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Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus1 Hans Boersma

Introduction: The Church and the “Plane perspective .3 The way Rowland sees it, the of Immanence” (1962–65) shoul- uestions about the place of the ders much of the blame for the way in which Church vis-à-vis her surrounding Catholicism has veered toward an uncriti- culture have particular urgency cal acceptance of modernity in general, and in the light of the immanentism toward an eager participation in the “culture Hans Boersma that characterizes much of of America,” in particular . In other words, is the J.I. Packer Professor of contemporary Western society . Vatican II has given more than just a nod in Historical and Religion—in as far as we accept the direction of those who view the culture Systematic it in our postmodern society— of modernity as morally neutral and perhaps at Regent continues to be the result of a even as a praeparatio evangelii (“prepara- College. subjective, immanent quest tion for the ”), much in the way that Q 2 Editor’s Note: for meaning . One of the most Greco-Roman culture functioned as a prepa- This article was significant challenges for , ration for the gospel in the early church . The originally delivered therefore, may well be the reaffirmation Second Vatican Council, convened by the as an address celebrating the of divine transcendence in the face of the newly chosen , John XXIII, was the installation of contemporary onslaught of immanentism, council of aggiornamento, of accommoda- Hans Boersma which in its horizontalizing tendency tion . But, Rowland observes, Karl Barth to the J.I. Packer categorically excludes the reality of the challenged Catholics with the penetrating Chair of Historical and Systematic supernatural . This is a challenge, I believe, question, “What does aggiornamento mean? Theology at Regent shared by evangelical and . ‘Accommodation’ to what?”4 Rowland argues College on October is known for its ability to that the openness to modernity advocated by 15, 2005. adapt or accommodate the Christian faith to some Catholic scholars stems from a willing- the various forms of its surrounding cultural ness to accept that modernity is able to func- contexts . We tend to think that the way tion as a praeparatio evangelii 5. The problem forward for is to take this cultural with this, as she sees it, is “that the culture matrix as a common starting-point as we reach of modernity has been treated as a new ‘uni- out to others . And, indeed, it is important versal culture’ replacing Greco- culture, that we not talk past non-Christians in our and that this culture, far from being a neu- attempts to communicate . My concern, tral medium for the spread of Christianity, is however, is that our well-intended evangelical actually a hostile medium for the flourishing desire to communicate too easily turns into a of Christian practices and beliefs…”6 wrong-headed accommodation . Rowland’s analysis is, to my mind, con- Cultural trends, after all, are not neu- vincing . Contemporary Western culture is a tral . Tracey Rowland, in her excellent book great deal more deserving of our skepticism Culture and the Thomist Tradition after than Greco-Latin culture was in the first few Vatican II, deals with the question of adap- centuries of the church . The reason is that tation or accommodation from a Catholic a strong sense of transcendence pervaded

 Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus CRUX: Fall 2005/Vol. 41, No. 3

the social context of the early church, while Middle Ages, the Franciscan scholar, John this is lacking in our contemporary Western (c . 1266–1308), launched a society . The ability of our culture to function frontal attack on ’s (1224– as praeparatio evangelii has become difficult 74) notion of analogia entis (“analogy of precisely because of what Charles Taylor has being”), which had emphasized the difference called our culture’s “eclipse of the transcen- between and human beings . Duns dent ”. 7 The conviction behind this article, argued that it is illogical to say with Thomas therefore, is—and I quote from Professor Aquinas that when we talk about God’s Packer’s book, Knowing God— “Being” we mean something different than that ignorance of God…lies at the when we talk about the “being” of creatures . root of much of the Church’s weak- The only objects the human intellect can ness today . Two unhappy trends possibly grasp are those that exist: beings seem to have produced this state of in general—whether they’re divine beings affairs . Trend one is that Christian or human beings . Sure, God is infinitely minds have been conformed to the greater than we are, but whether we talk modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that about God’s being or about our being, we’re spawns great thoughts of man and talking about the same kind of being; we’re leaves room for only small thoughts not simply using analogous language . God, of God…Trend two is that Christian as one scholar puts it, “remains within, or minds have been confused by the subordinate to the category of Being (which 9 modern scepticism . For more than now becomes the sole object of metaphysics) ”. three centuries the naturalistic leaven To use technical language, Duns replaced the in the Renaissance outlook has been Thomist analogy of being with univocity working like a cancer in Western of being . The notion of univocity of being thought .8 basically said that we can talk about God in the same way that we talk about human This 1973 statement hasn’t lost any of its beings . When we say that God exists we’re relevance for the church today . The minds of not saying anything different than when we Christians, both evangelicals and Catholics, say that human beings exist . What all of this continue to be conformed or accommodated really meant is that for Scotus our intellectual to the modern spirit—though, perhaps, as apprehension of God was both adequate and evangelicals we prefer to use the term “adapt” comprehensive, something that seemed to rather than “conform” or “accommodate ”. run counter to what the Christian tradition Our minds continue to be confused by a had always maintained . modern skepticism that has shut out any Scotus’s assertion of univocity of being supernatural or transcendent foundation