Rahner and DeLubac on Nature and Grace

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RAHNER AND DE LUBAC ON NATURE AND GRACE

S. Joel Garver

Much of 19th century and early 20th century Roman Catholic theology was dominatedby a carefully drawn distinction between nature and grace and between nature andsupernature. This distinction was often drawn in such a way as to dichotomize the tworealms as extrinsically and externally related to one another to the point that the“supernatural” could almost never been seen as bearing upon the “natural.”

Overcoming this extrinsicism was a central element in the theology of Karl Rahner,rooted as it was both in Thomistic thought such as that of Maréchal and in theexistentialism of thinkers like Heidegger. Thus Rahner was able to assert, maintain,and defend the essential integrity of nature and grace, nature and supernature.

Nonetheless, Rahner’s version of integralism was not the only way in whichtheologians attempted to surmount the former extrinsicism1 Another kind ofintegralism was developed by Henri de Lubac, rooted in the thought of MauriceBlondel and filled in by other participants in the nouvelle théologie (e.g., Hans Urs vonBalthasar). 2 The difference between Rahner’s approach and that of de Lubac (and thenouvelle théologie) can be summarized, very roughly and schematically, in the followingway: while Rahner’s thought tends to naturalize the supernatural, de Lubac tends tosupernaturalize the natural. Thus, where Rahner begins with the subjectivity of thehuman person, the individual’s infinite spiritual horizon, and its continuity with God’snonetheless gracious self-revelation, the nouvelle théologie begins with God and his self-revelation as Trinity in the event of Christ as both fulfilling every human aspirationand yet totally unexpected and incomparable.3

In this essay, I will summarize these two versions of integralism, placing them inhistorical context and noting both points of comparison and the ways in which theycontrast. I will also evaluate each version in terms of the way in which it has beencriticized from outlook of the other version. Out of this evaluation I will attempt toshow that Rahner’s version of integralism, though in many ways impressive, stillcontains significant problems that render it a less helpful theological construct,especially in a post-modern context. De Lubac’s version of integralism, on the otherhand, despite some weaknesses and the ways in which it has sometimes been deployedby conservative theologians, has within it, I will argue, the resources for developing a



radically orthodox postmodern theology. In this latter assertion I find myself in

sympathy with certain trends among contemporary theologians such as John Milbank.

I

Before turning to the details of either Rahner or de Lubac, we can begin by tracing the

outlines of the kinds of extrinicism against which they are reacting, the neo-scholastic,

“two-tier” account of nature and grace. In this view the addition of “grace” was seen

as super-added to a human nature that was already complete and sufficient in itself

and apart from any intrinsic human need, thereby vindicating, it was thought, an

Augustinian emphasis upon the sheer gratuity of grace against all forms of

Pelagianism. In taking this step, however, the patristic and medieval notion of a

“natural desire for the beatific vision” (desiderium naturale visionis beatificae)—that human

persons were somehow naturally “apt” for life with God—became eclipsed and the

relationship between an extrinsically related nature and grace developed into a

problem. Grace came to be conceived as a “stuff” that functions as an addendum to

our nature, but also transforms that nature, yet in a way that lies outside of conscious

experience.

The diagnoses of both Rahner and de Lubac offer similar descriptions and implicit

criticisms of this picture. Rahner writes that on such a view:

...grace is a reality which we know about from the teaching of the faith, but

which is completely outside our experience and can never make its presence

felt in our conscious personal life. We must strive for it, knowing as we do

through faith that it exists, take care (through good moral acts and reception

of the sacraments) that we possess it, and treasure it as our share in the divine

life and the pledge and necessary condition for life in heaven. (1992:97)

Or as de Lubac notes, within the neo-scholastic perspective “the supernatural order

loses its unique splendor; and…often ends by becoming no more than a kind of

shadow of that supposed natural order” (1998:36). In doing this, the tendency of

theology is to see

...nature and supernature as in some sense juxtaposed, and in spite of every

intention to the contrary, as contained in the same genus, of which they form

as it were two species. The two were like two complete organisms; too

perfectly separated to be really differentiated, they have unfolded parallel to

each other, fatally similar in kind. Under such circumstances, the supernatural



is no longer properly speaking another order, something unprecedented,overwhelming and transfiguring... (1998:37)

While the diagnoses of Rahner and de Lubac are, for the most part, quite similar, wecan begin to see already where they will eventually diverge, especially in de Lubac’semphasis on the “unprecedented” character of grace. With that in mind, we can turnto their specific accounts of integralism.

