ecstasies, visions, private revelations, and the like. They are only appearances and as such mere phenomena of transition. The only dignity that we might confer on them stems from the ulterior states to which they may have led us37. They have not yet been purified by the night of the spirit. Baruzi emphasises that this was a fundamental attitude of St. John of the Cross, who repudiated all phenomenological apprehensions in the mystic experience per se. “Alone perhaps, among catholic mystics, he appears as a logician of mysticism. And the surest novelty of his construction will be less in contributing positive data (données posi- tives) as in the elimination of everything that would be an illusionary knowledge”38. Baruzi draws on Fénelon and Madame Guyon, who, inspired by John of the Cross, make “not seeing” the central motif of the mystic path39. This negative assessment of such phenomenological expressions extends to repudiation, even heroic sacrifice, of everything that is associated normally with religion. It is the absolute necessity of going beyond everything natural and even supernatural to the supreme privation. It is a pivotal point, and it means that John of the Cross “is a stranger to every experience that did not deny revelations and visions”40. God is nothing of what we are able to feel, to imagine, or to think; nothing of what we are able to apprehend. He is beyond all our ways of being; yet, he is in us. We cannot find him there unless we find again the interior Light that is never absent in us, but which amounts to renouncing everything that is not it, namely, everything of the self that is not yet purified41. Baruzi underlines that when St. John of the Cross speaks of a spiritual marriage, it signifies essentially the union of God alone and of a soul

37. See Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), p. 673. 38. Ibid., p. 449. See also, for example, ibid., p. 734. 39. See, for example, ibid., p. 491. 40. Ibid., p. 495. 41. See ibid., p. 672, majuscule reflects original. 670 M.A. CONWAY alone, far from any intermediary, be that angels, human persons, figures, or forms. The soul goes beyond every means and ascends as far as God42. In The Problem of the Mystical Blondel maintains, for his part, that the more that we are caught up in confusion and obscurities, the more we need to draw on the lucidity of criticism so as to expose what is, in fact, a for- gery of the mystic life. There are real, determinable distinctions between “false mysticism” and the true and only real form. The philosopher from Aix is adamant that despite the complexity of the mystic life (in terms, say, of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural orders), reason and philosophy have a distinct and critical role to play and this even in the mystic state43. In establishing the philosophical problem of mysticism, one can determine more exactly the contours of authentic mysticism and distinguish true mysticism from its caricature. He observes that “philosophy is not without a vision, without a voice, without a void for [the mystical]”44. In the critical first part of The Problem of the Mystical Blondel discusses preternatural phenomena and holds that they are not constitutive of the mystic life. The method, which begins with them and, therefore, is limited to them, is false and dangerous. He critiques in particular those (most often theologians), who, in reaction to the naturalist positivism of the university and its concomitant reductionism, go to the other extreme to begin with such facts that are considered to be exclusively supernatural and as such beyond the reach of philosophical critique45. Here the mystical is placed outside the domain of the natural conditions of our faculties and is even outside the normal development of the life of grace46. Blondel finds a remark from St. John of the Cross to be especially important in this regard. The mystic saint declares that not only should one not meddle in extraordinary ways, but also one should in fact disregard them. Even if they were to emerge to be authentically divine, we should resist them as they will produce their effect without us47.

42. Ibid., pp. 702-703. 43. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), p. 4. 44. Ibid., p. 6. 45. See ibid., pp. 16-20. 46. See ibid., p. 18. 47. In a note Blondel quotes from the Histoire abrégée de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun, et des peines du père Surin, the edition from 1828 (not a critical edition), to support this position. Writing to Bremond on Christmas Eve 1919, he mentions that he found this book from Surin (second hand); and he notes this again within a month, where, drawing on the same quotations as in this article, he comments: “Le pauvre homme! À côté de saint Jean, c’est un apprenti; et il reconnaît lui-même qu’il a failli pour n’avoir pas appliqué la règle de saint Jean: faire comme si tout le préternatural était faux, et se détacher de toutes les grâces (ou illusions) extraordinaires” (Blondel, Le problème de la mystique [n. 1], p. 55, note 1; M. Blondel, Letter to Henri Bremond, 31 January 1920, in H. Bremond – M. Blondel, Correspondance. Vol. 2: Le grand dessein d’Henri Bremond (1904-1920), ed. A. Blanchet, Paris, Aubier, 1971, 431-433, p. 432; see also M. Blondel, MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 671

It is vital, however, to underline that John of the Cross does not separate the theoretical point of view from the living practice to which he was totally committed. This practical concern is directed at leading others by the most direct route possible to the mystical heights, and this is the essence of his method. And this design, Blondel adds, is only scientific because it is practical. It cannot be reduced to a mere discourse on the mystical. In particular, Blondel argues against reducing the mystical life to a metaphysics (as Baruzi would appear to do), and so, clarifies repeatedly the importance of attending to practice in conjunction with theory48. Whatever knowledge St. John has is always at the service of the practical design and is never for its own sake; it has ultimately as its object the lived nescience that leads to what Blondel terms a “true Ontology”49.

5. The Theopathic State The culmination of the mystic experience, Baruzi designates, following Henri Delacroix, as the theopathic state50. The key determination is that “John of the Cross wished to instate in us a divine life, in the strict sense of the word”51. After the harrowing experiences of the “dark night”, one achieves a new peace that characterizes the summit of the mystic life. We are moved in a new direction “when all our mental activity is appeased in the night of the understanding, of memory, and of will, when the night of the senses, active and passive, is accomplished”52. This is the culmination of “the unfathomable experience” that subsequently orientates us to its fulfilment in the theopathic state53. As the summit of the mystic life there is a permanent state of union of the soul and of God54. It is a strictly passive dynamic: one is taken; one does not take55. And although this experience is made up of a renouncement of all distinct apprehensions, it is accompanied by an intense love of nature. This is so since it is a new synthesis of the universe and God; but now in God56. God is not given to me beyond things; rather, God and things are given to me together as a

Letter to Henri Bremond, 24 December 1919, ibid., 418-419, p. 419. See [Père Surin], Histoire abrégée de la possession des Ursulines de Loudun, et des peines du père Surin, Paris, Bureau de l’Association Catholique du Sacré-coeur, 1828, p. 302, p. 305). 48. This reflects the argument of L’Action (1893), where action and thinking mutually penetrate each other in achieving a philosophical synthesis of the real. 49. Blondel, Lettre de M. Maurice Blondel (n. 12), p. 86. 50. Baruzi remarks that it is in Delacroix’s work that the theopathic state is, for the first time, studied in a rigorous way (see Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix [n. 8], p. 734, n. 2). 51. Ibid., p. 496. 52. Ibid., p. 610. 53. See ibid., p. 603. 54. See R. Bastide, Les problèmes de la vie mystique, Paris, Quadrige/PUF, 1996, pp. 112-124. 55. See, in particular, Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix (n. 8), pp. 706-707. 56. See ibid., p. 694. 672 M.A. CONWAY single reality. It amounts to experiencing the universe in God and seeing God in the universe57. Thus, a renewed sense of all-powerfulness follows the hesitations, distresses, trances, brutal ecstasies of former times, and a new “tranquillity” and an “ordinary sweetness” come to permeate the soul and, subsequently, never leave it58. There is an essential joy and a fundamental peace. Blondel underlines this very point, observing that for John of the Cross, it is significant that at the supreme level of the mystic life and after the sometimes-tumultuous phases of the ascension, everything becomes appeased. There are no more ecstasies, and a freedom is achieved that is expressed in living obscurely the perfect life according to the order of reason and nature restored and sublimated59. For all its richness, however, Blondel wishes to add that the mystic life is not a final consummation of the human divine relationship. What he terms the theandric state remains an intermediary position that awaits a final eschatological resolution. It does not proffer a pure and essential Religion. In so far as it is only ever an earthly anticipation of a heavenly union (that is always veiled), even the highest mystic state is not constitutive of the total and final solution. There remains always the meritorious part of trials. It is only a fragmentary advance of an inheritance that is not to be confused either with the pure supernatural life of faith, or with essential Religion, or with the beatific vision60.

