SURNATUREL

offers hope to men tempted by hopelessness. Only the spirit, center of

human life, allows us to dialogue with all men, believers or not. It invites
those who are called to the same destiny to enjoy the culture in their diverse
creations by tending toward him outside of whom there is no rest.101

101 Robert Bresson had more than sensed the divine origin of culture. In his Notes sur
la cinimatograpke, he comments on the maxim, Translate the wind by the water it
sculptures, in these words: When I was writing these lines, I was not thinking of
the Holy Spirit, I was a realist. But can we escape the real? It is because I am a real
ist that I believe in God and in mysteries (quoted in Dieu, probablement: Dia
logue avec Robert Bresson, Communio 3 [1978]: 8390, at 85); The supernatural
is reality defined (Robert Bresson, quoted by Guy Bedouelle in Le tout dans le
fragment, Communio 25 [2000]: 10512, at 106; he also adds, Is Christianity
incompatible with civilization? Tdont think so (Dipii nmKiKUmonr
 Surnaturel through the Fine-Tooth Com b
o f Traditional Thom ism
Henry Donneaud, O.P.

W
E WOULD LIKE to show both the pertinence and the ambigu-
ity of the title of this essay. As rega <ds its pertinence, everyone
understands its immediate meaning Henri de Lubacs Surna-
turel ran into the opposition of severaldl ofauthors,
whom, in their enti
cism, appealed more or less directly tyto oftheSt.authori
Thomas. We speak
inistic nonconformity.
here of the criticisms of a work suspected of Tho
Now, as a secondary but explicit intention Henri de Lubac himself
attributed to his work the rediscovery of the real St. Thomas across several
centuries of unfaithfulness on the part of his a<^credited commentators, at
least since Cajetan. We will speak, then, of the rehalbilitation of real Thomism
in opposition to a deformed Thomistic tradition
Here we are then before two Thomism; or at least before two
Thomistic propositions that both claim the ch iracter of traditional: on
the one hand, a conservative Thomism, which considers itself traditional
and which Lubac claims is merely modern in the bad sense of the word;
on the other hand, a critical Thomism bent on renewal that appeals away
from a recent tradition to the authentic traditio n.
The expression traditional Thomism, ever, refers to the conser-
vative criticisms of Fr. de Lubacs book. We thus return to the two coordi-
nates that frame the standard presentation of our debate. Left to
themselves, the inheritors of this debate tend to confine themselves to this
kind of trench warfare: for some, Fr. de Lubac was in the right, including
in his reading of St. Thomas, against narrow minded foes, ignorant of
doctrinal history; for others, Fr. de Lubac, de>pite his impressive erudi-
tion, had mishandled St. Thomas and undern|i ined the equilibrium of a .
balanced theology of the supernatural.
42 SURNATUREL

The historian would like to get beyond this alternative by undertaking a

study of what is characterized as traditional Thomism. Are all the criticisms
aimed at Surnaturel in the name of a scholastic tradition of the same ilk? Do
they manifest a common conservative mentality, the same ignorance of his
torical method, the same rejection of new questions put to theology? Could
one criticize Fr. de Lubac only by rejecting any concession to the leaders of
the renewal of theology, especially to what is called the nouvelle theologie?
Among many possible examples, we have chosen three here for their
emblematic diversity: first, the review by the Roman Jesuit Charles Boyer,
published in Gregorianum in 1947; second, the long critical article by the
Roman Dominican Rosaire Gagnebet, published in the Revue Thomiste in
1948; and third, the critical study by the Dominican Marie-Joseph Le Guil-
lou, published in the Revue des sciencesphilosophiques et theologiquesm 1950.

Charles Boyer
This French Jesuit, born in 1884, professor at the Gregorianum since
1922, was at that time one of the most authoritative pillars of what people
called, following fitienne Fouilloux and Cardinal Ottaviani, the ram
part, that is, the stronghold of scholastic doctrine that the Roman theolo
gians meant to raise against all the modernist challenges and innovations
to the core of Catholic thought.1 Secretary of the Pontifical Academy of
St. Thomas, he was also a recognized specialist on St. Augustine, whose
complementarity with the Angelic Doctor in the Catholic tradition he
made it his mission to demonstrate.2
Chronologically, his critique of Surnaturel was the first of our three
texts. It was published in the third issue of the 1947 Gregorianum, at the
start of fall, or a year after the book came out.3 In its literary genre, this
text is a critical review essay. It is modest in size (sixteen pages), partially
follows a descriptive purpose (even if it does not give the books outline),
and offers a direct criticism of the central thesis. We will highlight two
specific characteristics.
1. Fr. Boyer skirts around any historical-critical discussion. His dis
course is always exclusively doctrinal and speculative. He argues
1 Cf. Etienne Fouilloux, Eglise en quite de liberti. La pensie catholique franqaise entre
modernisme et Vatican II, 19141962 (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1998), 39.
2 On Charles Boyer (18841980), see the biographical note dedicated to him in the
Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine, vol. 1: Les Jesuites
(Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 5455.
3 Charles Boyer, Nature pure et surnaturel dans le Surnaturel du Pere de Lubac,
Gregorianum 28 (1947): 37995. This article is completed by a second, which we
w i l l n o r ron cirl^r g*. a ~ ~ ~ i --------- 1 0 n o x o v c o 7 ^
 T r ad i ti onal T h o m i s C43