II

Let’s begin with an overview of Rahner’s version of integralism. In his attempt toovercome the extrinsicism of neo-scholastic theology, Rahner utilizes the insights andtools provided by Joseph Maréchal’s post-Blondelian Kantianism and MartinHeidegger’s existentialist phenomenology. From Maréchal in particular Rahneracquires the epistemological insight that every act of human understanding containswithin it an orientation toward infinite Being as the a priori condition of thatunderstanding.4 This focus upon self-transcendence was no doubt further focused byRahner’s study of Heidegger, but always remained in conversation with Aquinas andthe traditions of Thomistic theology. In this construction, Rahner attempts to movebeyond older categories of thought—especially overcoming its extrincisism—in orderboth to give Aquinas a more authentic reading and to speak theologically to a modernworld.

Rahner builds up his integralist picture in several steps. First, he is concerned thatgrace remain grace, not something that human persons can “require” from God, butrather receive only ever as gift. In order to be able to receive it, however, they musthave a capacity for receiving it. This fundamental capacity for God, for receiving hisgrace and love, is what Rahner refers to as an “existential,” a basic aspect of what itmeans to be authentically human (1992:112).

Second, Rahner insists that this “existential” is, nonetheless, “supernatural” ratherthan “natural” for human beings. Only by maintaining its supernatural character canthe existential be seen as freely bestowed, rather than obligatory, and therefore thegrace that it receives be seen as truly grace (1992:112).

Third, Rahner still must retain the concept of a “pure nature” as a formal distinctionwith regard to human persons, in order to safeguard the true gratuity of grace assomething not required by that pure nature in itself. Nonetheless, for Rahner, no“pure nature” ever really exists in any actual human experience apart from the



“supernatural existential.” Thus this “pure nature” is only a postulate—in Rahner’s

terms, a “remainder concept” (Restbegriff)—having a regulative function, and is never

able to be isolated and delimited in any real concrete situation. Nonetheless, the

postulate of a pure nature is a “necessary and objectively justified one, if one wishes to

achieve reflexive consciousness of that unexactedness of grace which goes other with

human beings’ inner, unconditional ordination to it” (1992:114). Thus the existential

must be experientially interpreted as supernatural in order for grace to remain received

as grace.

Fourth, the “supernatural existential” is not to be identified with any potentia

obedientialis that is proper to human nature, but the notion of a potentia obedientialis isnot for that reason to be rejected. This potentia is, for Rahner, a movement or

ordination within the postulated pure nature that constitutes an openness for the

supernatural existential (1992:114). As such, this potentia must be interpreted as more

than a mere “non-repugnance.” It must also be seen as an active longing for God that

is present in the human pre-apprehension (Vorgriff) of everything—an openness for

the whole realm of being—that is granted in every act of understanding and

constitutes the uniqueness and self-transcendence of the human subject (1978:18-20).

Fifth, although this natural self-transcendence and the supernatural existential are to

be held as formally distinct, in any actual concrete experience “the supernatural

existential may already be at work” rendering the ordinary lived experience of the

potentia obedientialis as one already laced with traces of actual grace (1992:115). In this

way we continue to preserve the gratuity of grace without thereby falling into

extrinsicism.

Thus far we have Rahner’s integralist vision—and an imposing one at that, deploying

the tools of transcendental philosophy in the service of theology. Before drawing out

further implications of Rahner’s views and leveling criticisms, however, let us outline

de Lubac’s alternative integralism.

III

Where Rahner is making use of Martin Heidegger and Joseph Maréchal, de Lubac is

building more directly upon Maurice Blondel, particularly his watershed work Action.5

In this book Blondel develops a phenomenology of human action that seeks to

demonstrate that human volition is “never equal to itself” and that its natural desires

and capacities require something more—transcendent and supernatural—which,



nonetheless, cannot be demanded but only accepted as a free gift. While this maysound analogous to Rahner, the difference lies in the fact that whereas Rahner seesthis self-transcendence accompanying each and every particular action (or act ofunderstanding) as an a priori condition of possibility (and thus as general), Blondelplaces this self-transcendence precisely within the particular, historical human actionsthemselves where what we desire or will permanently escapes us in the doing of it(and thus not in an a priori structure).6 But this will become more clear as we proceed.

De Lubac builds upon Blondel’s basic outlook in his own version of integralism, firstin his 1946 work, Surnaturel, but then more decisively in his 1965 book, Le Mystère duSurnaturel.7 While de Lubac’s earlier book had been charged with undermining thegratuity of grace (and Rahner was among its critics), his later work attempts tovindicate his earlier thesis. His argument moves forward in the following manner.