II. second Front: The Ecclesial World

There is no doubt that a new interest in the mystical emerges from within the Catholic Church in the early years of the twentieth century61. Thus, Joseph de Guibert, SJ would write in 1920 that “we are witnessing … a new ‘mystic invasion’, which could be taken to be analogous to that experienced at the beginning of the seventeenth century”62. It is no surprise, then, when, in 1917, the Roman authorities decided to create two chairs of ascetic and mystic theology at the Angelicum and the Gregori- anum, respectively, which became active the following year. The Thomist specialist, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a trenchant opponent of Blondel’s philosophy, held the position at the Dominican university63. The chair at the Jesuit university was given to Ottavio Marchetti; and on its

57. Ibid., p. 699. 58. See ibid., p. 700, terms taken from John of the Cross. 59. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), pp. 55-56. 60. Blondel, Lettre de M. Maurice Blondel (n. 12), p. 88. 61. For a competent discussion, see Minvielle, Qui est mystique? (n. 2), pp. 17-37. 62. For details, see ibid., p. 17. 63. He would publish his Perfection chrétienne et contemplation selon S. Thomas d’Aquin et S. Jean de la Croix in 1923. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 673 inauguration Pope Benedict XV had enjoined him “to place himself under the auspices and sure direction of saint Thomas Aquinas”64. Both positions reflected an option taken by Leo XIII in favour of neo-Thomism, making it the privileged philosophical expression for dealing with the issues of contemporary culture, including that of the rise in interest for the mystical. This reflects the prevailing theological climate in which a certain brand of neo-Thomism dominated completely the discussions from within ecclesiastical institutions. In his dealing with the mystical, Blondel was well aware that a significant task would be affronting the Neo-thomist antipathy towards his own philosophy, which had emerged even in the wake of the publication of L’Action (1893). This possibly explains why he goes into such extensive detail in his discussion of the issues in The Problem of the Mystical. His philosophy had already been severely critiqued by a number of Thomists including Marie-Benoit Schwalm, Ambroise Gardeil, Joseph de Tonqué- dec, and, indeed, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange65. The principal voice of opposition in terms of the debate on the mystical, however, is that of Jacques Maritain, who had converted to Catholicism through in part his discovery of Thomism, and who aligned himself with this neo-Thomist critique (and was supported in this by Garrigou-Lagrange)66. In The Problem of the Mystical Blondel deals with the neo-Thomist critique in an extended discussion of Maritain’s interpretation of the relationship between mysticism and philosophy that hinges on the respective understandings of

64. For details, see Minvielle, Qui est mystique? (n. 2), p. 29. This was an injunction to which Marchetti remained faithful; he, for example, published an article in the first issue of Gregorianum on the perfection of the Christian life according to St. Thomas; see https:// www.unigre.it/Gregorianum/documenti/160504_Gregorianum_storia_della_rivista_en.pdf, accessed 10 January 2018, pp. 3-4. 65. In a manuscript note apropos of his Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), Blondel writes: “Dans mon article (sur la mystique), je ne nomme pas. Cela paraîtrait un jeu de massacre. Je vise: Henri Delacroix, Le P. Poulain, Mgr Farges; Le P. Gardeil, J. Maritain, le P. Garrigou-Lagrange[;] Puis je montre les déficiences de W. James, Joseph Segond, Maurice Barrès … voire Bremond et Laberthonnière”. Poulat comments helpfully that the principle of enumeration here is clear: the first list corresponds to a “positivist” method; the second to a “supernaturalist” method, and the final one to those who wish to get beyond this opposition (see É. Poulat, Critique et mystique: Autour de Loisy ou la conscience catholique et l’esprit moderne, Paris, Le Centurion, 1984, pp. 296-297). 66. See P.-A. Belley, Connaître par le Cœur: La connaissance par connaturalité dans les œuvres de Jacques Maritain. Préface du Cardinal G. Cottier, Paris, Pierre Téqui, 2003, p. 146. In fact, in preparation for a conference on mysticism at the Institut catholique, Maritain had not only consulted some philosophers and theologians, but had, additionally, dedicated one meeting – or maybe even two – of the Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin to Blondel’s Le procès de l’intelligence, asking each of the members for their reactions to it (see F. Mourret, Letter to Maurice Blondel, 15 December 1923, in Bremond – Blondel, Correspondance, vol. 3 [n. 12], p. 90; see also G. Colombo, Maritain e Blondel [dalla corrispondenza Blondeliana], in La Scuola Cattolica 5 [1973] 435-478, pp. 448-449). 674 M.A. CONWAY knowledge by connaturality67. The discussion, however, is directed not only at Maritain, but also at P. A. Gardeil (and, perhaps, Garrigou- Lagrange). In a preparatory sketch he writes: “one [Gardeil] wishes to see completely; the other [Maritain] wishes to feel”; and Blondel adds that the mystic experiences “nothing of this”68.

1. The Limits of Conceptual Knowledge In terms of the discussion of the mystical and Blondel’s Auseinander- setzung with the regnant neo-Thomism, the central issue is the value that one might give to conceptual knowledge. Through his own philosophy of action, thought, and being, he recognized that if one limited knowledge only to the conceptual and, subsequently, gave it an exclusive ontological (or realist) bearing, then it would be impossible to do justice in terms of intelligibility to mystic experience. For this reason, he underlined the necessity of acknowledging the limitations of conceptual knowledge and the importance of valuing a complementary knowledge that is rooted in the concrete given. He terms this complementary knowledge, knowledge by connaturality69. In the light of this distinction Blondel contrasts intellectualism and notionalism: the first refers to the complexity and completeness of the concrete given; the second refers to a limited rationalism that is founded solely on the achievement of conceptual reasoning. On 31 August 1920 he would write to Maritain to thank him for having received a copy of his latest publication, Éléments de Philosophie I: Introduction générale à la Philosophie70. In this reply, he voiced a number of reservations that struck