had tremendous implications for the way in underlying the created order . The program for which people started to look at their relation- this article—and, with God’s help, for my role ship with God . If it is true that we can apply as J I. . Packer Professor at Regent College— the term “being” to God and to his creatures will be, therefore, to make a theological plea in the same way—which is what univoc- for the historic Church’s confession of the ity means—then the category of “being” saving act of God in Christ through the becomes an overarching category in which Spirit . The primary cultural opposition to this God and creatures both share . It now became theological calling lies, it seems to me, in the possible, explains John Milbank, to “under- modern and postmodern immanentism that stand Being in an unambiguous, sheerly has bedeviled Western culture, particularly ‘existential’ sense, as the object of a proposi- since the Enlightenment period . tion, without reference to God, who is later John Duns Scotus and Univocity of Being claimed ‘to be’ in the same univocal man- The origins of this immanentism, however, ner ”. 10 What Scotus did is to make the creat- go back to an earlier period . In the high ed order independent from God . The created

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order existed just as much and in the same the divine world, was meant to safeguard the way as God exists . The created order thus absolute transcendence of the Plērōma, the took on independence; it became a “discrete, eternal fullness of the one god who had no secular order ”. 11 This implied a separate exis- contact whatsoever with the world of time tence and, therefore, autonomy, for the secu- and space . St . Irenaeus, by contrast, affirms lar natural order, a notion which Renaissance both the utter transcendence and incompre- and Humanism would make their own, hensibility of God and his entry into time and which modernity would unambigu- and space in the , the self-revela- ously come to celebrate . What we find here tion of God in Jesus Christ . God, explains is the beginning of the modern spirit, the Irenaeus, spirit “that spawns great thoughts of man and has come within reach of human leaves room for only small thoughts of God ”. knowledge (knowledge, however, not Considering the enormous impact that this with regard to His greatness, or modern spirit has on our contemporary cul- with regard to His essence—for that ture, it seems to me that as evangelicals we no man measured or handled—but need to be circumspect in terms of accommo- after this sort: that we should know dation to our surrounding culture . At the very that He who made, and formed, and least, the “discrete, secular order” implied in breathed in them the breath of life, univocity should always again bring us back and nourishes us by means of the cre- to the question, “Accommodation to what?” ation, establishing all things by His St. Irenaeus’s Christological Analogia Entis Word, and binding them together by The anthropology of the second-century His Wisdom—this is He who is the 15 Church Father Irenaeus presents a powerful only true God)… antidote to this move to a “discrete, It is perhaps anachronistic to speak here secular order ”. Irenaeus is well aware of the of analogia entis . Nonetheless, Irenaeus’s transcendence of a God to whom we can never concern is the same as that of analogia assign being in a univocal sense, whom we can entis: on the one hand, human language never subject to the totalizing grasp of human cannot comprehend the essence of God; understanding . Opposing the arrogance of the on the other hand, divine revelation is such Gnostic claim to knowledge, Irenaeus warns that we can trust human language to speak us: “[T]hou wilt not be able to think [God] properly about God . Put differently, Irenaeus fully out,” and if nonetheless we try, “thou wilt safeguards both divine transcendence and prove thyself foolish; and if thou persevere in divine immanence . such a course, thou wilt fall into utter madness, For Irenaeus this similarity within dis- whilst thou deemest thyself loftier and greater similarity—this analogia entis—has its ulti- than thy Creator, and imaginest that thou mate foundation in God’s revelation in Jesus canst penetrate beyond His dominions ”. 12 Christ as the . ’s mas- Human knowledge of God, while important terful study of Irenaeus’s anthropology makes to Irenaeus, is always limited, and true clear that for the Bishop of the concept humility acknowledges such limitation . We of imago dei is Christologically based 16. That will “not be able to think Him fully out ”. The is to say, self-knowledge is only possible as reason lies in what Angelo Cardinal Scola calls we participate in Christ . God did not cre- the “abyss of dissimilarity” between God and ate humanity outside of Christ but created human beings 13. God, explains Irenaeus, is “a them with a view to growing into Christ and simple, uncompounded being,”14 and while participating in him . The Christological ele- we can predicate certain characteristics of ment shows not only in the fact that the Son God, he remains infinitely different . of God, as one of the two “hands of God,” is Gnostic polytheism, with its elaborate involved in creating humanity,17 but also in mythological scheme of emanations from the fact that the Son of God is the very arche-  Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus CRUX: Fall 2005/Vol. 41, No. 3