purely as a theologian against a Fr. de Lubac considered purely as a

theologian. He devotes only two pages to refuting his Jesuit con
freres argument that the thesis of pure n ature is historically recent,
The defense that he presents of this thes is of pure nature is there-
fore set on the sole terrain of theologica truth, a terrain held to be
timeless and unchangeable at the heart o f Catholic doctrine. We are
here very far from historical erudition.
In his critique, Fr. Boyer never refers directly to St. Thomas, whom
he nowhere quotes explicitly and whose oroper authority he invokes
only quite marginally. He does not try to correct the erroneous inter
pretation that Fr. de Lubac had given to file thought of St. Thomas,
but only to show how Henri de Lubac, according to Fr. Boyer, does
not uphold the Catholic exigencies of th<: theological problem of the
supernatural. Boyers point of view has, herefore, nothing explicitly
Thomist about it. It appeals rather to l certain Catholic tradition
understood as unanimous, at the heart <i)f which St. Thomas shines
with a particular clarity without, howcver, being imposed as the
obligatory vector of theological labor.
Fr. Boyer sums up the novelty^ of Fr. de Lubac s book in two essen
tial elements: on the one hand, a negation, regarding the possibility of a
state of pure nature; on the other hand, an affirmation, regarding the pres
ence in man of a natural desire for the supern itural vision of God.
Negatively, what Fr. de Lubac rejects as regards the concept of pure
nature is the idea of an entirely natural order of morality, implying not
only specific intellectual and affective capabilities, but also its own proper
end. According to Boyer, de Lubac denies ar y idea of a natural ultimate
finality, that is, one proportionate to the capabilities of our nature. There
is for man only the supernatural finality. Thi ; denial extends then to any
idea of natural transcendence. Man tends tow ird God only by virtue of an
already supernatural love. No transcendence without the supernatural;
there can only be one end for man: the supernatural end, according to
the words of de Lubac cited by Fr. Boyer.5
Positively, the natural desire to see God, a : set forth by Fr. de Lubac, is
experienced in us as proof of our necessarily supernatural destiny. It does not
provide us with only a probable argument for Dur supernatural destiny, or a
proof of its possibility; it justifies the certitude that in fact we are raised to
the supernatural order and destined to the fully beatifying vision.6
4 Boyer, Nature pure et surnaturel clans le Surnaturel du Pere de Lubac, 380.
5 Ibid.; quotations from Surnaturel 110 and 493.
a
^ 44 SURNATUREL

Having presented these elements, Fr. Boyer formulates his question,

imbued with a strong suspicion: if there is for man only a supernatural
end, and if our deepest desire carries us naturally toward this end, can we
still say that this end surpasses the demands of our nature? And if we must
account for this end without the modern hypothesis of pure nature, and
better without it,7 can we still call it supernatural?
He then tells us what he understands to be Fr. de Lubacs answer to
this objection. Certainly this desire to see God belongs to our nature; it is
absolute, the most absolute of all desires,8 and it proves to us that such is
indeed our destiny. But for all that, it is not necessary; it does not create
for us, on our part, any claim on God, any entitlement to the supernatu
ral vision of God. Our nature is not entitled to the supernatural, which, in
its entirety, is a totally gratuitous gift of God. Hence the natural desire for
God does not posit in us a natural exigency for the supernatural, but it
reveals to us an already supernatural exigency for the supernatural, for this
very exigency is already gratuitously inscribed in our nature by God: The
supernatural does not mean a gift over and above pure nature, but the
totally gratuitous gift of God Himself.9 Not a pure nature that would
require the supernatural in order to become itself, but a nature created by
God in such a way that it aspires, from the very depths of its inner desire,
to a supernatural vocation.
It is here that Boyer puts forward his main criticism, founded entirely
on the very concept of nature, and hence too on the concept of the super
natural. The concept of nature necessarily implies an essence with its own
faculties and an end that is proportionate to it. It would therefore be a
contradiction to posit a nature without positing at the same time an end
that it could attain. God himself cannot escape this requirement: creating
a nature with its own makeup, he owes it its proper end, capable of mov
ing it from the inside.
To posit such a natural end does not imply conceiving a nature that is
strictly delimited, absolutely complete, closed in on itself; it does not even
exclude the natural existence of a desire for the supernatural, a natural
desire to see God supernaturally above the capabilities of nature alone.
Why could intellectual natures not carry their desire beyond what their nat
ural power can attain and beyond what constitutes their natural end?10 In
fact, every intellectual nature can carry its desire beyond its own capabilities.
The heart of Fr. Boyer s criticism therefore bears less upon the affirma
tion of a natural desire to see God than upon the attacks aimed at the very
7 Ibid., 383; quotation from Surnaturel, 491.
8 Ibid., 384; quotation from Surnaturel, 484.
9 Ibid., 384.
10 Ibid.. 393.
 T r a d i t i on a l T h o m i sm

concept of nature. For behind the concept of pure mature, it is the concept
of nature that Fr. de Lubacs thesis would under nine. According to Fr.
Boyer, the concept of nature necessarily implies :hat of the natural end
due to this nature because of what it is. Thus, if hold with Fr. de Lubac
W