67. On 30 June 1924, Blondel writes, for example, to Valensin: “‘the Problem of mysticism’ … delicate subject, where I would like to respond, without naming Maritain, to his false criticism of the ‘Process of Intelligence’” (M. Blondel – A. Valensin, Corre- spondance. Vol. 3: Extraits de la correspondance de 1912 à 1947, ed. H. de Lubac, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1965, p. 106). 68. M. Blondel, Un brouillon préparatoire au Problème de la mystique, Archives Maurice Blondel, L/2, 30068, as quoted in Tourpe, La mystique chez Maurice Blondel (n. 13), p. 279. 69. For Blondel’s earlier discussion of knowledge by connaturality, see Conway, Intel- ligence and the Mystic Life (n. 7), esp. pp. 25-27. 70. M. Blondel, Letter to Jacques Maritain, 31 August 1920, as quoted in R. Saint- Jean, Ce qu’est l’intelligence d’après Blondel et Maritain, in Science et esprit 40 (1988) 5-34, at pp. 23-24, majuscules reflect original; also Belley, Connaître par le cœur (n. 66), pp. 144-181 and pp. 191-195. See J. Maritain, Éléments de philosophie, Paris, Pierre Téqui, 1920. See, in addition, Colombo, Maritain e Blondel (n. 66); P. Gauthier, Maurice Blondel et Jacques Maritain: La discussion sur l’intelligence, in B. Hubert – Y. Floucat (eds.), Jacques Maritain et ses contemporains, Paris, Desclée, 1991, 199-230; A. Hayen, Philosophie de conversion / Philosophie de converti: Par manière d’introduction à M. Blondel et à J. Maritain, in L’ami de clergé 48 (1961) 705-712; E. Tourpe, Le débat de Maritain avec Blondel sur l’intelligence: Vers une solution, in Études maritainiennes 13 (1997) 19-57. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 675 him, highlighting, in particular, what he described as Maritain’s intellectual attitude, which is far too inclined to treat Wisdom as a pure Science and in this “reducing concrete intellectualism to a notionalism or a rationalism, which in its logical structure, would be completely sufficient”71. Blondel claims that even for St. Thomas, wisdom is both cognitio (knowledge) and inclinatio (act of leaning, inclination). Whereas science is an act of the mind that knows and is only ever partial and theoretical, wisdom is an integral knowledge that is “contemplative and infused, concrete and synthetic, loving and delightful”72. Discursive thought can never achieve the plenitude of “contemplative knowledge”, which has its own principles and has no need of any other science73. It proceeds through an intuition of the concrete singular per modum connaturalitatis et unionis (by way of connaturality and union)74. The issue at stake is that of establishing an objective knowledge that is specific to the singular, but which goes beyond conceptual knowledge, which is necessarily limited to the general.

2. The Purview of Connaturality The debate between Blondel and Maritain (as the representative of the Neo-thomist position) hinges on how one understands knowledge by connaturality. For Blondel, it is a normal way of knowing that is firmly rooted in the natural order (and necessarily open to a supernatural infusion). Thus, he understands the concrete knowledge that accompanies and com- plements conceptual knowledge as being entirely natural in the sense that it is part of all our knowing. It corresponds to the experimental knowledge of action that he had already discussed in L’Action (1893)75. For Maritain, however, knowledge by connaturality does not belong to the natural order, but corresponds to an exclusive influx from the supernatural order to the natural order, thanks to the extraordinary lives of the saints, who are precisely the ones who exhibit this special order of knowledge. Maritain, while recognizing that there is a knowledge by connaturality (that is distinct from cognition) in St. Thomas, claims that it is an additional gift of the Holy Spirit that is reserved to a few, notably the saints. As of principle, he does not agree with Blondel’s appropriation of

71. Blondel, Letter to Maritain, 31 August 1920 (n. 70), p. 24, majuscules reflect original. 72. See M. Blondel, Note, in A. Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, 6th ed., Paris, PUF, 1988, vol. 2, 941-942, at p. 942, note. See Summa Theo- logiae I, 1.6. 73. Blondel, Note (n. 72), p. 942, note. See also L’Action (1893), where Blondel compares analogously “practical experimentation” to “science” (M. Blondel, L’Action: Essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique, Paris, Alcan, 1893, p. 470; Action: Essay on a Critique of life and a Science of Practice, trans. O. Blanchette, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, p. 427). 74. See Blondel, Note (n. 72), p. 942, note. 75. See Conway, The Science of Life (n. 18), pp. 260-265. 676 M.A. CONWAY this distinction in St. Thomas; he, Maritain, observes that the judgement by inclination for St. Thomas is the prerogative of the contemplative, who, transformed by grace, has become familiar with divine realities. This means that for Maritain, strictly speaking, knowledge by connaturality is valid primarily for an independent mystic domain and, as such, is a privileged instance of knowledge, reserved to a minority76. Thus, he claims, that Blondel transposes unduly into the order of a natural wisdom that which St. Thomas says specifically of supernatural wisdom77. As a result of this understanding, Maritain believes, incorrectly, that Blondel appeals to mystic knowledge in order to ground all knowledge. In terms of Maritain’s critique of Blondel’s position, the most significant contribution is a conférence given at the Institut catholique de Paris on 25 April 1923 and published under the title, “L’intelligence d’après M. Maurice Blondel”78. It was Maritain’s considered response to Blon- del’s Le procès de l’intelligence79. This paper from Maritain – which had been very carefully drafted after a significant consultation with a number of Thomist scholars – is central in his debate with Blondel and, in particular, to their divergent understandings of connaturality. The fundamental distinction discussed in this long and detailed analysis of Blondel’s Le procès de l’intelligence is not surprisingly that between notional knowledge and what is now termed real knowledge. Maritain believes from the outset that St. Thomas’s philosophy (as the expression of Christian philosophy) has the potential to assimilate other philosophies, but it cannot itself be assimilated by any other philosophy80. This being the case, and to discredit Blondel’s position, he ventures to show that Blondel’s understanding of intelligence is not in harmony with the thought of St. Thomas: “M. Blondel, in reading saint Thomas, did not place himself in the perspective of saint Thomas, he remained in the perspective of M. Blondel”81. And he, thus, accuses Blondel of disfiguring St. Thomas’s thought82. Given this foundational criticism, the subsequent reproach is that the philosopher from Aix unduly sacrifices conceptual (or rational)

76. See Saint-Jean, Ce qu’est l’intelligence d’après Blondel et Maritain (n. 70), p. 18. 77. Ibid. 78. J. Maritain, L’intelligence d’après M. Maurice Blondel, in Revue de philosophie 30 (1923) 333-364 and 484-511. This paper from Maritain will be integrated into the work Réflexions sur l’intelligence, which was published the following year with some modifica- tions (see J. Maritain, Réflexions sur l’intelligence et sur sa vie propre, in J. and R. Mar- itain, Œuvres completes. Vol. 3: Œuvres de Jacques Maritain: 1924-1929, Paris, Saint- Paul, 1985, 8-426, pp. 93-161 [Chapter III is on Blondel]). I will quote this work from this second critical edition. My concern here is simply to read Maritain reading Blondel; it is not to give a presentation of Maritain’s own understanding of these issues, which would take me well beyond the parameters of this paper. 79. See Maritain, Réflexions sur l’intelligence (n. 78), p. 95. 80. See ibid., p. 97. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 677 knowledge for the sake of a putative real knowledge in refusing to give notional knowledge access to being per se. For Maritain, the subject is relatively self-contained in the natural order and from this stability responds to God in being graced by divine infusion. He allows an invasion of the subject (who thinks) only along the lines of an independent supernatural order invading the relatively stable natural order. Blondel, however, does not establish an a priori, stable subject that stands in splendid isolation in (and from) the natural order, but insists on a mutual interaction, even in the natural order, that has the potential of expanding the subject. Thus, Blondel extends to the natural order that which Denys the Areopagite said of mystical knowledge:

It is a matter … of receiving the imprint of being in its originality that is always unique, of acquiring this sincere, onerous, experience that one “only obtains at one’s expense” and which alone can teach us foundationally, “non solum discens sed et patiens divina” humana et omnia (not only learning but also suffering divine, {human, and all} things)83.

Here, as Pierre-Antoine Belley astutely points out, Blondel’s addition of “humana et omnia” is revelatory of his reading of St. Thomas in the sense of giving a maximal extension to knowledge by connaturality. You might say that it is not simply a case of saying more than St. Thomas; it is, rather, to affirm something altogether different84.

