Notes and Comments

Thomist Resurgenceby William L. Portier

A Review Essay of Twentieth-CenturyCatholic Theologians: From Neoscholastic-ism to Nuptial Mysticism by FergusKerr. Malden, Massachusetts andOxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.230pp.

“The traditional Thomist cannot butbe somewhat disconcerted by JohnPaul II’s references to Aquinas” (170).Thus Fergus Kerr on Fides et ratio’sclaim that “The Church has no phi-losophy of her own nor does shecanonize any one particular philoso-phy in preference to others” (FR, 49).Kerr notes that for the past century,Thomistic philosophy was “generallybelieved” to be the Church’s officialphilosophy. “It sounds strange,” heobserves, “to hear that the principlesand methods of some other philoso-phy have to be respected in the expo-sition of Catholic doctrine—whichother philosophy? one hears theThomist enquire” (170).

In 1998, more than thirty yearsafter the Second Vatican Council,Fides et ratio formalized the displace-ment of Aquinas and certain forms ofThomism from the center of Catholicintellectual life they had occupiedduring that extraordinary period be-tween 1907 and 1962. During thoseyears, one school of thought, neo-scholasticism, came close to being

identified with the faith. The encycli-cal reintegrates Aquinas into a broadlyconstrued and even pluralistic historyof Christian thought. The DominicanAngelic Doctor is now one memberof a “great triad” (FR, 74) that in-cludes the Benedictine monk St.Anselm and the Franciscan friar St.Bonaventure. John Paul II’s historicaltableau also features Origen and morerecent and once suspect figures such asJohn Henry Newman and his Italiancounterpart Antonio Rosmini. It alsoincludes the existential Thomist,Étienne Gilson, the phenomenologistEdith Stein, and four Orthodoxthinkers (FR, 74). Fides et ratio is farfrom the position that just any philos-ophy will do. The philosophy derivedfrom St. Thomas is well-suited, andperhaps uniquely well-suited, to theneeded realist approach to revelation.But it is no longer the only, nor themost privileged, approach. Ratherthan endorsing substantive Thomisticphilosophical theses, Fides et ratio raisesup Aquinas as a model for Christianinquiry.

As Kerr makes clear, such a treat-ment of Aquinas would have shockedthe Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and other neoscholasticthinkers of the first half of the twenti-eth century. Indeed, a strong casecould be made that the encyclical’sposition on the proper stance of phi-losophy with regard to the Christianfaith is closest to that of one of mod-ern neoscholasticism’s fiercest critics,made a cardinal by Pope John Paul IIin 1983, and mentioned by name lastyear in Pope Benedict XVI’s second

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encyclical, Henri de Lubac, S.J.1

Given what de Lubac called the“ebb and flow of theology,” it shouldcome as no surprise that contempo-rary intellectual descendants of Thom-ists from the first half of the twentiethcentury have begun to push backagainst the ground shift articulated inFides et ratio and its reorientation ofthe role of Aquinas in the intellectuallife of the Church. Nor is it surprisingthat one of the chief targets of thispush is Henri de Lubac.

De Lubac famously criticized the

Thomist commentator, CardinalThomas de Vio Cajetan (1468–1534),for misinterpreting St. Thomas’steaching on the natural desire to seeGod. De Lubac’s critique has itselfrecently come in for withering criti-cism from Ralph McInerny.McInerny cites the 2001 Romandissertation in defense of Cajetan byLawrence Feingold, The Natural Desireto See God According to St. ThomasAquinas and His Interpreters.2 In hisfavorable review of McInerny’s bookand in his own book, A Short Historyof Thomism, Romanus Cessario, O.P.,calls for the rehabilitation of CardinalCajetan and the modern tradition ofcommentary on St. Thomas. Appeal-ing to Pope Benedict’s 2005 Christ-mas address to the Roman Curiaurging that the documents of VaticanII be read in continuity with previousmagisterial teaching, he calls for “areturn to St. Thomas as well as an

