An Essential Difference Between Thomism and Augustinianism
I found this excellent quotation in Frederick Copleston’s A History of Philosophy, volume 2, and thought that I would share it with the rest of the class:
The Thomist distinction between the sciences of dogmatic theology and philosophy, with the accompanying distinction of the modes of procedure to be employed in the two sciences, no doubt evolved inevitably out of the earlier attitude, though, quite apart from that consideration, it obviously enjoys this very great advantage that it corresponds to an actual and real distinction between revelation and the ‘unaided’ reason, between the supernatural and natural spheres. It is at once a safeguard of the doctrine of the supernatural and also of the powers of man in the natural order. Yet the Augustinian attitude on the other hand enjoys this advantage, that it contemplates always man as he is, man in the concrete, for de facto, man has only one final end, a supernatural end, and, as far as actual existence is concerned, there is but man fallen and redeemed: there never has been, is not, and never will be a purely ‘natural man’ without a supernatural vocation and end. If Thomism, without of course neglecting the fact that man in the concrete has but a supernatural end, places emphasis on the distinction between the supernatural and the natural, between faith and reason, Augustinianism, without in the least neglecting the gratuitous character of supernatural faith and grace, always envisages man in the concrete and is primarily interested in his actual relation to God.
…The rigid type of Thomist would, I suppose, maintain that Augustine’s philosophy contains nothing of value which was not much better said by St. Thomas, more clearly delineated and defined; but the fact remains that the Augustinian tradition is not dead even to-day, and it may be that the very incompleteness and lack of systematization in Augustine’s thought, its very ‘suggestiveness’, is a positive help toward the longevity of his tradition, for the ‘Augustinian’ is not faced by a complete system to be accepted, rejected or mutilated: he is faced by an approach, an inspiration, certain basic ideas which are capable of considerable development, so that he can remain perfectly faithful to the Augustinian spirit even though he departs from what the historic Augustine actually said. (p. 49-50)
I found this quotation to be interesting and illuminating for two reasons. First, Copleston sums up in two short paragraphs the issue that was at the heart of Catholic theological debate in the middle of the twentieth century: can man have a natural end, or completion, outside of supernatural grace? Most Thomists said yes, at least speculatively. Man has, they said, no exigency, by nature, for the supernatural. He has, by his own nature, a natural happiness, attainable by the exercise of the natural virtues. Philosophy deals with natural man. Theology deals with man in the order of grace. Theologians influenced by Augustine, such as Henri de Lubac, argued, contrary to this standard Thomist position, that man has only one final completion of his nature, and it is supernatural. There is no such thing as “natural man” outside of the order of grace, and it is a diversion with malevolent consequences to assert the speculative possibility of such a “natural man.” De Lubac argued that, in fact, Augustine’s position on this matter was shared by Thomas himself; the Thomists got Thomas wrong, in other words. Many people have taken de Lubac’s reading of Thomas to be correct – it is the reading of Thomas that is generally shared by theologians in the Communio circles (Communio is, of course, the international journal for which Joseph Ratzinger was a founder).
De Lubac’s reading of Thomas has met a stiff challenge in recent years. A dissertation in Rome by Lawrence Feingold has argued rather convincingly that de Lubac misread Thomas, and many Thomists (such as Romanus Cessario) have argued in support of Feingold’s thesis. I suspect that Feingold is right. But that does not mean that de Lubac’s oeuvre is thereby invalidated, as some would conclude. It means, simply, in my opinion, that de Lubac is firmly in the Augustinian tradition, and probably not a Thomist.
The second thing that I found interesting about Copleston’s quotation was that some of it reads as if it could have been penned by Professor Ratzinger himself. Ratzinger disliked Thomism, at least as it was taught to him, because he thought that it was too rigidly systematic, abstract, and overly speculative. Thomists, in his opinion, did not always deal with “man in the concrete,” whose happiness can come only when, by the grace of God, he attains to beatific vision. Ratzinger, in consequence, has a different understanding of the nature of philosophy than many Thomists. For him, philosophy shows us how to live a good life so that we might die a good death. He has pointed out on more than one occasion that in antiquity it was the task of the philosopher to show us the way to eternal life. None of the philosophers of old could do this, until the Son of Man took on human flesh. This is why, according to Ratzinger, Christ was rightly understood by many in the early Church to be the True Philosopher: Christ showed us how to give perfect obedience to the Father, even unto death.