3. Connaturality: Intellect and Will Knowledge by connaturality is, for Blondel, a dilation of the subject in its interaction with the ambient world (which may, indeed, include a supernatural dimension). It is an intrinsic communion with the concrete real, which, in principle, is more extensive than the achievements of abstract reasoning. In contrast, for Maritain, connaturality is an extrinsic inpouring from the supernatural order. This explains why Maritain believes that Blondel requires mystic knowledge in order to ground rational knowledge. He also suspects that reason, for Blondel, is incapable of reaching the real or procuring certitudes that are valid for the things themselves85. And he suggests, further, that, for Blondel, there could be no demonstrations

83. M. Blondel, Le procès de l’intelligence, in P. Archambault et al., Le procès de l’intelligence, Paris, Bloud et Gay, 1922, 217-306, p. 263. See Summa Theologiae I, 1.7, quoting Denys the Areopagite. 84. See Belley, Connaître par le cœur (n. 66), p. 162, note 152. 85. Maritain aligns Blondel’s knowledge through action far too closely with Kant’s practical reason (which is miles from Blondel’s position), and this explains to some degree Maritain’s inability to read Blondel from the perspective of Blondel’s own philosophy: “Il est moins affranchi qu’il ne croit du Kant de la Raison pratique”, emphasis original (Maritain, Réflexions sur l’intelligence [n. 78], p. 110). 678 M.A. CONWAY of reason about, say, the human soul or God86. But, of course, Blondel does not hold any of this to be the case. One needs to be careful in reading Blondel on these issues not to take the fundamental categories from an exclusive neo-Thomist perspective87. For Blondel, connaturality is not simply a “spontaneous grasp of the object”, but is an achievement of the whole person that can grow and that necessarily includes the conceptual88. He refuses to separate out absolutely the rational element from the matrix of action, which includes the func- tioning of the will, as it is this that reflects the dynamic of living practice, where will and intellect can be said to be solidary and heterogeneous. Maritain, however, conceives of intelligence as distinct from the will so that he can state that “reason does not have to revert to the will in order to acquire knowledge of the absolute”, a statement that from Blondel’s perspective makes little sense, given that the a priori emergence of reason itself pre-supposes an activity of the will89. It is precisely this interaction between thought and practice (intellect and will, if you wish) that he ana- lysed so carefully in his seminal thesis, and that he continues to develop in his philosophy. Whereas Belley correctly observes that “Blondel is in favour of an ‘integralizing connaturality’, which is one not only and exclusively of

86. Thus, he refers to the First Vatican Council and the definition, whereby the human person can know of God’s existence with certitude by means of creatures through reason alone (see ibid., p. 111 and p. 112). 87. Belley suggests that Blondel does not understand “the intrinsic dynamism of the intellectual habit and that he does not see any evolution of the grasp of intelligence on the thing except through a global action of the whole person and of affectivity in the first place” (Belley, Connaître par le cœur [n. 66], p. 180). And he observes, further, that “if connaturality signifies the spontaneous grasp of the object”, then how can Blondel speak of progress, etc. (ibid.). There is much in St. Thomas’s thought that Blondel condones and freely integrates into his own philosophy; there are, however, a number of fundamental issues, where Blondel is critical of St. Thomas (see M.A. Conway, From Neo-Thomism to St. Thomas: Maurice Blondel’s Early Encounter with Scholastic Thought, in ETL 83 [2007] 1-22; Id., A Thomistic Turn? Maurice Blondel’s Reading of St. Thomas, in ETL 84 [2008] 87-122). 88. See Conway, Intelligence and the Mystic Life (n. 7), pp. 25-27. 89. See Blondel, L’Action (n. 73), pp. 116-128. J. Maritain, Théonas: ou les entretiens d’un sage et de deux philosophes sur diverses matières inégalement actuelles, in J. and R. Maritain, Œuvres completes. Vol. 2: Œuvres de Jacques Maritain: 1920-1923, Paris, Saint-Paul, 1987, 765-921, at p. 903. The pseudonym Théonas stands for Père Dechau, and the work is written in the form of a dialogue with various adversaries being addressed through a code that at times is quite enigmatic. Blondel is clearly one of the interlocutors (usually addressed under the pseudonym Philonous), although it is not always evident when exactly his position is being presented. Maritain does, however, quote directly and almost verbatim from their correspondence (see, for example, Maritain, Théonas, p. 901). Henri Bremond, as an example, admits to not understanding what Maritain writes à propos of Blondel: “Je lui [Maritain] ai répondu que je ne croyais pas qu’il vous eût compris, ou mieux qu je n’arrivais même pas à comprendre ce qu’il disait de vous” (H. Bremond, Letter to Blondel, 12 December 1921, in Id. – Blondel, Correspondance, vol. 3 [n. 12], 19-21, p. 20). MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 679 intelligence, not only of affection, but of the global action of the person”, he is less than accurate in then claiming, as a critique, that one “cannot distinguish really the movement of intelligence and that of the will in the quest of the true”90. Belley speaks of the “ambiguity” of Blondel’s approach that stems from the fusion of the movements of “two spiritual faculties” that Thomism does not endorse. If fact, it makes little sense to critique Blondel from an a priori perspective that not only is not his own, but which from his perspective is at the very heart of the problem to be resolved. Indeed, the entire enterprise that is Blondel’s philosophy can be read simply as the attempt to establish how one might characterize the relationship between action and thought, will and intellect, without at the outset beginning with a simplistic, absolute separation (as there is no such separation in life)91.

4. Connaturality as a Putative Bridge Blondel critiques the position that seeks to unite, on the one hand, the abstract science of mystical theology and, on the other, the concrete experiences of real mystics through a particular understanding of connaturality that makes it a kind of intermediary between the natural and supernatural orders. Given that human intelligence does not (and cannot) have a direct perception of divine realities, connaturality is proffered as a sort of obscure knowledge of the mystic order that replaces a would-be direct perception. It corresponds to a kind of middle ground between the human and the divine and is presented as a putative bridge between human consciousness and the mystery of God92. Blondel rejects this understanding of connaturality, which is ultimately inconsistent, since, on the one hand, it is taken to be a type of obscure “knowledge” of the supernatural order (and above all of the mystic order); but, on the other, from the perspective of the natural order, it is considered not even to be a knowledge, but something that is less than the rational, viz., something that is affective, subjective, and without any possibility of being perfected. It is a sort of poor “substitute” that disappears when notional knowledge has grasped the intelligible natures and when its vicarious and subaltern role is com- plete93. With a certain irony, Blondel observes that, like a valet, it is rel- egated to the servants’ quarters, when one is finished with it94!

90. Belley, Connaître par le cœur (n. 66), p. 180, inverted commas reflect original. 91. It could be argued that Blondel considers critically such a separation in the section on the natural sciences in the third part of L’Action (1893), where he deals with a purely objective approach to the phenomena. 92. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), pp. 27-28. 93. In Blondel’s eyes, Maritain understands connaturality as being affective, passive, and having nothing to do with the domain of active intelligence. 94. Ibid., p. 28. 680 M.A. CONWAY

