Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Gnade - De Lubac (zwei Hauptthesen): natürliches Verlangen nach Gott: konstitutiv für menschl. Natur -- Ablehnung des Begriffs einer "rein" menschl. Natur (historisches, spekulatives Argument); Pius XII, Humani Generis

Kurzinhalt: The first major thesis of de Lubac's theology is that we are all constituted by a natural desire for God, that this desire is constitutive of our human nature, and that we are freely constituted in this way precisely because ...

Textausschnitt: 118b De Lubac's position was spelled out in two works, a historical study of the concept and doctrines concerning the supernatural, entitled Supernaturel, and a later, more thorough work that sought to respond to some of the criticisms of his earlier work, while restating its main theses, entitled The Mystery of the Supernatural.1

118c The first major thesis of de Lubac's theology is that we are all constituted by a natural desire for God, that this desire is constitutive of our human nature, and that we are freely constituted in this way precisely because God has destined us for the beatific vision. God has willed us to be the way we are, to have a certain "nature" precisely because in the providential ordering of creation we are destined to attain God as God is in Godself. God creates us with a certain finality, and that finality is intrinsic to our nature, to what we are. This position preserves the gratuity of grace because God has freely chosen to create us as beings destined for Godself. However, our desire in itself is ineffective, incapable of attaining that which it desires. De Lubac is here rejecting a position that would think of abstract natures as existing apart from the totality of creation itself, with detachable or interchangeable finalities. (Fs) (notabene)

119a The minor thesis that de Lubac draws from this intrinsic account of grace and its gratuity is that, although God freely chooses to create us with a given finality, once that free decision has been made, "God does not renege on completing a tendency freely willed by Godself. The desire is also, therefore, absolutely, unconditioned and unfrustratable on God's part."2 Therefore, God will not deny the beatific vision to beings so constituted. This was a sticking point for many of de Lubac's contemporaries. Why is this suggestion a problem? The natural desire to see God is so clearly linked with the desire to know (see the text above from Aquinas), and that desire to know is constitutive of us as rational and hence spiritual creatures. Consequently, de Lubac seemed to be concluding that God could not create rational creatures without destining them for the beatific vision. It appears to thus undermine the gratuity of grace. This was a position that was later to be explicitly rejected by Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis.3 (Fs) (notabene)

119b The second major thesis of de Lubac's theology is his attack on the concept of pure nature, an attack that is twofold. First, on the historical level he argues that the concept was unknown to the early church fathers, that it is a misinterpretation of Aquinas, and that the uniform position of the early fathers is that human beings have a single end, that is supernatural. Second, at the speculative level de Lubac argues that the hypothesis of pure nature, while invented to preserve the gratuitousness of grace, does nothing of the sort. In the concrete historical order, we are in fact oriented to grace, so a merely hypothetical construct that protects the gratuity of grace in a hypothetical order tells us nothing about the gratuity of grace in this historical order. A hypothetical humanity in an order of pure nature would simply not be the same humanity we currently experience. (Fs) (notabene)

119c The strength of de Lubac's position is his attempt to overcome the static conceptualist worldview that has dominated the standard position since Cajetan. This position viewed natures as preexisting in the mind of God (like Platonic ideas), who then created a world in which to implant these natures. De Lubac reminds us that God created natures always and already embedded in a particular world order. He also restored the Thomistic position regarding the "natural" desire to see God, which had got lost in the standard position of Cajetan. This helped overcome the extrinsicism of the standard position, which denied any element of human experience in regard to the supernatural.4 The weakness was that he pushed his argument too far. While one may agree that it is fitting for God to ordain a supernatural end for all rational creatures, such fittingness is not a demonstration of necessity. (Fs)