that there is only one end for man, one of two things follows: either this
end is in fact natural, and in that case, we have not exalted the supernat-
ural; we have suppressed it;11 or it is in fact supernatural, and then it is
the very notion of human nature that disappears Now, according to Fr.
Boyer, the notion of nature is inherent not only in human knowledge, but
also in the divine knowledge itself, in its eternal ideas that have imparted
to each creature an essence and proper laws. To push aside the concept of
nature is to ruin all human knowledge, natural as well as supernatural,
Here the debate runs up against the metaph y<ical architecture of each
of our two theologians. Fr. Boyer elevates the pro Diem beyond all histori-
cal contingency, beyond all the variety of the diffefe nt doctrinal traditions,
He limits himself to the pure sphere of the theo ogical concepts, consid-
ered to be undeniable, of the scholastic tradition, of the philosophia peren-
nis. From his point of view, everything in Fr. de mbacs thesis is reduced
to a logical impossibility: the concept of the su pernatural means nothing
without the concept of pure nature. To unmask s|uch incoherence suffices
to refute the thesis and at the same time to close a discussion. Knowledge
of the texts, in this case those of St. Thomas, is not enriched, and neither
does such knowledge help to further the search fer the truth.
Rosaire Gagnebet
A Dominican of the Toulouse Province, born in 1904 and therefore
twenty years younger than Charles Boyer, Rosair Gagnebet is also num-
bered among the leading scholars of the rampart of Roman Scholasti-
cism. A professor at the Angelicum beginning i 1937, he was a direct
disciple of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, under whose direction he wrote his
doctoral thesis on the nature of speculative theo ogy. His zeal and doctri-
nal vigilance were quickly pressed into service by the various Roman
authorities. In 1946 he became secretary of the central commission for
studies of the Order of Preachers, a kind of Do minican Holy Office,
before entering the Holy Office itself in 1954.12
The Mark o f a Dominican Thomism
His critique of Surnaturel unfolds quite differen : y from Fr. Boyers. First
of all by its literary genre: we are dealing not with a review but with a very
11 Ibid., 392.
12 On Rosaire Gagnebet, see fitienne Fouilloux, Du role des theologiens au ddbut de
Vofiron TT in r ic + is r y f ic r v m irt/rllsi r too<c\ i ~ r a 211
 SURNATUREL

long article of a hundred and twenty pages, published in two issues of the
Revue Thomiste at the end of 1948 and the beginning of 1949, two and a
half years after the release of Surnaturel.13 This rather long delay, which
may be explained by the sheer size of the work, allowed Fr. Gagnebet to
know and cite a complementary article published by Fr. de Lubac in 1948,
Duplex Hominis Beatitudo.14
Second, a difference in content: Gagnebet gives no overall summary
of Fr. de Lubac s book; he never gives its outline, nor even an account of
the articulation of its central thesis. He limits himself to an apparently sec
ondary point: the new interpretation that Fr. de Lubac gives to the notion
of a natural love of God.
Finally and above all, a difference in purpose as well as method: Gag
nebet pursues the discussion on the properly historical terrain of St.
Thomass thought. He examines Surnaturel not directly from the stand
point of doctrinal truth, but from that of the truth of a quite novel inter
pretation of St. Thomass thinking on the specific point of the natural love
of God. First and foremost his discourse is meant to be exegetical: does the
St. Thomas described by de Lubac correspond to the true St. Thomas? De
Lubac claims to have rediscovered the authentic thought of Aquinas; Fr.
Gagnebet intends to show, by means of the texts, that de Lubac only
makes Aquinass authentic thought more distant.
Two corollaries emerge from this project: first, a massive use of the his
torical method, marked by the accumulation of almost all of St. Thomass
texts on the question. A paradox that is not without its barb coming from
a Roman Thomist: in his introduction, Gagnebet reproaches de Lubac
for his lack of historical sense; the Jesuit distorts St. Thomas by seeing him
through the prism of his personal convictions in opposition to the objectiv
ity of the texts. The prolixity of the Latin quotations, in dry and inter
minable footnotes, makes the reading of this article quite difficult. But the
profit from it is unquestionable: whatever the limitations of his profound
exegetical sense, one cannot doubt that Fr. Gagnebet provides objective
material for some serious corrections that de Lubacs interpretation of St.
Thomas deserves.
Second corollary: if Fr. Gagnebet limits himself to the level of exegesis,
and hence to the history of doctrines, it is not only for tactical reasons, or
out of theological faintheartedness. Although he explains it only in an allu
sive way, it is clear that for him any distortion of the thinking of St. Thomas,
13 Rosaire Gagnebet, Lamour naturel de Dieu chez saint Thomas et ses contempo-
rains, Revue Thomiste 48 (1948): 394-446 and Revue Thomiste 49 (1949):
31102 [hereafter Gagnebet 1949].
14 Henri de Lubac, Duplex hominis beatitudo, Recherches de science religieuse 35
(1948): 290-99.
 T r a d i t i on a l T ho m i s m 47

