Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence

Jordan Hillebert, "Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence"
English | ISBN: 0268108579 | 2021 | 310 pages | PDF | 11 MB
The French Jesuit Henri de Lubac was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. The publication of his Surnaturel in 1946, addressing the issue of the interrelation of nature and the supernatural, precipitated one of the most far-reaching theological debates of the century, culminating in a new historical, methodological, and theological consensus on the topic. And yet the question continues to be debated: How should de Lubac's position be understood? Although many have suggested that de Lubac saw human nature as always-already graced, in Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence, Jordan Hillebert advances a new reading of de Lubac's theology of the supernatural that is at variance with most prevailing interpretations. Through his analysis of how a "hermeneutics of human existence" pervades de Lubac's writings, Hillebert argues that, in de Lubac's theology, the relation between the human being and humanity's supernatural finality is best considered in terms of the "supernatural insufficiency of human nature." In this way, Hillebert demonstrates that de Lubac's theology of the supernatural offers a via media between neo-scholastic "extrinsicism" on the one hand and post-conciliar "intrinsicism" on the other.