Natura Pura: A Concept for the New Evangelization

Theological Research ■ volume 2 (2014) number 1 ■ p. 53–65 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15633/thr.678 Christopher M. Seiler Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Natura Pura: A Concept for the New Evangelization Abstract This article explores the concept of Natura Pura. It addresses its aspects both from the point of Scholastic thought as seen especially in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas. It also addresses the metaphysical question in relation to the thought of Aquinas and Henri de Lucbac. Keywords new evangelization, Supernatural, human nature, natura pura, Thomas Aquinas, Henri de Lubac. 54 Christopher M. Seiler For in me, a real and personal human being, in my concrete nature – that nature I have in common with all real men, to judge by what faith teaches me, and regardless of what is or is not revealed to me either by reflective analysis or by reasoning – the desire to see God cannot be permanently frustrated without an essential suffering.1 So writes Henri de Lubac in his 1965 work The Mystery of the Supernatural. This argument is key to his epochal jeremiad against the established understanding of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. The scholastic tradition depended upon a concept of natura pura to elucidate the completely gratuitous nature of God’s grace to man. De Lubac spent a lifetime fighting against this theory claiming that such a concept was totally unhelpful because such a pure nature has never existed. In fact, as seen in the quote above, he insists that human nature cannot be understood in abstraction from its supernatural finality. As he says: “God’s call is constitutive.”2 This, de Lubac argues, is the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the tradition of natura pura is that of the baroque scholastics, especially Cajetan, whom Gilson – writing to de Lubac – called the corruptorium Thomae.3 Yet, is this true? Is man, as he exists historically, only able to be understood as having a supernatural finality? Does such a thing as “natura pura” have any coherence, or is it just a chimera of the decadent centuries after the Council of Trent? Studying Saint Thomas’ texts concerning the various historical states of nature, I hope to show that de Lubac’s reading of Aquinas is a bit too simple. Human nature – I argue – can be, and by Aquinas is, understood in abstraction from the call to supernatural beatitude, and in fact such a “pure” concept of nature is actually necessary for theological knowledge of the first Adam, the second Adam, and all those who come in between. Human nature exists only in the concrete and it has a history. The historicity of man is a modern concept,4 however it is a reality that Aquinas understood. Jean-Pierre Torrell has written a magisterial 1 2 3 4 H. de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, New York 1967, p. 69–70. H. de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, p. 70. E. Gilson, Letters of Etienne Gilson to Henri de Lubac, San Francisco 1988, p. 24. B. Lonergan, The Transition from a Classicist Worldview to Historical-Mindedness, in: A Second Collection, London 1974, p. 1–9. Natura Pura… article5 on Aquinas’ teaching on the various historical states of human nature. We will treat four different existential states: Adam before the fall, man after the fall, the God-man, Jesus Christ, and redeemed man. Saint Thomas teaches that man was created in grace.6 This truth of faith7 was much controverted in the 12th and 13th centuries. Such greats as Albert and Bonaventure held the opposing position. They believed that man was first created in a purely natural state and only consequently was he elevated to a supernatural level.8 However, Thomas espouses the opposite position from the very beginning of his career.9 He insists that man was created in a state of innocence or original justice that included the gifts of both nature and grace. He analyzes at length in what such a state consisted. In the Compendium Theologiae he says, “Man in his creation was shaped by God in such a way that his body was absolutely subject to his soul, the lower powers willingly subject to reason, and reason itself subject to God…of these three things, the last was the cause of the other two.”10 The supernatural gift of sanctifying grace in man was the cause of the perfect ordering of his nature. In a sense, this original state of man is “natural”11 to him since it was God’s intention for man to exist in supernatural relation with Him. However, while Saint Thomas believes that man was created in grace, he does not exclude the possibility that it could have been otherwise. He states explicitly, following a common tradition, that man (and angels) could have been created in pura naturalia.12 Pura naturalia is used by Aquinas to define that which man could do with only the goods of nature as opposed to his capabilities with the gratuita, the goods of grace.13 This notion is not the same as that of natura pura, 5 J. P. Torrell, Nature and Grace in Thomas Aquinas, in: S. T. Bonino (ed.) Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought, Ave Maria 2009, p. 155–188. 6 ST I.95.1. 7 Council of Trent, Sessio V, DZ 1511. 8 Torrell, “Nature and Grace”, 158 quoting Bonaventure, In II Sent, d. 29, a. 2, q. 2. 9 Cf. In II Sent, d 29. q. 1 a. 2. Cited by Torrell, “Nature and Grace”, 160–1. 10 Compendium Theologiae I,186. Cited by Torrell, “Nature and Grace”, 163–4. 11 This is in fact the third “bonum naturae” that Aquinas believes Adam possessed. He treats this when speaking about the effect of original sin on man’s nature in ST I.II.85.1. “Bonum natura potest tripliciter dici…” 12 Cf. Torrell, “Nature and Grace”, 168–169 for the relevant citations. 13 This distinction comes up in Aquinas’ questions about whether or not man could love God above all things with a purely natural love. Thomas Osborne has written 55 56 Christopher M. Seiler which will develop in the 16th century, but it does serve a somewhat similar purpose, namely, to draw out “a concept of nature that has its autonomy in relation to grace.”14 Aquinas also distinguishes in this state of innocence what he calls “integral nature.”15 As Torrell defines it, integral nature, “designates the state of Adam before the fall, hence in possession of the privileges with which God endowed him at the moment of his creation, but abstracting from sanctifying grace.”16 This integral nature is set against natura corrupta, which is the concept that Thomas uses when speaking of man’s state after the fall. Natura integra (including the perfect ordering of the lower appetites to the higher) as it was in Adam before his sin enabled him to “do the good connatural to him.”17 This includes all the goods of the acquired virtues – including, for example, right relationship to God established by the virtue of religion.18 Adam’s integral nature has as its end that which Aquinas defines as connatural and proportionate.19 Thomas in so doing is affirming the autonomy and integrity of the natural (...truncated)