Philosophy, in this way of understanding it, is not first of all about rational arguments, or about establishing a clarification of abstract concepts. It is first of all about how to live according to the teachings of the Master, Christ Himself, and about how to follow Him, which can be done only by the infusion in the soul of divine grace by the power of the Holy Spirit. Philosophy and theology, then, in this understanding, cannot be as neatly separated as many in the Thomist tradition have thought. In thinking about the relationship of philosophy and theology in this way, Ratzinger shows his Augustinian influence.
Many Thomists, on account of Augustine’s blurring of the lines between philosophy and theology, have taken Augustine to be a vague and metaphorical thinker. But Copleston, himself a Thomist, explains that if the true meaning of Augustine’s way of doing theology is understood, which he shared with all of the great Church Fathers, then their criticism is invalidated:
It is not that Augustine failed to recognize, still less that he denied, the intellect’s power of attaining truth without revelation; it is rather that he regarded the Christian wisdom as one whole, that he tried to penetrate by his understanding the Christian faith and to see the world and human life in the light of Christian wisdom. He knew quite well that rational arguments can be adduced for God’s existence, for example, but it was not so much mere intellectual assent to God’s existence that interested him as the real assent, the positive adhesion of the will to God, and he knew that in the concrete such an adhesion to God requires divine grace. In short, Augustine did not play two parts, the part of the theologian and part of the philosopher who considers the ‘natural man’; he thought rather of man as he is in the concrete, fallen and redeemed mankind, man who is able indeed to attain truth but who is constantly solicited by God’s grace and who requires grace in order to appropriate the truth that saves. (p. 48)
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Extremely interesting post here, so thanks much. I’m curious about the debate concerning de Lubac’s reading of Thomas, so you’ve given me something more to pursue here :-).
Comment by Josh Miller — July 22, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Aside from looking at the works of St. Thomas, I suggest you get and read the enjoyable Letters of Etienne Gilson to Henri de Lubac, wherein Gilson says, “You are right to insist on the natural vocation of the intellect to a vision of God of which it is naturally incapable. Your Thomistic texts are conclusive … . The beatific vision is supernatural, but it isn’t a miracle!” (p. 76-77) And on and on.
As for St. Thomas, there are many texts to support de Lubac and more importantly I think St. Thomas’s overall vision is closer to that of de Lubac than what I have heard Feingold has argued (haven’t read him yet so can only go by what others have said). One text that is brought up a lot is from the Summa Contra Gentiles (3, 57, 4): “every intellect naturally desires to behold the divine Essence.” The major part of the argument is made at SCG 3, 50.
Comment by W. — July 22, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Well, Feingold’s dissertation is so massively well-documented, running several hundred pages, that there probably is no way to beat him in a battle of proof-texting. He even outscores de Lubac in that regard, which is hard to do. To refute Feingold, one would, indeed, be left to argue that de Lubac captures better the spirit of Thomas. But, does the spirit of Thomas contradict the letter of Thomas?
Feingold has plenty of well-respected Thomists on his side: Cessario, Reinhold Hutter, Matthew Lamb, Stephen Long, Guy Mansini — and that’s just to name the theologians, and even then only some of those who are capable of writing in English. The philosopher Ralph McInerny has a recent book out, on the praeambula fidei, that, in part, refutes Gilson (who, as mentioned in the previous post, followed de Lubac) from the perspective of one who is steeped in the thought of Jacques Maritain’s Thomism.
Thomists in the camp of those I’ve just mentioned argue that de Lubac’s position destroys the gratuity of the supernatural. They do not deny that Thomas held that we have a natural desire for the supernatural. What they deny is the assertion that Thomas held that man could not have been created without a desire for the supernatural. This man, created without an exigency for grace, would be purely natural man. Thomists of this sort argue that our recognition that God could have created man outside of the order of the supernatural not only preserves the gratuity of grace, it also sets into great relief the desparate condition of purely natural man: it awakens in us a greater appreciation of God’s gift to us of sanctifying grace.