type of the image of God . Quoting Genesis the analogia entis also to the body gives it a 9:1–6, Irenaeus comments that God made degree of stability that is quite welcome in a man as the image of God, “and the ‘image’ philosophical climate that often greets bodily is the Son of God, in whose image man was identity and stability with suspicion . made . And therefore, He was manifested in For the future of evangelicalism, it seems the last times [1 Pet 1:20], to show the image to me of crucial importance that we deal with like unto Himself ”. 18 To see the true human the same kinds of anthropological concerns form, therefore, one needs to turn to Christ . that Irenaeus brings to the fore . The question Two aspects are particularly fascinat- of what it means to be human lies at the cen- ing in this Christologically based analogical tre of many of today’s burning issues, and it approach of Irenaeus . First, since Irenaeus is, therefore, a question that we cannot ignore regards Christ as the archetype of human- in our academic concerns . ity, and give only a dim impres- Irenaeus teaches us to deal with …the imperfection sion of what it is like to be the image of God . the question of humanness from For Irenaeus, while creation was good—an a Christological perspective and of creation does important anti-Gnostic affirmation in to insist on the relevance of the itself!—it was not perfect or mature . Since bodily character and differen- not imply that created things must be inferior to the one who tiation of the image of God . created them, and came into being later than Today’s moral questions make materiality is the uncreated God, Adam and Eve must have it more and more necessary , but simply been infants, explains Irenaeus, and as such that as evangelicals we take our imperfect 19. In other words, the imperfection starting point in an analogical means that it of creation does not imply that materiality is worldview that allows for an evil, but simply means that it needs what we open sky and, thus, for moral needs what we might call an “evolutionary” development . norms that have transcendent The imperfection of creation highlights the origin . Accommodation, in might call an Incarnation as the model of Adamic growth the context of today’s moral toward perfection . The Word of God is not questions, will often prove “evolutionary” just the climax but also the template for the counterproductive . After all, development. creation of humanity .20 immanentist univocity limits Second, for Irenaeus, the imago dei is not the physical world to a closed located merely in the soul, as it is for most horizon, so that moral norms are necessar- of the later tradition . Irenaeus is perhaps the ily deduced from the saeculum itself . As a only Church Father who includes the bodily result, such immanentist univocity is unable character of Adam and Eve in his understand- to ask itself the question, “Accommodation ing of the image of God . Irenaeus insists that to what?” but instead always and necessarily in the incarnate Son of God we can actu- takes such accommodation for granted . An ally see what the image of God is like .21 The analogical worldview, by contrast, inscribes reason for this inclusion of the body in the bodily existence on a Christological template image of God is obvious: Irenaeus wants to and by doing so looks to Christ as the tran- affirm the goodness of bodily existence over scendent normative guide for all of human against the Gnostic assertion of a primordial life, including the life of the body . fall into matter . This affirmation of the bodily and the Mystery of the character of the image of God may well prove Supernatural to be an important point for contemporary A second major change in medieval theology, ethical issues .22 If it is true that the human in addition to the introduction of univocity, body has the dignity of being created in the was the development of the concept of image of God, this gives the body an identity “pure nature” (pura natura) . As I hope to that lies anchored and secured in the Person illustrate, this notion became an additional of the eternal Son of God . Thus, applying  CRUX: Fall 2005/Vol. 41, No. 3 Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus

vehicle for the immanentizing tendencies in way related to the supernatural, the realm of Western society .And again, we may look to nature could move in its own, self-chosen the , and to St . Irenaeus in direction, unencumbered by any higher call particular, in an attempt to recover a sense that the gospel, Jesus Christ or the church of the supernatural goal of all of nature and might issue . so of the centrality of the transcendence of One of the avenues that de Lubac and God . In much of the Thomist tradition the others chose to combat this scholastic sepa- notion of “pure nature” came to function as a ration between nature and the supernatural shorthand for a sharp distinction between the was a retrieval—a ressourcement—of the realms of nature and grace . Nature, according theology of the Church Fathers . De Lubac to the later Thomist tradition, was a realm or argued that St . Thomas had already devi- compartment hermetically sealed from that ated from the patristic approach by relying of the supernatural .Each of the two had its far too much on Aristotelian philosophy . It own ends or purposes . As a result, grace came was crucial to distinguish carefully between to be seen as an added divine gift, a donum Aristotle’s concept of “nature” and the patris- superadditum, which God granted by means tic notion of the “image of God ”. When the of the church and the sacraments .What I am Church Fathers commonly distinguished interested in here is the underlying cultural between the “image” of God, on the one questions that are at stake as they came to hand, and the “likeness” of God, on the other , the fore, particularly in the 1940s and 50s hand, this was by no means identical to the in French Catholic thought, through the distinction between the Aristotelian notion theologians of the nouvelle théologie or the of nature and the Christian understand- “new theology ”. ing of grace . “For Aristotle,” explained de On 10 May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Lubac, “nature was a center of properties and and soon set up a puppet regime . One a source of strictly delimited activity, shut up of the painful memories of this time period within its own order ”. 