First, he argues that in the Fathers and medieval theologians there is a fundamentalcontinuity between human action and supernatural grace so that the natural desire forthe beatific vision is a sign of grace that is always-already present and acting in us, notjust a bare possibility of grace being given (1998:24ff., 207ff.). Thus the character ofgrace must be conceived by way of paradox: that human nature, by nature, has asupernatural end and yet this end cannot be seen as in any way owed to human beingsas a debitum, but rather must always be received as pure gift.8

Second, in order to substantiate this claim, de Lubac examines the teaching of anumber of Fathers (Origen, Augustine, etc.) and medieval theologians (ThomasAquinas, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, etc.). He demonstrates that the Aristoteliannotion of a “nature” is importantly revised by these figures since for Aristotle, itseems, the natural end of a creature must be in principle attainable by the creature’sown resources and cannot be impeded by anything external to the creature.9 But thisis precisely what Christian thinkers have denied, perhaps most fully in Aquinas’ realdistinction between existence and essence in the creature and his assertion that it canbe the “second act” of a creature that is most proper to it.10

Applying this to the question of nature and grace, this means that what is most uniqueand proper to a human being is the desire for God, despite the fact that this desirecannot demand its own fulfillment without destroying the very nature of that fulfillment,which lies in the freely given gift of God’s grace and love. Thus what is most intimateto us as human beings is, paradoxically, supernatural to us and only to be enjoyed as agift (1998:101-118). In support he draws upon many sources, for example, quoting



Bonaventure, “Because [the human soul] was made to participate in beatitude...it wasmade with a capacity for God and thus in his image and likeness” and “Since allcreatures were made for God [propter Deum] according to the verse, ‘The Lord hasmade all things for himself [propter semetipsum]’ (Prov 16:4), the rational creature alonewas made to enjoy God, and to be beatified in him, for it alone is in the likeness”(1998:99).11 Likewise, de Lubac cites Thomas Aquinas, “Man was made in order tosee God: for this purpose God made him a rational creature, so that he mightparticipate in his likeness, which consists in seeing him” (1998:100).12

Third, this version of integralism gives a significant place to the particularity of thehistorical, which one would expect, building as it is upon Blondel. In particular, theevent of Christ is seen by de Lubac as the place in which the natural desire to see Godfinds its fulfillment since, in Christ, humanity is united to God by nature, although theevent of Christ itself is wholly gratuitous. All other events and actions in which humannature self-transcendently desires God are to be seen by analogy with the event ofChrist either as typological anticipations of Christ or the historical outworkings ofwhat Christ accomplished in his own life (1950:55-59).

In this way, then, de Lubac outlines a form of integralism that is in many respectsanalogous to that of Rahner, but which diverges at a number of points and appears tomake less use of the categories of existential phenomenology.

IV

With these points in mind we can now move on to critical interaction between theintegralisms of Rahner and de Lubac. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there was littledirect and explicit interaction between the writings of these two thinkers aside fromsome scattered remarks and a few early essays. Nonetheless, there is in both authorswhat seems to be a significant amount of posturing over against unnamedinterlocutors whom, we can gather, represent the alternative form of integralism. Thussome implications can be drawn out from these passages. Let’s start, however, with anevaluation of de Lubac from a Rahnerian perspective.

In 1950 Rahner did write a review of de Lubac’s earlier work, Surnaturel, and thatreview is a good place to start.13 While Rahner expressed much appreciation for deLubac’s effort and even agreement insofar as de Lubac was rejecting the olderextrinsicism, he was worried that de Lubac’s integralism too easily conflated thegratuity of creation with the gratuity of divine revelation. In doing so, Rahner



suggested, de Lubac was confusing nature and grace and, thereby, put the true

gratuity of grace at risk. This is precisely what Rahner’s alternative, the “supernatural

existential,” was designed to avoid. We will return to this below.

Other comments from Rahner include some passing references, for example, that de

Lubac “scorns” the notion of the potentia obedientialis (1992:114) or that even de Lubac

must hold “that a spiritual life toward God as an end approached merely

asymptotically is not to be dismissed as meaningless from the start” (1992:115). But

these passing comments are less than helpful.

For one thing, de Lubac points out that these statements appear to be mistakenly

directed at an article in German that he did not in fact write. De Lubac goes on to say

that he “must also make it quite clear that I have never ‘scorned’ the concept of

potentia obendientialis except in the very sense in which [Rahner] himself resolutely

rejects it” (1998:107), that is, either reduced to a mere “non-repugnance” or as

something that is actually able to be delimited as part of a pure nature.

