Maurice Blondel

Robert C. Koerpel

Description

During the past few decades there has been renewed interest in the twentieth-century French Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) and his influence on modern and contemporary theology, but little scholarship has been published in the English-speaking world. In Maurice Blondel: Transforming Catholic Tradition, Robert Koerpel examines Blondel’s work, the historical and theological development of the idea of tradition in modern Catholicism, tradition’s relation to reason and revelation, and Blondel's influence on Catholicism's understanding of tradition. The book presents aspects of Blondel's thought that deserve to be more widely known and contributes to important debates in current theology on modern French Catholic thought and the emerging conversations surrounding them. Koerpel looks to the cultural context from which Blondel’s thought emerges by situating it within the broader conceptual, historical, and theological developments of modernity. He examines the problem of reason and revelation in modern Catholicism, the role and nature of tradition, and the relationships between theology and history, truth and change, nature and grace, and scripture and the development of doctrine.

This book provides readers with an appreciation of Blondel’s conceptually creative answer to how tradition represents the Word of God in human history and why it is one of his most important contributions to modern and contemporary theology. They will discover how his contribution restores the animated vitality between the institutional and liturgical dimensions of tradition essential to the living, dynamic nature of Catholicism.

Blondel's notion of tradition in History and Dogma is, among many other things, an attempt to develop Catholicism in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The Revolution had destroyed the French education system and when Napoleon reorganized it he decreed in 1808 that all schools of the university take the precepts of Catholicism as the basis of their teaching. At the same time, he created a state monopoly on all levels of education in France by placing the education system under the auspices of the Minister of Public Instruction, setting the stage for future conflict between the Catholic Church and the public education system. Throughout the various regimes and governments of the nineteenth century French higher education continued to deteriorate, and the conflict between public (secular) and Catholic education escalated. By the end of the nineteenth century the power the Catholic Church wielded over important French cultural and educational institutions had waned, as a consequence of the concerted effort by anti-clerical forces within the French Third Republic (1870-1940). Anti-clerical French politicians of the Third Republic viewed Catholic education as divisive, fostering distrust of the republican government and promoting divided loyalties between church and state among French citizens that was toxic to national unity. During the 1880s tension between the Catholic Church and the Third Republic intensified when the government of Jules Ferry forcibly closed religious houses, expelled religious orders from the country, and abolished by law faculties of Catholic theology in the Université de France. As part of the educational reforms of the Third Republic, zealous anti-clerical republicans supported scholars in France’s secular universities conversant with and sympathetic to critical methods of scholarship. Such unwritten policies afforded anti-clerical republicans the opportunity to tout vicariously the republican platform, while simultaneously advancing the anti-Catholic policies put forward during the Third Republic. At the end of the nineteenth century many Catholics saw the French university system as a demonic means employed to de-Christianize French society. This situation in France increasingly complicated the lives of Catholic intellectuals, many of whom found themselves in the unfortunate position of having to balance the competing interests of republican policies, often stridently anti-Catholic, with the doctrinal claims of and loyalty to the church.

In an effort to come to terms with Catholicism's new political status within French culture, society and the Republic, tradition took on a new significance in the life of modern French Catholicism. It was objectified as the means to conserving a threatened heritage. Tradition was, Alexander Dru notes, focused on conserving the clearly defined object: the 'deposit of faith'. From this perspective of tradition the transmission of tradition was viewed in impersonal and highly mechanized terms that were less concerned with the process by which tradition was passed on and more focused on what was handed down.

The theo-political setting for French Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides an important historical and social context for Blondel's notion of tradition, radical at the time, as a non-textual "living synthesis." The non-textual nature of tradition as a living synthesis meant that it relied on texts but at the same time it relied on something else, on an "experience always in act" which "presents the conscious mind with elements previously held back in the depths of faith and practiced, rather than expressed, systematized or reflected upon." What is more, it always has "to teach something new because it transforms what is implicit and 'enjoyed' into something explicit and known." What is the something new that tradition has to teach us? And how does it transform what is implicit and enjoyed into something explicit?

To begin, the notion of the implicit belongs to the fundamental principle at work in Blondel's philosophy that the life of action is the privileged site of human understanding. Blondel would develop and modify this principle over time. "Lived experience" ("living experience" or "la réalité réelle") and the life of action are the framework within which we find Blondel throughout his work distinguishing human agency, action, experience, ontology, prospective knowledge, practical science, the pneumatic, the "implicitly lived," and real knowledge from reflection, logic, reflective knowledge, retrospection, science of practice, the noetic, the "expressly known," and notional knowledge during the cognitive act and unifying them later in the process of human understanding.