and especially of St. Thomas as understood by the Catholic tradition of

many centuries, strikes a blow at Catholicisms doctrinal truth. In this
regard, we can advance the following hypothesis, v diich may shed light on
the difference in viewpoint between Fr. Gagnebet and Fr. Boyer. For Gagne
bet, the defense of theological truth passes princip; lly through the thought
of St. Thomas. Boyer situates the debate in the timeless realm of Catholic
theological theses, considered in themselves, without a real historical per
spective, and he appeals to witnesses who are take i from all the epochs of
tradition and whose unanimity makes the truth maaifest. Gagnebet, in con
trast, concentrates his research on the doctrine of St. Thomas, privileged and
peerless vector of Catholic truth. This difference is rather typical of the
Dominican and Jesuit ways of relating to St. Thomas, and hence of defining
a Thomist adherence.
Fr. Gagnebet concentrates his demonstratior on the question of the
natural love of God. Only secondarily does he invoke other problems,
such as beatitude and ultimate ends. However, from this angle (which
remains materially marginal in Fr. de Lubacs demonstration), it is indeed
the problem of the relationships between nature j nd the supernatural that
dominates his project.
The Natural Love of God
Fr. Gagnebet finds in Fr. de Lubacs position the negation of an authentic
natural love of God. For de Lubac, when St. Thom as speaks of a natural love
of God, he is dealing there with a necessary, instir ctive, and purely physical
activity that is devoid of any freedom and is non -moral because foreign to
free will. On this view, the only love of God that is authentically voluntary,
free, deliberate, and of the moral order is a love that is already supernatural-
ized, gratuitous, and the fruit of grace. The opposition between the two
loves, natural and supernatural, intersects with that which separates the nec
essary from the free, the physical from the moral. The only moral reality,
therefore, is supernatural. The natural love of God only designates our rela
tionship with our principle, God the cause of nature; only a supernatural
love can put us in a voluntary and moral relationship with God as our end.
Gagnebets lengthy demonstration aims at proving that that is not
what St. Thomas teaches; that on the contrary, Aquinas and all his com
mentators, up to Henri de Lubac, have grounded the difference between
the two loves of God in the notion of proportion: the natural love of
God is a reality that is already fully voluntary, free, and moral, proportion
ate to our rational and affective faculties, although not supernatural, nor
gratuitous, nor meritorious of eternal beatitude.
Gagnebet starts off by showing that St. Thomass scholastic predecessors
in the first half of the thirteenth century already recognized, as regards the
 SURNATUREL

angels, a deliberate and disinterested love of God, although it was purely

natural and prior to any elevation in grace. Then he shows at length how,
contrary to de Lubacs claim, St. Thomas does not limit the natural love of
God in men to the realm of the voluntas ut natura alone, a blind aspiration
that pushes all creatures to tend toward their end, in which the love of God
remains implicit and instinctive. Rather, it extends to the realm of the vol
untas ut ratio, an act that is explicit, deliberate, free, and fully moral. This
natural love of God, grounded in the knowledge of God as cause of all
being, is borne toward God as toward the natural end of our being:
For St. Thomas, the natural love of God is not solely the necessary, nat
ural act devoid of all morality that the author of Sumaturel describes,
but it can also be a free act, natural because it is accessible to the powers
of nature and is conformed to its aspirations.15
Certainly, in the state of fallen nature, this natural love of the voluntas
ut ratio comes up against some considerable, even insurmountable, obsta
cles. Our nature, considered as such, nonetheless retains these capacities
and this end that are connatural to it.
The Natural End
Fr. Gagnebet thus defends, contrary to Fr. de Lubac, the existence in St.
Thomas of an authentic natural end, proper to our nature, proportionate
to its capacities and therefore to its conscious desire. For the inclination of
our nature has as its object a natural end, namely, beatitude in communi.
This natural or proportionate end is not yet and cannot be, from the
standpoint of our conscious and free capacities, the beatific vision. How
ever, it certainly goes beyond the horizon of our earthly life. Despite the
darkenings of our fallen state, our nature keeps its natural orientation to
the loving contemplation of the Creator, God as the natural ultimate end,
known and loved through creatures. Proof for this is the fact that after the
separation from its body, the soul can go on with and open up its natural
knowledge of God, accompanied by a love, henceforth unchangeable, that
fulfills the faculties proportionate to our consciousness. Here Gagnebet
evokes the lot of babies who died without baptism, as described by St.
Thomas: although purely natural, without any participation in the beatific
vision, their bliss is ultimate and perfect in its order, insofar as it is a full
actualization of their natural capacity to know and love.
According to Gagnebet, it is the same with the angels natural love of
God. If we believe de Lubac, St. Thomas never professed the natural
impeccability of the angels, because of the impossibility of conceiving in a
created spirit a love that is both voluntary and infallible. The only love
15 Gaenebet Cl949). 44.
 T r a d i t i on a l Thom ism tA9

