Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Thought ed. by Gabriel Flynn, Paul D. Murray (review)

135 BOOK REVIEWS Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Thought. Edited by GABRIEL FLYNN and PAUL D. MURRAY, with the assistance of PATRICIA KELLY. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xx + 583. $125.00. ISBN 978-0-19-955287-0. This massive collection of essays will prove indispensable for anyone familiar with the English language who wishes to know, in depth and detail, the story of Catholic theology in recent times. And the surprising thing is, it will serve almost equally well those who want not so much to chronicle the past as to find inspiration now. That this text can simultaneously serve such different ends reflects the quality of much of the contributors’ thinking. But the editors must be allotted their fair share of the praise as well, not only for the competence with which they have selected these contributors, but also, and especially, for the comprehensiveness of their overall vision. Their roving eye takes in not only historic Modernism, itself a defective predecessor of the “new theology,” but also the Scholasticism that was ressourcement theology’s chief competitor—and yet also knew a “going back to the sources” in the historical St. Thomas himself. Their view ranges over not only the philosophical culture which gave this theological movement some of its characteristic preoccupations but also the relations with theology in other Christian traditions (specifically the Reformed and the Eastern Orthodox) to which it was indebted and which in turn it influenced (if, in the Protestant case, with less effect). Given the revisiting of a single overall theme from many angles, there is inevitably going to be some repetition in the narrative element. This is so most notably in the case of the difficulties involving Marie-Dominique Chenu’s manifesto for that celebrated school of theology, Le Saulchoir, and the events which led the Society of Jesus to sideline the person and publications of Henri de Lubac for a decade. Some will find rather out of place the treatments of Karl Rahner and Teilhard de Chardin who, by ressourcement criteria, are for the most part eccentrics even if each was also outstanding, respectively, in his conceptual and his imaginative power. But insofar as either was influenced by the patristic revival, at least in his early work (Rahner), or shows some sort of affinity to patristic thought or sensibility, albeit impressionistically (Teilhard), their inclusion is presumably justified. Certainly it testifies to the editorial desire to leave no stone unturned. In that perspective, an opening chapter on Jansenism, considered as a precursor to the neopatristic writers, is another case in point. Oddly, this essay does not consider the doctrinal crux of Jansenism in the theology of grace or pay much attention to the unilaterally Augustinian nature of its patristic 136 BOOK REVIEWS concern. Rather, the question on which it focuses is the consonance of ressourcement with Jansenism’s method and pastoral policy. In this study as a whole, the matter of theological method is never far beyond the horizon. Though highly sympathetic to the approach of the ressourcement school, the editors recognize that this movement is not without its limitations, or disadvantages. While the chapters on biblical exegesis and the liturgy read a trifle complacently, elsewhere the currently resurfacing anxieties about the movement’s deficits—notably the lack of a clear ontological underpinning for Catholic theology and too rich a diet of historical pluralism for a coherent ecclesial culture—find their due acknowledgment. I hope these remarks suffice to give an idea of the book’s implicit program and amplitude. The resultant embarras de richesse is, however, something of a problem for the reviewer. An adequate discussion would require an article as substantial in its own genre as this book. If instead I concentrate now on what I take to be weaknesses, or at any rate lacunae, in the arguments rehearsed, it is not because of any lack of admiration for its achievement (and that of the movement it celebrates), but it is rather that I would like to see certain themes further explored and the movement as a whole more fully related to the intellectual needs of the Church. From this perspective, an absolutely crucial topic is...