Essay Final Draft

Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

CTC402: Vatican II in its Context Assessment Task 3: Coursework essay Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. The glory of God is man fully alive – Irenaeus of Lyons

Introduction In the history of the Church, extrinsicist theologies of grace have taken shape against a complex social and political backdrop and, to some extent, the theology itself has been a function of these conditions. Once this extrinsicism is perceived as inauthentic, voices within the tradition will call for a reexamination and re-evaluation of relevant theological developments. This was the case with Henri de Lubac who felt that the dualistic theology of grace prevalent in the Church in the decades before the Second Vatican Council was indirectly responsible for the marginalisation of the Church in the world (certainly in Western Europe). While he chose to re-emphasise patristic notions of the imago Dei, he may himself, inadvertently, have introduced imbalances into his theology that would ultimately detract from his efforts to correct the undesirable implications of extrinsicism. A more nuanced (and christological) approach is found in the theology of Karl Rahner who was able to share de Lubac’s vision and affirm the Church’s magisterium in an explicit way, in particular the encyclical Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII (thus pointing the way for many within the prevalent neo-scholastic tradition to important new insights in this area). In Chapter 1 I describe the gradual evolution of theological thinking about the ‘non-absolute dualism’ of nature and grace and suggest that this was sensitive to external factors including cultural and political ideas about man’s place in society. Chapter 2 looks at the implications of de Lubac’s emphasis on the idea of Imago Dei for Catholic belief and practice and considers some reactions from thinkers working in the 1

Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

neo-scholastic tradition. Chapter 3 examines Rahner’s approach to the same question and how he tried to steer a middle way between scholasticism and the nouvelle théologie. Finally Chapter 4 briefly looks at how de Lubac’s and Rahner’s emphases are reflected in the theology of Vatican II. 1: On absolute and non-absolute dualisms If, by dualism, we mean a (world) view or faith that reduces reality to two ‘equally primordial and mutually opposed principles’1 then, clearly, dualism is not an option for a believer in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Whilst conceding that monotheistic Judaism may have evolved through polytheistic and henotheistic phases, it is clear that mature faith in the one Lord of creation rules out on principle any absolute form of dualism. As for what may be termed non-absolute dualisms - dualisms that refer to distinguishable polarities within the overarching monotheistic experience2 - it is clear that this same mature faith could be said to be characterised by several significant dualisms. One such dualism would arise from the sense of estrangement experienced by sinful and fallen man from the very Source of life and meaning. This dualism strikes man at the core of his nature because it touches upon his capacity to fulfil (or to lose) his potential for being. The contradiction that man experiences at the heart of life – his apparent hunger for meaning short-circuited by his attachment to what is less than ultimate – is reaffirmed as a quasimetaphysical dualism between what is and what ought to be. While Old Testament faith is emphatic in its rejection of absolute dualism, there is no attempt to achieve any facile reconciliation between sin and forgiveness and between man’s apparent limitations and his desire for God. In the New Testament this realism about non-absolute dualisms is affirmed through the antithetical statements of St Paul, in particular those relating to flesh and spirit, works and faith, the inner and the outer man. Subsequently, in the centuries that saw the gradual definition of the great dogmatic themes (the nature of 1

Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Ed. Karl Rahner, Burns & Oats, 1975, article on Dualism by Eberhard Simons, pages 370-374 2