Moreover, in the opinion of these Thomists, the refutation of de Lubac is necessary to preserve the integrity of the human person, who has his own natural faculties and powers. Concomittantly, it saves philosophy from absorption into theology and makes possible the development of reasoned discourse, from a Christian perspective, in the public sphere.
Comment by hierothee — July 22, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
I understand what you are saying, but then a few points come to mind:
1. Man created according to the idea of a purely natural man no longer seems to be man. Part of the human person is a desire for the supernatural, a desire for God. I think to posit this purely natural man is to go against the spirit and overall weltanschauung of Aquinas. It also seems to bring Thomistic thought into an idealism of sorts, very unrooted in reality. Which leads to my next thought.
2. To argue as these Thomists do is to break clearly with Augustine, as Copleston says, and I would argue with the Christian vision of man: our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.
3. It is interesting that Copleston criticizes Thomism and then contrasts it with what Augustine actually says. So not Thomism compared with Augustinianism but Thomism (what many have done with the thought of Aquinas) compared with Augustine’s writings. Hmmm. I wonder why the difference and not a direct comparison of Aquinas and Augustine on these points. I will have to open my edition to find out if there is more that balances this out. Any thoughts?
4. As to the last point about the integrity of the human person and saving philosophy from absorption, I think their way of thinking about these issues does exactly what they accuse de Lubac of (which is not the first time something like that happened to him). If Truth is one and we only have one end (the supernatural), then philosophy and theology are approaches to the discovery or understanding of the end itself, how we get there, and why we desire it. The purely natural approach dichotomizes the discussion and it seems it also dichotomizes “man” in a way that is unrealistic, damaging to the resulting anthropology because it truncates man’s universe, and would seem to go against what Aquinas says in so many places.
5. Lastly, I see the seeming problem that arises with the gratuity of grace. I will have to brush up some more on this part before I say too much, but I have always understood the workings of grace as more a mystery than a problem (in the sense that Maritain uses these words). Perhaps that applies here. The gratuity of grace is real and operative but it is not so much a problem for de Lubac as it is a mystery for those who think and reason through these issues: a mystery that continues to provoke new insights in those who engage it all the while remaining at least a bit beyond the total grasp of understanding and the intellect. And thus a mystery and not a problem. At least, that is how my limited and finite abilities to understand such things deal with the world of grace.
I will do some more research into that area. Thanks for the post. It has got me thinking some more.
Comment by W. — July 22, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
W.,
Very good thoughts. I’ll briefly address them.
1. The Thomists in question, those who support Feingold, tend to argue that one has to be clear about natures, which are defined by their apportionment to ends. The supernatural is, by definition, above nature. Therefore, it is improper to speak of an absolute exigency in the created soul for the supernatural. These Thomists do admit, as Thomas does, that in the concrete man does, indeed, have a desire for the supernatural.
2. One could argue that the Thomists are developing a latent element of the Augustinian tradition: the recognition of the creator/creature distinction. Copleston implies as much about Thomism in the first paragraph quoted in my post. The “earlier tradition” to which he refers is the patristic tradition.
3. To clarify my post, these quotations are taken from within the context of Copleston’s discussion of Augustine’s philosophy. Is there a philosophy separate from theology, in Augustine? Copleston, rightly, in my opinion, argues that there may be, but that it is more deeply embedded within a theological context than is true of the philosophical elements in Thomas’s thought. He defends Augustine against accusations, by Thomists, that Augustine is a bit muddleheaded. Thomas himself, of course, never accused Augustine of this. Hence, Copleston refers to Augustine’s writings, rather than to the writings of the Augustinians, and to the Thomists, rather than to Thomas.
I should make clear that the context of Copleston’s discussion has nothing to do with the de Lubacian debate. I should have started off my post by pointing out that the quotation from Copleston interests me because it brings to mind the mid-century theological debate in the Church, not because it summarizes that debate. But, blog posts being what they are (usually rushed), we live another day and move on to the next post.