voluntarily directing the angels toward God is a supernatural act that is

gratuitous, free, and hence subject to sin. Never die [ St. Thomas envision
for the angel any other end than supernatural b iss freely chosen. To
which, Fr. Gagnebet, faithful to the dominant interpretation of modern
commentators, opposes a number of texts from St. 'jTomas distinguishing
two voluntary loves of God in the angels, one natural, the other supernat
ural. The natural love, although necessary and not i fee by the very fact of
the angelic intelligence, is nonetheless fully conscious and voluntary, with
a voluntariness that, being founded on a perfect and immutable knowl
edge of God as cause and end of nature, is superior, not inferior, to our
human voluntary action:
The angels necessary act of love for God, auth or and end of his
nature, confirms the two components of the defir ition of the perfect
voluntariness: inner principle and perfect knowled;ge of the end.
Its necessity does not prevent it from being fully voluntary and, if
not formally at least eminently, moral.16
Limitations
Fr. Gagnebet s whole demonstration is aimed at prov ng that St. Thomas has
indeed established the reality of a natural love of God, and hence of an end
proportionate to this love. This love is founded on the reality of a nature
subsisting per se, capable of consciously and voluntarily loving an ultimate
good proportionate to its capabilities: God as principle of created being.
Remarkably, however, Gagnebet says almost nothing about all the
texts in which St. Thomas affirms the existence of a natural desire for the
beatific vision, that is, the natural desire for a natural end disproportionate
in respect to our nature, natural desire for the supernatural as de Lubac
is not afraid to call it.
Regarding all these texts, on which Fr. de Lubac grounds the essentials
of his Thomistic analyses, Gagnebet says nothing he does not even cite
them. If our research has not been too hasty, the very term desiderium nat-
urale, or desiderium naturae, appears nowhere in his writings, and hence is
16 Gagnebet (1949), 83 and 86. Against de Lubac and his denial of the thesis of the
angels impeccability in St. Thomas, Gagnebet agrees in part with the meticulous
criticisms of the Jesuit Jacques de Blic, professor in the department of theology at
Lille: see Jacques de Blic, Saint Thomas et lintelletua! isme moral: A propos de la
peccabilite 1ange, Melanges de science religieuse . (1944): 241-80; idem,
Quelques vieux texts sur la notion dordre surnaturel, Milanges de science
religieuse 3 (1946): 359-62; idem, review of Surnaturel in Melanges de science
religieuse 4 (1947): 93-112; idem, Echanges de vues [with Fr. de Lubac] a propos
de la conception medievale de 1ordre surnaturel, Melanges de science religieuse 4
/1Q47V a 7 a _ 7 0
 SURNATUREL
<- f e 50

never applied in particular to the divine vision. Gagnebet rightly blames

de Lubac for ignoring all the texts where St. Thomas states that the divine
vision exceeds not only the natural faculties of man but also his desire, in
particular all those where he is commenting on the verse of St. Paul:
What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).17 But he
himself proceeds in the same way with texts that go in the other direction.
We can only conclude that Gagnebet avoids a decisive part of the diffi
culty. In this regard, his use of the historical method goes seriously astray.
As much as the demonstration seems convincing in respect to natural
lovefor the texts of St. Thomas are compelling, clear, and abundantso
much is it revealed to be more than deficient when faced with the other
end of the difficulty: what is this appetite or desire of nature about which
St. Thomas affirms that it aspires toward the vision of the divine essence? In
the few places where Gagnebet approaches the question of an ordination to
the beatific vision, it is in order to say that it does not follow upon the
constitutive principles of the created intellectual nature, but as accom
plished by grace.18 Yet the foundation of Fr. de Lubac s thesis, especially its
support in St. Thomas, does not lack for evidence: it is our intellectual
nature, and more profoundly our status as images of God, that instills in us
a natural inclination, an elan of our nature, toward the vision of the divine
essence, a natural desire for beatitude (naturale desiderium beatitudinis).19
At this stage of our study, we find ourselves confronted with an incon
testable dilemma of Thomist exegesis: while Fr. de Lubac unilaterally mines
17 See St. Thomas, Summa theologiae III, q. 114, a. 2: Everlasting life is a good
exceeding the proportion of created nature (excedens proportionem naturae creatae);
since it exceeds its knowledge and desire, according to 1 Cor 2:9: What no eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived In II Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 1,
resp., We only arrive at an end by works proportionate to the end (per opera pro
portionate fini). Now eternal life is an end entirely exceeding (omnino excedens) the
power of human nature; thus it surpasses even its understanding and desire (etiam
intellectum et desiderium superat) according to 1 Cor 2:9, What no eye has seen,
nor ear heard In III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 4, qla 3: The end to which the divine
generosity has ordered or predestined man, namely the fruition of Himself,
entirely surpasses the power of created nature because What no eye has seen, nor
ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who
love him, as is said in 1 Cor 2:9. Thus, by his natural powers alone, man does not
sufficiently have an inclination towards that end (unde per naturalia tantum homo
non habet sufficienter inclinationem in finem ilium). Thus it is necessary that some
thing be superadded (superaddatur) to him in virtue of which he has an inclination
towards that end, just as through his natural powers he has an inclination towards
the end that is connatural to him.
18 Gagnebet (1949), 69nl.
19 <?TTTT o ? c 9 *
 T r a d i t i ona l T ho m i s m '51

the Thomistic vein of the natural desire for the visio ri of God, Fr. Gagnebet
no less one-sidedly keeps to the equally Thomistic vein of the transcendent
gratuitousness of that desire, incapable of arising in the human conscious
ness in the absence of Revelation and the Christian faith.

