To Stir a Restless Heart: Thomas Aquinas and Henri de Lubac on Nature, Grace, and the Desire for God (Thomistic Ressourcement Series)

To Stir a Restless Heart tells for the first time the story of how Thomas Aquinas conversed with his contemporaries about the dynamics of human nature's longing for God, and documents how he deliberately utilized Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin sources to develop a version of Aristotelian natural desire that was uniquely Augustinian: natural desire seeks the complete fulfillment of human nature "insofar as is possible," and so comes to rest in the highest end that God offers to it. Depending on whether God offers the free gift of grace to humanity, one and the same natural desire can come to rest in knowing God through creatures or seeing God directly. Tracing the reception of Aquinas in the centuries that follow, Jacob Wood argues that Aquinas's student from among the Augustinian Hermits, Giles of Rome, consciously transformed Aquinas's understanding of human nature. By insisting that every nature has a positive aptitude for one, specific end, Giles tied our natural desire positively and directly to the vision of God, setting up a 700-year challenge among the Augustinian Hermits to explain the integrity of a nature with a supernatural end, as well as the gratuity of the grace which perfects it. Showing how de Lubac's early discovery of that tradition served as a principal source for his "natural desire for a supernatural end," To Stir a Restless Hear t argues that many recent criticisms of de Lubac's theological anthropology find ready answers among the Augustinian Hermits, but that a renewed understanding of Aquinas's Augustinianism offers a more complete way forward: it preserves Aristotle's commitment to the integrity of human nature, de Lubac's commitment to the transcendence of human perfection, and Augustine's insistence on the priority and gratuity of divine grace in the work of redemption. Contents 8 List of Figures and Tables 12 Acknowledgments 14 Abbreviations 16 Introduction: To Stir a Restless Heart 20 Augustine's Desire for Happiness 20 The Thomistic Tradition's Natural Desire for God 34 Henri de Lubac's Natural Desire for a Supernatural End 41 A Thirteenth-Century Resolution? 48 Notes about the Text 54 1. The Parisian Conversation (1231–1252) 56 Theology at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century 56 Twelfth-Century Latin Augustinianism: Peter Lombard 62 The Rise of Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition 69 Latin Aristotelian-Augustinianism: Philip the Chancellor 83 Latin Avicennian-Augustinianism 94 Richard Rufus 95 William of Auvergne 102 The Summa fratris Alexandri 109 Latin Averroistic-Augustinianism 119 Roger Bacon 119 Albert the Great 124 A Mid-Thirteenth-Century Synthesis: Bonaventure of Bagnoregio 137 Conclusion 151 2. Thomas's First Parisian Period (1252–1259) 155 Thomas's Encounter with the Parisian Conversation 155 The Commentary on the Sentences 160 Nature 160 Grace 168 The Desire for God 171 Theological Challenges 175 De veritate 205 Nature and Grace 206 The Natural Desire for God 211 Theological Challenges 215 Conclusion 219 3. Orvieto (1259/61–1265) 223 The Literal Commentary on Job 225 The Summa contra Gentiles 230 Nature 231 Grace 233 Natural Desire 235 The Natural Desire for God 240 The Natural Desire for the Vision of God 245 Conclusion 262 4. Rome (1265–1268) 266 Quaestiones disputatae de potentia 270 Quaestiones disputatae de anima 278 Sententia libri De anima 284 Quaestiones disputatae de spiritualibus creaturis 294 The Summa theologiae, Prima pars 297 Nature and Grace 297 Natural Desire 305 The Natural Desire for the Vision of God 310 Conclusion 314 5. Thomas's Second Parisian Period (1268–1272) 318 Sententia libri Physicorum 321 De unitate intellectus 325 The Condemnation of 1270 and the De malo 327 The Summa theologiae, Prima secundae (1271) 344 Natural Desire 345 The Natural Desire for the Vision of God 350 Nature and Grace 360 Theological Solutions from the Secunda secundae 367 Conclusion 371 6. Henri de Lubac and the Thomistic Tradition 376 Giles of Rome 377 John Duns Scotus 392 Tommaso de Vio "Cajetan" 399 Francisco Suárez 409 The Aegidian Tradition 418 Henri de Lubac 423 De Lubac's Early Work 423 Surnaturel 425 "Duplex hominis beatitudo" and "Le mystère du surnaturel" 428 Humani Generis and "The Twins" 434 Conclusion 442 De Lubac's Relationship to the Thomistic Tradition 443 Toward the Reconciliation of the Nature/Grace Debate 447 Commentatorial Objections 450 Lubacian Objections 453 Bibliography 458 Index 478 __To Stir a Restless Heart____To Stir a Restless Hear__