With regard to the category of a “pure nature,” it is true that de Lubac rejects it even

as a “remainder concept” or formal distinction. Against Rahner, de Lubac asserts that

his view does not completely “naturalize” the supernatural or confuse the gratuity of

creation with the gratuity of revelation, thereby conflating nature and grace. Rather, de

Lubac sepaks of a “twofold gratuitousness” or “twofold initiative” or “twofold gift”

of God (1998:51). While this double movement of grace (creation and elevation) needs

to be asserted, that gift of grace is, for de Lubac, given in the single creating act of God

with no need to posit any additional re-supply of grace.

But this does not, he thinks, result in a conflation of nature and grace. To assert that it

does is, de Lubac suggests, to confuse the integrity of human nature with a purported

purity of human nature. On this view, Schindler says, the “integrity of [human] nature

is to be found only within and not outside the existential conditions of the one concrete

order of history, hence only as always-already affected by both grace and sin” (de

Lubac 1998:xxiv). This returns us to my original assertion that de Lubac’s integralism

actually tends to “supernaturalize the natural.”

While there is further disagreement between Rahner and de Lubac in how they work

out the implications of their respective integralisms (e.g., with regard to “anonymous

Christianity,” the relation between church and world, and so on), these issues will be

better discussed after having outlined de Lubac’s criticisms of Rahner regarding

nature and grace.



In point of fact, de Lubac says very little that is directly negative about Rahner’sintegralism. Of the nine or so references to Rahner in his The Mystery of the Supernatural,they are all positive quotations of or at least neutral allusions to Rahner’s work.14

Even in as late a work as his A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, de Lubac’s fewpassing references to Rahner seem innocuous.15 Nonetheless, there are some hints ofan underlying dissatisfaction with Rahner’s formulation of integralism, particularly deLubac’s passing mention—“in Rahner’s language...‘existential’...”—followed by afootnote that reads, in part, “Really, to the extent that this ‘existential’ is conceived as akind of ‘medium’ or ‘linking reality,’ one may object that this is a useless supposition,whereby the problem of the relationship between nature and the supernatural is notresolved, but only set aside” (1998:102). And this serves as key whereby we can detectthe places in which de Lubac’s other comments are likely directed against Rahner’stranscendental integralism.

The essence of de Lubac’s critique seems to be the following. Adding another grace-given level of desire for grace (the supernatural existential), in fact does nothing toovercome the paradox of the sheer gratuity of grace and the rejection of extrinsicism.What Rahner achieves is a new two-tier system to replace the old, except now it isexpressed in terms of transcendental philosophy rather than neo-scholasticmetaphysics. 16 In point of fact, the structure of the supernatural existential is scarcelydistinguishable from the purely natural self-transcendence present in the human pre-apprehension (Vorgriff) of limitless being. The concrete experience of both the Vorgriffand the supernatural existential turns out to be, more or less, a longing for somethingbeyond our finitude. The object of that longing, however, is still distinguished byRahner as a “formal object” whose content remains unspecified until made explicitthrough Christian revelation.17

On Rahner’s view, from de Lubac’s perspective, it seems that apart from thisrevelation of grace, universally available as the object of our longing, the historicallyparticular events of grace—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—would remainextrinsic to us. How is the role of revelation, making explicit the content of ourlongings, supposed to preserve the absolute gratuity—the unexpected andincommensurable character—of grace? Does not the Rahnerian solution, instead,reduce grace to our merely natural expectations (paralleled in the supernaturalexistential without real differentiation) and thereby “naturalizes” it, precisely as Rahnerimplies de Lubac is guilty of?

This is where Blondel’s phenomenology of human action and historical events rises tothe surface of de Lubac’s integralism. For de Lubac, and his followers, it is precisely



and only within and by reference to certain historical events, actions, and symbols, thatthe supernatural can be identified in all of its unexpected and incommensurablegratuity. De Lubac will not begin, as Rahner, with something universal for everyperson, inscribed into the a priori structure of knowledge, but with the uniquesupernatural revelation of God in Christ that, while it does satisfy our natural longings,does so by shattering them with the Good News of God in the flesh to which theproper reaction is to be “struck dumb with amazement” (1998:132-139). Only in lightof this supernatural revelation can the full gratuity of the end of human nature be trulyknown. This perspective is aptly summarized by Medard Kehl,

Even if the creature represents a presupposed reflection of the creator andhis love, the historical event of God redeeming us in Christ does not resultfrom this presupposition. The positive content of the analogouscorrespondence between the created order of nature and the historical orderof salvation lies precisely in the (gratuitously given) openness for the, onceagain, “totally other,” underivable completion of the self-revelation of God inChrist which could never be calculated from creation itself and which is thusto be received only as pure gift. (1982:22)18

This integralist perspective is why I initially referred to de Lubac’s position as“supernaturalizing the natural” and Rahner’s as the opposite, since the tendency of thelatter seems more to stress the continuity between grace and human expectation.Therein lies de Lubac’s difficulty with it.