4. I think that it has to be conceded to these “Feingoldian” Thomists that the de Lubacian movement has been accompanied by a worrying lack of concern for what came, in the context of Baroque Thomism, to be known as natural theology. I have to admit, I am not prone to follow Michael Buckley’s de Lubacian genealogy of modern atheism, as if theologians should always and everywhere and first of all beat people over the head with the name of Jesus, without concern for the exigencies of natural reason. Natural theology, in other words, has a stronger place than is acknowledged by many de Lubacians — I’ve known several who eschew the idea of such a theology. But, to paraphrase Saint Francis, Christ can be preached even without explicitly mentioning His name. I think that de Lubacians can be rightly criticized in this regard, though they can certainly defend themselves against the charge as well.
5. This is, indeed, the crux of the problem. I have to brush up on this quite a bit myself. Feingold and his defenders follow Labourdette. But they need to make a practical case, in my opinion: they need to show, more explicitly than they have done heretofore, a causal connection between de Lubacianism and the post-conciliar meltdown in the Church. I am not sure that they can.
Comment by hierothee — July 22, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
W., regarding your No. 5, there’s a problem.
If I read you correctly, you are responding to the conflict between the gratuity of grace and Lubac’s thesis that man is naturally ordered to the supernatural, by saying that in thinking about grace we are bound to encounter mystery. This is true; every Thomist admits that grace is supernatural and hence cannot be fully understood by man necessarily involving mystery. However, this is not the case with the nature of man. Although it would be very flowery and poetic to say that “the nature of man is a mystery to man” it’s not strictly true. If you want to say that the nature of man is a mystery, then you are falling into the very trap you are trying to avoid. If the nature of man is a mystery, in the theological sense of the word, then he is supernatural and divinized of his very nature. That’s not good, because it’s not catholic.
Furthermore, there’s a difference between a contradiction and a mystery. “God has the obligation to give grace to man” and “God does not have the obligation to give grace to man” are contrary propositions that cannot be true at the same time. The latter is catholic doctrine. The former is necessarily concluded to if de Lubac’s thesis is accepted. If man by his very nature is ordered towards the supernatural, then God has the moral obligation to offer it to him. Unless, de Lubac thought that God was an immoral being, then, if a Lubacian is at all logically consistent, he would be forced to conclude that “God has the obligation to give grace to man.”
Comment by Seth Brotherton — July 23, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
Seth,
Thanks for joining this. I must say that I do not think we are that far off, just emphasizing different aspects of this issue and perhaps not using words in the same way. Perhaps my fault there for being out of the theological academic loop for some time now.
Though not in academia, at least not formally, I have grappled with this issue off and on for quite a few years. Not so much with studying all the academic articles and what not, but more with just thinking and praying through this issue as I somewhat slowly continue to read Sts. Augustine and Aquinas as well as some contemporary thinkers. I bring this up only to highlight the nature of the mystery (or, as de Lubac said, the paradox) associated with this issue.
I did not mean to sound as if I think the whole nature of man is “a mystery to man,” though there is some truth to there being a mysterious element to man’s nature in the sense Gaudium et spes says in #22: “Christ [...] fully reveals man to himself.” I think of the mysterious element as more gnoseological rather than ontological, and perhaps that would bring our two lines of thought on this much closer.
Keeping GS 22 in mind, there was/is some aspect to man, to the nature of man, that was/is not completely understood. Thus, the mystery. Otherwise, what would Christ be revealing to man about man’s own self?
For clarity’s sake, I do think that we know a lot about the nature of man. Just not everything.
“If you want to say that the nature of man is a mystery, then you are falling into the very trap you are trying to avoid.”
Though I was not implying that all of man’s nature is a mystery, I do think that there is a part to man that is a mystery: the Imago Dei. Not so much the fact of it but the meaning and consequences of it. I side with much of the Tradition that this is beyond our complete grasp. (Perhaps I have been reading too many Eastern Fathers as of late.)
“If the nature of man is a mystery, in the theological sense of the word, then he is supernatural and divinized of his very nature. That’s not good, because it’s not catholic.”
I think we just have to be careful not to deny being “in the image and likeness” of God, something many Church Fathers and doctors have stronly linked to a supernatural aspect to our existence. The use of that word without proper definitions can be misleading, I grant, but surely if God’s image and not just His likeness is in us, then there must be something beyond-this-world within us, and thus in that sense man has something super-natural about him. And I would think that that sense is Catholic.