5. Conceptual versus Real Knowledge For Blondel, discursive reasoning always takes place against the background of a supporting and foundational action. Thinking itself is an action before it achieves explicit consciousness. This means that before, during, and after the process of cognition, there is a normal and constant form of spiritual nutrition that supports, makes possible, and nourishes abstract or analytic thought. This foundational action is never rendered totally present in the achievements of conceptual thought, no matter how complete our abstract cogitation might appear to be. Blondel insists that corresponding to this subjacent level of action, there is a concrete knowledge (or knowledge by connaturality) that is both vital and intelligent, and that underpins the work of reflection. Without it, he contends, we cannot adequately account for either the genesis of faith in a reasonable being or the recep- tion of mystic graces in the human soul95. For Blondel, there is a real knowledge by connaturality, which is truly knowledge. It has a normal function in the natural order; it is rational with a value that is at the same time practical and contemplative. It is not merely subjective, but has an objective import. Abstract and discursive science is only ever – and cannot but be – a partial extract from this concrete knowledge. Abstract science is (even if unacknowledged) in constant and original communion with integral reality. For such science (and notional knowledge, in general), there is no truth that is not general, so that it cannot in fact do justice to the singular per se. Abstract thought is constantly nourished by concrete thought, is continually adjusted in the light of it, cannot do without it, never exhausts it, and is always directed towards it96. Real knowledge by connaturality has, indeed, its own methods, its own means of being nurtured, and its own organon. It supposes the enlightened and regulated exercise of all our powers of sensing and of acting, which are not only affective, but also intelligent, voluntary, and moral. It is no doubt in via and because of this, always imperfect, but this is equally the case for science. It reflects, above all, a unitive vision that rises above and integrates the elements of notional knowledge. Blondel gives a series of examples to illustrate how such a unitive view rises above the elements that have served to constitute it so as to give a more complete realization. These include that of a musician of genius, like Mozart, who hears simultaneously a whole symphony in its sovereign idea (as he claimed to do); or the mathematician, like Descartes, who after countless hours of revision and work sees a chain of demonstrations

95. See ibid., p. 29. 96. The remote origins of Blondel’s position are to be found in L’Action (1893), particularly in the chapters, where he discusses the interaction between the mathematical and the experimental sciences. I trace the development of this dynamic between action and thought in Conway, The Science of Life (n. 18). MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 681 in a single view; or the philosopher, who after a lifetime of research finally achieves a thought, which is the more infinitely rich, the more that it is one; or the man of conscience and probity, who has been committed to the life of faith so that it is alive in him and has given him a new sense and a delicate sensitivity. All of these are real expressions of this knowledge by connaturality97. It must be underlined clearly that Blondel neither undermines nor dis- misses notional knowledge as though it had no essential role to play in our coming to the integral knowledge by connaturality. This point is important as it counters Maritain’s claim that the philosopher from Aix had completely devalued the currency of concepts, which is far from the case98. The precise issue is that our knowledge would reflect the individual, the material, and the concrete so that it might be adequate to both the universal and the singular. Knowledge by connaturality is also purifying and elevating because it supposes an integration into the universal order, which is a vision that is one and total. This, in turn, presupposes an action of integration, which amounts to an ascesis, itself the condition of the contemplative life and the necessary preamble to the mystic life. Indeed, it is the mystic who realizes most completely this knowledge by connaturality. It follows, on the one hand, that the mystic life is not to be treated as being isolated from ordinary life (and especially Christian living) as if it were reserved only to a few. And yet, on the other hand, one ought not to so exaggerate the continuity between ordinary life and the mystic state that there is no place left for the vital infused gift that cannot be attained through one’s own endeavour, but can only be welcomed. This means that even at the heart of real knowledge there is a chasm that cannot be filled except through a divine gift. In this regard Blondel makes two observations that he justifies in the second part of The Prob- lem of the Mystical99. First, mystic contemplation, although naturally inaccessible, is not something added on to life; rather, it is the prolongation (prolongement) of our knowledge and of our action100. Secondly, mystical contemplation is the supreme blossoming in this world of the life of faith, and, in this, it is an anticipation of eternal life101. In his

97. Indeed Blondel likens this partly to l’esprit de finesse, without, however, mentioning Pascal (see Blondel, Le problème de la mystique [n. 1], p. 43; B. Pascal, Pensées: Opus- cules et lettres, ed. P. Sellier, Paris, Garnier, 2010, no. 670, pp. 494-496). 98. Maritain, L’intelligence d’après M. Maurice Blondel (n. 78), pp. 484-511. 99. See Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), pp. 43-57. 100. See ibid., p. 48. Not only that, but in the historical and concrete order in which we find ourselves, our knowledge and our action do not reach their end or perfect their destiny without admitting and filling an emptiness that can in part be filled, but which awaits a plenitude that is not of this world. The material here corresponds to what Blondel terms our “transnatural” state. 101. You might say that there is no special kind of mystic; rather, everyone is a potential mystic of a singular kind. 682 M.A. CONWAY preparatory notes Blondel summarizes with surprising succinctness his position:

My thesis is “trine and one”: firstly, “there is a real knowledge that implies notional knowledge but is not to be reduced to it”; secondly, “there is a radical insufficiency of this natural knowledge” that marks the night of the senses of the mystics; thirdly, “there is a negative and positive cooperation in a global and supernatural illumination, which remains free, transcendent and un-naturalisable”102.

6. Participative Discourse It is evident that, for Blondel, it is not possible to do full justice to the mystic life from within the contours of conceptual thinking, no matter how extensive the parameters of that thinking might be. Any discourse on mysticism that does not recognize the essential element of participation in the spirit of the mystic life remains limited in its determinations. This would appear to be the significant achievement of Blondel’s discussion over various discussions of the mystical that deal with it from within the parameters of the religious, linguistic, and social sciences103. It is not possible to account adequately for the mystic life if one remains within the duality of conceptual knowledge, on the one hand, and the reality that it explores, on the other. This does not undermine the importance of a range of disci- plines in the exploration of the mystical; they make an important but limited contribution to clarifying the depths of mystic experience. As a direct consequence of this, we can see the differing positions taken by say Blondel and de Certeau. For Blondel, to some degree everyone already participates in the mystic life (it is a matter of degrees). And each person has the capacity and, in a certain sense, an interior duty to follow its lead, which amounts to the realization of the plenitude of the real in us. The mystic life remains a possibility for everyone; even if it is the case that few reach the exceptional summits. For de Certeau, the exploration of mysticism is extraneous to the experience itself, the ensuing discourse is a “fable” (in contrast, Blondel would say that it is of the real, necessary, but inadequate), and the era of mysticism is over104. Blondel takes precisely

102. “Ma thèse est ‘trine et une’: premièrement, ‘Il y a une connaissance réelle qui implique la connaissance notionnelle mais ne s’y réduit pas’; secondement, ‘il y a une insuffisance radicale de cette connaissance naturelle’ que marque la nuit des sens des mys- tiques; troisièmement, ‘il y a une coopération négative et positive à une illumination globale et surnaturelle, laquelle demeure gratuite, transcendante et innaturalisable’” (M. Blondel, Un brouillon préparatoire au Problème de la mystique, Archives Maurice Blondel, L/4, 30236, as quoted in Tourpe, La mystique chez Maurice Blondel [n. 13], p. 281). 103. See, for example, de Certeau, La fable mystique (n. 4) and M. Bergamo, La science des saints: Le discours mystique au XVIIe siècle en France, Grenoble, Millon, 1992. 104. De Certeau observes, explicitly, that he does not speak from mystic experience. “Je ne parle ni en analyste ni en mystique. Je ne suis crédité par aucune de ces deux MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 683 the opposite position; arguing that the only real competence in terms of an exploration of the mystical is participation in the experience itself, which remains, as I say, naturally open to everyone, in the present.