24 When the Church is the massive support many in the Catholic Fathers employed the distinction made in Church gave, first to the Fascist party, Action Genesis 1:26 between the image [eikwnj ] and française, in the 1930s, and then to the Vichy likeness [omoiwsiV+ ] of God, they, by contrast, regime during the Second World War itself . had in mind a distinction between the mere This context of the rise of Fascism in Europe, capacity to see God (the image [eikwnj ] of particularly in France, and the question of God) and the actual gift of the Holy Spirit how the Church should respond, looms large communicating life to believers (the likeness in the background of the theology of Henri [omoiwsiV+ ] of God) .25 The sharp separation de Lubac (1896–1991) . De Lubac realized between nature and the supernatural, which that Fascism constituted a different religion: became common in fifteenth- and sixteenth- a return to anti-Catholic and anti-Christian century Thomist thought, appealed—and, neopaganism .23 As de Lubac came to see it, at least to some extent, justifiably so—to the French cultural and political situation the way in which St . Thomas had structured was intimately tied up with the theological the nature-grace relationship . Aquinas, question of the relationship between nature argued de Lubac, had never quite been able and the supernatural . The reason, he believed, to integrate the Aristotelian notion of a self- why so many accommodated uncritically to contained “nature” with the patristic under- the Fascist neopaganism of the Vichy regime standing of “image ”. 26 was the long-standing separation between De Lubac entered the discussion with nature and the supernatural, as if the two a sharp attack on the scholastic Thomist formed two hermetically sealed compart- notion of “pure nature” (pura natura) . By ments . Such separation, de Lubac believed, questioning this notion, de Lubac appeared granted the realm of nature a nearly autono- to strike at the heart of the theological system mous status vis-à-vis the supernatural . In no of St . Thomas Aquinas as it had taken shape

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in the later Thomist tradition . In his book, what Cajetan did was to affirm the existence Surnaturel (1946), de Lubac argued that nei- of a purely natural order (pura natura), which ther the fathers nor the medieval scholastics carried its own final end . Thomas, on the had ever held the notion of a “system of pure other hand, had always maintained that we nature” with its own purely natural end that cannot look at nature as simply existing by human beings could attain “by their own itself, independent of all reference to God, intrinsic powers of cognition and volition ”. 27 independent from the status that nature actu- De Lubac continued his attack, though in ally did have 35. In other words, for Aquinas, milder form, in another book, The Mystery pura natura was not a status that ever really of the Supernatural (French ed . 1965) . Here, pertained . Even in , there had been de Lubac does not outright deny the validity no such thing as pura natura . The image of of the notion of “pure nature,” but he is cer- God in human beings always already directed tainly questioning its Catholic character .28 them toward the end of the beatific vision of De Lubac does not deny that the later notion God . With the later Thomist tradition, this of pura natura had its roots ultimately in the changed . Here it was assumed 29 theology of St . Thomas . But he argues that that every man, in our world as it is, Thomas Aquinas looked at the nature-grace before having received the grace of relationship nonetheless quite differently baptism or any other enabling grace, than the later Thomist tradition . The turning was in that state of “pure nature”… point, de Lubac insists, came in the fifteenth Finality was therefore considered as century with Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534) something fairly extrinsic: not a des- and in the sixteenth century with Francisco tiny inscribed in a man’s very nature, 30 Suárez (1548–1617) . De Lubac maintains directing him from within, and which that Cajetan and Suárez radically misinter- he could not ontologically escape, but 31 preted Thomas Aquinas in two ways . First, a mere destination given him outside St . Thomas, in hisSumma contra gentiles, had when he was already in existence 36. said that “every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine substance…”32 And in The overall effect of this “extrinsic” un- De malo, he had argued, “[R]ational crea- derstanding of the human telos was a tures surpass every other kind of creature in separation of the two orders, the natural being capable of the highest good in behold- and the supernatural . Such a “separation” or ing and enjoying God, although the sources “dualism”—two words that de Lubac uses from their own nature do not suffice to attain here—resulted in an unhappy form of semi- it, and they need the help of God’s grace to . On the face of it, Cajetan and attain it ”. 33 By contrast, the later Thomists, Suárez seemed to emphasize the gratuitous Cajetan and Suárez, denied that people by character of divine grace . After all, when they their very nature desired to see God . The said there was no “natural desire” for God image of God, they argued, was not, in itself, implanted in human nature, they reserved ordered to the purpose of the beatific vision the desire for God to the supernatural realm, of God . The beatific vision, for Cajetan, and so they made clear that it was a purely was the end or purpose of the supernatural divine gift . But what they also did was to give realm, a realm that was quite distinct from the natural realm an autonomy of its own . the natural human life 34. By denying a natu- It became a realm in which human beings ral desire in all human beings for the vision could attain their own natural ends quite of God, Cajetan departed radically from St . apart from divine intervention . The realm Thomas’s original understanding . of nature became a realm in which human The second departure, de Lubac insists, beings had no need for God . As one student had to do with the final end of the created of de Lubac puts it: order . By denying that the natural desire for Philosophy could now proceed sepa- beatific vision was part of the created order, rately without taking any account  CRUX: Fall 2005/Vol. 41, No. 3 Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus

of religion . The originally merely we neglect to ask the culturally relevant ques- hypothetical possibility of a “pure tion, “Accommodation to what?” we fall into nature” gradually was taken to be a the same trap of allowing the immanent ends real possibility . Theologians them- of our culture to set the agenda . selves increasingly stressed what man St. Irenaeus on the Distinction Between could do by his own natural powers, Image and Likeness and this acknowledgement gave ever At first sight, St . Irenaeus’s anthropology may more room for secularized construc- tions of the human world 37. seem to lend quite a bit of support for a strict separation between nature and grace . As is In this quotation, we see what is at stake in well known, when the Thomist tradition the discussion . The subtly Pelagian tendency drew a sharp distinction between the two, of sixteenth-century Catholic theologians they looked for support to the fathers’ distinc- like Cajetan and Suárez stemmed from their tion between the image and the likeness of insistence that the natural realm had autono- God—and with some degree of justification . mous status, that it was “pure nature,” inde- Attempting to do justice both to the continu- pendent from its relationship with God . This ity and the discontinuity in the postlapsarian gave, as Komonchak puts it, “ever more room state, the Church Fathers commonly argued for secularized constructions of the human that after the Fall, the “image” (eikwnj ) had world ”. The origin of secularism, so it seems, remained, while the “likeness” (o+ moiwsiV) was goes back not only to the medieval Scotist lost . And, indeed, Irenaeus appears to make a understanding of univocity of being but similar distinction between image and like- also to the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century ness . When he speaks of the “image of God,” Thomist understanding of the nature-grace he refers to the incarnate Son of God as the relationship . Again, the modern spirit seems archetype for the creation of Adam and Eve . to be at work, the spirit “that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only As we have seen, here Irenaeus is concerned small thoughts of God ”. with the bodily character of human beings . eikwn My Reformed background has taught me The image ( j ) exists in matter, in the that “there is not a square inch in the whole flesh, and as such reveals the archetype, the domain of human existence over which incarnate Son of God . But the archetypical Christ, who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: significance of Christ reaches beyond the ‘Mine!’” 38 This famous line of body itself . Irenaeus also refers to rationality Kuyper, spoken at the opening of the Free and moral freedom . After molding the body, University in 1880, fits well with Regent’s God breathed into Adam’s face the breath affirmation of the created order, including the of life, explains Irenaeus with a reference to world of business, the world of the arts and Genesis 2:7, “so that the man became like 39 the numerous professions to which we may be God in inspiration as well as in frame ”. called . This seems to me a healthy emphasis, What exactly does Irenaeus mean by this which I applaud and want to actively encour- “inspiration” with the “breath of life”? Is it age . At the same time, it is also an emphasis indeed a supernatural gift of grace that was that leaves us vulnerable to the evangelical lost after the Fall? This doesn’t seem to be the temptation of accommodation . None of these case . Jacques Fantino has argued persuasively areas of human endeavour have their own nat- that for Irenaeus the gift of the “breath of life” ural telos . None of them can be viewed apart implies the gifts of rationality and of freedom from the supernatural redemptive purposes and moral choice . This rationality and free of the eternal vision of God . As evangelicals will is something that remains, also after the we may be particularly tempted to confuse an Fall, even if human beings start using it in an affirmation of the created order with accom- obviously perverse way . God does not coerce modation to an immanent culture . We may us, Irenaeus insists 40. According to Irenaeus, not talk about “pure nature,” but whenever rationality and freedom refer not to the image  Accommodation to What? Univocity of Being, Pure Nature and the Anthropology of St. Irenaeus CRUX: Fall 2005/Vol. 41, No. 3

but to the likeness of God and are ours by a possible “likeness” before the Fall? Here we virtue of the gift of the breath of life . Now, need to recall the weakness and immaturity before we jump to the conclusion that then of the two paradisal infants . At no point does Irenaeus must have in mind something super- Irenaeus explicitly state that in the prelapsarian natural, we need to analyze his approach in situation they already had the Spirit of God 46. a little more depth . Within the “likeness” of And so the second noteworthy aspect of the God, Irenaeus clearly distinguishes between “likeness” is that it is primarily—though, as human rationality and freedom, on the one we will see, not exclusively—a postlapsarian hand, and human conversion, on the other . gift . Adam and Eve were animated by the It is only the former that remains in human breath of life, but—as John Behr reminds beings after the Fall . Following convention, us—this animation was not identical to and for convenience sake, I will refer to the vivification; animation was meant to lead to former as “similitude” and to the latter as vivification 47. The breath of life was but a first “likeness ”. 41Irenaeus believes that human step in the human maturation in the image rationality and freedom are inalienable and likeness of God . To be sure, if push came human properties, in which human beings to shove, Irenaeus would likely acknowledge directly reflect God the Father . This simili- that the initial animation of the breath of tude was there prior to the Fall and, for all life was also the work of the Spirit of God, so intents and purposes, does not seem to have that in a sense we could say that the Spirit of been affected by it . The likeness of God, God was at work already in Paradise . All of by contrast, is Christologically based and life, after all, is a gift of the Spirit of God . God becomes ours as we grow more and more into always works by means of his “two hands,” the likeness of our archetype, Jesus Christ 42. his Word and his Spirit . Besides, Irenaeus is What is really of interest here is how quite ready to acknowledge that Adam and this Christologically based “likeness” func- Eve were created in the image and likeness tions in Irenaeus’s theology . There are several of Jesus Christ, so that at least the beginning noteworthy aspects . The first is its Spirit/gift also of the “likeness” must already have been character . Despite Irenaeus’s insistence that there in this paradisal state . The problem is human beings have the freedom to choose that due to their immaturity, Adam and Eve what is good, he at the same time maintains were easily tempted and could “easily lose” the that when we are transformed into the like- “likeness ”. 