What Eberhard Simons calls ‘duality-in-unity’, Op. cit. p. 374

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

Christ, grace and freedom, faith and knowledge), the forms of expression chosen were those of a nuanced and qualified non-absolute dualism that avoided any hasty resolution of the real and distinct tensions of experience. A more mature reflection on the apparent tension between the limitations of human nature and the call to participate in the life of God began to take shape during the post New Testament period when the Church began to define its faith in opposition to the incursions of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was not a unified movement, but most Gnostics embraced a Persian style of dualism coupled with an abhorrence of the material world. Humans were divine sparks trapped in evil flesh and only a special form of spiritual enlightenment (γνωσις) not accessible to the uninitiated would reunite them with the Creator. One eloquent voice in the struggle against Gnosticism was that of Irenaeus of Lyons (mid second century) who proclaimed, contrary to the ‘tragic myth’ of Gnosticism, that God’s creation was ‘a single world full of the glory of God who created it and to whose providence all its history is subject. The world of matter and time is not alien to man.’3 Irenaeus is so convinced of man’s psychosomatic unity that he has to issue a reminder that bodily (human) nature is not to be disparaged in any way. Man’s human nature is sanctified and dignified by his God-given capacity to receive God’s communication of himself. By the 4th century, Augustine (who had an insider’s knowledge of the workings of Gnosticism) produced his own synthesis of the contemporary Christian views on the relation between human and divine nature. It was Augustine’s conceptions more than anyone else’s that would decisively shape subsequent Western theological positions on this topic. According to Augustine, two features characterise what may be termed the ‘supernatural’: it transcends the innate capacities of any entity in its natural condition; it enters the natural as unmerited gift. These Augustinian conceptions were taken up and amplified by Aquinas in the 13th century. Central to Aquinas’ anthropology is the notion of From Ελεγχος και ανατροπη τησ ψυδονυµου γνωσεος, usually called Adversus Haereses circa AD 180. 3

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

grace as the regeneration of human nature conceived in a dynamic sense. Some imaginative etymology might assist in this connection. Natura is rooted in the verb nasci (to be born). If Natura is understood in its verbal form of the future active participle of nasci, its connotations of ‘active becoming’ are more apparent.4 The supernatural order involves living the life of ‘active becoming’ in the fullest possible way. Augustinian transcendence and gratuity are the corollaries of man’s being drawn into the mystery of God – they are the ‘functions of divinisation’:5 The vision and knowledge of God are in one way above the nature of the rational soul, inasmuch as it cannot reach them by its own power; but in another way they are in accordance with its nature, inasmuch as it is capable of them by nature, having been made in the image of God.6

It is a matter of history that in the centuries after Aquinas and up to the Reformation, theologians, when they formulated their questions regarding the natural and supernatural orders, tended to revert to the language and presuppositions of Augustine. It is interesting to speculate on the politicalcultural- theological reasons why this is so. It is possible that the mediaeval feudal and seigniorial systems of clearly demarcated political and military relationships, with the monarch (with a quasi-divine status) at the top of the pyramid and dependent peasants at the base, did not provide the kind of soil in which a theology that taught that the beatific vision was ‘in accordance with [human] nature’ could take root. The power struggles between Church and state that characterise the histories of the emerging European nations, all seeking territorial integrity and independence from unwanted external influences, including the pope, undoubtedly reinforced the desire of the these parties to achieve complete control within their own ‘spheres’. Furthermore it is possible to discern in this period a gradual transition from an a priori Aristotelian natural science to a more empirical approach that emphasised the intrinsic value and interest of the natural world. Finally, in the period up to and 4

For this insight see The New Dictionary of Theology, Eds Komonchak, Collins and Lane (Gill and Macmillan 1990), article on Christian Anthropology by Michael J Scanlon, p 33ff 5

See J.A. Di Noia, Op. cit. p 125.

6

Summa Theologiae, 3a 9, 2 ad 3

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

including the Reformation, the Catholic Church, paradoxically, found itself straining against the naturalist anthropologies of the Renaissance in its efforts to secure the sheer gratuitousness of grace and resisting the doctrine of some reformers of the total corruption of human nature by original sin.7 2: Henri de Lubac on the nature/grace dichotomy; neo-scholastic reactions There are some interesting parallels between the factors that may partially account for the gradual reversion to an Augustinian-style theology of grace by the time of the Reformation and the state of theology and the position of the Church (particularly in France which provided a generation of theologians that exercised a remarkable influence on the Second Vatican Council) in Western Europe in the decades before Vatican II. Politics in France in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was dominated by the bitter power struggle between the anti-clerical supporters of the Third Republic and the monarchist and predominantly ultramontane adherents of traditional Catholicism. The movement known as Action française, led by Charles Maurras (1868-1952), came into existence in 1898 and was devoted to opposing republicanism and restoring the monarchy. Maurras promoted a purely naturalist-positivist view of human nature and, even though an agnostic himself, regarded religion as an indispensable tool for securing social control. His right-wing views were received sympathetically by many of the clergy and neo-scholastic theologians were able to accommodate his understanding of man and his commitment to (political) absolutes within their thinking. Most Catholics kept their distance from the Third Republic and when, in 1940, the government eventually collapsed, the new Vichy government, with its triple ideal of ‘Work, Family and Country’ as well as its support for church institutions, was generally welcomed by the Catholic community.8 7

