NOT EVERYTHING IS GRACE: AQUINAS’S NOTION OF “PURE NATURE” AND THE CHRISTIAN INTEGRALISM OF HENRI DE LUBAC AND OF RADICAL ORTHODOXY Submitted by Matthew Bernard Mulcahy, OP, BA, MDiv, STB, STL in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Theology (National) Faculty of Arts and Sciences Australian Catholic University Research Services Locked Bag 4115 Fitzroy, Victoria 3065 Australia Submitted 1 August 2008 ii Statement of Sources This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgment in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. All research procedures reported in the thesis received the approval of the relevant Ethics/Safety Committees (where required). ___________________________________ M. Bernard Mulcahy, OP 1 August 2008 ii iii Abstract Henri de Lubac argues that, in early modern times, a pernicious concept began to become commonplace in Roman Catholic theology: this concept is “pure nature.” Pure nature is human nature, considered without reference to grace or to the supernatural destiny of personal union with God. Further, de Lubac argues that Catholic theology, in assimilating this idea, has departed from the sound tradition represented by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. He holds that the notion of pure nature leads inevitably to the self-exclusion of Christianity from the affairs of the world—when, in fact, the light of the Gospel ought to be shed on all aspects of human existence. This dissertation tests de Lubac’s thesis concerning the history of the idea of pure nature, showing that this notion is not, in fact, a modern novelty. This study examines the role of the idea of pure nature in the Bible and early Church, in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, in the early modern Jansenist controversy, in the theology of Henri de Lubac, and in the theology of the contemporary Radical Orthodoxy movement, paying particular attention to the historical circumstances which made the repudiation of “pure nature” attractive. Today, some theologians follow de Lubac in contending that Catholic doctrine must eschew the idea of pure nature in order to resist secularism and maintain Christianity’s relevance to all aspects of human life. This dissertation contends that the idea of pure nature is not only traditional, but necessary for Christian theology. It argues that a Christian “integralism” which refuses to prescind from grace when considering nature can do justice neither to nature nor to grace. iii iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi Chapter One: Pure Nature and the Challenge of Integralism 1 1. Defining “Pure Nature” 2 2. Objections to the Notion of Pure Nature 7 3. Defining “Integralism” 9 4. The Integralist Challenge of Henri de Lubac 13 5. The Integralist Challenge of John Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy 26 6. The Plan of this Study 29 Chapter Two: Nature and Secularity in Pre-Thomistic Theology 32 1. The Term and Idea of “Nature” in Hellenistic Philosophy and in Scripture 32 2. The Doctrines of Election and Separation 42 3. Christian Assimilation and Difference in the Roman Empire 49 4. Spatial Metaphors of the World and the Sacred, Ecclesial, and Monastic 65 Conclusion 72 Chapter Three: Thomas Aquinas on Mortality, Infused Virtues, and Limbo 77 1. Human Mortality 80 2. The Necessity of the Infused Virtues and Gifts 93 3. Limbo 117 Chapter Four: Thomas Aquinas on Kingship, Natural Law, and the Sciences 128 1. Kingship 128 2. Natural Law 147 a. The Law of the Gentiles 149 b. Comparing the Laws of Nature and Grace 156 c. Loving God, Naturally? 157 d. How the Laws of Nature and Grace are in us 161 3. Theology as a Subalternated Science 163 a. Plato on the Sciences 164 b. An Alternative to Plato: the Sciences in Aristotelian Logic 168 c. Sacra doctrina as a Subalternated Science 174 d. The Epistemology of the Super Boetium: Philosophy and Theology 183 Conclusion 198 Chapter Five: Pure Nature, Integralism, and Jansenism 200 1. De Lubac’s Reading of the Jansenist Crisis 200 2. Jansenism: An Historical Perspective 204 a. Michael de Bay and Baianism 205 iv v b. French Politics after Baianism 213 c. The Congregatio de Auxiliis Gratiae Divinae 214 d. Jansenism 223 Conclusion 235 Chapter Six: Henri de Lubac and Pure Nature in the 20th-Century 239 1. De Lubac’s Theological Aims 240 2. De Lubac’s Reading of Thomas Aquinas 245 a. The Natural Desire to See God 248 b. Knowing God: One Knowledge or More than One? 253 c. Natural Desire and the Metaphysics of Individuation 254 3. De Lubac’s Theological and Historical Circumstances 261 a. De Lubac’s Career 273 b. Surnaturel (1946) and Humani Generis (1950) 278 c. After Humani Generis 284 4. De Lubac’s Critique of Pure Nature: An Evaluation 287 Chapter Seven: De Lubac’s Heirs: Radical Orthodoxy 292 1. The Aim and Method of Radical Orthodoxy 295 2. The Origins of Radical Orthodoxy 299 3. John Milbank on de Lubac and the “Integralist Revolution” 308 4. John Milbank and Thomas Aquinas 313 5. Radical Orthodoxy’s Theology of Knowledge 317 6. An Evaluation of Radical Orthodoxy 324 Chapter Eight: Toward a Resolution 329 1. Summary of Findings 329 2. Toward a More Comprehensive Grasp of Tradition 344 a. Pure Nature and Natural Law 350 b. Pure Nature and Human Reason 352 c. Pure Nature and Christian Spirituality 353 d. Pure Nature and the Limits of Christian Competence 358 Conclusion 359 Selected Bibliography 362 v vi Acknowledgements I am grateful to my superiors in the Order of Friars Preachers, and to our benefactors, for providing the time and funding necessary for this work. In particular, I thank my own Prior Provincial, the Very Reverend D. Dominic Izzo, OP, the successive Regents of Studies of my Province, and the Dominicans who were my kind hosts in Australia, especially Fr. Thomas Cassidy, OP, and Fr. David Willis, OP. I am grateful, as well, for the assistance of the librarians of the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, of the Centre of Studies at St Dominic’s Priory, East Camberwell, and of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. I owe a deep debt of thanks to my directors, the Rev. Anthony J. Kelly, CSsR, and Dr. Anne Hunt. I hope that the present work manages to reflect their learning and sound judgement, and that I can imitate their service in the household of faith. And, above all, thanks be to God. vi CHAPTER 1 PURE NATURE AND THE CHALLENGE OF INTEGRALISM “In everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8:28). This is what St Thérèse of Lisieux meant when she said, famously, that “everything is grace.”1 However, there are other contexts in which it is important to affirm that not everything is grace. This dissertation is about a theological dispute involving some of those other contexts, the dispute over the idea of “pure nature.” In this study we will explore the Thomistic notion of pure nature and examine the opposing idea of Catholic integralism, as developed by the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896–1981) and later by the lay Anglican theologian John Milbank (b. 1952). We proceed in this introductory chapter under the following six headings: 1. Defining “Pure Nature” 2. Objections to the Notion of Pure Nature 3. Defining “Integralism” 4. The Integralist Challenge of Henri de Lubac 5. The Integralist Challenge of John Milbank 6. The Plan of this Study 1 See Thérèse de L’Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face: Œvres Complètes Paris: Cerf, 1998), 1009. See the “Yellow Notebook” of M. Agnes, 5 June 1897, n. 4: “Si vous me trouviez morte un matin, n’ayez pas de peine: c’est que Papa le bon Dieu serait venu tout simplement me chercher. Sans doute, c’est une grande grâce de recevoir les Sacrements; mais quand le bon Dieu ne le permet pas, c’est bien quand même, tout est grâce.” 2 1. Defining “Pure Nature” “Pure nature” is a term which became common in the scholastic tradition, particularly among Thomists. When it was first used, and by whom, is unknown. The precise term “natura pura” does not appear in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, but, as we shall show in chapters three and four, the substance of the idea is present in his work. We may draw a working definition of pure nature from the writings of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange,2 the Dominican who, as much as anyone, epitomised early 20th-century Thomism. According to Garrigou-Lagrange, “pure nature” means “nature with its intrinsic constituent principles and such as follow from them or are due to them.” The expression, then, does not refer to a real state in which anyone has ever existed. Rather, it indicates “all those notes which are included in the definition of man, a rational animal, and further the properties of man and the natural aids due to 2 Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP (1877–1964), belonged to the Dominican Province of France (i.e., Paris) and became one of the most prominent Catholic theologians in the decades before Vatican II. See Richard Peddicord, “Another Look at the Theological Enterprise of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.,” Angelicum 82 (2005): 835–48 and The Sacred Monster of Thomism: An Introduction to the Life and Legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s, 2005).