In his 1936 article “Sur la philosophie chrétienne,”1 Henri de Lubac claims that the question of the viability of “Christian philosophy” is not a question so much of Christian thought, or theology, adapting its own concepts to the “external” language of philosophy (e.g. Anglo-analytic religious epistemology and Classical Theism). Nor is it the converse, a philosophy that has “received a Christian contribution”, a kind-of Christian stamp of approval.2 Rather, Christian philosophy is that philosophy which recognizes its finitude (“its radical insufficiency”)3, admits to its short-comings (that is its inability to on-its-own be Christian), and give up any notion of rationalizing Revelation.
He begins his article by summing up the debate between Blondel and Bréhier in which the latter had claimed that not only has Christianity not added anything substantial to philosophy, as most supposedly Christian inventions were of a Greek origin, but in fact Christianity as prima facie rooted in the mysterious is of necessity separate from philosophy as a rational enterprise. Lubac spends some time examining Maritain’s and Gilson’s responses, but believes that Blondel’s response delivers the fatal blow: Bréhier’s position is built on an “irrationally rationalist” belief of the sufficiency and totality of philosophy.4 His pure rationalisism groundless. But this critique, while effectively removing Bréhier from the melée, still doesn’t sort out the testy relationship between philosophy and Christianity, rational and supernatural. That philosophy, Blondel insists, is not in the business of tieing up all the loose ends as Bréhier had claimed, indicates in inherent incompleteness on its part.
Here, Lubac leaves Blondel’s thesis, which he thinks addresses the “intrinsic relationship between rational speculation and supernatural revelation” better than Maritain’s or Gilson’s, for the last half of the article. Blondel’s position had garnered great support among Thomistic theologians. But how can Blondel’s propositions, developed in the pre-dawn of WWII, align with Thomas’? “In a Christian climate, such as the Middle Ages, the concerns which could give birth to a similar doctrine were impossible.”5 Be that as it may, while the “means” might be different, “we see the fidelity of Christian thought to itself even across the most diverse situations and systems. The tradition has continuity with the independence of its successive efforts.”6.
I am interested in Blondel’s response to Brehier, but don’t understand it. What does he mean by irrational rationalism? Because Brehier takes as his starting point Greek philosophical concepts? I’ve been speaking with my students lately about the Judeo-Christian tradition of being informed from the outside, in the mode of an outsider like Ruth (woman, widow, Moabite) being a vital part of salvation history (she is in Matthew’s genealogy of the Christ). Does this contribute?
Lubac quotes Blondel directly: “He begins by observing that the position taken up by Bréhier was dictated to him by an ‘irrationally rationalist’ bias, whereas, ‘in spite of the ancient effort to close the circle on the heavens and on souls, the movement of nature and the spirit tends to infinity.’ Beyond all systems closed in their concepts, philosophy, ‘constitutionally as it were, if it wishes to be completely rational, must end with the recognition that it is normally incomplete, that it opens up within itself and before itself a void prepared not only to devalue its ultimate discoveries within its own domain, but to draw out our attention to the lights and contributions of which it is not and could not become the true origin.’”
The tongue-in-cheek comment, “irrationally rationalist”, refers to Bréhier’s (and all of positivism’s) desire to be deeply rational, foundationally rational. It’s not that he takes his starting point with the Greeks. In fact, his point is that Christianity takes its starting point with the Greeks, and not the other way around. Christianity is the one indebted in Bréhier’s eyes. But, for team Lubac/Blondel, philosophy of this sort (i.e. positivism) is a lost cause and misses the beauty of philosophy as a discipline that points beyond itself.
The next article I want to bring here is Balthasar’s 1933 “On the task of Catholic philosophy in our time.” There he addresses a common theme in his writing, that of Christ bringing all things under dominion, of nothing being “outside” his power, his dominion. In this sense, Ruth, while an outsider to the Jews, is very much inside Christ’s Lordship. “The entire greatness of the Christian situation will be grasped only when both sides are taken seriously ["in this world" vs. "not of this world"], while rejecting every synthesis fo world and Christianity that is not carried out on the far side of the Cross and the descent into hell in the ‘new earth,’ the redeemed creation.” (p. 149)
Blondel’s argument:
“Beyond all systems closed in their concepts, philosophy, ‘constitutionally as it were, if it wishes to be completely rational, must end with the recognition that it is normally incomplete, that it opens up within itself and before itself a void prepared not only to devalue its ultimate discoveries within its own domain, but to draw out our attention to the lights and contributions of which it is not and could not become the true origin.’”
AND:
“But how can Blondel’s propositions, developed in the pre-dawn of WWII, align with Thomas’?