See The Modern Theologians, Ed. David Ford, Blackwell, 1997, Chapter 2: French Theology: Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac, by Fergus Kerr OP, p. 113

8

See The Modern Theologians, op. cit. pp. 105, 108 also J komonchak, Theology and Culture at Mid-century: The example of Henri de Lubac, Theological Studies 51 (1990), pp 579-562.

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

However not all French Catholic theologians were comfortable with a de facto alignment between the Church and incipiently fascist politics. In particular, the Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) was profoundly disturbed by the apparent willingness of the Church to acquiesce in an understanding of faith that regarded the sphere of human relations and individual and social well-being as entirely a matter for the state, with the Church, in Renan’s phrase, there to provide ‘interior consolation for a few chosen souls’. Essentially, de Lubac wanted the Church to reappropriate what has already been referred to as Aquinas’ amplification of Augustine’s thinking about man’s true nature. De Lubac’s central and apparently harmless thesis, expressed in his 1938 book Catholicism, was that ‘the vision of God is a free gift, and yet the desire of it is at the very root of every soul.’ 9 He believed that the key to understanding the ultimate value of a human being is to recognise that he or she is created in the image of God. The imago Dei is an intrinsic feature of human nature, not something added on from outside. In a radical sense, the dualism of sacred and secular conveys an altogether false understanding since there is no sphere of creation in which God is not personally involved. Ironically, according to de Lubac, it was Aristotelian neo-scholastic theology supporting a quasi-autonomous status for human nature that made possible, ultimately, the blind alleys of deism, agnosticism and atheism.10 Human nature is ultimately rooted in God in such a way that there is a mysterious convergence between human autonomy and receptive openness to what God wants. A dualistic theology of grace will - whatever the historical period always tend to issue in supernaturalist religion that is either ‘the empty shell of cultic practice and external observance or individual retreat into a spirituality of

9

De Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, Ignatius 1988, p. 327 (Originally Catholicisme: les aspects sociaux du dogme) 10

See Karen Kilby, Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy, Routledge 2004, Chapter 4, p. 54: “If reality has two layers and the bottom one, the one that we are able to experience, is sufficient unto itself, then why not simply abandon the hypothesis of the second, supernatural layer …”

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

private interiority … isolating faith from effective engagement in the real world.’11 De Lubac’s ideas seemed to have provoked, if not exactly a hostile backlash from fellow theologians, at least some solid resistance fuelled by the belief that he had fundamentally misunderstood and misconstrued key texts that he used to support his position. Some commentators have suggested that resistance was motivated by suspicion of revisionism or modernism, by a dislike of de Lubac’s sympathy for anti-Vichy and pro-socialist politics, or even by a nervous rejection of any suggestion that neo-Thomism was a ‘timeless but worn out philosophy’.12 While the reasons for the (initially) unfavourable reception of de Lubac’s work are undoubtedly complex, it is important to consider some of the theological issues and implications that arise from his critique in order to avoid what would be a rather ad hominem dismissal of his opponents’ objections. One of de Lubac’s more contentious claims made in his book Surnaturel (1946) was that the prevalent neo-Thomist theology of nature and grace – itself derived from separatist or dualist theology introduced in the sixteenth century - was based on a misreading of Aquinas. Furthermore, this misreading was indirectly responsible for generating modern secular humanism and legitimating the world-rejecting Catholicism that sat so comfortably with the Vichy state. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to review the key passages by Aquinas that relate directly to this issue, I would like to focus on one that de Lubac may have regarded as significant. Alongside a de Lubacian reading, I will suggest an alternative (neo-Thomist) interpretation. De Lubac’s position regarding man’s natural desire for the beatific vision needs some theological qualification without which any attempt to speak of a natural desire for a supernatural reality could seem to call into question the gratuity of divine grace. (This is something that Karl Rahner attempted to address in his own work, more of which later.) I will merely point out some of the implications that 11

The Modern Theologians, Op cit. p 109

12

See P. McPartlan, Sacrament of Salvation, T&T Clark/Continuum 1995, Ch 4 p 45.