1After reviewing the positions in thedebates of the 1930s on “Christian philoso-phy,” Avery Dulles concludes: “On thewhole, the pope’s positions coincide mostclosely with those of de Lubac, who soughtto mediate between Blondel and Gilson.”See “Can Philosophy Be Christian? TheNew State of the Question,” in The TwoWings of Catholic Thought, Essays on Fides etratio, ed. David Ruel Foster and Joseph W.Koterski, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: TheCatholic University of America Press, 2003),3–21, at 18. See also Dulles’s essay “Faith andReason: From Vatican I to John Paul II”which concludes this volume. See also DavidL. Schindler, “God and the End of Intelli-gence: Knowledge as Relationship,” Com-munio 26 (Fall 1999): 510–40 on de Lubac’streatment in Sur les Chemins de Dieu (1956)of Aquinas’s claim in De Veritate q. 22 that“all cognitive beings know God implicitly inwhatever they know.” This entire issue ofCommunio is devoted to Fides et ratio. In his2007 encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVIincludes a long citation from the introduc-tion to de Lubac’s “seminal book Catholi-cisme” (para. 13). See Kerr, 184 for thebook’s impact on the young Ratzinger. Inciting Aquinas on faith as a habitus, PopeBenedict describes him in historical termsconsistent with Fides et ratio as “using theterminology of the philosophical tradition towhich he belonged” (para. 7).

2Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thom-ism and the God of the Philosophers (Washing-ton, D.C.: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 2006), chapter three on “DeLubac and Cajetan.” Feingold’s work is citedat p. 73, n.13 along with Romanus Cessario,O.P., “Cardinal Cajetan and His Critics,”Nova et Vetera 3, no. 1 (2005): 109–118. Fora lengthy treatment of Feingold’s “virtuallyimpossible to lay hands on” volume and aconvincing argument that it constitutes a“serious scholarly provocation” that deservesa serious hearing, see Reinhard Hütter,“Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei—Est autemduplex hominis beatitude sive felicitas: SomeObservations About Lawrence Feingold’sand John Milbank’s Recent Interventions inthe Debate Over the Natural Desire to SeeGod,” Nova et Vetera 5, no. 1 (2007): 81–132, citations at 88 and 87.

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unbiased reading of the commenta-torial tradition that flows from him.”In this matter of continuity, Cessariourges “the spiritual descendants ofboth la nouvelle théologie and existen-tialist Thomism” to pay special atten-tion to Dei Filius, the First VaticanCouncil’s Dogmatic Constitution onthe Catholic Faith. McInerny,Cessario claims, “has the goods on thecritics of the Thomist commentatorialtradition, who, no matter how well-intentioned they may have been,contributed to the destabilization ofCatholic theology.”3 By discreditingand departing from the manualisttradition of Thomism—Cessario’s“commentatorial tradition”—Henride Lubac, and by implication, PopeJohn Paul II, have ruptured anddestabilized Catholic theology. This isthe central claim of the Thomist re-surgence.

It is in this recent literature of theThomist resurgence that Fergus Kerr’sTwentieth-Century Catholic Theologiansshould be located. But Kerr is nosimple neo-neoscholastic. More subtleand indirect, Kerr’s book is lessstraightforward in its advocacy ofThomism than McInerny’s orCessario’s. In fact, Kerr has reallywritten two books. The first book isan illuminating survey of ten theolo-gians whose influence either on the

shape of the Second Vatican Councilor on the subsequent history of Cath-olic theology is central and indisput-able. Kerr includes separate chapterson his fellow Dominicans Marie-Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar,and Edward Schillebeeckx followedby chapters on the Jesuits Henri deLubac, Karl Rahner, and BernardLonergan. The last four chapters treatHans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Küng,Karol Wojty»a, and Joseph Ratzinger.These theologians have been a part ofhis own life and Kerr in turn bringsthem to life with insight and a wel-come wit. This is very much thesurvey that Blackwell editors wantedKerr to write and it will serve begin-ning graduate students in theologywell.

Kerr takes the book’s openingsentence from Walter Kasper in 1987,“There is no doubt that the outstand-ing event in the Catholic theology ofour century is the surmounting ofneoscholasticism.” “Anyone whobegan ordination studies in 1957, as Idid,” he continues, “would agree.”Kerr has chosen his ten theologiansbecause he sees them as connected inimportant ways with the “surmount-ing of neoscholasticism.” Represent-ing neoscholasticism in Kerr’s surveyis the Dominican master and “modelThomist” (10), Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877–1964), treated in thesecond half of chapter one. Garrigou-Lagrange directed Karol Wojty»a’sdissertation at the Angelicum on St.John of the Cross and Kerr lets thereader know that, from Garrigou’sperspective, Wojty»a’s philosophy “is

3“Neo-Neo-Thomism” by RomanusCessario, First Things (May 2007) accessedonline. See also Romanus Cessario, O.P., AShort History of Thomism (original Italianedition 2003; Washington, D.C.: TheCatholic University of America Press, 2005).