“Furthermore, there’s a difference between a contradiction and a mystery. “God has the obligation to give grace to man” and “God does not have the obligation to give grace to man” are contrary propositions that cannot be true at the same time. The latter is catholic doctrine. The former is necessarily concluded to if de Lubac’s thesis is accepted.”
I disagree with the “necessary concluded” part. If de Lubac’s thesis is accepted, then one does not have to conclude that “God has the obligation to give grace to man.” de Lubac himself even countered this. He may not have convinced some, but at least he rejected any understandings that denied the gratuity of grace.
I have been re-reading him this week and I am not ready to give his full defense here, but one thing I have seen so far is his commitment that grace is freely given; grace is a gift.
“If man by his very nature is ordered towards the supernatural, then God has the moral obligation to offer it to him.”
One interesting thing I have seen a lot in my current study of this is a practially universal recognition that goes against what it seems you mean here. Man is by his very nature (as a result of the desires of his nature) ordered towards the supernatural.
Do you mean something other than what I am inferring you to mean? Do you mean that man is not ordered toward the supernatural, that man is ordered toward the natural? That in the natural is where man’s end lies?
Do you disagree with St. Augustine?
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in Thee.”
Do you disagree with the Church, when she says:
“All men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine.” (GS 22) Since grace perfects (”completes”) nature, it sounds like grace is satisfying or fulfilling the desires of that nature.
Man’s nature is ordered that way (toward the supernatural) because God made him that way … because God freely made him that way … and continues to freely offer man a chance to fulfill those natural desires through the gift of union with His Communion.
Comment by W. — July 24, 2008 @ 2:30 am
It’s worth noticing that the word “supernatural” never occurs anywhere in St. Thomas’s works. In other words, we cannot bring forth the relevant texts where St. Thomas spoke about the distinction between “naturalis” and “supernaturalis” since he never framed a single debate with these words. This is not to say that there is nothing corresponding to these terms, but its certainly not clear that there is. In fact, it’s not clear if these terms more distort the question rather than clarifying it. For example, the terms might be most relevant in a discussion of the distinct kinds of happiness in Aristotle, but even here the distinction is tricky because Aristotle himself sees the ultimate happiness as sharing in the divine life (Nic. Eth. Book X chap 7) this happiness is explicitly “higher than man” and “it is not so far as he is a man that he pursues it”. Is this “supernatural” happiness? Why not, if it’s above human nature as human? The problem gets even more difficult when we consider the soul itself. Both Aristotle and St. Thomas state that it does not come forth naturally, but by creation. Is the distinction between natural and supernatural helpful here, or does it more obscure things?
It’s unclear what the distinction is between the supernatural and the natural. Are they species of some genera? No. Are they sources of generation? No. Are they simply a loose way of talking about the well defined distinctions between nature and grace? Not exactly. Does a supernatural thing have a nature? It appears so. So does a supernatural thing act naturally when it acts supernaturally? Apparently.
A more radical take on this well known debate might involve a reconsideration of the terms. “Supernautralis” does not enter Latin until 1450. Scripture, the Fathers and the Scholastics got by fine without the word “supernatural”. Is it a helpful concept or does it more serve to distort discourse? I lean more toward the latter option. At best, we shouldn’t take it as given that the universe divides along the lines of the natural and the supernatural.
Comment by a thomist — July 26, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
A Thomist,
Interesting points. It seems to me that you are saying that this debate rests, at least in part, on terminological confusion. I do not think that is so. Whether one speaks of a “supernature” or not, one still has the issue of the creator/creature diastema to account for. One still has to deal with the question of the relationship of nature and grace. To follow a precision of Thomas, one still has to expound the relation of uncreated grace to created grace. Even in a different cultural milieux, opinions vary and debate continues on how the creator relates to creation: I refer to debate among Palamists on the divine essence/energies distinction. Changing the terminology will not necessarily make the question go away, nor will it necessarily clarify the issue.
There is some good that comes from this famous debate. It keeps alive theological consideration of one of the ultimate questions of theology: What must we say, as Christian theologians, about the God-world relationship? Or, alternatively put, what must we say, as Christian theologians, about the relation of the divine essence to finite essences?