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

certain neo-Thomists suggest would follow from an erroneous view of man’s capacity to know God. In the Summa Theologica 2a 2ae 2, 3, Aquinas writes: Consequently the perfection of the rational creature consists not only in what belongs to it in respect of its nature, but also in that which it acquires through a supernatural participation in Divine goodness.

A de Lubacian reading would be along the lines of a commentary given on this passage by Fergus Kerr: ‘[Aquinas] never considered the perfection of the rational creature, to cite his jargon, as consisting only in fulfilling what belongs to it in respect of its nature – rather, that perfection consists also, and principally, in that which the creature receives through grace-given participation in the divine life.’13 Much hinges on the sense of ‘supernatural participation’ in the passage quoted. Does this phrase refer to the orientation to the absolute which is constitutive of human nature14 and which is intrinsic to natura understood in a dynamic sense? 15 Or is the initiative of grace, of God’s self-communication, entirely from the side of God with man as the recipient? Do we conclude that every man is, again in the jargon, in act, united to God by the grace of God, or does man have the potential to be united in this way? Has de Lubac considered the full implications of the first part of this disjunction, or is the disjunction itself misconceived? If misconceived, how (outside of Aristotelian terminology) is the ontological character of man’s graced relationship with God to be expressed? Regarding the further implications of what some neo-Thomists would regard as an erroneous conception of man’s capacity for transcendence, a more extreme position (but nonetheless one that could be inferred from de Lubac’s intrinsicist theology of grace) would be that he has effectively transferred 13

The Modern Theologians, Op cit. p 115

14

A reference to the Transcendental Thomism of de Lubac’s fellow Jesuit, Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944) that influenced de Lubac’s thinking on this issue. 15

See above, page 3

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

transcendence from God to man, resulting in immanentism.16 Immanentism has a philosophical pedigree that ranges from Descartes to Hegel. Of the latter thinker (a formative influence on the thinking of de Lubac’s contemporary, Karl Rahner) the Italian philosopher Morra remarked that ‘[Hegel] accentuated the Christian motive of the incarnation and divinized the world and history: inasmuch as the infinite has incarnated itself in the finite, God and man united in Christ are coessential.’17 3: Rahner’s via media, balancing neo-scholasticism and the nouvelle théologie De Lubac was not a philosopher. He sounded a clarion call for a philosophical renewal that would affirm the orientation of man’s spirit towards selftranscendence without necessarily worrying about the wider implications his views would have for theology – particularly Christology. By seeking inspiration from a range of source texts from the patristic period when rethinking the relationship between the natural and the supernatural, he effectively bypassed the concerns of those theologians who were working within the conceptual limitations (and advantages) of neo-scholasticism. The net result of this was that the Church found a new direction away from the individualistic and privatized religious sensibility of the earlier decades. But without a coherent philosophical-theological basis for a more mature appreciation of the meaning of ‘man fully alive’, there was always a danger that, instead of rediscovering pre-modern patristic confidence in the order of creation within the dispension of grace, the Church would end up by embracing a thinly-veiled form of secular humanism. A fellow Jesuit who was also inspired by the seminal work of Joseph Maréchal on the constitutive longing of the human spirit for the beatific vision, Karl Rahner (1904-1984), also built on his insights in order to develop and popularize a theology of grace. Rahner however was less concerned to mount 16

See, for example, the article, The Philosophical Origins of Personalism by Curzio Nitoglia (www.traditionalmass.org/Magisterium) 17

