Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Given the earlier discussion, I thought that I would try to clarify somewhat the position of the “Feingoldian” Thomists vis-à-vis Henri de Lubac. I follow in this regard a presentation by Fr. Guy Mansini, a professor of systematic theology at Saint Meinrad Seminary. It is from an article of his for which I do not have the bibliographical information. Nevertheless, I am going to present some aspects of the article, in the hopes that, lacking the bibliographical reference, I do not get into trouble (Update: thanks to reader W., here is the reference: Guy Mansini, “Henri de Lubac, the Natural Desire to See God, and Pure Nature,” 83 no. 1 Gregorianum [2002]: 89-109).

Mansini, in the article in question, lists five theses of de Lubac on the question of the relation of nature and grace:

Thesis One: Attention to the order of pure nature, which began in the 16th century, has had a malign impact on the Church both speculatively and practically. This is so because of the way that the doctrine of pure nature has developed historically. Either a) nature was conceived of in such a way that it needed grace (as with the theologian Baius) or b) it was supernaturalized. This latter way of thinking about pure nature postulated a natural intuition of God or a natural friendship with God; it led to “extrinsicist” accounts of grace, for which it is thought that human nature can have perfect contentment in its own order.

Thesis Two: God has never ordained for man anything more than a supernatural end. There is an intrinsic unity to the economy of salvation, and modern theology was not always sufficiently attentive to this fact.

Thesis Three: Human nature is what it is because it is ordered to a supernatural end, and would not be what it is if it were otherwise ordered.

Thesis Four: The fourth thesis that Mansini presents is complex. It is a thesis in three parts. First, the natural desire to see God must be foremost in our attention in speculative theology, otherwise we do not recognize the unity of the economy of salvation, and we get mixed up on the relationship between philosophical anthropology and theological anthropology, between knowledge and faith, and between philosophy and theology. Second, the natural desire to see God is both sign and effect of our being ordered to possession of beatific vision. Third, because the human “natural desire to see God” is inherently of the supernatural order, it must be understood to be a necessary and absolute ordination and not conditioned – yet, we must not deny that grace is truly gratuitous.

Thesis 5: There follows from theses 1-3 a prohibition: it is useless to consider in the speculative order the condition of our nature aside from its supernatural ordination.

Now, this is all a bit dense, but it is nevertheless a pithy summary of de Lubac’s position. What do the Thomists whom Mansini represents disagree with in these theses? It may surprise some to learn that they do, in fact, agree with theses 1-3. The fourth, multipart thesis is the root of their disagreement. They hold that it articulates an understanding of the expression “natural desire to see God” that is contrary to Thomas’s understanding of this desire. The natural desire to see God would still exist, they claim, even if we had been created outside of the supernatural order. The desire is really natural and is therefore wrongly understood to be absolute, necessary, unconditional, supernatural, etc. Thus, they argue, one must be able to consider the reality of “pure nature,” a nature which, contrary to fact, would have been created outside of the order of the supernatural.

And this, they claim, is not merely a pointless exercise in contra-factual hypotheses. To consider the reality of “pure nature” has important religious significance, even though, historically, some theologians may have indeed fallen into “extrinsicism” in their considerations of it. Why is it religiously valuable to consider pure nature? Mansini himself argues that it enables us to appreciate more greatly the value of God’s elevating grace. Without our supernatural ordination to beatific vision, we would still have a desire to see God, but without the efficacious power to fulfill that desire. We would be in a condition that is aptly described as an “endless end.” We would be in a state where our desire could never be met. The condition that Mansini describes, following Thomas, is akin to that of pagan humanity: for whom it was not even clear that the human soul was immortal, or that the world was created.

Moreover, according to Mansini, there is greater biblical warrant for the position that recognizes the possibility for pure nature than for de Lubac’s: it corresponds to the reality of divine election. Even though the economy of salvation is a unity, still, God calls out a special people to mediate His presence to the world and to form His Church: in absolutizing or supernaturalizing the desire to see God, de Lubac’s position falls short of being able to account for the reality of divine election.

I shall leave it at that.

I apologize if my earlier post and comments confused the issues at hand.