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not Thomist at all” (168). Though heis clear on Garrigou-Lagrange’s limita-tions as “quasi-Euclidian” (12), Kerrtreats him sympathetically. Kerr re-turns to Garrigou or to the “tradi-tional Thomist” throughout the book,using him almost as a measuring rodfor how far the subjects of each chap-ter have departed from Thomism.Such departure is, in Kerr’s estimate,not always a good thing.

Paired with neoscholasticism inKerr’s survey is the Modernism, withits sensitivity to subjectivity and his-torical context, against whichtwentieth-century neoscholasticismwas designed to “inoculate” (1) stu-dents of theology. The intellectuallives of Kerr’s ten theologians werebounded on one side by neoscholasticThomism and on the other by Mod-ernism. “The history of twentieth-century Catholic theology,” Kerrwrites, “is the history of the attemptedelimination of theological modernism,by censorship, sacking, and excom-munication—and the resurgence ofissues that could not be repressed bysuch methods” (4–5). The “Anti-Modernist Oath” of 1910 appears asthe Appendix to the book.

In many respects, Kerr’s survey isfair and well-balanced. For example,in the work of contemporary Domin-icans, Jean-Pierre Torrell and in an-other Garrigou student, ServaisPinckaers (33), Kerr finds Garrigou-Lagrange’s Thomism reaching “adegree of reconciliation” with theThomism of his wayward studentChenu. Kerr has much more time for“transcendental Thomism” than either

McInerny or Cessario might have. Hereads Rahner’s “anonymous Chris-tian” benignly as working out theclaims of Vatican II about those whoare not Christians. In returning to theconflict between Rahner and Balth-asar, Kerr’s sympathies clearly lie morewith Rahner.4 But he resists playingthem off against one another. He findsboth “rooted in the school of Jesuitspirituality” and hence “never as farapart as they may seem.” History,Kerr suspects, will come to see theirrespective projects as “more comple-mentary than conflicting, overlappingmuch more than their admirers andadversaries think at present” (104) InLonergan’s early work, published inEnglish in 1971 as Grace and Freedom,Kerr finds “an as yet unsurpassed anal-ysis of Aquinas’s theory of divine tran-scendence and human liberty” (115).5

Karl Barth, whose presence at Edin-burgh, where Kerr works with theCatholic Chaplaincy, is a strong one,also appears throughout this book.Indeed, with Balthasar representingBarth’s theological realism and Küng

4It is interesting to compare Kerr’streatment of Rahner-Balthasar as well as histreatment of de Lubac in this book with histreatment of these issues in the concludingchapter of his 1997 Immortal Longings,Versions of Transcending Humanity (Universityof Notre Dame Press), “The Natural Desirefor God.”

5Kerr’s estimate is shared by ReinhardHütter, who regards Lonergan’s GratiaOperans (Grace and Freedom) as “still to be thebenchmark analysis of Aquinas’s profoundtreatment of this utterly complex topic.” SeeHütter, “Desiderium Naturale,” 103, n. 42.

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his protests for church reform, Kerrseems to read them together as some-thing like right-wing and left-wingBarthians (my phrase, not Kerr’s).

When Kerr treats Henri de Lubac,however, much of his even-handed-ness leaves him. And here we come toKerr’s second book. If one were toremove the chapters on Schillebeeckx,Rahner, Lonergan, Küng, and perhapseven Chenu, the second book comesmore clearly into view. Its key lies inthe subtitle From Neoscholasticism toNuptial Mysticism. After the sentencesalready cited on the surmounting ofneoscholasticism from the book’sopening paragraph, Kerr writes sim-ply, “That the century ended with areaffirmation of nuptial mysticism byinfluential theologians, we did notanticipate.” Part of this book’s pur-pose is to try to understand how thisunanticipated reaffirmation of nuptialmysticism could have come to pass ina century that began with Garrigou-Lagrange. The short answer is Henride Lubac.