J Morra, Marxismo e Religione, Rusconi, pp 22-23

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

an assault on the concept of ‘pure nature’ and chose instead to develop his thinking from within scholastic theology, opening it up ‘by way of evolution rather than revolution’.18 Like de Lubac, but perhaps more emphatically, Rahner links his theology of grace in an explicit way to his Christology. Grace is always Christ’s grace: it comes from his cross and resurrection so that Christ is the source and mediator of that grace; Christ himself is the model of the completely graced human being. Furthermore, for Rahner, the Church’s understanding of the way that Christ’s humanity and divinity interrelate is the model for understanding (and overcoming) the apparent dualism between nature and grace. This emphasis apart, we find in Rahner’s theology of grace an interesting junction of two threads of theological thinking, one with which de Lubac (and the nouvelle théologie) would be fully in sympathy, the other more consonant with the more cautious and essentially neo-Thomist tradition.19 This tradition ruled out any possibility of experiencing grace since something could be experienced only if it pertained to human nature. Since, according to this tradition, grace is added on to nature, it cannot ex hypothesi be experienced. Rahner (and de Lubac) baulked at the implications of such a theology for normal Christian life.20 Does grace really make no experiential difference to the life of the believer? Is it really something so alien and remorselessly ‘other’ that its reality can be appropriated, at best, by an intellectual assent requiring a relatively high level of theological sophistication? Rahner’s solution was to describe a mode of appropriation that was a combination of the intellectual, experiential and mystical. Following the transcendental method – that is, one that aims to specify the conditions of the possibility of an (experienced) reality, in this case the experience of the universal human longing for what is unlimited and ultimately satisfying, namely God – Rahner stipulates that grace (God’s self18

See Karl Rahner on Nature and Grace: A Journey through his early articles, by Nikolaus Wandinger, published in Guest-Lecture at Heythrop College, University of London, Feb 2003. 19

See Karen Kilby, op. cit. p.55

20

See Wandinger, op. cit. p.7

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

communication) is an a priori formal object or horizon for the human will and intellect that conditions all human knowledge and freedom. As such it is not experienced in a direct way.21 In fact, Rahner says that this grace is experienced indirectly or unthematically. In this way grace shapes all human experience but can only be rendered thematic by an act of reflexive appropriation. (As well as being experienced unthematically, grace can also be received or accepted unthematically. Such an unthematic reception would not require any explicit profession of faith or religious affiliation, hence Rahner’s famously controversial ‘anonymous Christian’.) Rahner is able to reinforce this point by making the distinction between experiencing grace and experiencing grace as grace. While grace is rendered thematic for the Christian through faith, every human is constitutionally equipped to enjoy profoundly worthwhile experiences that can shape in a decisive way their sense of vocation and purpose. If Rahner’s transcendental method were to be applied by someone who believed that grace was completely beyond human experience, (that grace was not an a priori horizon for the human will and intellect) they would gain insights into human nature and nothing else. If, like Rahner, however, we concede that grace is indirectly experienced, then the distinction between pure human nature and grace cannot be made with any certainty because in actual human nature they are both already combined. Rahner develops a distinction between pure nature and concrete nature. The latter refers to graced nature (as it is), the former being a purely theoretical concept that refers to what is minimally required for someone to be human.22 By accepting concrete nature Rahner shows his sympathy for nouvelle théologie. By giving some status to pure nature, Rahner is able to comply with teaching set out in Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis which stated that, in order to uphold the gratuity of grace, we must accept that God could have created beings that were not constitutionally oriented to the divine absolute. 21

See Donald Lodge Gelpi: Two Spiritual Paths: Thematic Grace versus Transmuting Grace (Part 1), from Spirituality Today, Autumn 1983, Vol 35, No. 3, p. 244 22

See A Rahner Reader, Ed. Gerald A McCool, Ch 9 Grace, Section 2: Relationship between Nature and Grace: The Supernatural Existential, p. 189

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

To return to the opening observation about the link between theology of grace and Christology, we have seen that Rahner’s position is that, because it is a priori, God’s implicit and unthematized self-communication takes place (as an offer) before it is accepted or rejected. Christian faith thematizes man’s supernaturally elevated transcendentality. This thematisation occurs through the historical revelation of God in Christ who, according to Donald Gelpi, ‘supplies a posteriori the categories that allow us to interpret the a priori gracing of our experience.’ 23 Christ provides the model for the completely graced human being. 4: De Lubacian and Rahnerian emphases in Vatican II; concluding remarks The thinking and theology of both de Lubac and Rahner exercised an important influence on the Second Vatican Council (1963-65). Vatican II was possibly the first council of the church to affirm a detailed Christian anthropology,24 the two axes of which being a very de Lubacian emphasis on the dignity of man rooted in man’s possession of the imago Dei (see Gaudium et Spes, 12) and a Rahnerian vision of a human nature, transfigured in Christ, fully capable of that abundance of life which Irenaeus (AD 130-200) in patristic times affirmed was the glory of God. In the famous words of Gaudium et Spes, 22: Since human nature as he [Christ] assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too [eo ipso etiam in nobis]. For by his incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every man.