48 That Irenaeus nonetheless does ness of Christ, this is a gift of the Spirit . It is not, in this context, refer to the work of the the Spirit, Irenaeus insists, “who cries: Abba, Spirit speaks to the close connection that he Father, and has formed man to the likeness of is intent on maintaining between the work of God ”. 43 It is the Spirit who restores us in the the Spirit and the renewal of humanity in the likeness of God and so places us once again image and likeness of God . on the path of maturation—and, ultimately, A superficial glance at Irenaeus’s distinc- of incorruptibility and deification . It is the tion between “image” and “likeness” may Spirit who will “render us like unto [God], well seem to support the later scholastic and accomplish the will of the Father; for [the opposition between nature and grace . But Spirit] shall make man after the image and now that we have analyzed Irenaeus’s anthro- likeness of God ”. 44 For, says Irenaeus, “where pology a little more in depth, it becomes the Spirit of the Father is, there is a living clear that he is quite circumspect in the way man,” with the flesh “adopting the quality in which he applies the distinction . In fact, of the Spirit, being made conformable to the his circumspection is such that he ends up Word of God ”. 45 Grace is a supernatural gift . lending support for a theological agenda that is dependent on the gifted presence opposes the secularizing tendencies of a her- of the Spirit of God in the human person . metically sealed pura natura . The reasons are The question remains, however: what threefold . First, Irenaeus’s presentation of about the Spirit before the Fall? What about human history as an “evolutionary” matura-

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tion, intended from the start as leading up to was imperfect, God continued to mould and the full blossoming of the image and likeness shape them until they would reach the perfec- of God in the Incarnation, implies that the tion of the image and likeness of God . This telos of creation is itself supernatural . This was continual process is, from beginning to end, an important point for de Lubac’s program of the gracious work of the creator God, shaping ressourcement . Where the scholastic Thomist humanity by means of his two hands . There tradition had insisted on a dual track with is, for Irenaeus, no true and full human being dual ends—a natural end for the realm of until the archetype of Jesus Christ himself has nature and a supernatural end for the realm become incarnate . of the supernatural—de Lubac maintained To be sure, Irenaeus gives a great deal of that the image of God was always already room for human freedom, which remains directed toward eternal life in after the Fall in the “similitude ”. De Lubac the presence of God—visio would refer to this as the “appetite,” “imprint- Irenaeus realizes dei . This is exactly what we ed movement,” “inclination” or even “capac- that human find also in Irenaeus .49 For ity” for supernatural grace 53. Nonetheless, Irenaeus, Adam and Eve were for Irenaeus as for de Lubac, this remainder beings only have created with a view to matu- of humanity was always in need of divine ration in the image of their grace . Only the grace of the Spirit of God a future if all of archetype, the incarnate Son turns human beings so that they are trans- of God . The Christological formed into the image and likeness of God . their lives are template for the image of God The subtle Pelagianism of the later Thomist implies a supernatural end in tradition was one that assumed that human both animated the creation of Adam and Eve . beings could run the realm of nature on their and vivified The human creation in the own, without the gift of grace . By contrast, image and likeness of God is for de Lubac and for Irenaeus, the supernatu- by Word and directly tied to the telos of the ral intervention of God was necessary from ultimate visio dei . As Irenaeus beginning to end . Irenaeus, therefore, is the Spirit—the puts it: “For the glory of God first theologian of the Spirit . Irenaeus realizes is a living man; and the life of that human beings only have a future if all of hands of God. man consists in the vision of their lives are both animated and vivified by God ”. 50 This purpose of the Word and Spirit—the hands of God . image of God clearly subverts Third, what this means, of course, is the secularizing notion of a distinct natural that for Irenaeus there is no realm of pure realm with its own independent purposes . nature . This is perhaps where the congeni- Second, Irenaeus is clearly concerned to ality between Irenaeus and de Lubac is the retain the gift character of both creation and strongest . Irenaeus does not distinguish recreation . Life itself—the gift of the breath between “image” and “likeness” in order of life—is the gracious gift of God: “For life to secure the autonomy of pura natura . The does not arise from us, nor from our own Lutheran scholar Gustaf Wingren rightly nature; but it is bestowed according to the sees in Irenaeus an ally against the notion of grace of God ”. 51 And when God sends out pura natura 54. Even if Irenaeus distinguish- his Spirit to restore the likeness after the Fall, es between “image” and “likeness,” this dis- he again acts out of mere grace . God, as it tinction is not a separation: human nature, were, continues his creative activity, which he for Irenaeus, remains intrinsically oriented started in Paradise, and which will ultimately to a supernatural goal . “For the glory of God lead to the vision of God . Some scholars have, is a living man; and the life of man consists therefore, described the gift of the Spirit and in the vision of God ”. his restoring work in Irenaeus as a contin- Conclusion ued creation 52. Because the initial creation If my analysis holds true, it seems to me that of Adam and Eve was not yet their telos, but