In addition to a learned survey,Kerr has also written a sustained cri-tique of what he calls “nuptial mysti-cism,” his term for the theologicalanthropology or understanding of theimage of God as male and female thatemerges from Pope John Paul II’sconferences on the opening chaptersof Genesis. Kerr reads “nuptial mysti-cism” as an entirely innovative andpossibly harmful interpretation ofGenesis 1:27 and the imago Dei. Kerrends his chapter on de Lubac with theastounding claim that de Lubac’sbooks had the effect of destroying

neoscholastic theology (86). Kerrsummarizes his treatment of deLubac’s key books with the claim that“de Lubac undermines neoscholasticdogmatic theology as radically as hedestroys standard natural theology”(75). For this destruction Kerr cannotforgive him. The destruction of neo-scholasticism, in Cessario’s term,“destabilized” Catholic theology andenabled de Lubac to enshrine Origenat the center of the tradition and theSong of Songs at the center of thecanon. Reading the Bible accordingto de Lubac’s “pre-modern Catholicsensibility that he wanted to inhabit”(69) and with his insufficiently distin-guished theology of nature and grace(188–89 with respect to Ratzinger),and with an assist from Karl Barth inVolume III of Church Dogmatics viaBalthasar (197–99), John Paul II over-turned completely the prior traditionabout the imago Dei as residing chieflyin the intellective and volitional pow-ers of the soul. In other words, as Kerrputs it, “It is not in our rationality butin our sexual difference that we imageGod—in our genitalia, not in ourheads, so to speak” (194).

To the extent that Kerr sees themovement from neoscholasticism tonuptial mysticism as a decline, deLubac is clearly the villain of thisbook. The destruction of neoscholas-ticism makes nuptial mysticism possi-ble. It is here that Kerr’s affinities withwhat I have called the Thomist resur-gence are most clear.6 But Kerr comes

6In a provocative review of Kerr’s book,

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from the more progressive wing ofCatholicism in the U.K. His primaryconcern does not seem to be therestoration of manualist or “com-mentatorial”—to his credit, Kerrrefrains from using commentatorial—Thomism (though he remains aThomist). Rather his chief concernseems to be that de Lubac’s destabil-ization of theology has allowed fornuptial mysticism to be established bychurch authority in the same way thatneoscholasticism was established at thebeginning of the century, and ironi-cally by the very forces from whichneoscholasticism was designed toprotect the church.

Kerr’s Ratzinger chapter contraststhe Congregation for the Doctrine ofthe Faith’s 2004 Letter on the Collabora-tion of Men and Women in the Churchand in the World with the 1992 Cate-chism of the Catholic Church: “Theteaching of Pope John Paul II in theWednesday Catecheses was evidentlynot ripe for inclusion in the Cate-

chism. In the Congregation documentof 2004, however, this entirely newdoctrine has become the only one.”Kerr allows some of his pique toshow: “Amazingly, with that charac-teristic Roman Catholic talent forcreative amnesia, the imago Dei theol-ogy that has held sway for 2,000 yearsis never even mentioned!” (196).

Nuptial mysticism has been onKerr’s radar screen for a long time. A1994 article warned New Blackfriarsreaders that a theological anthropol-ogy of the “eternal feminine” was“spreading fast in the CatholicChurch,” supported by distinguishedNorth American women scholarsunder the influence of Balthasar,somewhat ominously described byKerr as “set to dominate Catholictheology for the next twenty years,”and John Paul II who “sings not farout of tune” with radical French fem-inists such as Julia Kristeva and LuceIrigaray. Kerr is most alarmed by hisinterpretation of recent emphasis onthe nuptial relationship betweenChrist and the Church (Eph 5:29). Itseems to sexualize the Eucharist as“how Christ becomes one flesh withhis Church.”7

This 1994 article sounded an alarmand reveals much about what Kerr isup to in Twentieth-Century CatholicTheologians, but in 1994 Balthasar andJohn Paul II occupied most of Kerr’sattention. De Lubac is not mentioned.

“Theology After the Revolution,” in FirstThings (May 2007), Russell R. Reno, withsome justification, has enlisted Kerr in acarefully reasoned case for renewing neo-scholasticism or “standard” as opposed to“exploratory” theology. In the process, healmost completely ignores the centrality,boldness, and seriousness of Kerr’s critique ofnuptial mysticism. In fact, the author orperhaps the editors go so far as to change thesubtitle of Kerr’s book. From Neoscholasticismto Nuptial Mysticism becomes From Chenu toRatzinger. Perhaps they are working with anewer edition that I am unfamiliar with. Seethe replies of Rodney Howsare and LarryChapp and of Edward T. Oakes, S.J. in“Letters” for October 2007.