We have seen 25 that, while unfolding his theology of grace, Rahner, sought to maintain a delicate balance between affirming the absolute gratuitousness of 23

See Donald L Gelpi: Two Spiritual Paths: Thematic Grace versus Transmuting Grace (Part 1), from Spirituality Today, Autumn 1983, Vol 35, N0 3, pp 241-255. 24

See The Christian Anthropology of John Paul II: An Overview, by Fr Thomas McGovern (published on www.christendom-awake.org/pages/mcgovern/chrisanthro). 25

Supra, p. 10

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

God’s grace (by means of his concept of pure nature) and at the same time man’s constitutional capacity to enjoy the beatific vision. While the Council Fathers are careful to maintain the Christological grounding of man’s capacity for the infinite, in some respects their tone is less cautious and more celebratory than Rahner’s when it comes to speaking of what is in effect the divinisation of human nature. In a memorable passage from GS 14, we read that man enjoys communion with God when he delves into the depths of his own human nature: He [man] plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, who probes the heart, awaits him there; there man discerns his proper destiny…

This notion of there being a meeting place or an interface where the mystery of God and the deeper recesses of man’s nature come together is very reminiscent of a passage from de Lubac’s Catholicism that refers to the way the Holy Spirit penetrates into the human soul so that man can be the bearer of the Gospel: He creates in man new depths which harmonize him with the “depths of God”, and he projects man out of himself, right to the very end of the earth; he makes universal and spiritualizes, he personalizes and unifies.26

Perhaps one of the strongest echoes of Rahner’s thinking about man’s constitutional capacity (his capacity qua man) to experience, albeit unthematically, the salvific power of God’s self-communication in Christ, can be heard in a passage at the end of Chapter I of Gaudium et Spes. The statement is set within a Christological context: Christ’s total gift of self is given for the sake of all humankind:

All this holds true not only for Christians, but for men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all … we ought to 26

Op. cit. p 339. For a Rahnerian perspective see karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, Crossroad 2002, p. 116.

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

believe to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.27

Commenting in 1979 on the same passage Pope John Paul II in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis remarked that ‘Every man without any exception has been redeemed by Christ because with man – every man without any exception – Christ is in some way united, even when man is not aware of it.’ (RH, 13) In connection with the Church’s ongoing reflections on the nature of grace, the emphases found in the work of de Lubac and Rahner certainly constitute a theologically satisfying response to the inadequacies of Aristotelian scholasticism. It remains to be seen, however, whether their resolution of this particular non-absolute dualism can be sustained in a new era of theological pluralism, itself a corollary of the Maréchalian Thomism to which both Rahner and de Lubac subscribed.28 4088 words

BIBLIOGRAPHY The Modern Theologians, Ed. David Ford, Blackwell, 1997 Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, Ignatius1988

27

GS, 22

28

For a discussion of this pluralism see Ronald McCamy, Out of a Kantian Chrysalis? A Maritainin Critique of Fr Maréchal, Peter Lang, 1998, Chapter 1: A Past Controversy and Contemporary Pluralism pp. 5-29.

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

Encyclopedia of theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, Ed. Karl Rahner, Burns & Oats 1975. Karen Kilby, Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy, Routledge 2004. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Ed. Austin Flannery OP, Costello, 1975 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction of the Idea of Christianity, Crossroad, 1978.

Papers Human Nature, (Author not provided), source: www.philosophyreligion.org/thought/humannature-biblical-religion,htm Dualism, Anthony Aaby, source: www.cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/CII/Dualism.html Did Christianity cause fear of nature: Christianity and the rise of science, M Crock, source: www.webspawner.com/users/scienceand nature/htm The Magisterium of Vatican II, Curzio Nitoglia, source: www.traditionalmass.org

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Man fully alive: new directions in the theology of grace in the work of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner. Candidate number: V42326

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