I think there is no difficulty at all with Thomas aligning with Blondel’s sense of provisionary closures which always point to their own inadequacies and lack of closure. I’ve been made more aware than ever of the radically dialectical nature of Greek philosophy in reading Plato’s Ion with scientists on my own blog. And I have always thought that likewise, no premodern Western Christian thinker ever assumes closures of the Modern “foundationalist” sort.
Just look at the generic dialectical format of Aquinas’s writings! These are not enunciations of doctrines as dogmatic ends-in-themselves. He offers his words exactly like any other worker in formalized knowing, as interventions in an ongoing process; in terms of a dialectical interaction with a past and present that is radically open to the future, just as Augustine or Anselm (or anyone else) did. (In fact, I am going so far in my next post as to say it is exactly like the provisional formalizations of genuine science (not scientism) with its new “limitative” expectations and the constant cautionary sense of the gap between reality and the current formulations…combined with science’s qualified confidence in its evolving work, by leaning on what is most efficacious in particular accounts and yet also most contributes to increasing the breadth of scientific theory. Always with the proviso that a new emergence might refigure the old in unpredictable ways….
Also, I think the way to collapse (and re-open) the so-called difference between Greek philosophy (which we’ve had read for us by British rationalists primarily) and Christian theology is to follow the movement in both thought-worlds from immmanence to transcendence and back again. The central Trinitarian mystery of Christianity, the radically paradoxical account of the word, only reads out much mmore deeply and precsiely a dialectic that is at the heart of everythihng Plato and Aristotle do.
By the way, and this is unrelated (sort of), read anything by Joe Sachs on Aristotle, especially his translation and commentary on “On the Soul.” He is so, so, so right on, imho!!! He explains the difference between Cartesian foundationalism and the dynamism of Aristotle’s account of lived presence so simply and eloquently that I’m just stunned. (He taught these texts at St. John’s.)
P.S. I’ve been reading all kinds of Bertrand Russell with my mouth agape — I understand exactly what is meant by “irrationalist rationalism.” But I want to challenge our understanding of the “rational”! Christian theology is one in method and aim with Greek philosophy if we grasp the notion of ratio or logos as (von Balthasar’s) Form. And if we always know that we at best partially and blindly apprehend the Form. That what we need most is the dialectical challenges that make us rethink and re-cognize the Form that escapes our accounts of it.
Is this article in JSTOR?
Janet, thanks for jumping. I guess I should first state that Lubac’s question about Blondel’s and Thomas’ programs gelling was a largely rhetorical one, and my 2rd and 3rd pasts on this article should clarify that. 2nd, I was disappointed to find that this article was not available online. For that matter, I have not been able to verify that Communio makes its articles available in an e-format at all.
Regardless, I would be happy to photocopy my copy and mail it to you if you’re interested, and if you’re ok with the highlighting and chickenscratch that I’ve inflicted upon mine.
As for reading Russell, all I’ll say is that I think you’re very brave, and applaud you for successfully (I assume) holding down the gag reflex.
Oh, am I just being obvious instead of insightful?
Thanks, I’ll email you my address!
As for Russell, actually, I find myself strangely drawn to the man! Bertrand Russell constantly points out that what he’s doing, no matter how well he does it, can never work its way back far enough to “found” anything at all. Yet he keeps right on doing it. He is a mass of contradictions. At the same time he yearns for social justice. (In that, his rationalism, like Noam Chomsky’s, is acute and admirable. Also, I recognize myself in how compulsively drawn to thinking he is. He even went through a Hegelian and dialectical phase, as a young man, that he quotes from in order to disavow his brief flirtation with “Idealism,” and to celebrate his escape from it into the “open air” of a genuine empirical world, as he sees it…. The stuff he disavows is wonderful stuff! We are such muddled creatures.
“Rather, Christian philosophy is that philosophy which recognizes its finitude (”its radical insufficiency”), admits to its short-comings (that is its inability to on-its-own be Christian), and give up any notion of rationalizing Revelation”–if only more Christian philosophers these days would tolle de Lubac and read.
Very nice post. I look forward to the Balthasar follow up.
Best wishes,
Cynthia
You know, that’s a good point, and one that as a philosopher and aesthetician gone theologian, I should have recognized. If only there weren’t so much tension between the two disciplines.
And that’s the “tension” that comes from the Anglo-analytic orientation of English-speaking philosophers (Christian or not) versus the Continental orientation that we see in this wonderful theology.
I know from a life-time of conversations (that usually ended up in shouting matches) how deep this divide is, and that is specifically what I’m addressing by trying to introduce my own reading of the originary classical Greek heuristic, as a third player between these two camps.
The Continental tradition is much closer to that Greek heritage than the English-speaking world has been during the modern centuries. But I thought we might be more willing to listen to the Greeks than directly to the poststructuralists and Continental hermeneutics tradition. (Sigh.)