III. third Front: The Personal

Blondel was always concerned with, and reflected on, the issues of suffering and mortification in terms of his own interior life (as is evidenced in his ‘Memoire’ à M. Bieil and throughout his Carnets intimes); but it is in and through this friendship and correspondence with the Oratorian, Lucien Laberthonnière, that he comes to formulate the precise issues at stake in terms of the mystic life105. The two friends corresponded for over thirty years, exchanging views on diverse interests that included philosophy, theology, life in the Church (notably during the period of the so- called Modernist crisis), and the various controversies in which they were both embroiled106. Tragically, their friendship would turn rather sour, and, against this background in the latter years of their correspondence, mysticism repeatedly emerges as a point of discussion between them107. There can be little doubt that these (oftentimes distressing) exchanges with Laberthonnière helped Blondel to formulate his position on a range of issues that included the ascetic dimension to the mystic life, the indispensable value of mortification, and the precise intelligibility of the theandric state108.

expériences qui ont tour à tour constitué une inaccessible autorisation du discours … La mystique, en particulier, ne peut être traitée que dans la distance … On ne peut pas plus le penser que s’en passer” (M. de Certeau, Histoire et psychoanalyse entre science et fiction, 3rd ed., Paris, Gallimard, 2002, p. 256). This, however, may be a matter of discretion on de Certeau’s part. 105. See M. Blondel, Mémoire’ à M. Bieil, Saint-Maur, CERP, 1999; Id., Carnets intimes (1883-1894), Paris, Cerf, 1961. For a particularly fine discussion of abnegation and mortification in the early L’Action (1893), see M. Ossa, Possession de l’être et abnégation dans la philosophie de Maurice Blondel, in Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 38 (1962) 483-509; see also J. Rollet, Abnégation et vie chrétienne selon M. Blondel, in Nouvelle Revue Théologique 93 (1971) 513-543. 106. There are about 4,000 letters, of which Claude Tresmontant has published those, which have a direct philosophical bearing. See M. Blondel – L. Laberthonnière, Cor- respondance philosophique, ed. C. Tresmontant, Paris, Seuil, 1961, p. 38. 107. Julien Lambinet marks out a number of themes that recur in the letters of the later years. These include: a) a discussion of the attitude to be taken vis-à-vis Church authority during what were particularly troubled years; b) the question of divine power and the definition of a metaphysics of charity; c) Laberthonnière’s critique of what he saw as Blondel’s accommodation to Aristotelian-Thomist language; and d) the question of mysticism. See J. Lambinet, Une amitié sacrifiée: La mortification dans la correspondance entre Blondel et Laberthonnière, in M. Leclerc (ed.), Blondel entre L’Action et la Trilogie, Bruxelles, Lessius, 2003, 66-79, pp. 71-78. 108. It is clear that within the limitations of this paper, it is not possible to explore or, indeed, honour the full complexity of a relationship that spans over thirty years of 684 M.A. CONWAY

A major catalyst in their discussion of mysticism was, undoubtedly, the promulgation of the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis on 8 September 1907. The encyclical largely fabricates a typology of the “modernist” and critiques a number of issues such as “the principle of immanence”, which at first sight closely resembled the position that was common both to Blondel and Laberthonnière109. In the septic atmosphere that went with the encyclical, there were multiple threats of condemnation on several fronts. The question that Blondel posed right from the beginning was how was one to cope with this atmosphere and the very real injustices that went with it110.

1. The Science of the Saints It is no surprise that on 6 October 1907, a month after the encyclical Pascendi appeared, Blondel writes to Laberthonnière about this “heart- breaking encyclical”, and asks how one is to consider its “mysterious and mortifying abjection”111. Recognizing the clear failures of moral and Christian sense and the needs for domination that are evident in the docu- ment, Blondel asks, further, if it is sufficient to reject it simply in anger and disgust, or, ought one draw from it some lesson: “adoring in it the Master, who remains the terrible and impenetrable God, and who in this world we cannot approach except with a sort of sacred terror”112. From 1919, and particularly during 1920, the question of mysticism takes centre stage in the correspondence between Blondel and

correspondence. To get a sense of Laberthonnière’s perspective on things, see M.-T. Perrin (ed.), Dossier Laberthonnière: Correspondance et textes (1917-1932). Avant-Propos d’H. Gouhier, Paris, Beauchesne, 1983, pp. 158-188. 109. See http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_ enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html, emphasis original (accessed 10 January 2018); Editor’s note, Editorial [La Rédaction = Blondel], L’Encyclique Pascendi Dominici Gregis’, in Annales de philosophie chrétienne 155 (1907) 5-9. 110. Indeed, the previous year, two of Laberthonnière’s principal works were con- demned (on 5 April 1906) and listed among prohibited books (which was not per se a condemnation of the doctrine contained therein). Later, a second condemnation was issued on 16 June 1913 against two of his other works on apologetics and, in addition, the Annales de philosophie chrétienne had to be suspended as it was placed on the Index (he, together with Blondel, had taken over its direction in 1905). Shortly afterwards, Laberthonnière received – without having been consulted and without any explanation – a prohibition to publish. This series of events effectively silenced Laberthonnière for the remainder of his career with two notable exceptions: first, a polemic with Le Roy on the problem of a miracle; and, secondly, a significant article on Saint John of the Cross for a discussion at the Sociéte française de philosophie in 1926 (see E. Castelli, Laberthonnière, trans. Louis Canet, Paris, Vrin, 1931, pp. 6-7). Ironically, the dossier that led to the Annales being placed on the Index was submitted by Action française! See C. Tresmontant, Editor’s Note, in Blondel – Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), p. 221. 111. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 6 October 1907, in Id. – Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 207-208, p. 208. 112. Ibid. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 685

Laberthonnière. However, a clear difference in accent emerges, with Blondel valuing not only the idea, but also the effective praxis, of mortification and sacrifice, which he will designate as the metaphysical experience par excellence. Although apparently destructive, it transpires in fact to be creative, expansive, and ultimately liberating. In this sense it is ontogenic (even in the face of abuses within the Church). Over against this, Laberthonnière is more concerned to highlight and critique power abuse in the Church, underlying that from a Christian point of view authority is a service and not a domineering function113. When Blondel writes to Laberthonnière about such matters – particularly on the attitude that one might take to those in authority (even when acting abusively) – he turns repeatedly to the saints as the only reliable model in finding a response to the situation. Thus, in January 1920, he writes: “What would a saint do, in the difficulties that we are debating? And, in consulting the models from the past, I see that the most daring, a saint Bernard, a Ruys- broeck, and saint Catherine, were, while being critics, passionately and painfully respectful not only of the function but of persons and of authority”114. When it comes to our negative experiences, Blondel claims that we are never in a position to judge absolutely their inherent value. He observes, thus, that we cannot be both judge and executioner as if everything revolved around us. Nor should we see ourselves as God’s avenger. It is not within our competence to be the one who judges or, for that matter, the one who rewards115. We do not possess the very knowledge that would permit us to separate the wheat from the tares, which means that our task is principally to realize the kingdom of God and, in this, to suffer (pâtir) that which might hinder this realization both within ourselves and in the world that is external to us. It is for us to do our duty (devoir) so that in perfecting ourselves we lift the whole body and so act as witnesses where this is possible116. In this, crucially, we ought to consider even the worst that we might experience as a means that is providentially allowed so as to wean us from our attachment to this world. He even goes as far as asserting that the wicked element in the Church is – for those who recognize the redemptive value in suffering it – the most perfecting instrument

113. Laberthonnière’s critique of abusive forms of authority is connected with the total- ity of his philosophy, where he analyses in detail the deforming influence of Greek philosophy – notably Aristotelianism – on Christianity. See L. Laberthonnière, La notion chrétienne de l’autorité: Contribution au rétablissement de l’unanimité chrétienne. Œuvres de Laberthonnière, ed. L. Canet, Paris, Vrin, 1955. 114. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 15 January 1920, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 249-250, p. 249; also Id., Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 26 February 1921, ibid., 275-281, pp. 279-280. 115. See M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 10 March 1921, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 283-285, p. 285. 116. Ibid. 686 M.A. CONWAY of detachment and holiness117. This is so since it can be the occasion of the greatest victory of the spiritual person over oneself and the foundation of that annihilation that prepares us for the realization in us of the perfect transcendence of divine life. This is the only mind-set that enables us to surmount the infinite scandals of history and the various disappointments of our present times118. Responding specifically to Laberthonnière’s criticisms of the abuses of authority in the history of the Church, Blondel suggests that we can view this history from the outside, which is the point of view of an intellectually religious theory, or we can examine it from the inside, which is the intimate history of the Church as it is lived out in the lives and action of the saints. This, he claims, is equivalent to a study of the realist ways of asceticism and the mystical (la mystique)119. From this perspective, one is even more conscious of the failings of the Church, and one suffers not less, but more, in recognizing and acknowledging them120. We get beyond these failings – always incompletely to be sure – never through mere discourse, no matter how luminous and powerful that it might be, but, rather, “by the profound action of Christ and his saints”121. Thus, Blondel maintains that we need to differentiate absolutely between knowledge that is achieved through the most erudite reflection or the most generous effort and that achieved through what he terms “the science of the saints”122.