7Fergus Kerr, O.P., “Discipleship ofEquals or Nuptial Mystery?” New Blackfriars75 (July/August 1994): 344–54, at 349, 352,347, 350.

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In the concluding chapter of ImmortalLongings (1997), Kerr praises deLubac’s contributions to twentieth-century theology with the enthusiasmconventional at the time. The chap-ter near the end of Catholicsm inwhich de Lubac anticipates the argu-ment of Surnaturel Kerr describes as“brilliant.” He treats sympatheticallyde Lubac’s claim that it was Catholictheologians who invented the modernautonomous individual.8 By 2002Kerr suggested in After Aquinas thatthe furor over Surnaturel was deLubac’s own fault. With his “calcu-lated insults” of eminent Thomists, deLubac “himself set off the disputes inwhich the issues were perhaps ob-scured.” “Few now doubt,” he con-tinues, “that when Thomas taughtthat human beings have a naturaldesire for the vision of God, he meantwhat he said.” He concludes in thelanguage of the Thomist resurgencethat the significance of de Lubac’schallenge to Thomism “can now bestbe recaptured by studying the ramifi-cations of the network of scholarshipwhich he disrupted so effectively.”The verb disrupt suggests that between1997 and 2002, Kerr read and waspersuaded by revisionist estimates ofde Lubac’s critique of Cajetan emerg-ing in the literature of the Thomistresurgence. Though Feingold appearsonly once and briefly in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians (73), Kerr

begins his discussion in After Aquinasof the acrimonious controversy overSurnaturel by directing the reader to aweighty 300-page special issue ofRevue Thomiste “for the most thor-ough analysis.”9 Kerr’s alarm overnuptial theology, and especially itsimplications for the Eucharist, reap-pears here as he points out in theConclusion that Aquinas “does notregard the eucharist as a nuptial mys-tery, with the celebrant as bridegroomand thus necessarily male.” He dis-tances Aquinas from Balthasar’s nup-tial understanding of the Eucharist.10

Here as in 1994 Kerr, Balthasar repre-sents the nuptial theology to whichKerr voices his aversion.

What changes in Twentieth-CenturyCatholic Theologians is Kerr’s blendingof his critique of nuptial mysticismwith his critique of de Lubac. Thisseems to be a matter of convictionrather than strategy. Kerr’s chapter onBalthasar praises Herrlichkeit as “consti-tuting by far the most impressivework by any twentieth-century Cath-olic theologian.” He compares it withBarth’s Church Dogmatics (123).Though Kerr’s distaste for nuptialtheology is palpable amid his restraintand he is bemused by Balthasar’s pop-ularity, he treats Balthasar in the mainrespectfully. He concludes with the

8Fergus Kerr, Immortal Longings: Versions ofTranscending Humanity (Notre Dame, Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press, 1997),168–69.

9Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions ofThomism (Malden, Mass. and Oxford:Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 134–38, at 231,n. 1 citing Revue Thomiste 101 (2001): 5–315.

10Ibid., 242, n. 1, citing Balthasar fromElucidations (London: SPCK, 1975), 150.

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judgment that Balthasar “created anentirely different version of Catholictheology from anything ever imaginedby regular disciples of Thomas Aqui-nas.” Kerr identifies Balthasar as “byfar the most discussed Catholic theo-logian at present.” He notes the“overwhelmingly positive tenor” ofthe “ever-expanding secondary litera-ture” but wonders if perhaps criticssimply “do not know where to start”(144).

Kerr reserves his most deft andsometimes deadly rhetoric for hischapter on de Lubac. It is as if, inboth de Lubac’s critique of Thomistsand in his posture as a “man of theChurch,” the Jesuit cardinal had got-ten away with a colossal con and mustbe exposed. De Lubac, we are told,was “effectively self-taught” in philos-ophy and theology (67). His Aquinasis Gilson’s, his “philosophical culture”Maurice Blondel’s. Just as de Lubachad “wickedly” associated Garrigou-Lagrange’s opinion on the naturaldesire to see God in Aquinas withGeorge Tyrrell’s (After Aquinas, 137),Kerr returns the favor in his discussionof de Lubac’s “Thomism” (68). Un-like their Protestant contemporaries,de Lubac and his ressourcement col-leagues were “never subjected to thediscipline of doctoral research.”Rather, de Lubac’s Gregorian doctor-ate was conferred at the request of theJesuit Father General “without deLubac’s setting foot there or eversubmitting a dissertation” (70).