Much of this kind of critique of Rahner’s integralism, however, is merely implicit in deLubac’s own writings. It does become quite clear and pointed, however, in the writingsof de Lubac’s colleague, Hans Urs von Balthasar. He writes, for instance, that

God’s saving acts in history are not “transcendentally” (hence “known” butnot “in consciousness”) etched into this [natural human] longing [for God]—even if it had always been under the guidance of grace (supernaturalexistential)—in such a way that a person, on witnessing God’s mighty deeds,for example, Jesus’ resurrection, would not be impelled to wonder and adore,but could say to himself, “After all, on the basis of my own constitution, Ihave actually been expecting this all along.” (1986:85)19

Of course, this is something of a caricature of Rahner’s own views, emphasizingcertain tendencies in abstraction from his wider body of writings. 20 Nonetheless, itdoes point to a serious question, one that de Lubac had begun to raise for some time



already.

This criticism of Rahner’s integralism from the standpoint of de Lubac’s is also the

root of further differences between the two perspectives regarding a wide range of

issues from the nature of salvation to the relationship between the church and the

political order. And it is here, especially, that I think de Lubac’s perspective is

vindicated by its implications for a post-modern theology.

V

Let’s return to Rahner’s version of integralism for the time being in order to see the

way in which he works out the implications of that integralism with respect to history,

the social, the community of the church, and some of the consequences of that.

Despite the criticisms of de Lubac and von Balthasar, it is not true that Rahner

ignores or displaces the historical and social dimensions of the Christian faith. Rather

the difficulties lie in exactly how those elements fit into his larger transcendentalism

and how that works itself out in terms of further implications.

With regard to history, particularly salvation history, Rahner does give much attention

to the historically mediated nature of God’s self-communication to individuals and the

way in which those individuals are thoroughly situated in history, in human

communities, in interpersonal relationships, and so on. Thus Rahner can write,

The divinized transcendentality of man, who actualized his essence in history

and only in this way can accept it in freedom, has itself a history in man, an

individual and a collective history…man as subject and as person is a

historical being in such a way that he is historical precisely as transcendent

subject; his subjective essence of unlimited transcendentality is mediated

historically to him in his knowledge and in his free self-realization. (1978:138-

140)

Rahner goes on to speak of the ways in which transcendence itself has a history as

does the supernatural existential.

He also stresses that the Christian faith is irreducibly social in nature and thus requires

the formation of a religious community. Rahner writes,

If man is a being of interpersonal communication not just on the periphery,

but rather if this characteristic co-determines the whole breadth and depth of



his existence, and if salvation touches the whole person and places him as a

whole in with all of the dimensions of his existence in relationship to God,

and hence if religion does not just concern some particular sector of human

existence, but concerns the whole of human existence in its relationship to

the all-encompassing God by whom all things are borne and toward whom all

things are directed, then this implies that the reality of interpersonal

relationship belong to the religion of Christianity…the Christian

understanding of religion is necessarily ecclesial religion. (1978:322-323)

Thus Rahner is well aware of the essentially social nature of the Christian faith and he

stresses this explicitly over against the Enlightenment notion of the individual in which

“it might perhaps have looked as though a person could appropriate his religion in a

kind of private interiority.” Indeed he notes that today, post-Enlightenment, we are

“aware…in quite a new and inescapable way that man is a social being, a being who

can exist only within such intercommunication with others through all of the

dimension of human existence” (1978:323).

Thus, it is not fair to Rahner to criticize him as if he pushed such issues to the side or

downplayed the importance of history and of the social. Still, there is a troubling

tension within Rahner’s overall outlook that, one can argue, does implicitly displace the

social and historical. This can be seen in several ways.

First, there is the problem of Rahner’s methodology. By building his theology largely

“from below,” Rahner makes his starting point a metaphysics of human subjectivity

that is, in the first instance, purely general, apparently ahistorical, and universal for

each individual. While Rahner does qualify this with a discussion of the historicity of

the human transcendence, of the supernatural existential, and so on, this subsequent

discussion often has the appearance of supplementing an account that is already

largely complete in itself. Rahner notes this difficulty himself,

...if God as he is in himself has already communicated himself in his Holy

Spirit always and everywhere and to every person as the innermost center of

his existence, whether he wants it or not, and if the whole history of creation

is already borne by God’s self-communication in this very creation, then there

does not seem to be anything which can take place on God’s part. (1978:139)

It would seem, then, that in Rahner’s theology the events of salvation history only

serve to make explicit “something which was already present in its fullness from the

outset” (1978:139).



