Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion

Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion is a translation of two of Maurice Blondel’s essays. Blondel’s thinking played a significant role in the deliberations and arguments of the Second Vatican Council.

Although a towering figure in the history of twentieth-century Catholic thought, the later systematic works of Maurice Blondel have been largely inaccessible in the English-speaking world. Oliva Blanchette, who previously translated Blondel’s early groundbreaking work Action (1893), now offers the first English translation of the final work Blondel himself signed off on the day before he died, Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion. This work of transition from mere philosophy to a consideration of Christian religion consists of two main essays, The Christian Sense and the shorter On Assimilation, followed by a Reconsideration and Global View and an Appendix: Clarifications and Admonitions written in answer to an inquiry by a young scholar about method.

The first essay explores the Christian sense of the spiritual life and how Christian religion, even as supernatural, can come under the purview of critical philosophy. The second essay examines the move from analogy to assimilation in speaking of the Christian life. Blondel tackles the question: How does the human spirit combine with the divine spirit in such a way that neither is lost in the process?

Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion is critical for understanding Blondel’s thought. This high-quality translation and Blanchette’s concise preface will appeal not only to philosophers and theologians but also to spiritual writers and directors of spiritual retreats in the Ignatian and Jesuit traditions.

Translator's Introduction

Part 1. The Christian Sense

Foreword

Introduction

1. The Historical Aspect: What is Specific About It in Christian Religion

2. The Intellectual Aspect: And the Permanent Unity of the Christian Spirit

3. The Internal Proofs and the Spiritually Vivifying Aspect of Christian Religion

4. Is it Possible to Define the Christian Spirit by Resolving It Back to a Principle of Essential Unity?

5. On the Enabling Method for Acceding to the Domain Where Lives the Indissoluble Unity of the Christian Spirit

6. The Catholic Unity

7. The Inventions of Charity and the Supernatural

8. The Destiny Offered and Imposed on Man

9. Synthetic Exploration and Progressive March Starting from the Generative Idea of Christian Religion

10. Unity of the Work of Creation for the External Glory of God through Supernatural Elevation

11. The Conditions for Realizing the Divine Plan for Surmounting the Difficulty of Uniting Two Incommensurables, the Creator and the Creature: on the one hand, the Invention of Divine Charity to Cross the Abyss through the “Verbum Caro Factum” [the Word Made Flesh] and the Hypostatic Union; on the other hand, the Testing Imposed on Man by the Transformative Union.

12. The Doctrine of the Supernatural Considered under its Triple Metaphysical, Ascetic and Mystical Aspect

13. How the Order of Grace Completes the Natural Order and Forms with it in Us a Life and a Personality that is Truly One

14. The Union of Nature and Supernature in the Practical Order Itself

15. The Philosophical Problem of Sanctity

16. The Proof of Christian Religion through the Idea and the Word itself: of Catholicism

17. The Character of Apostolicity in Catholicism

Conclusion

Part 2. On Assimilation as Fulfillment and Transposition of the Theory of Analogy

Foreword

1. Twofold Traditional Sense of the Word “Assimilation”

2. Getting Beyond the Metaphors That Risk Masking the True Problem

3. Is the Issue One of a Simple Ideal Participation or Do We Have to Conceive of a Truly Vital Participation?

4. Irreplaceable Role of a Laborious Trial of Parturition for the “New Birth”

5. Paradox of the Tribulations of the Just and Scandal of the Sufferings Judged According to Our Human Views

6. Supreme Objection: The Problem of Evil in Its Most Universal Form

7. The Only Appeasing Solution of an Assimilative Theogony by Way of Renunciation and Even Death

8. Exigencies of Divine Charity

Part 3. Reconsideration and Global View: Circumincession of the Problems and Unity of Perspectives

1. Twofold Inspiration of Our Inquiries

2. Objections and Contradictions through Which the Enlightened and Enlightening Way Is Opened

3. How Philosophical Thought Can Resolve the Enigma of Our Indeclinable Destiny

Part 4. Appendix: Clarifications and Admonitions

1. Remarks on Our Method of Implication against the Abuses of Abstractive and Constructive Methods

2. Some Precisions on Terminology

3. On the Relation between the Philosophical Trilogy and the Study on Philosophy and the Christian Spirit

4. Appeasing Clarities for Reason Projected by Revelation