2. The Conditions of Divinization: Asceticism A central problem is that of determining the relationship between God and human beings that neither compromises divine sovereignty (God has no need of us), nor makes human beings mere puppets in a relationship that is necessarily unequal. The issue is eminently pertinent when one is dealing with the mystic state. Blondel and Laberthonnière are both in agreement that all human beings are called to a supernatural destiny and that this requires a free consent and a dynamic of mortification on our part. There is need for a new birth to use St. Paul’s terms. No one illustrates these points better for Blondel than St. John of the Cross. On the one hand, the Spanish mystic underlines more than anyone else divine Altruism since he maintained that God cannot but look for himself in his works, seeing that he has no need of anything. Yet, on the other hand, since God

117. Ibid. Clearly, for Blondel, this is neither to condone wickedness per se nor to instrumentalize it on our part for the sake of some higher good. 118. Ibid. 119. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 15 January 1920, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 249-250, p. 255. 120. See ibid. 121. Ibid. 122. Ibid., p. 256. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 687 cannot divinely “love in us but himself”, it follows that it is necessary for us to eliminate what is former “by the embrace of suffering” and receive in us the humiliated, patient, and bruised Christ123. Blondel reproaches Laberthonnière for not adequately valuing the necessary phases of abnegation, mortification, and asceticism in the theandric genesis of the human person124. God does not create beings that are called to participate in his own life without recognizing fully a response that is grounded in freedom and co-operation. We do not receive the gift of divinization in a purely passive fashion without our free co-operation in receiving this gift. It is possible only if we are born again, since we are created in the image and likeness of God, which means that we are something other than mere “puppets fabricated by the Gods” (to use Plato’s expression)125. Blondel underlines that we could not be created perfect (as St. Irenaeus had already observed) and immediately complete. Rather, it was necessary to have the mediation of our consent and an asceticism that would facil- itate our realization in God. It is necessary that we freely consent to the destiny to which we are called so that we truly become the image and likeness of God, creative on our part, with the real power of co-operating with God’s design for us. For Blondel, it is only through an effective, real, and active asceticism that we might achieve the desired state in our relationship to God. He claims that even religious knowledge that does not pay the price of mortification and interior renewal runs the risk of being nothing more than an idolatry of concepts126. This asceticism calls for the concrete abnegation of the literal in all its manifestations, including our most generous and natural impulses. It involves a dark night of the intelligence as much as of the senses. This should not, however, be interpreted as a persecution of the human person, but rather as a reflection of the indispensable request of the greatest possible love127. It involves, further, a kind of “religious waiting” that places us in the presence of those paradoxes of God’s work- ing in our world that are often most crucifying for us128.

123. Ibid. I just note that in the original published text a clause would appear to have been inserted in the incorrect place, which would explain the confusion in the statement. 124. See C. Tresmontant, Introduction, in Blondel – Laberthonnière, Correspon- dance philosophique (n. 106), 239-241. 125. See Plato, Laws 644c-645c. 126. See M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 20 March 1920, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 253-256, p. 254. 127. See, for example, Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 7 March 1921, in Id. – Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 282-283. 128. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 20 March 1920, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 253-256, p. 254. I note that the published text reads “l’attentre sic] religieuse”, which can be read reasonably as “l’attente religieuse”. 688 M.A. CONWAY

3. Overcoming Distance: “Intussusception” Given the radical and absolute distance that necessarily pertains between the human person and God, the question arises as to how one might achieve a relationship that could overcome this distance. This union cannot be simply a matter of God giving himself through generosity to us, and we, in turn, simply co-operating with this love129. This would merely be a free exchange of wills that have only to consent freely on either side to this spiritual union, which is the flourishing of charity: “there is no more to say than the nos credidimus caritati (we have believed in love)”130. For Blondel such a position runs the risk of being minimalist in terms at least of what it demands from us. This would be to treat God and the human person as being, so to speak, partners on equal footing as if it were a matter of two identical or equal wills that are to be fused with each other on the basis of being mutually well disposed to each other. In this case everything would depend on the moral orientation of wills that are defined in terms of their simple ideal intentions. It is, however, a matter of going beyond morality and grounding oneself in a total reality. This is, then, to develop oneself completely, not just as will or intention, but as a complete action that involves the co-operation of all our natural and spiritual elements. Blondel speaks of an “intussusception” of God and the person and of the person and God, of “He who is” and “the one who is not” (as the blessed Angela of Foligno would say of herself)131. God makes of us more than the merely human. Blondel maintains that through reading the mystics he was led gradually to a conception of the spiritual life that strives towards a compenetration of all the real (whose elements are distinct in

129. See M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 10 March 1921, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 283-285, pp. 283-284. 130. Ibid., p. 284. The Scripture reference here is to 1 John 4,16. 131. Ibid., p. 284. See also M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 7 March 1923, in Id. – Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 307-308, p. 307. In Le procès de l’intelligence (1921) Blondel draws on these discussions and uses the term “intussusception” (see Conway, Intelligence and the Mystic Life [n. 7], p. 14). This term, “intussusception”, was used by Maine de Biran, who speaks of “une intussusception de la vérité” to indicate the slow penetration of truth that ought to guide us in the practice of life (see M. de Biran, Journal: 1er Janvier 1817–17 Mai 1824, ed. H. Gouhier, Neuchâtel, Éd. de la Baconnière, 1955, vol. 2, pp. 297-298 [17 November 1820]). Gouhier points out that this physiological term refers to the process, whereby nutrients are absorbed by the organ- ism and, in this manner, permit growth and development (see ibid., p. 298, note 1). A second physiological meaning refers to the invagination of a portion of the intestine. Blondel, however, most likely encountered the term (i.e. the text from de Biran) in his reading of Ollé-Laprune’s De la certitude morale, in which he quotes the term to clarify how the human person responds to the call of God (see L. Ollé-Laprune, De la certitude morale, Paris, Eugène Belin, 1880, p. 385). Curiously, Laberthonnière used the term (from de Biran) as early as 1891 in his La philosophie est un art to affirm that a moral or religious idea has only a practical value to the degree that it is incorporated into one’s life (see L. Laber- thonnière, La philosophie est un art, in Essais de philosophie religieuse, Paris, Lethielleux, 1903, 1-15, p. 13). MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 689 themselves), rather than a mere juxtaposition of moral atoms that are to be fused through their respective wills. This leads us beyond a limited “moral idealism” towards what he terms a “spiritual realism” that would be the most adequate expression of an integral philosophy of Action132.