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several conclusions follow . First, as evangeli- is from Church Fathers like Irenaeus that we cals we must be wary of simply adopting the learn to ask, “Accommodation to what?” modes of expression that our culture hands Endnotes us—whether that is on a philosophical or 1 I appreciate the valuable input several friends theological level or in our everyday lives . and colleagues have given on this paper: Craig D . Our culture has surely taken the notions of Allert, John Behr, Tj . Boersma, Darrell W . Johnson, Bert Moes, James K .A . Smith, Archie Spencer, Rudi univocity and pura natura to their imma- A . te Velde and Jens Zimmermann . nentist extremes . Whether it’s the church’s 2 I take “immanentism” to refer to the mod- liturgy or the state’s foreign policy, the ern and postmodern tendency to derive the ultimate visual arts or computer technology, sexual meaning of human life from the natural realm itself, a tendency usually accompanied by a denial of a tran- ethics or the principles of economic develop- scendent origin of faith commitments and an insistence ment, it would be difficult to maintain that that the natural realm is autonomous and has ultimate accommodation is an innocent or neutral significance . Cf . the comment of Gilles Deleuze and matter . Barth’s question, “Accommodation Félix Guattari: “Where there is transcendence, verti- cal Being, imperial State in the sky or on earth, there to what?” is no less relevant today than it is religion; and there is Philosophy whenever there is was in the 1960s . Second, we can no lon- immanence, even if it functions as arena for the agon ger afford to see Catholics and evangeli- and rivalry…” (“The Plane of Immanence,” in What cals as two homogenous blocks opposed to Is Philosophy? trans . Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell [New York: Columbia University Press, each other . Many Catholics, I suspect, have 1994], 43) . more in common with some evangelicals 3 Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist than they do with certain of their fellow Tradition after Vatican II (London: Routledge, 2003) . 4 Catholics, and, I am more and more coming Karl Barth, Ad Limina Apostolorum, trans . Keith R . Crim (Richmond, VA: Knox, 1968), 20 . Cf . to realize, many evangelicals have more in Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition, 19 . common with certain Catholics than they 5 Cf . Ratzinger’s comments on aggior- do with some of their fellow evangelicals . It namento: “The renewal of the Church…cannot mean seems to me that as evangelicals we simply progress in the sense of technological and economic development . This renewal has rather a twofold inten- cannot afford to ignore fellow Christians tion . Its point of reference is contemporary man in his and fellow scholars like Henri de Lubac, reality and in his world, taken as it is . But the mea- Tracey Rowland and Pope Benedict in sure of the renewal is Christ, as scripture witnesses our attempt to counter the horizontalizing him . And if the renewal seeks to think through and to speak the Gospel of Christ in a way understandable to influences also within evangelicalism itself . contemporary man—i .e ., in a contemporary fashion We may be grateful, therefore, for the grow- (aggiornamento means bringing up to date), then the ing recognition among evangelicals like objective is precisely that Christ may become under- Christopher Hall, Mark Noll and many oth- stood” (Theological Highlights of Vatican II [New York: Paulist, 1966], 2) . ers that evangelicals and Catholics belong 6 Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition, 159 . 55 together . Third, and finally, we are more 7 Charles Taylor, “The Immanent Counter- than ever in need of a return to the Church Enlightenment,” in Canadian Political Philosophy: Fathers . As the ressourcement theologians Contemporary Reflections, ed . Ronald Beiner and Wayne Norman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, realized, it is in Church Fathers like Irenaeus 2000), 390 . Cf . Rowland, Culture and the Thomist that we find everything that has continued Tradition, 87 . to be foundational for Christian theological 8 J .I . Packer, Knowing God (London: Hodder reflection ever since that time . The Church and Stoughton, 1973), 6; emphasis deleted . 9 Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Fathers are like a canon that has shaped the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Christian tradition, and to which we need Blackwell, 1998), 122 . to continue to look for guidance for the 10 John Milbank, The Word Made Strange: future 56. Church Fathers like Irenaeus pro- Theology, Language, Culture (Malden: Blackwell, 1997), 44 . vide us with a wealth of resources to counter 11 James K .A . Smith, Introducing Radical problematic theological influences, both in : Mapping a Post-Secular Theology (Grand Catholic and in Protestant thought . Faced Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 99 . 12 with the cultural threat of immanentism, it St . Irenaeus, Irenaeus against , in Ante-

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Nicene Fathers, vol . 1, ed . Alexander Roberts and 35 Ibid ,. 13 . James Donaldson (Christian Literature, 1885; reprint, 36 Ibid ,. 68–69 . Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), II .25 4. . 37 Komonchak, “Theology and Culture,” 586 . 13 Angelo Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, trans . Michelle 38 Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in K . Borras (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 29 . Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed . James 14 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, II 13. .3 . D . Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle, UK: 15 Ibid ,. III .24 .2 . Paternoster, 1998), 488 . 16 John Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology in 39 Irenaeus, Proof, 11 . Irenaeus and Clement (Oxford: Oxford University 40 ———, Against Heresies, IV .37 .4 . Cf . IV .4 .3; Press, 2000), 89–90 . IV .38 4. . 17 St . Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, 41 It is not quite clear whether or not Irenaeus trans . Joseph P . Smith (New York: Paulist, 1952), 11; himself draws a sharp terminological distinction here . Against Heresies, IV .20 1;. V 1. .3; V .6 1;. V .28 4. . Jacques Fantino has argued that for human rationality 18 ———, Proof, 22 . and freedom, Irenaeus uses the term omoiothV++ (“simili- 19 ———, Against Heresies, IV .38 1. . tude”), while using the term omoiwsiV+ (“likeness”) to 20 Cf . Hans Boersma, “Redemptive Hospitality describe the supernatural transformation worked by in Irenaeus: A Model for Ecumenicity in a Violent the Spirit . Mary Ann Donovan (“Alive to the Glory of World,” Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002): 207–26 . God: A Key Insight in St . Irenaeus,” Theological Studies 21 Irenaeus, Proof, 22; Against Heresies, V 16. .2 . 49 [1988]: 293–94) and John Behr (Asceticism and 22 Angelo Cardinal Scola, building on John Paul Anthropology, 90–91) have both followed this distinc- II’s theology of the body, goes so far as to argue that tion . It is clear that there is indeed a material distinc- human sexuality and sexual difference are part of the tion that Irenaeus draws here: he indeed distinguishes imago dei (The Nuptial Mystery, trans . Michelle K . between human freedom and rationality (which remain Borras [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 32–52) . after the Fall), on the one hand, and divine transforma- 23 Joseph A . Komonchak, “Theology and Culture tion in the likeness of the Son of God (due to inter- at Mid-Century: The Example of Henri de Lubac,” vention of the Spirit), on the other hand . But I am not Theological Studies 51 (1990): 599 . quite sure that this material distinction coincides with 24 As quoted in Ibid ,. 588 . a sharp terminological distinction in Irenaeus’s origi- 25 Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the nal Greek text . For instance, Fantino maintains that Supernatural, trans . Rosemary Sheed, with an intro- Irenaeus uses the term omoiothV+ in Against Heresies, duction by L . Schindler (New York: Herder & IV .37 4. (L’homme image de dieu, 135) . As the previous Herder–Crossroad, 1998), 98 . footnote makes clear, this diverges from the conjectur- 26 Komonchak, “Theology and Culture,” 588 . al Greek text in the Sources Chrétiennes . I suspect that 27 David L . Schindler, introduction to Mystery of certainty eludes us on whether or not Irenaeus actu- the Supernatural, by de Lubac, xvii . ally employs such a sharp terminological distinction . 28 De Lubac, Mystery of the Supernatural, 5 . I thank Father John Behr for his insights on this point, 29 At the same time, it is important to note that St . conveyed in personal communication with me . Thomas himself does not use the termpura natura . 42 Cf . Fantino, L’homme image de Dieu, 115 . 30 De Lubac, Mystery of the Supernatural, 101–27 . 43 Irenaeus, Proof, 5 . This same material has been rendered in English in 44 ———, Against Heresies, V .8 1. . and Modern Theology, trans . Lancelot 45 Ibid ,. V 9. .3 . Sheppard, (New York: Herder & Herder–Crossroad, 46 Cf . D E. . Jenkins, “The Make-up of Man accord- 2000), 105–83 . ing to St . Irenaeus,” Studia Patristica 6 (1962): 94 . 31 Radical Orthodoxy has picked up on de Lubac’s 47 Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology, 95; cf . 86 . criticism of Suárez . See John Montag, “Revelation: The Irenaeus is particularly emphatic on this distinction False Legacy of Suárez,” in Radical Orthodoxy: A New between animation and vivification inAgainst Heresies, Theology, ed . John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and V 12. .2 . Graham Ward (London: Routledge, 1999), 38–63; 48 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V 16. 2. . Cf . Proof, 12 . John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac 49 It seems to me, therefore, that we find in and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Irenaeus’s emphasis on the inherently supernatural Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) . end of the imago dei a remarkable bridge between East 32 “Omnis intellectus naturaliter desiderat divinae and West, teaching us to breathe with both lungs of substantiae visionem.” English translation taken from the Church . Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles . Book 50 “Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem homi- Three, Part I: Providence, trans . Vernon J . Bourke nis visio Dei” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV .20 .7; SC (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 100, 648; trans . changed, HB) . III 57. 4. . 51 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, II .34 .3 . 33 De malo, q .5, a .1, as quoted from Thomas 52 Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation: A Aquinas, On Evil, trans . Richard Regan, ed . Brian Study in the Biblical Theology of Irnaeus, trans . Ross Davies (New York: Oxford, 2003), 234 . See de Lubac, McKenzie (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1959), 33; Mystery of the Supernatural, 117 . Mary Ann Donovan, “Insights on Ministry: Irenaeus,” 34 De Lubac, Mystery of the Supernatural, 9 . Toronto Journal of Theology 2 (1986): 85 . Cf . Dennis

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Minns, Irenaeus (Washington: Georgetown University They Share a Common Future? (Downers Grove, IL: Press, 1994), 78 . InterVarsity, 2000) . 53 De Lubac, Mystery of the Supernatural, 130– 56 Cf . D .H . Williams: “The place of the patristic 32, 136–37 . tradition, as manifested in the content of its creeds, 54 Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 24 . Cf . 16, catechisms, and doctrinal and moral theology, has 157–58 . functioned and still functions in a canonical way, 55 Cf . Christopher A . Hall, Reading Scripture with theologically and historically . Practically speaking, the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, this tradition has functioned as a canon of Christian 1999); Learning Theology with the Church Fathers belief, especially the doctrinal and confessional (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002); Mark A . achievement of the fourth and fifth centuries, operat- Noll and Carolyn Nystrom, Is the Over? ing as the historico-theological precedent for all sub- An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman sequent formulation” (Evangelicals and Tradition: The Catholicism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); Formative Influence of the Early Church[Grand Rapids: Thomas P . Rausch, Catholics and Evangelicals: Do Baker Academic, 2005], 60) .

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