While Rahner does give an extended reply to this objection (that he himself raises) and

the reply is, in terms of Rahner’s own system, the correct one, it is still the case that

we are left with the impression that history and society are only the out-working and

open manifestation of what was always-already the case. Thus, for Rahner, the Vorgriffof being in human experience and of the “supernatural existential” universally reveal

the general (albeit historical) fact of God’s absolute self-communication while

maintaining hidden the holy mystery. It is in history that human beings “actualize”

their already-present “transcendentality” (1978:345).

This, in turn, is something that is merely made “manifest” in salvation history in

God’s “power to enter into the time and the history which he as the Eternal One has

created” (1978:142). Even the Incarnation seems to be presented as something

generally continuous with the already-given pattern of human experience of the divine

as the place in which the historicity of God’s revelation is “experienced most clearly

and comes to light most clearly,” as if simply a more obvious instance of something

already present (1978:142).

It is when he speaks in this manner that one begins, like de Lubac, to suspect that

Rahner is uncomfortable with fully committing grace and the supernatural into the

hands of human action and the historical in all its particularity, incommensurability,

and, especially in the case of the Incarnation, unexpectedness and unpredictability. It is

not that Rahner would necessarily deny any of this, but that his mode of expression is

too often ambiguous at best and at odds with such a picture at worst. This uneasiness

on Rahner’s part plays itself out further in his notion of the social and his situating of

the individual in relation to larger communities.

Again, upon reading Rahner, one can be left with the impression that his account of

the social nature of religion is something that must be fit into an already essentially

complete account of the individual subject and the a priori structure of human

knowledge for any given person. Thus, while Rahner maintains that Christianity is

“necessarily ecclesial” in its understanding of religion, this ecclesiality is, in turn, rooted

in his incipiently individualist transcendentalism. Thus he writes that if a person

...could not attain [faith, love, the entrusting of oneself to God in Christ], if he

could not really realize them in the innermost depths of his existence, then

basically his ecclesiality and his feeling of belonging to the concrete church

would only be an empty illusion and deceptive facade. (1978:324)

After all, for Rahner, “God’s salvific work is offered in principle to all people” quite

apart from membership in the church or any religious organization (thus de Lubac’s



critique of the idea of “anonymous Christianity”). This, of course, does not mean forhim that religious orgainizations are unimportant, much less the Christian church, butit does suggest that such organizations form as an addition (even if, in some sense, anecessary addition) to what is true of us most fundamentally apart from them.Therefore Rahner repeatedly speaks of the church as a social entity through whichsalvation is “mediated” or as an entity over against the individual that is necessary inorder to manifest the confrontation between God’s self-communication and theindividual.

These expressions, however, embody similar ambiguities to those we encounteredearlier with reference to the historicity of the Christian faith, now expressed in termsof the relationship between the pure general structures of the individual subject andthe historical particularities of a social organization. Part of the difficulty here is, Isuspect, the Kantian underpinnings of Rahner’s metaphysics (filtered throughMaréchal) which tends to isolate some one thing as an a priori category ofunderstanding, in Rahner’s case the whole machinery of the Vorgriff of being and thesupernatural existential as they function in the individual consciousness. When this isthe starting point, problems are naturally going to arise with respect to the historicaland social.

My ill-ease here may best be elucidated by outlining what I see as the alternativeoffered by de Lubac. Where, for Rahner, the tendency is to present the social aspectsof salvation as something in addition to the individual and to see the church themediating structure by which that salvation is confronted, for de Lubac salvation ispresented as inherently social and the church is seen not just as a mediator of salvation,but as the very goal of salvation. De Lubac picks up the Gospel theme thatreconciliation with God and reconciliation with one’s neighbor are united in a singlemovement so that the reconciled community of the church together in God is thevery content of salvation. Thus salvation requires a historical event of being enfoldedinto the narrative of the historical people of God in relation to the unique events ofthe Incarnation and redemption wrought by Christ (1950:50ff.).