4. Communicating the Incommunicable A significant issue in the exchange between Blondel and Laberthonnière is the correct characterization of the relationship between the natural and supernatural orders. Blondel sees the necessity of recognizing a clear distinction between “the gift of the Creator” and the “gift of the Incarnation and of Redemption”133. Laberthonnière appears to treat these orders as if there was a fundamental unity between them. For Blondel, however, there is what he terms an abyss to be crossed, and not to recognize this would require not realizing what God is in concreto (concretely)134. Blondel believes “that divine love has found the means of communicating the incommunicable, not to oppress us and wear us out, but on the contrary to unite himself to us, in the intimacy of a union that mocks all differences and all essences”135. There is a mystic and realist sense to divine participation that goes beyond any ideological framing of the divine-human relationship and any action that would be exclusive on our part136. We are not deified through our own doing, but are “raised” to that which is beyond the natural, to the unique, transcendent, and literally divine137. God cannot cease to be God; thus, to make us capable of union with him there is a trial, which is none other than a transformation of love to be suffered and to be willed in order that the incommunicable might communicate himself, without, on the one hand, He ceasing to be himself, and without, on the other hand, we ceasing to be ourselves138. It is a matter of a union without confusion. This is not, Blondel is at pains to underline, a brutal repression of our being. Rather, it is the living secret of love, which is the deepest and highest aspect of the vivere mihi Christus est (for me to live is Christ)139. There is a trans-

132. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 10 March 1921, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 283-285, p. 283. The reference here to “moral idealism” would reflect Laberthonnière’s position in Blondel’s reading. 133. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 14 April 1923, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 309-310, p. 310. 134. See ibid., emphasis reflects original. 135. Ibid., emphasis reflects original. See also M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laber- thonnière, 17 October 1923, in Id. – Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 311-312. 136. This is more usually translated into a fallacious ideology, so that on that basis, Laberthonnière, according to Blondel, rejects this realist and mystical sense. 137. Ibid., p. 310, inverted commas reflect original. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid. See Philippians 1,21. 690 M.A. CONWAY formation that renders us deiform, without, however, our ceasing to be human140. To prevent our absorption, on the one hand, and to permit and enable a union that would be infinitely intimate, on the other, there is a double process; namely, mortification and divine intussusception141. The intensity of this relationship of the self and the absolute Other demands at one and the same time intimacy and distance. It is a matter neither of our persecution, nor of our simple blossoming. Whatever may be the character of our regeneration or repression, it is not that, say, of a jealous Deity reacting to our insolence. Rather, it is an excessus Dei (an excess of God), an extreme goodness of the one, who wishes to give himself fully to us without taking us from ourselves, and to incorporate us into God-self, without ceasing to incorporate himself into us through a mutual Action and Passion142. In a Mémoire to Auguste Valensin on Teilhard de Char- din’s philosophy, Blondel had already underlined that the necessity of abnegation is not merely penitential, but is essential so long as it is a matter of the deifying destiny of the person and through this of the whole Universe143. He adds, importantly, that there is no disdain of matter or of sensibility in this; far from it, since everything is “from top to bottom about love: ut vitam abundantius habeant (that they may have more abun- dant life)”144. Blondel draws on St. John of the Cross:

When saint John of the Cross, for example, asks us to traverse the dark night, it is not that he despises physical reality or does not appreciate aesthetic beauty or denies the needs of the heart: it is the complete contrary; he wishes in a preliminary way to disengage us from every sensualism, from every physicism, from every rationalism, in short from the various forms of anthro- pomorphic egoism; because, he says, it is only abnegation that enjoys everything, possesses everything, knows everything, through a decentring and a transfer to God, in such a way that, in the superior state of union, one finds oneself reattached to everything, but beyond images and concepts that are always too anthropocentric145.

There is a moral transformation and a spiritual dilation in “an ascetic and mystic transubstantiation”, which “alone can prepare the cosmologi- cal integration of the Christ”146.

140. M. Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 17 October 1923, in Id. – Laber- thonnière, Correspondance philosophique (n. 106), 311-312, p. 312. 141. Ibid. 142. See ibid., majuscules reflect original. 143. M. Blondel, Premier Mémoire de Maurice Blondel, in H. de Lubac, Teilhard posthume: Réflexions et souvenirs, précédé de Blondel-Teilhard de Chardin, Correspon- dance 1919, ed. J.-P. Wagner – P. Vallin, Paris, Cerf, 2007, 42-49, p. 48, majuscule reflects original. 144. Ibid., p. 48. The Scripture reference is to John 10,10. 145. Ibid. 146. See also ibid., p. 49. MAURICE BLONDEL AND THE MYSTIC LIFE 691

5. The Precise Role of Reason In The Problem of the Mystical Blondel underlines the precise importance of the role of reason. It clearly cannot furnish the mystic state, but it can contribute in that it can ratify and freely augment (redoubler) that in which it has no part147. In contributing, reason can exercise a sort of freedom of perfection in that it is capable of recognizing in mysticism the only satisfactory response to the fundamental questions that it can and ought to envisage and pose, but which it cannot of itself resolve. This, of course, does not mean that scholarly reflection is necessary to the mystical life; on the contrary. But nor does it mean that the philosophical aspect of mysticism is harmful or useless. It is good that the nourishment of the mind contributes in its own way to the flourishing of the spiritual life. It permits one to understand, for example, that a detaching and mortifying ascesis reflects neither contempt for life nor pure penitence, but is, rather, an indispensable means of union and love, first with God, and, through him, with everything else.

Conclusion

In this paper I have explored Maurice Blondel’s unravelling of the mystic path along three fronts, where the key interlocutors were Jean Baruzi, Jacques Maritain, and Lucien Laberthonnière. In his engagement with the discussions at the university, and, in particular those from Baruzi, Blondel, on the one hand, acknowledges the importance of philosophy examining the mystical, but, on the other, cautions against any reductionism that is rooted in a limited methodology. Specifically he is concerned to mark out the specific character of Christian mysticism over against the Greek vari- ant to be had, for example, in Plotinus. Other issues include consideration of those epiphenomena associated with the mystic state, the role of the symbol of the dark night, and the connection between the mystic state and ordinary Christian life. Although, to some degree in his exchange with Maritain, Blondel rehearses earlier debates that he had with a number of Neo-Thomist theologians, he now clarifies more definitively the limited but positive role of conceptual knowledge, the importance of connaturality as the expression of real knowledge, and the relationship between the natural and supernatural orders in the mystic state. In the much more personal exchanges with his friend Laberthonnière, Blondel plumbs the depths of the mystic life to explore the ascetic dimension of the mystical. In some quite extraordinary passages he discusses the precise conditions of our transformation and assimilation into God and shows not only why mortification and

147. Blondel, Le problème de la mystique (n. 1), p. 45. 692 M.A. CONWAY

abnegation are not just necessary in terms of realizing the breadth of our own interiority, but also why they ought not be interpreted as a rejection or denigration of the natural order. They are, rather, a first step in a prov- idential plan, which is followed by a second one that restores everything to us in Christ. It is a union that is expansive of our person and that is built foundationally on love.

New House Michael A. Conway St. Patrick’s College Maynooth Co. Kildare Ireland [email protected]

Abstract. — Maurice Blondel made an exceptional contribution to the discussion of mysticism in the early decades of the twentieth century. His Problem of the Mystical (1925) is one of the most penetrating analyses of the mystic state from a philosophical (and, indeed, theological) perspective. The text itself, however, remains quite inaccessible if it is not placed and understood from within the complex contours of Blondel’s university, ecclesial, and personal worlds.