However, as an aside, there is, as far as I can see, one very troubling issue in this whole debate: If the de Lubacians are correct, then the commentators of Thomas misread the master so badly that the ratio studiorum put in place in the Church under their watchful eyes was nothing short of a disaster.
But what have the de Lubacians (including, by the way, Rahner and his ilk, who followed de Lubac’s criticisms of the commentators) done to remedy the situation?
More broadly put: Given the fallout from this debate, how should seminary education be ordered? What are the bounds of pluralism in theology? What is the role of philosophy in theological training? Most seminarians I’ve known do not much care for philosophy, which is a shame. Should pre-theology be done away with? In a de Lubacian model that might very well be the case. But I digress….
Comment by hierothee — July 26, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
Hierothee,
“Whether one speaks of a “supernature” or not, one still has the issue of the creator/creature diastema to account for, etc.”
Very well. So if the word “supernatural” is really optional such that we might choose to speak of it or not, one possible response to the word supernatural would be as follows: “the word ’supernatural’ is an incoherent 15th century concept that was imposed to signify the idea that nature was an essentially closed system opposed to “supernature”, which was denied by Aristotle, Plato, all the church fathers, the scholastics, and every educated person until the humanist times. The error of seeing nature as closed was posited by Suarez and other late scholastics. Trying to reconcile the inherent contradictions in the idea of nature as opposed to ’supernature’ led various 20th centrury thinkers to be to become confused about St. Thomas’s doctrine of beatitude… now let’s talk about the creator creature relationship”
Comment by A thomist — July 27, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
A Thomist,
You wrote, “It’s worth noticing that the word ’supernatural’ never occurs anywhere in St. Thomas’s works.”
However, sed contra, St. Thomas wrote:
“The angels stood in need of grace in order to turn to God, as the object of beatitude. For, as was observed above (Question 60, Article 2) the natural movement of the will is the principle of all things that we will. But the will’s natural inclination is directed towards what is in keeping with its nature. Therefore, if there is anything which is above nature, the will cannot be inclined towards it, unless helped by some other supernatural [supernaturali] principle.” (ST I,62,2)
Then:
“Now it was shown above (12, 4,5), when we were treating of God’s knowledge, that to see God in His essence, wherein the ultimate beatitude of the rational creature consists, is beyond the nature of every created intellect. Consequently no rational creature can have the movement of the will directed towards such beatitude, except it be moved thereto by a supernatural agent [supernaturali agente]. This is what we call the help of grace. Therefore it must be said that an angel could not of his own will be turned to such beatitude, except by the help of grace.” (ST I,62,2)
And then:
“Man without grace may be looked at in two states, as was said above (Question 109, Article 2) [...] And hence it is that no created nature is a sufficient principle of an act meritorious of eternal life, unless there is added a supernatural gift [supernaturale donum], which we call grace. (ST I-II,114,2)
And then from one of my favorite works:
“But nothing can be directed to any end unless there pre-exists in it a certain proportion to the end, and it is from this that the desire of the end arises in it. This happens in so far as, in a certain sense, the end is made to exist inchoatively within it, because it desires nothing except in so far as it has some likeness of the end. This is why there is in human nature a certain initial participation of the good which is proportionate to that nature. [...]
“For this reason also, for man to be ordained to the good which is eternal life, there must be some initial participation of it in him to whom it is promised. [...] Consequently, we must have within us some initial participation of this supernatural knowledge [cognitionis supernaturalis].” (De veritate 14,2)
And:
“One who is some distance from an end can know the end and desire it; however, he cannot engage in activity which directly concerns the end, but only in that which is connected with the means to the end. Therefore, if we are to reach our supernatural end [finem supernaturalem], we need faith in this life to know the end, for natural knowledge does not go that far.” (De veritate 14,10)
Then in the discussion on grace, St. Thomas uses the expression “supernatural good” [bonum supernaturale] when speaking of “eternal life” and then goes on to say, “But from his own nature man is not worthy of so great a good, since it is supernatural [supernaturale].” (De veritate 27,1)
And:
“For grace is a perfection raising the soul to a supernatural existence [esse supernaturale], as has been said.” (De Veritate 27,3)
Well, I think you get my point. The word “supernatural” does occur in St. Thomas’s works. And the two passages from Question 14 of the De veritate really resonate with my overall attempted defense of de Lubac.