In terms of the manifestation of salvation in history, rather than positing some kind of“anonymous” free response to grace on the part of certain individuals, de Lubacsituates salvation historically in relation to human events. Recall that de Lubac’sconception of the relation between nature and grace is built upon Blondel’s account ofhuman action as the event of desiring God and accepting grace, not as something thatis universally present alongside each action, but as the very particularity of action itself.As such human persons experience the reality of salvation in that particularity insofar



as their actions are connected to the historical event of Christ, whether shaped by his

influence, by anticipation and preparation, or by some other real, historical (even if

unseen) connection.

Moreover, de Lubac’s account does not offer a generalized “salvation” that is identical

for each and every individual, but, in its being historically situated, is unique for the

person in how it is offered and in the individual response, incorporating that person

into salvation with a particular “narratological” relation to both the past history of

God’s people and what he or she will contribute to its future. This also overcomes any

dichotomy between the individual and the ecclesial since the particularities of salvation

for this or that individual are indispensable from the overall shape of Christian history

and thus the particularities of salvation for everyone else—each is indispensable for all.

(1950: 253-258)

The differences here between de Lubac and Rahner have implications not only for the

place of history and the church, notions such as “anonymous Christianity,” and the

like, but also with regard to the shape of Christian ethics and politics. While I cannot

take the space here to trace out these implications, the suggestion is that de Lubac’s

integralism more successfully overcomes traditional tensions between the individual

and society, between “natural law” and Christian ethics, and between the church and

the state. We have already just seen some of these implications with regard to the

individual and society.

With regard to natural law, part of the question here is how we conceive of natural law

as something that is, in principle, available equally to all as the human rational

participation in divine practical reason. And, in particular, what is the relationship of

that natural law to the specific content of Christian faith? Do we wish, with Rahner, to

think of Christian faith primarily in terms of a motivating force behind our fulfilling of

what is humanly rational by virtue of natural law?21

Or, without at all denying the

notion of “natural law,” do we wish to maintain that the Incarnation, life, and death of

Christ in themselves define the content of “natural law” and thereby transform

human action? The latter seems more in keeping with de Lubac’s integralism.22

When it comes to the relation between the church and the state, and the development

of a distinctively Christian politics, similar questions also arise. While one can suggest

that neither Rahner nor de Lubac consistently worked out a political theory on the

basis of their differing integralisms, it is arguable that their different perspectives

would give rise to respectively different politics. In the case of Rahner, his thought has

often been taken up into the outlook of Latin American liberation theologians,



frequently with very mixed results. In particular, it has been argued that Rahnerianthemes have regularly led liberation theologians to think of salvation in tooindividualistic and ambiguously non-social terms, tied too closely to the experience oftranscendence as captured in the Vorgriff and supernatural existential. As a result, thesocial realm comes to be introduced as a supplement to the individual and thereligious, allowing theology to baptize the human aspirations already present inMarxist discourse as the will of God and having salvific import.23 Rahner, perhaps,would distance himself from these implications, though they do accurately represent, Ithink, certain tendencies in his own thought, even if they remain undeveloped there.De Lubac’s integralism would obviously move in a somewhat different direction.24

From the perspective of de Lubac’s integralism, then, the Rahnerian epistemologicaland transcendentalist apparatus can be jettisoned as implicitly marginalizing thehistorical and the social, even if ambiguously so. Against Rahner, the supernatural forde Lubac is not present within a particular formally distinguished “space” withinhuman existence (and thus we leave behind the empty category of a “pure nature”)since human existence is not a matter of “metaphysics” (traditionally conceived), butof historical action. Thus, certain events of salvation history may be privileged asdefining what is basic to being human and to human history, functioning to transformall of that history, and constituting of salvation as a fully social phenomenon. Rahner’swork does form a monumental corpus that is as insightful and challenging as it isbreathtaking. Nonetheless, I am convinced that it is de Lubac’s integralism whichprovides resources for an account of the Christian faith that is more helpful inconstructing an authentic post-modern orthodoxy, in contrast to Rahner’s versionwhich still seems too often caught in the matrices of certain modernist tendencies.25

Notes

1. "Integralism" should by no means be confused with "integrism," the pre-conciliartendency sometimes to collapse the ecclesiastical sphere into the social and politicalone, or vice versa.

2. The term "nouvelle théologie" or "new theology" was actually coined by thetraditionalist critic of de Lubac, the Dominican thomist, Garrigou-Lagrange. The termwas, however, quickly adopted by the movement itself, which also included figuressuch as de Montcheuil, Daniélou, and Bouyer.



3. Unfortunately, I have found there to be very little written directly to address the

relationship between these two forms of integralism, beyond some scattered remarks

made by various authors in the process of explaining the views of one or the other of

these thinkers. A notable exception to this generalization is Stephen J. Duffy’s helpful

book, The Graced Horizon: Nature and Grace in Modern Catholic Thought 1992.

