Many readers of French Jesuit Henri de Lubac have been critical his manner of description of human nature. De Lubac’s central argument – that the telos of man is to be enfolded ultimately in the life of God, to move from what is natural towards what is supernatural – is not where the criticism brews. Rather, the controversy is much more narrow. Does Henri de Lubac propose an intrinsicist view of nature, suggesting that human beings already possess deep down the supernatural life? Thereby suggesting that the goal of man is to summon what they already possess? The debate over these rhetorical particularities is not at all frivolous — this issue is certainly worth dissecting because if de Lubac is proposing an intrinsicist model of human nature, then it would perhaps compromise to a meaningful degree the radical necessity of the divine life reaching down into our broken humanity and making it anew in grace.
However, a thorough re-reading of de Lubac shows how he deliberately discusses nature in contrast to the supernatural, which by design firmly separates the two. What brings them together though, in de Lubac’s mind, is the divinely ordained vocation of human nature to assume the supernatural. Throughout his writing, he uses vocational language to argue how human nature is called to enter into the divine life because human nature lacks exactly that. And it is this divine life that makes human nature born anew and made what it is supposed to be. This focus on vocation suggests that the supernatural is not inherent to human nature, as all vocation necessitates a change of state. Human nature is called to overcome itself and the perilous stain of sin to become something else, something fuller, and ultimately become enfolded into the fuller life of the divine.
Perhaps one reason why many are quick to critique de Lubac is because he is generous in his description of the accessibility of the supernatural. In very outset of A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, he states plainly that just like the ideas of Creation, the concept of revelation, and the necessity of the Church, the supernatural is “present everywhere”.1 This initial description is quite proliferous – wouldn’t the term “everywhere” suggest that it is present within human nature? But no argument is sufficiently elaborated in the first dozen pages, so therefore we must read much more broadly to extract more precisely on how de Lubac contrasts human nature and the supernatural.
De Lubac himself admits that the term “nature” is a loaded word that must be “employed judiciously”.2 Despite its myriad of applicable uses, he stresses that it must be used in a theological context alongside the term “supernatural”. This distinction is critical because it suggests complete and incomplete natures, and human beings possess by definition an incomplete nature when standing before the divine. He does not commonly use language of elevation or deification, which is more common in more traditional meditations on grace like Bernard of Clairveaux or Bonaventure. Rather, the focus for de Lubac is what human nature was made for, using a teleological angle to describe human nature. Our nature is teleologically oriented towards the divine life, and it is to fulfill itself that our nature assumes the supernatural. If he were using an intrincicist approach, the conclusion would instead be that human beings participate already in what they were made for, that they are caught up in the supernatural even before receiving the fundamental sacraments of Baptism or Eucharist.
A useful section that helps outline this issue is de Lubac’s section on the Church. Because the Church is ultimately not of the world but has institutional elements that bind it to the world, perhaps it may be a helpful gauge to distinguish what exactly is the difference between human nature and the supernatural. When considering the role of the Church, de Lubac makes it clear that the Church has a calling that is not found in the world. Otherwise, the Church would be distilled to one style of governance organizing individuals among many like governments or businesses. For de Lubac, the “irreplaceable mission” of the Church is to “remind us…of our divine supernatural vocation” and to repeatedly instill that mission into the hearts of the faithful.3 This focus on vocation is vital for a thorough reading of de Lubac because it conveys again the teleological angle of human nature towards a supernatural life that perfects it. The Church cannot be accurately described by how it appears on Earth as a hierarchical institution comprised of human beings because its foundation comes from the supernatural and because her mission is to bring the natural into the supernatural life that is not of the world. As de Lubac writes: “Every notion which tends to bring down the supernatural order to the level of nature tends…to mistake the Church for the world, to conceive of her after the model of human societies”.4 The Church is acutely aware that the supernatural is not inherent to mankind, which is why it is her chief duty to guide mankind into becoming enfolded into a more perfect life that is not of the world. If the Church is reduced into a hierarchical organization that organizes human beings in a manner not much unlike other hierarchical organizations that are of the world, she is deprived of this sacred duty that calls mankind into the essential pursuit of the divine life.
A critic attributing an intrinsic view upon de Lubac may point to another part of that same section, where de Lubac suggests that “our divine life” is “hidden” and must be drawn to the forefront. If the divine life is hidden within us, wouldn’t that suggest that the divine life is indeed intrinsic to our nature, since it is accessible within us? Perhaps, in isolation, criticism here is warranted, but all thorough reading of a text requires broader context. Throughout this section, de Lubac repeatedly uses the term “vocation” to describe the duty of the Church to unite with the divine life. Vocation in its essence requires a transition between states of being: If the divine life is already within us and intrinsic to our nature, then what exactly are we being called to? All vocation necessitates a transition from a non-divine life into the divine life, and when he suggests the divine life is “hidden” within us, he is suggesting more so that it is accessible and within our grasps.
A vocation must indicate an authentic change into a new state of being that was not previously the constitution of the former state. A young man answering a vocation into the priesthood is entering into a new life where he will become a new man. A bride and groom – formerly independent and autonomous – become something new when they become one flesh.5 In Genesis, God calls Abram into a new land where he will become Abraham and father a new nation: “Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). If the divine life is intrinsic to our nature, it would suggest that these vocations are awakenings of a nature already present, rather than an entrance into something fundamentally and radically new. In order to fully understand de Lubac, one must see how his description of human nature is rooted in this central theme of vocation, aruging that to be human is to be called into a new life in the divine.
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Cover art: “Abraham and the Angels”, by Chinese artist He Qi