Comment by W. — July 28, 2008 @ 1:43 am
Holy smokes! thanks! That never showed up on my search! You should call up the latin dictionaries too, since they date the word to 1450 at the earliest. That totally turns my idea around. I didn’t get the hit from my lexicon either, I’m wondering what went wrong. This is a good example of how bloggers can keep mistakes in check. I thought I had reseached it enough. Now I have to figure out where the word creeps in. I didn’t find it in Augustine either, but now I have to recheck all of that too.
Comment by A thomist — July 28, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
De Lubac documented most of the key places where “supernatural” shows up in St. Thomas (and not so much “supernature,” which for de Lubac there is a difference). This is in the third section of his book Surnaturel. The later book Mystery of the Supernatural builds upon that earlier foundation and only brings up some of those uses while footnoting a few more. According to de Lubac and also David L. Schindler, though others may have used the term, St. Thomas seems to be the one to first use it systematically. I think that is because he understood philosophy in a comprehensive sense and especially Aristotle’s philosophy so well and knew when and where to break from it or amend it or even add to it. But that is an issue for another day.
My only point was to show that the argument of many–that “supernatural” is a later term and de Lubac is wrong to use it to explain a thought/teaching of Aquinas–does not hold up when you go to the texts of Aquinas.
Comment by W. — July 28, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
Sorry, I completely forgot to come back and check for responses to what I wrote, so I may be too late.
In response to me writing, “If man by his very nature is ordered towards the supernatural, then God has the moral obligation to offer it to him,” you object with the famous quote from St. Augustine’s Confessions, and the quote from the CCC about our ordination to eternal life, etc. I obviously agree that man’s nature is de facto ordered towards the beatific vision. But he is not “by his very nature” ordered towards the beatific vision, which is what I said. In other words man’s nature is not necessarily ordered towards the beatific vision, and God could have simply ordered him to a natural happiness.
In regards to Gaudium et Spes, etc., I admit that man is “mysterious” in the non-theological sense of the word. He is very hard to comprehend, especially with our fallen intellects. However, it is not impossible of its nature for the nature of man to be fully understood by the human intellect. If it were impossible in that manner then the power of the human intellect would not be proportioned to human nature, or, in other words, the nature of man would be a higher level of being than the human intellect. That doesn’t make sense, because they’re both human. Also truth is a transcendental, which means that it is being, under the aspect of intelligibility. So, if something surpasses us in its intelligibility or ability to be understood, then it is, in its being, superior to us ( or above our nature). The statement from GS can be taken in many ways, and can easily be reconciled with what I’m saying.
Also, I understand that de Lubac affirmed the gratuity of grace, but for him to do so makes no sense. He maintained that the nature of man is necessarily in pursuit of an end that it cannot obtain without the special assistance of God’s grace. He must have maintained that God is not cruel. So, God has the moral obligation of giving grace to us. I know he denied that this follows, but his arguments are as weak as can be.
Comment by Seth Brotherton — July 30, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
Without using so many names and debating word usage, I thought it important to include a few precisions here.
1) Man is a mystery to himself because he is not his “nature” alone, supposing this word is taken in the strict thomistic sense. De facto, he is a rational animal that exists in the supernatural realm of grace. Evidently, the relational interaction between grace and nature in man de facto is something that cannot be fully understood in this life (despite the natural capacity of the possible intellect to be actualized regarding such), at least because of original sin. Hence, one of the consequences of original is the de facto inability to fully understand our own psychology, etc. Christ reveals man fully to himself because He alone is our destiny, that is, the reason for which God chose to create man.
2) Of course, God could create man without the desire for beatitude, but the only relevance such has is to emphasize His omnipotence. God can also annihilate an immortal soul at any moment, but does that mean that not being annihilated is a quality super-added to the soul by the divine decision to preserve its immortal existence? The position that the desire for the supernatural is not a purely extrinsic addition does not imply any restriction on God’s freedom. Grace is gratuitous, but God would never have chose to deprive man of an opportunity for it. God could deprive man of all possibility for grace without any moral fault precisely because grace is an undeserved benefit, but the love of God could not help but freely bestow such benefit.