Marie-Joseph Le Guillou
The article of Marie-Joseph Le Guillou, a Domi lican from the French
province, arrives in the third wave of reactions to Surnaturel, right before
the release of the encyclical Humani Generis, in (he second issue of the
Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques of 15 50 or four years after
the publication of the book.20 Fr. Le Guillou him: elf belongs to the third
generation of Fr. de Lubac s critics. Born in 1920, le was only thirty years
old at the time. Having been a priest for only three years, he was finishing
his very first year teaching moral theology at his provinces Studium, Le
Saulchoir, already a legendary name.
His article does not belong to the genre of a b >ok review, although he
takes care to give the outline of SurnatureL Rathei, it is presented both as
a critical study, since it disputes one of the main theses of the book, and as
a personal attempt at clarification. It resembles Fr. Gagnebets article in at
least one aspect: its explicitly Thomist adherence. Unlike Boyer and de
Lubac, who refer to St. Thomas as one of the witnesses of the Catholic tra
dition, Le Guillou situates his whole demonstration in a purely Thomist
framework. The much more modest size of his article (sixteen pages)
obliges him to limit the quotations from St. Thomas, but the references
abound. It is indeed the thought of St. Thomas that Fr. Le Guillou
intends to set forth, and it is from St. Thomas that he proposes to draw
the principles for solving this crucial problem.2021
Unlike Gagnebet, however, Le Guillou carefully avoids any polemical,
cutting, or suspicious tone toward de Lubac. Still more, he welcomes
whole sections of de Lubacs work as assisting in the rediscovery of the
authentic thought of St. Thomas. At the same time, by nameless but quite
clear allusions, he criticizes the arguments against Henri de Lubac made
by conservative Thomists such as Charles Boyer and Rosaire Gagnebet.
Without saying it explicitly, he is in search of a via media capable of doing
justice to the truths brought out by Fr. de Lubac, while purging them of
their defects and reinserting them in a truly Thomistic framework.
20 Marie-Joseph Le Guillou, O.P., Surnaturel, Revue des sciences philosophiques et
theologiques 34 (1950): 226-43; reprised in Le Temognage de Dieu (Saint-Maur,
1996), 83103. We will quote here from the original edition [abbreviated Le Guil
lou]. On the significance of this article, see Georges Cottier, O.P., Le desir naturel
de voir Dieu, in Quand un homme temoigne de Dieu (Saint-Maur, 1998), 1946.
21 T~ non
 SURNATUREL

Balancing Diverse Elements

Fr. Le Guillou tries to hold together two complementary orientations
simultaneously present in St. Thomass thinking.
On the one hand is the unqualified affirmation of the natural desire to
see God. This desire, inscribed in the deepest core of our intellectual
nature as the image of God, moves our will toward a continuous surpass
ing of self to reach the vision of Gods essence. It manifests to our con
sciousness the authentic symbiosis of both the natural and supernatural
orders, with the second not adding itself to the first by a heterogeneous
and incomprehensible juxtaposition.22 It cannot be confined to the level
of a simple receptivity to the divine action, non-repugnance, pure
non-contradiction in respect to the supernatural, but it consists truly in
an ordination to the beatific vision, a positive fittingness, a waiting,
an openness.23 In addition, Fr. Le Guillou concedes only by lip service,
out of respect for the scholastic tradition, the legitimacy of the expression
obediential potency, and only on the condition that it be understood as
a positive ontological orientation,24 which is less than an active power
but more than a mere receptivity. In this first line of reasoning, Marie-
Joseph Le Guillou generously acknowledges Henri de Lubacs role in
revaluing natural desire by virtue of an opening to the infinite that is
inherent in our nature.
Yet on the other hand, he insists on the indispensable safeguarding
both of the gratuitousness of Gods gift and of the proper constitution of
nature in its specific structures. Here he becomes very critical of Fr. de
Lubac, in the name of St. Thomas and the Thomist tradition. Against de
Lubac, he defends the duality of the ends of the will and the cleavage
between natural and supernatural, particularly regarding the incontestable
legitimacy of the concept of pure nature.
To say that the spirit has only one concrete ultimate end does not
eliminate, but rather shows, the necessity of distinguishing of two orders
of finality according to the active resources of the human spirit, faculties of
actualization that are proper to it. To uphold the absolute gratuitousness
of Gods gift, we must posit the perception by the human spirit, con
fronted with this desire to see God, of the absolute limitation of its own
potency,25 of its inability to actualize a desire whose fulfillment can come
only from on high. That is why, faced with this transcendent end, the
mind knows another end, which is connatural to it, within reach of its fac
ulties. Certainly these two orders do not imply two possible destinies that
22 Ibid., 240.
23 Ibid., 232.
24 Ibid., 233.
25 Ibid.. 237.
 T r a d i t i on a l T ho m i s m 53

are parallel, still less divergent, but two unequally deep penetrations of
the effective destiny of the concrete created spirit.- 6 According to Fr. Le
Guillou, it would be impossible to safeguard the gratuitous transcendence
of the ultimate end without positing a certain fin;dity corresponding to
our natural faculties. For the mind cannot undertake a procedure of aban
donment to God, the only way to arrive at its ultimate end, without
allowing itself to be raised out of its own active potency and hence above
ends that are proportionate to it.
Thus Marie-Joseph Le Guillou arrives at justifying the modern cleav
age between natural and supernatural,27 which already appears in St.
Thomas. St. Thomas defines the supernatural as tf at which surpasses the
proportion of nature [id quod exceditproportionem naturae].28 In order to
open itself to the transcendent actualization of Gods gift, the created
spirit must renounce its holding to the order of means and ends that is
connatural to it. Without such a natural order tha: can allow itself to be
surpassed by grace, there is no surpassing, and heno; no transcendence, no
supernaturalness.
Defense of Pure Nature
We find in Le Guillou s introduction his most serious criticism of Henri de
Lubac. According to Le Guillou, de Lubac s aim is to demonstrate that the
notion of pure nature is a late, unfortunate notion, which is useless in
defending the total gratuitousness of the supernatural.2^ To which, in his
conclusion, he answers with the affirmation of the radical possibility of
pure nature, a possibility that he establishes by necessity since he does not
see any other way of safeguarding the statement thjit the first creation does
not call of itselfby a necessary connection for the second creation.3
The concept of pure nature is imperative for preseiving the gratuitousness
of the divine gift. He does not refer us either to a hypothesis that in fact
would be totally foreign to us or to a nature entirely closed in on itself,
but to the particular structure of our created spirit, with its paradox of
being at once finite and open to the infinite.31 Without this concept we
would allow ourselves to be led to establish a necess try connection between
the created mind and the divine vision, a connection that would be
absolutely ruinous for the gratuitousness of the supsernatural.
Such is moreover the ultimate point of Fr. Le Giuillous criticism, at the
start and at the end of the journey: the dangerous affirmation by Henri de
26 Ibid., 235.
22 Ibid., 238.
28 Ibid., 239.
29 Ibid., 227.
30 Ibid., 242.
31 Tk:a n/,n
G J54 SURNATUREL