(excerpted from chapter 7)

Acknowledgements

1. The Development of Blondel's Philosophical and Theological Thought

2. Blondel's Ecclesiological and Theological Inheritance: Tradition from the Late Medieval through the Post-Tridentine Periods

3. The Problem of Representation, Scripture, the Rise of Modern Thomism, and Blondel's Response

4. Tradition, History, and the Intellectual Life of Nineteenth-Century Catholicism: The Methodological Conflict between Blondel and Loisy

5. Mapping the Soul's Journey Toward Truth: Blondel's Philosophy of Action between Faith and Reason

6. Tradition in History and Dogma: Blondel and the Problem of Theology and History in Modern Catholicism

7. After History and Dogma: Tradition as Participation in God's Truth

8. Blondel and the Sacramentality of Human Rationality

Bibliography

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy
• Roman Catholicism in France
• Catholic
• Christianity
• History

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268104801
• Langue: English

Extrait

MAURICE BLONDEL
Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology
Jeffrey Bloechl and Kevin Hart, series editors
Philosophy is provoked and enriched by the claims of faith in a revealed God. Theology is stimulated by its contact with the philosophy that proposes to investigate the full range of human experience. At the threshold where they meet, there inevitably arises a discipline of reciprocal interrogation and the promise of mutual enhancement. The works in this series contribute to that discipline and that promise.
Maurice Blondel

Transforming Catholic Tradition
ROBERT C. KOERPEL
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
Copyright © 2019 by University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Portions of this text have appeared elsewhere by the author in different form and are used with permission: “Between History and Dogma : On the Spirit of Tradition in the Demands and Limitations of Modernity,” New Blackfriars 95, no. 1055 (2014): 3–20. © 2013 the author. New Blackfriars © 2013 the Dominican Council. “Blondel’s L’Action : The Liturgy between Two Worlds,” The Heythrop Journal 52, no. 3 (2011): 430–44. © 2011 the author. The Heythrop Journal © 2011 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. “Maurice Blondel and the Sacramentality of Human Rationality” The Heythrop Journal 59, no. 5 (2018): 804–16. © 2016 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. “Tradition, Truth, and Time: Remarks on the ‘Liturgical Action’ of the Church,” in The Hermeneutics of Tradition: Explorations and Examinations , edited by Craig Hovey and Cyrus P. Olsen (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014; used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers, www.wipfandstock.com ).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Koerpel, Robert C., author.
Title: Maurice Blondel : transforming Catholic tradition / Robert C. Koerpel.
Description: Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. |
Series: Thresholds in philosophy and theology | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043819 (print) | LCCN 2018044786 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268104795 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268104801 (epub) | ISBN 9780268104771 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268104778 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Modernism (Christian theology)—Catholic Church. | Catholic Church—Doctrines. | Tradition (Theology) | Blondel, Maurice, 1861–1949.
Classification: LCC BX1396 (ebook) | LCC BX1396 .K64 2018 (print) | DDC 230/.2092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043819
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
To Catherine D.
Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
— David Foster Wallace , This Is Water
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE The Development of Blondel’s Philosophical and Theological Thought
TWO Blondel’s Ecclesiological and Theological Inheritance: Tradition from the Late Medieval through the Post-Tridentine Periods
THREE The Problem of Representation, Scripture, the Rise of Modern Thomism, and Blondel’s Response
FOUR Tradition, History, and the Intellectual Life of Nineteenth-Century Catholicism: The Methodological Conflict between Blondel and Loisy
FIVE Mapping the Soul’s Journey toward Truth: Blondel’s Philosophy of Action between Faith and Reason
SIX Tradition in History and Dogma : Blondel and the Problem of Theology and History in Modern Catholicism

