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Human Subje Ivity and the Natural Desire to See God e Givenness of Desire Human Subje ivity and the Natural Desire to See God Randall S. Rosenberg THE GIVENNESS OF DESIRE Concrete Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God RANDALL S. ROSENBERG The Givenness of Desire Concrete Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2017 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0031-3 Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. (Lonergan Studies) Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Rosenberg, Randall S., author The givenness of desire : concrete subjectivity and the natural desire to see God / Randall S. Rosenberg. (Lonergan studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4875-0031-3 (cloth) 1. Lonergan, Bernard J.F. (Bernard Joseph Francis), 1904–1984–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Subjectivity. 3. Desire. 4. God. 5. Natural theology. I. Title. II. Series: Lonergan studies BX4705.L75R67 2017 230’.2092 C2017-900486-7 CC-BY-NC-ND This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative License. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact University of Tor onto Press. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement of Canada du Canada For Susanne, Luke, and Anna Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction 3 Part 1: De Lubac, Ressourcement , and Neo-Thomism 1 De Lubac’s Lament: Loss of the Supernatural 13 The French Social and Political Context 14 Three Centuries of Neo-scholasticism: Separation of Nature and Grace 18 The Thomistic Consensus: The Silver Age of Scholasticism 18 Baius, Jansenius, and the State of Human Misery 20 De Lubac’s “Natural Desire for the Supernatural” 21 Impoverished Rationalism and a Return to Mystery 26 Surnaturel amid Theological Tensions: Daniélou and Garrigou-Lagrange 29 A Note on De Lubac’s Theological Style 35 A Different Kind of Lament: De Lubac after the Council 36 Conclusion 38 2 Ressourcement and Neo-Thomism: A Narrative under Scrutiny, a Dialogue Renewed 39 Neo-scholastic Counter-narrative: Feingold’s Challenge 40 Natural and Supernatural Ends 46 Pure Nature and Concrete Historical Nature 51 Obediential Potency and the Aesthetic Compromise 57 The Intelligibility of Nature and the Human Good 59 Conclusion 61 viii Contents Part 2: A Lonergan Retrieval: Pure Nature to Concrete Subject 3 The Erotic Roots of Intellectual Desire 65 Analogy and Dialectic: Two Theological Trajectories 66 The Diminishment of Intellectual Desire 68 Beyond the “Erotic Cemetery”: Critical Realism and the Challenge of Intellectual Conversion 70 Eros of the Mind I: Natural Theology 77 Eros of the Mind II: The Emergence of the Question of God 79 Eros of the Mind III: The Challenge of Bias and the Human Good 84 Conclusion 86 4 Concretely Operating Nature: Lonergan on the Natural Desire to See God 88 Nature I: Lonergan’s Scholastic Context 89 The Natural Desire to See God 92 Twofold End of the Human Person: Beyond Static Essentialism 98 Nature II: Lonergan on Emergent Probability 100 The Intelligibility of Nature and the Human Good Revisited 103 Obediential Potency and Vertical Finality in the Concrete World Order 107 The Aesthetic Compromise Revisited 112 Conclusion 114 5 Being-in-Love and the Desire for the Supernatural: Erotic-Agapic Subjectivity 116 The Extrinsicism of Supernatural Desire 118 Sanctifying Grace and the Habit of Charity 120 The Four-Point Hypothesis: Trinitarian Structure of the Supernatural 122 The Shift to Interpersonal Relations: New Relation to the Same End 123 Metaphysical and Phenomenological Accounts of Love 124 Metaphysics of Love: Vertical Finality and a Critique of Extrinsicism 125 Phenomenology of Love: Lonergan and Marion 127 Erotic Subjectivity and Divine Grace 130 Contents ix Desire to Be Loved 131 Loving in the Flesh: Sexual Pattern of Experience 132 You Have Loved Me First: Human Oath and Divine Love 134 Conclusion 135 Part 3: Mimetic Desire, Models of Holiness, and the Love of Deviated Transcendence 6 Incarnate Meaning and Mimetic Desire: Saints and the Desire for God 139 Intellectual Desire and Mimetic Desire 140 Lonergan on Incarnate Meaning 144 An Expansion of Incarnate Meaning: Girard’s Mimetic Desire 148 Girardian Sanctity: Pacifi c Mimesis and the Graced Resistance to Violence 152 Sacrifi cial Violence, Self-Transcendence, and Self-Sacrifi ce 154 Conclusion 155 7 The Metaphysics of Holiness and the Longing for God in History: Thérèse of Lisieux and Etty Hillesum 157 The Four-Point Hypothesis and the Metaphysics of Holiness 159 Thérèse of Lisieux: Love in the Heart of the Church 162 Contemplative Life and Openness to the World 162 Little Way as Sanctity Simpliciter 163 Contemplation and Action: Sanctity Simpliciter as Apostolic Sanctity 166 Habit of Charity: Feasting at the Table of Unbelief 167 Etty Hillesum: The Thinking Heart of the Barracks 170 Universal Activity of the Spirit 171 The Little Way of Etty: Quest for Simplicity and Contemplative Rest in God 174 Habit of Charity: “A Balm for All Wounds” 178 Conclusion 182 8 Distorted Desire and the Love of Deviated Transcendence 184 A Civilization of Consumption: The Challenge of Catholic Social Teaching 185 x Contents Idolatry and Deviated Transcendence: Consumerist Practice in the Realm of the “Sacred” 187 Consumerism as a “Sacralization to Be Dropped” 190 Girard on Consumerism and Mimetic Desire 194 Consumerist Idolatry and the Distortion of the Scale of Values 197 Conclusion 200 Conclusion 201 Notes 207 Bibliography 253 Index 267 Acknowledgments Theology is a conversational venture. I am grateful for the opportunity to engage colleagues over the last few years at the following venues: Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology, Lonergan Workshop at Boston College, Catholic Theological Society of America, the systematic theology colloquium at Marquette University, the West Coast Methods Institute, the Colloquium on Violence & Religion, and the Agora Insti- tute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the work of Robert Doran, SJ, Neil Ormerod, and John Dadosky. Engagement with their respective scholarly contributions helped me to chart out my own voice in this conversation. Their generosity over the years has been immeasurable. I am thankful for the support of my department chair, Peter Martens, and acknowledge especially the thoughtful feedback received from members of the “Monography Club”: Mary Dunn, William O’Brien, SJ, and Grant Kaplan. During the gestation of this book, Mary was writ- ing The Cruelest of All Mothers: Marie de l’Incarnation, Motherhood, and the Christian Tradition and Grant was completing René Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology . Their insight and creativity were both inspirational and contagious. Writing can often be a lonely exercise. I want to thank those colleagues and friends who offered support in special ways, including Christo- pher Collins, SJ, Gregory Beabout, Thomas Lally, Jason Sengheiser, Kurt Schreyer, Daniel Smith, Monsignor Michael Turek, Kevin Vander Schel, Leonard McKinnis, Joe Mudd, and Jay Hammond. I also express my gratitude to many other colleagues at SLU and beyond: Donald Patten, Tobias Winright, Wayne Hellmann, Matt Theissen, Geoff Miller, Julie Rubio, Jeff Wickes, David Meconi, SJ, Ken Parker, Darren Dias, David xii Acknowledgments Oughton, Jeremy Wilkins, Mark Miller, Christian Krokus, Pauline Lee, Jeremy Blackwood, Elizabeth Block, Rubén Rosario Rodriguez, Pat Byrne, Kerry Cronin, R.J. Snell, Alden Bass, Jen Popiel, Tom Finan, Mark Morelli, Erik Moser, Fred and Sue Lawrence, Heather Venable, Mike McClymond, Jack Renard, Fr Nicholas Smith, Brian Sholl, Ken Stein- hauser, Ben Asen, Brian Robinette, and Dan Finucane. I have profited from memorable conversations on the subject of this book with David Bentley Hart and Lawrence Feingold. I have also benefitted immensely from the assistance of and scholarly conversations with many graduate students, current and former, at Saint Louis University, especially James Lee, Stephen Lawson, Jonathan King, Joshua Schendel, Michael Pilato, and Caleb Little. A generous Mellon Faculty Development Award at Saint Louis Uni- versity enabled me to work on this project during the summer of 2014. I thank my copyeditor, Terry Teskey, and the staff at University of Toronto Press, especially Anne Laughlin. I am obliged as well to the blind peer reviewers for their critical and constructive feedback. I am particularly indebted to acquisitions editor Richard Ratzlaff for his insight and suggestions as well as his encouragement and support. I am grateful for the love and support of my parents, Bob and Mary, and my in-laws, Larry and Ann. Finally, the book is dedicated to my wife, Susanne, and my children, Luke and Anna. Their daily support, good humour, and enduring love through the moments of clarity and the long “dark nights” of writing offered sustenance that was surely undeserved but profoundly appre- ciated. I am reminded of these consoling lines from Marilynne Robin- son’s novel Gilead : “Love is holy because it is like grace – the worthiness of its object is never what really matters.” THE GIVENNESS OF DESIRE Concrete Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God Introduction Human desire in the concrete world is intensely dialectical. Its complex- ity is captured with unparalleled insight in Augustine’s Confessions: his account of the “restless heart” has animated the theological imagina- tion and nourished a wellspring of reflection on the human longing for rest in God. 1 Although he profoundly recognized the ultimate desire of the human heart, Augustine was not blind to the persistent tempta- tion to idolatry, to our all-too-often distorted love of deviated transcen- dence: “There is no rest where you seek for it … You seek the happy life in the region of death; it is not there.
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