Lubac of a necessary, objective link between the structure of the human

spirit and the divine vision,32 of a connection of necessity between the
nature of the spirit and the beatific vision.33 For Le Guillou, the natural
desire to see God can arrive at only the possibility, not the necessity, of the
supernatural, without telling us anything about the concrete realization of
this appeal. For de Lubac, on the contrary, from the fact of this necessity
experienced from below, this desire leads us to postulate the reality of the
divine gift. Put another way, the realization of this gratuitous gift is no
longer only wished for and awaited in an indeterminate way, but is neces
sarily required in its supernatural specificity. Only the concept of pure
nature, with its combination of proper finality and of constant surpassing,
permits one to avoid requiring the real supernatural without suppressing
the awaiting of the desired and gratuitous supernatural.
Limitations
The perspectives put forth by Marie-Joseph Le Guillou undoubtedly open
the way to one principle of a solution. Allow us, however, to highlight two
of its limitations.
On the one hand, it is not certain that the point of his critique could
be received by Henri de Lubac into the actual framework of his thinking.
De Lubac takes care to say over and over again that nature, from his stand
point, is itself a gratuitous gift, so that no one could suspect him of hold
ing that the supernatural is required. For Fr. de Lubac, there is no
necessity or requirement that is not already divine in its source and not
merely in its fulfillment. The real questionwhich Marie-Joseph Le Guil
lou only suggests, although it is a major one is to know how this concep
tion of nature as a gift of grace can preserve the difference between old
creation and new creation.34
On the other hand, it does not seem to us that Fr. Le Guillous
Thomistic exegesis succeeds in getting rid of all the aporias in the texts of
St. Thomas. According to Le Guillou, the natural desire for God can be
directed only at the vision of the divine essence as first cause, as beatitude
in communi, and not at understanding God in his proper substance, as the
specific beatitude of the blessed in the light of glory.33 Now, unquestion
32 Ibid., 227.
33 Ibid., 241.
34 On this subject see Georges Cottier, Le desir naturel de voir Dieu, 41: To absorb
the gratuitousness peculiar to grace and to the supernatural into the radical gratu
itousness of the creation is a ruinous mistake. .. . The gifts bestowed by the infinite
Good are not all equivalent: natural goods, including those of intellectual natures,
in no way entail by themselves an entitlement to the gift of the divine relationship.
35 Le Guillou, 233-34: The rational creature aspires to the vision of the essence of
the first cause, but we need snnernaniral heir. In
 T ra d i t i on a l T ho mi sm ' 5>

ably St. Thomas goes further by speaking of a natural desire, the full satis
faction of which the blessed possess concretely.*36 How do we explain then
that in speaking of the same concrete end, this blessed vision in the lumen
gloriae, St. Thomas can sometimes affirm that it is ti e object of a desiderium
naturale, and sometimes affirm that it surpasses r ot only all knowledge,
but also all desire of human nature left to itself?37
The solution to this exegetical aporia is to be sc ught not in a difference
in the formal object of this desire (beatitude in cvmmuni or beatitude in
se), but in the two possible meanings of the concept of desire, according to
whether we understand this desire either as a meta] >hysical and ontological
appetitein which case it is directed naturally at ti le vision of Godor as
an elicited, conscious and deliberate actin which case it can be directed
only at the beatific vision of God under the influence of supernatural grace.
In fact, St. Thomas talks of a natural desire for bea itude in se, as the direct
vision of the divine essence, but he understands by this not a concrete act,
conscious and specifically determined, but an unconscious finality, onto-
logically inscribed in our nature, which is the imag: of God. Despite a very
keen perception of the elements, apparently divergent, which constitute the
basis of the Thomist position, Fr. Le Guillou still does not succeed in
accounting for their profound unity. To arrive at the distinction between
these levels of the concept of desire, we will have to wait some fifteen years
for Jorge Laportas meticulous and almost always convincing analyses.38
and to love God in Himself, the natural desire is only directed in a precise manner
at the vision of the essence of the first cause materiaiiter or sub ratione communi,
and not in its specificity.
36 STl, q. 12, a. 1: There is in man a natural desire to know the cause when he sees
the effect; and from this arises wonder among men. If therefore the intellect of the
rational creature could not reach the first cause of flings, the desire of nature
would remain unfulfilled. Hence it must be absolutely conceded that the blessed
see the essence of God; Summa contra Gentiles, Book III, ch. 51: Since it is
impossible that a natural desire be frustrated, which would happen if we could not
arrive at the understanding of the divine substance th it all minds naturally desire,
it is therefore necessary to affirm that it is possible to see the divine substance by
way of the intelligence.
37 See St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 14, a. 2: There is a twofold ultimate good for man
(duplex bonum ultimum) which, as ultimate end, is at the beginning of the wills
moving. One of them is proportionate to human nature (proportionatum naturae
humanae), for natural forces suffice for its attainment; . . . the other is a good that
surpasses the proportion of human nature, for natural forces are not sufficient to
obtain it, or for conceiving it or desiring it (nec adcogittndum veldesiderandum), but
it is from the divine liberality alone that it is promised to man according to 1 Cor
2:9: Things beyond our seeing, etc.
38 Jorge Laporta, Pour trouver le sens exact des termes: tppetitus naturalis, desiderium
naturale, amor naturalis, etc. chez Thomas dAquin, Archives d histoire doctrinale et
An C 1 0 7 5 V on ck
 SURNATUREL
d *

