The Land of Unlikeness

In this last post on Henri de Lubac’s article “On Christian Philosophy,” we will examine Lubac’s conclusion that for such a thing as Christian philosophy to exist, it must necessarily renounce its hitherto held dogma of closed rationalism, broaden the scope of reason by accepting desire, and open itself finally to the mystery of the incarnation as its ontological impetus and telos. First, let’s recap the argument thus far explored in the previous two posts (which can be found here and here).

The problem is how to conceive of the relationship between the Christian faith and philosophy. Lubac early on dismissed grounding the language of faith in Philosophy. He was also uncomfortable with the idea that philosophy can retain autonomy, yet all the while receiving contributions from the Faith. Rather, it is in the very essence of thought and reason to be open, not closed, constantly drawn forward and refreshed by faith. Philosophy can not help but be indelibly altered by its interaction with faith. Indeed, as Lubac affirms at the end of the article, within the deep structure of reason is the tectonic movement of the supernatural. But, Christian philosophy as it was then conceived was so constituted by an image of a reason hermetically sealed that there was no place for the mystery of the supernatural. The mystery could not be allowed to “fertilize” the soil of reason. Philosophers maintained the sphere of pure nature as the ground of philosophy.

The last third of Lubac’s article deals with re-conceiving the model of philosophy, a “philosophy of insufficiency”, as a fecund environment for Supernatural, one which fosters a “sense of the sacred.” Before laying out his own solution, Lubac first offers a kind of typology of the then current alternatives to what Balthasar called the dry and dusty Scholasticism of the seminaries, which some have characterized as rehashed Suarezianism¹. In the middle, the thomistic scholar, Jacques Maritain, rejects the idea of a “Christian” philosophy, insisting instead that consanguinities between Christianity and philosophy are merely felicitous, but not necessary. Philosophy’s purview is the natural order, as it appears to the philosopher “before” Revelation proper. To Maritain’s side is Gilson’s model: “Revelation is the generator of reason”, and therefore philosophy is by nature post-Christian. On the other side, Blondel thinks philosophy is pre-Christian, holding on to pure-rationality, not yet acknowledging the supernatural, not yet opening itself to Christianity. But all three, Lubac points out, would wish just as well to be done with the question of Christian philosophy as there’s not unified whole for one to point to and call THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, “if one means by this… a system of though, born of the roots and of the essence of the fundamental Christian experience…”²

Philosophy is:
Blondel: pre-Christian: philosophy will in the end open itself to the supernatural
Maritain: not Christian at all: similarities are not indications of identity
Gilson: post-Christian: philosophy proceeds from what it receives by Revelation

Lubac asks, “Isn’t there nevertheless some other way of defining Christian philosophy, some way which does not reflect the ways we have just described, but which would instead establish itself in their wake, thus coming closer to the unity we seek?”³ One approach, the traditional one, says Lubac, presents itself: Christian philosophy as “the synthesis of all knowledge, operating in the light of faith”. However, the difficulty here is in both articulating philosophy as a primal wonder at being and/or returning philosophy to some pre-Thomistic state, in which Christian philosophers would reject the modern tenet of reason’s necessary independence from faith. Sertillanges objects that this can not and should not be done, for it would result in philosophy removing itself from the world.

Lubac goes further than Sertillages and questions whether or not understanding the essence of philosophy requires an autonomous reason at all. As Blondel has demonstrated, there is within the structure of reason a telos, a necessity to indict itself as insufficient to complete the task and adopt the monastic habit, devote itself to prayer and reflection on the supernatural. Yet, Lubac pushes further and declares that the monastery is not enough. Reason, in turning to the supernatural gains an ally and is “reborn” into a “heteronomy…[which] gives it more than it ever had alone.”⁴

Reason, thus newly equipped by faith, begins a “renaissance.” In the words of Rousselott, reason now re-approaches the world with the Yeux de la foi to “interpret” not only the “truths of the superatural order”, but also “the visible world and natural being.”⁴ Lubac perceives that some will ask here if Rousselot is not describing philosophy but theology. Indeed, theology as some would ideally conceive of it would carry on such a task. But theology as it is,

and especially since the sixteenth century, [has] evoked a more specialized knowledge, having its own life, object, and proper methodology often on the fringes of philosophical currents. It is no longer exactly the understanding of faith (an expression whose sense has itself evolved), and it is still much less an understanding by faith, an intellectual synthesis operating under faith’s light… Today, in fact, ‘theology’ is the science of revealed truths; it is not (or only very little, and then by external intervention) the science of all things in their final reasons under the light of faith. If we do not have a special word to designate this final science, is it not because it no longer corresponds to much of our thought? In drawing our attention, the debate on Christian philosophy does us an extraordinary service.

Lubac concludes by demonstrating his proposal for philosophy and includes an examination of Gabriel Marcel’s own philosophical project. As philosophy examines that which is given, it surely examines experience. One way in which Revelation contributes to reason is by deepening the very category of experience. “And through this, at once, nova sunt onmia [sic]… It is no longer only a question of a certain number of revealed truths that reason will bit by bit rationalize… it is now a question of mystery… which above all plunges into the human spirit to illuminate certain unperceived depths.”⁵ Lubac delves further into the character of the supernatural’s illumination of the spirit. The first aspect or end of the supernatural in the human spirit is the development of dogma. The second aspect is the development “of human thought” in history. “In the image of God himself, truth is instead a spring which makes other springs gush forth…”⁶

Here Lubac finds felicity with Marcel’s project. Marcel defines a Christian philosophy as one that begins with the givenness of the Incarnation and draws from, meditates on, and “embraces” it “with a boundless gratitude and without restraint.”⁷ Marcel rejects the idea, popular with some, that philosophy must begin with that, and only with that, which is universally given directly to human experience. This is an “illusion” and a “castration” of experience. There is no “philosophy without presupposition.”⁷ Lubac is quick to point out that Marcel is not here denying the category of the universal, or worse embracing a relativism. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of the historical character of thought not as a barrier to truth but as a “creative force”.⁸ Indeed, precisely because thought is characterized by “duration” and “obligation” one cannot ignore the 2 millennia behind Christian thought. Neither can one ignore “that within his reason itself the philosopher is no longer the same as he was before.” And here, Lubac poses a very interesting question from Marcel: “…the most important problem… will be ‘to seek how this fertilization by dogma [in the thought of the philosopher] is possible.’”⁸

1. bear in mind that by this point Thomism and generally all of Catholic philosophy and theology has been evacuated from the university↩
2. Lubac, 497↩
3. Ibid.↩
4. 498↩↩
5. 500↩
6. 501↩
7. 502↩↩
8. 503↩↩