SEVEN After History and Dogma : Tradition as Participation in God’s Truth
EIGHT Blondel and the Sacramentality of Human Rationality
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Even though the writing of this book was a solitary affair that took place in the sequestered privacy of my office, it was sustained, nourished, and enriched by countless acts of self-sacrifice, patience, generosity, and friendship from many people. The book came into its final form in the last five years, but many of the issues it explores I began thinking about years before, during the late-night philosophical and theological discussions I had with Micah Cavaleri at our favorite Irish pub. I remember fondly these conversations stirring within me an intellectual inquisitiveness that remains to this day. I am grateful to him for our friendship.
The initial draft of this book was my doctoral thesis written in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America under the benevolent supervision of Brian V. Johnstone, C.Ss.R. If there is a pastoral model for doctoral supervision, Brian is it. His unassuming manner was a breath of fresh air in a school that was at the time ideologically polarized, hemorrhaging faculty, and in need of intellectual and theological renewal. As one might expect, Brian made many valuable suggestions and revisions to both the form and content of the thesis. His wise counsel, diplomatic skill, and steady hand guided the thesis through the school’s notoriously bureaucratic process to its defense. I must also gratefully acknowledge Chad Pecknold, who read, commented on, and supported the thesis.
This book has benefited from a number of friendships. Jeff McCurry unbegrudgingly read and revised more pages in this book than any friend should be asked to read. Our friendship has improved this book considerably, and has made me a better writer and thinker. I count as a great blessing my friendships with Will T. Cohen, Julie Schumacher Cohen, Dave Cloutier, and Jay Carney that continue to enrich my life. I am grateful for the many discussions I have had at various times with Brad Klingele, Brendan Sammon, Matt Hoven, Max Engel, Nathan Lefler, and Annie Hounsokou. All of them, often in implicit and indiscernible ways, have helped me refine my thoughts about many issues I examine in this book. At points throughout the writing of this book, Annie Hounsokou and Charles Rochas have been kind enough to translate for me some of Blondel’s complicated French prose.
I can’t think of a better academic home to have written the final draft of this book than from within the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas. I am grateful to all my colleagues in the Theology Department for their collegiality. I must thank Bernie Brady for keeping me employed for the past several years, and for his support and encouragement of my teaching and scholarship. I owe a special debt to my colleagues Mark McInroy, Mike Hollerich, Paul Gavrilyuk, Phil Rolnick, Paul Niskanen, and Barb Sain, all of whom read, commented, and discussed various chapters of the book with me. Mary Reichardt from the Center for Faculty Development spent hours helping me sharpen my prose and clarify the ideas in the book. Were it not for Mary’s editorial wisdom and diligent copyediting skills, this book might have remained unpublished.
I also want to thank Matthew Levering, Lewis Ayres, John Thiel, Francesca Murphy, and David L. Schindler for their encouragement and support. At different stages of writing the book, all of them have been generous with their time in reading, reviewing, and commenting on the entire book or chapters. I wish to thank Jeffrey Bloechl and Kevin Hart for their support of the book, the three anonymous reviewers, and the editorial board and staff at the University of Notre Dame Press, particularly Stephen Little, Matthew Dowd, Wendy McMillen, and copyeditor Scott Barker. My many thanks to Keanu Daley for his help with the index.
Finally, my family has supported me in numerous ways throughout the writing of this book. In terms of moral support, I owe much to my in-laws, Michael and Annette Cullen. I am lucky to be counted among the few who think highly of their parents-in-law and find their in-laws’ presence encouraging and heartening. I am immensely grateful to my mother, Catherine M. Koerpel, for her generosity, spiritual and material support, and affection for us. I admire and marvel at the ease with which she expresses her unconditional love for me and my family. My three children, Ailish, Niamh, and Eamon, have provided my life with more meaning and filled it with more joy than I could have ever imagined. Their wit, sense of humor, and our laughter together continue to save me from taking myself too seriously. I dedicate this book to my lovely wife, Catherine D. Koerpel, who has nourished and deepened my life in untold ways. Without reservation, she has willingly sacrificed her time and comfort for me while I wrote this book. Our life together is a source of great joy and delight in my life. Her persistent patience consoles, encourages, and reminds me on a daily basis of God’s subtle and unobtrusive presence in my life.
Introduction
As strange as it may seem, “tradition” is an elusive term. Perhaps we are so deeply formed by the plurality of traditions we embody in the twenty-first century that we take their meanings for granted. Or maybe when we consider what tradition means, we discover it is a concept too rich in meaning to have any at all. The evasive and pervasive presence of tradition in human experience creates the unique challenge of articulating its meaning with precision. For those interested in Roman Catholicism, the task is complicated by virtue of the distinct theological significance it accords to tradition. Although all Christian denominations proclaim scripture to be the divinely revealed Word of God, Roman Catholicism distinguishes itself by teaching that scripture and tradition constitute, in the words of the Second Vatican Council’s “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” ( Dei verbum ), a “single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church.” 1 The distinctive and signif