Conclusion
1. We wished to show both the pertinence and the ambiguity of the
notion of traditional Thomism. Its pertinence stems from the fact
that our three authors converge in the way they critique Henri de
Lubac from the standpoint of a certain Thomistic tradition, namely,
the attachment to the concept of pure nature, and more pro
foundly to the complementary duality of the notions of a natural
order and a supernatural order. No one will doubt that a common
metaphysical basis explains this unity.
But the ambiguity is still more evident, as found in the criteria
that draw together our authors as their views intersect.
Charles Boyer, like Rosaire Gagnebet one-sidedly attached to the
defense of the natural order, firmly resists the renewed light that Fr. de
Lubac brings to bear on an obscured part of the Thomist heritage, that
of the natural desire for the beatific vision and the underlying religious
anthropology. From this point of view, Marie-Joseph Le Guillou man
ifests a real openness to this particular aspect of the return to the
sources, so characteristic of the theological renewals of the twentieth
century. One is hardly surprised, then, to find Boyer and Gagnebet in
the same fortress, or rampart, in contrast to Le Guillou as a renovat
ing exponent of a more progressive Thomism, open to historical crit
icism and to contemporary religious questionings.
However, the two Dominicans, Gagnebet and Le Guillou, share an
attachment to the teaching of St. Thomas as foundational and norma
tive. When it comes to shedding light on a theological question, both
endeavor first and foremost to scrutinize the texts of St. Thomas
almost exclusively. From these they draw the fundamental principles
or, in the words of Le Guillou, the structural givens, governing the
solution of the problem studied.39 Certainly, an important gap sepa
rates their ways of reading the texts and of putting to work the histor
ical method. There is no doubt that in this regard Fr. Gagnebet
exhibits an uncritical partiality, governed by prejudices foreign to St.
Thomas. Yet, in principle and by method, they both start out from
this unifying source, the teaching of St. Thomas, to extract from it a
theological intelligibility of lasting value.
Inverselyand supposing that this comparison is not too per
ilous both Jesuits, Boyer and Lubac, refer to St. Thomas as to a
preferred authority, of course, but neither as foundational nor as
truly normative. Even if it means reading him in radically contradic
tory ways one is attached to the idea of pure nature, the other to
39 Le Guillou, 240.
 T r a d i t i o n a l T ho m i s m <*57:

that of natural desire they have recourse to iim as an eminent but

not unifying witness to Catholic tradition, a witness who supports
theses drawn from elsewhere.
A natively and constitutively Thomist doc final identity or simply
a more or less privileged reference to St. Tho mas? This is a criterion
of discernment that historians of Thomism siould explore in order
better to delimit the cleavages internal to the great family of
Thomists. It is this line of study that Michel Fourcade has begun to
develop by distinguishing two kinds of re;a dings of St. Thomass
thought: on the one hand, Mari tains doctrin al Thomism, devised
from St. Thomass own thinking and from his tradition; on the other
hand, the referential Thomism of Blondel, who uses St. Thomas in
the service of his own system by assimilating him to it instead of
assimilating it to him.
2. Henri de Lubac, by means of a thesis broadly grounded in the patris
tic and medieval tradition and undergirded by a solid historical eru
dition, has aided the reinvigoration of a :o rmative principle of
Christian, and therefore Thomist, anthropology, that of a human
nature capax Dei, ontologically oriented toward the beatific vision.
In this way, even if such was not his primary intention, he has con
tributed to drawing Thomism closer to its at thentic sources.
But his reading of St. Thomas, reduced to the univocity of this
sole thesis, manifested a partiality not in co iformity with the texts
and doctrinal balance of St. Thomas. Thus ii provoked diverse reac
tions on the part of the inheritors of the Thomist tradition. While
locking some of them in the seemingly contrary, and no less
Thomist, thesis that of the proper constitu :ion of a nature capable
by itself of straining toward God, but not proportionate to the
elicited desire for the divine visionit has led others better to per
ceive the integrating complexity of the St. Thomass thinking, and
thus its always active fecundity. Nor have th e critics of Fr. de Lubac
labored in vain, for, with more or less lucidity they have prevented a
new narrowing from being substituted for the older ones.
It is one of the grandeurs of St. Thom as that his unparalleled
unity cannot let itself be reduced to a the:;is that is too univocal.
Thus, truly traditional Thomism always looks ahead, toward an out
pouring ceaselessly renewed by the thousand potentialities of its
source. That is why it is worthwhile to cal oneself truly Thomist,
without the risk of partiality or sclerosis. Per:laps that is also why the
Church does not have two common doctors.