As he had in 1997, Kerr acknowl-edges that de Lubac’s books became“major texts in modern Catholic

theology” (70). But his language sug-gests something dubious about thesebooks. De Lubac “wove” them “outof his reading.” These books “heusually passed off as ‘occasional’ andput together at someone else’s urging”(70). De Lubac “disingenuously”called Surnaturel a “merely historical”study (72). The phrase and the centralinsight for Corpus Mysticum came tode Lubac “leafing through volumes ofMigne’s Patrologia Latina” (72). Hisstudies of medieval exegesis resultedfrom his continuing “to browsethrough patristic and medieval theol-ogy” (76). Kerr’s prose is exquisite.His choice of the verbs leaf and browseseems designed to impugn de Lubac’sstature as a scholar.

Though Kerr treated it in 1997,he passes over quickly (73) de Lubac’sheroic resistance to the German occu-pation of France and the role of con-temporary politics in the controversiessurrounding Surnaturel. Can it betheologically irrelevant that de Lubacreserved some of his own “barelycoded insults” (73) for Thomists suchas Pedro Descoqs, a well-knownpartisan of L’Action Française? DeLubac’s argument is precisely, as Kerrknows well, that Descoqs’ version ofThomism was not unrelated to hispolitics.11

11For Kerr’s own treatment of the politicalcontext for debates surrounding Surnatureland the connection between L’ActionFrançaise and Vichy, see Immortal Longings,166-67. In After Aquinas Kerr identifiesDescoqs as de Lubac’s teacher and the“leading Suárezian Thomist of the day” and

502 William L. Portier

The image of de Lubac thatemerges from this chapter is that of anesoteric theological outlier posing as aman of the Church. With the aid ofecclesial renegades and outlaws fromOrigen to Teilhard, “manifestlyoffbeat and idiosyncratic figures”(86) from the margins of the tradi-tion, de Lubac mysteriously man-aged to “destroy” neoscholastic the-ology and transform Catholicism insuch a way that many now do regardhim as a “man of the Church” (86).Is the implication that they are mis-taken?

In addition to being a valuablesurvey, Twentieth-Century CatholicTheologians combines its sustainedcritique of nuptial mysticism with acritique of de Lubac that credits himwith making it possible for Balthasar,John Paul II, and now Benedict XVIto establish nuptial mysticism as quasi-official Catholic theology. Kerr’s caseagainst de Lubac is threefold. First, bydestroying neoscholasticism he dan-gerously destabilized Catholic theol-ogy, leaving it without a center andprey to all manner of deviations andeccentric innovations. Chief amongthem is nuptial mysticism. Second, byfilling the resulting hole at the heart ofthe tradition with Origen and otheridiosyncratic figures, he legitimates the

pre-modern, insufficiently differenti-ated way of reading Scripture thatwe find in John Paul II’s Wednesdayconferences and in the “browsings”that are de Lubac’s historical retrievalof patristic and medieval exegesis. Itwas de Lubac who reintroduced“this high theology of the epithalam-ic relationship between the believerand Christ” (83). Balthasar andWojty»a would run with it. Com-menting on the Bride and Bride-groom imagery in the 2004 CDFdocument on men and women, afrustrated Thomist can only ask,“What does it mean to say that theseterms are ‘much more than simplemetaphors’?” (200). Central toKerr’s critique of nuptial theology isthe intent to show that de Lubac,Balthasar, Wojty»a, and Ratzingerare not Thomists in any sense thatGarrigou-Lagrange—and Kerr aswell?—would recognize. Third, byinsisting on a single final end, deLubac insufficiently distinguishesnature and grace. He thereby rendersappeals to “natural law” morality inregard to sexual ethics impossible(179). This involves a nest of con-tested historical claims about deLubac’s interpretation of Cajetanand the so-called commentatorialtradition and about what St. Thomasactually taught regarding natural final-ity. The upshot is that de Lubac’sappeal to paradox looks more like “anirresolvable aporia” (75), incapable ofmaintaining the healthy and necessarydistinctions between philosophy andtheology. In spite of himself, de Lubachas fallen into the “trap of an amor-

the “chief of the Jesuit theologians whom hewanted to discredit” (137). But he doesn’tmention Descoqs’ connections to right-wingFrench politics. On that, see JosephKomonchak, “Theology and Culture atMid-Century: The Example of Henri deLubac,” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 579-602, at 595.