4. See Maréchal’s comparison of the a priori in Aquinas and Kant, 1970:117ff.

5. This 1893 work is available in a wonderful translation by Oliva Blanchette (1984).

6. From this point Blondel proceeds to argue that in every action there is contained a

"faith" that our actions, though they surpass our intentions and become other to

themselves, will nonetheless form a satisfying synthesis. And this requires that an

always present divine grace be granted to bring everything to its final end, not just as a

transcendental condition for action, but in the particularity of action itself. But now

I’m going beyond the limitations of my present topic. See Bouillard 1969.

7. My references will be to Rosemary Sheed’s 1967 translation, The Mystery of theSupernatural, recently re-issued with new introductory material (1998).

8. De Lubac argues in a similar way that the knowledge of God is paradoxical, a

matter of both reason and faith, nature and grace, natural theology and revelation, and

so on; see his The Discovery of God 1996.

9. A point made repeatedly by Aristotle, but probably most easily seen in the

conclusion to his argument that there is one highest end for humans in NicomacheanEthics I.2 (1024a20).

10. The point regarding Aquinas is my own rather than de Lubac’s per se, though he

anticipates it somewhat. It can be found exposited more fully in te Velde (1995:201-

33) and Milbank and Pickstock (2000:24-39).

11. The former quote is from Bonaventure, In 2 Sent., 18.1.1 and latter from In 2 Sent.19.1.2.

12. The quote is from De Veritate 18.1.

13. Rahner’s reply was entitled "Eine Antwort" and was published in Orienterung14:141-45. My synopsis is largely drawn from David Schindler’s synopsis in the new

introduction to the 1998 edition of The Mystery of the Supernatural.



14. In a footnote, de Lubac even makes reference to his "profound estimation for

Karl Rahner’s theological work and strong personal affection for him" (1998:107).

15. The work dates, in the original French edition, from 1980. He does, however, refer

to Rahner’s writings as "somewhat contorted explanations" (1984:35) not an unfair

description, the honest reader will admit, I think.

16. Indeed this might be just what we would expect given that transcendental

philosophy itself is an outgrowth of the very neo-scholastic categories that Rahner is

attempting to use it to undermine. See the accounts of Gillespie 1995 and Montag

1999.

17. De Lubac develops his own epistemology as an alternative to that of Rahner in his

The Discovery of God 1996 (a 1956 development and expansion of his 1945 book, De laconnaisance de Dieu).

18. In reality, Medard offers this as a summary of von Balthasar’s position, but it

equally applies to that of de Lubac, especially as seen in de Lubac 1950.

19. For more on the relationship between Rahner and von Balthasar, see Rowan

Williams’ essay "Balthasar and Rahner" (1986:11-34) which traces some the history of

their disagreements.

20. Though the same could not be said with regard to some Rahnerians, e.g. Dupuis

1991.

21. See, e.g., Rahner 1992:299-305 and Fuchs 1980.

22. See Schindler 1994; Murphy 2000; also Hauerwas and Pinchas 1997 provide a

helpful Thomistic account of how the shape of the Christian faith can completely

convert every natural virtue.

23. In this regard Milbank provides a trenchant critique of the Rahnerian bent of

much of liberation theology in 1993:228-245, particularly Gutierrez, Segundo, and

Boff. See also an analogous critique of American neo-conservativism (Murray,

Neuhaus, Novak, Wiegel) from the perspective of de Lubac’s integralism in Schindler

1996.

24. Unfortunately, de Lubac provides no real alternative in his own writings,

sometimes draws back from the radical implications of his own starting points, and



has too often been coopted by conservative schemes. Nonetheless, it is arguable thatagainst the backdrop of Blondel and with the fine-tuning of von Balthasar, de Lubac’si ntegralism provides the resources for an alternative ecclesiology that sees the churchas the polis that displaces and re-narrates every human polis, paving the way for a post-modern social theology that is genuinely "socialist" (in the vein of Proudhon andBuchez). See Milbank 1993:206-255, 380-438; 1997:268-292; and Cavanaugh 1999.

25. Again, consult the arguments of John Milbank, particularly "An Essay AgainstSecular Order" 1987 and his Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason 1993 (esp.chapter 8).

Works Cited

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Cavanaugh, William T. 1999. “The City: Beyond Secular Parodies” in Radical Orthodoxy:a New Theology, ed. by John Milbank, C. Pickstock, and G. Ward. New York:Routledge,182-200.

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Documents

Rahner and DeLubac on Nature and Grace