3) It is clearly more advantageous to emphasize the unity (over distinction) of grace and nature in man because man in the concrete involves both realities in such an interrelated way. Hence, philosophy can operate autonomously, but it is greatly enriched when it is theologized. The Christian wisdom of Augustine has done much more for the Church than the extrinsicist scholastics.
Comment by Joshua — August 3, 2008 @ 11:36 pm
ad 1.) Yeah. Divinized man is mysterious insofar as he is divinized by grace. But as I said, “the nature of man” cannot be a mystery to man.
ad 2.) The human soul is of its very nature incorruptible. Incorruptibility is an essential trait of the human soul. The only away it could be taken away from the human soul, is if the soul were made to not exist at all. The same goes for all essential traits of all things. The only way a triangle could not have three sides, is if the triangle were made not to exist.
On the other hand, the nature of man can exist without grace. Grace is not an essential aspect of the nature of man. To say so is precisely the heresy of Baius, that grace is owed to man, in the strongest sense of the word.
Describing the Thomistic position as grace being a “purely extrinsic addition” is vague and more rhetorical than anything (a frequent flaw in the writings of de Lubac and his followers). If by “extrinsic” is meant the idea that the subject of grace is not the soul of man, that it is not the nature of man that is being perfected by grace, then this descriptor is false and deceptive. Thomists affirm this. If by “extrinsic” is meant that it is above nature, or superadded to nature, and not a necessary part of the nature of man, then yes, grace is extrinsic to the nature of man. Are we supposed to be disturbed by the idea that God need not have elevated us to so high an end? I think not.
“God would have never chosen to deprive man of an opportunity for grace” Why not? Because, “the love of God could not help but freely bestow such benefit”? It’s amazing that you say that God is free to offer us grace or not, but you seem to claim certain knowledge that He would never choose other than He did. This is worse than Molina. You have scientia media regarding God’s free actions! Amazing.
God is perfectly free with regards to His creation. He chooses what to love more or less. God could have chosen to love us less than He did and simply bestow the gifts of nature to us. Instead, in the actual order, He chose to love us so much that He elevated us to a supernatural end. Or is God obliged to love us to that degree? Or does God love us so much that He would never not love us to that degree? Neither make any sense.
3.) Nope. The truth is always more advantageous. There is unity and distinction, not just unity. Verbal affirmations of the gratuity of grace does not suffice.
It’s not at all clear that Augustine agreed with de Lubac. And no, extrinsicist scholastics, like St. Thomas, have done a lot for the Church as well. Aarogant, decietful, and heretic-supporting (e.g. Teilhard de Chardin) pinheads like de Lubac, on the other hand, have not done much for the Church. The fact that Pope Benedict likes him couldn’t be more of a non-issue. He likes a lot of people, like St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, St. Robert, etc., and there’s a lot of differences between these people.
This is the last post I’m writing on this topic, and I’m not reading any responses to it.
Comment by Seth Brotherton — August 4, 2008 @ 1:00 am
“Aarogant, decietful, and heretic-supporting (e.g. Teilhard de Chardin) pinheads like de Lubac, on the other hand, have not done much for the Church. The fact that Pope Benedict likes him couldn’t be more of a non-issue. He likes a lot of people, like St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, St. Robert, etc., and there’s a lot of differences between these people.
This is the last post I’m writing on this topic, and I’m not reading any responses to it.”
Come on, now. A pinhead? Please.
De Lubac was a man of the Church. He suffered much for her and did much to defend her. You should read Splendor of the Church, talk to any Patristics scholar on the role of de Lubac in influencing a return to the sources of the Early Church and an even deeper understanding of Sacred Tradition, as well as listen to the deep praise that John Paul the Great voiced about him, especially when de Lubac defended the papacy in very clear and strong terms during a synod, I think, in the mid- to late-70s. When later reminded of this (by John Paul II himself), de Lubac said that he had done his “duty as a Jesuit: I have defended the Pope.”
But like you said, “and I’m not reading any responses to” your last post.
Comment by W. — August 4, 2008 @ 2:28 am