Notes & Comments 503

phous supernaturalism.”12 What should readers make of this

threefold case? Much of it is familiarto students of the mid-century con-troversies over Surnaturel.13 The oldcriticisms come now with new ap-proaches to the complex questions ofinterpretation surrounding the originaldebates. In Kerr’s book, the familiarcritique comes wedded to his ownexigent criticisms of nuptial theology.As Kerr has said (182), it remains tobe seen whether the nuptial mysticismhe finds so disturbing will pass intothe common teaching of the Church.It is indeed an innovation. Somemight call it a development, even asthey might celebrate the “destruction”of neoscholastic theology Kerr attrib-utes to de Lubac as a liberating open-ing to and recovery of the great tradi-tion’s “breadth and depth” (Komon-chak’s phrase).

In spite of the book’s subtitle, thecentrality of Kerr’s critique of nuptialmysticism to his book has eluded mostreviewers in the United States.14

Nevertheless, Kerr has written a seri-ous critique of papal theology, arguingthat it is an innovation. His argumentis being discussed rather than con-demned in the journal he has called“the ‘conservative’ counterblast toConcilium” (124). No one has or willshut Kerr down. The case will con-tinue to be argued. All of this suggeststhat, rather than having destabilizedCatholic theology, de Lubac has en-riched it.

Many among younger generationsof Catholics have received mostlysilence from their elders on sexuality.Nuptial theology has a strong appealto them. This, rather than the force ofauthoritative establishment is thesource of the popularity that Kerrseems to find so alarming. Whatwould Kerr offer in its place? In thematter of the historical questions sur-rounding Surnaturel, Kerr has broughtto the attention of a more popularaudience what Reinhard Hütter hascalled the “serious scholarly provoca-tion” generated by historical researchsuch as Feingold’s and McInerny’s.This can only be a good. Perhaps deLubac would consider it part of theebb and flow of theology. In his In-troduction to the 1998 edition of deLubac’s The Mystery of the Supernatural

12Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of theSupernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed with anIntroduction by David L. Schindler (NewYork: Crossroad, 1998), 20.

13See the summary of criticisms in DavidL. Schindler’s Introduction to the 1998edition of The Mystery of the Supernaturalcited above, at xxi-xxv, hereafter cited in thetext.

14Reno’s review in which Kerr’s subtitleactually disappears has already beenmentioned. See also the four reviews andKerr’s very illuminating Author’s Responsein the Review Symposium in Horizons 34(Spring 2007): 101–17. Stephen J. Pope

devotes considerable space to nuptialtheology in his substantive review but in theend seems to engage in the kind of dismissalof it that Kerr warned against in 1994. SeeCommonweal, 31 January 2008: 21–23. U.S.reviewers do not seem to understand whyKerr is talking about nuptial mysticism. HisAuthor’s Response in Horizons is particularlyilluminating on this.

504 William L. Portier

(1965), David L. Schindler consideredsome of the issues raised anew by Kerrand the Thomist resurgence. He be-gan by distinguishing “de Lubac’sbasic thesis and the fundamental élanof his work from the detailedhistorical-philosophical and theologi-cal claims in terms of which he worksout his thesis” (xxvi). As both Kerr’sbook and the literature of the Thom-ist resurgence indicate, “all of thesequestions are legitimate and henceremain matters concerning whichconscientious theologians and philoso-phers will continue to differ” (xxvi).But, as Schindler argues, any alterna-tive proposal to de Lubac’s on therelation of nature and grace “mustshow how it can better account forthe double burden presented by theGospel, of an utterly gratuitous gift onGod’s part coupled with the humanperson’s profound—non-arbitrary—desire for this gift.” Both aspects ofthis double burden are present “al-ready at the beginning of each crea-ture’s existence” (xxvii). These ques-tions we shall continue to argue. For,after all, as both Aquinas and de Lubacwould readily agree, in the end whatis at stake are not human opinions buthow the truth of things stands. G

WILLIAM L. PORTIER holds the MaryAnn Spearin Chair of Catholic Theologyat the University of Dayton.

Published in Communio: InternationalCatholic Review 35, no. 3 (Fall 2008). ©2008, Communio, Inc.