Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu (review)

The name of Marie-Dominique Chenu is perhaps most familiar to French systematic theologians, those who have delved into the work of Yves Congar and the nouvelle théologie before Vatican II, or who have studied Aquinas' work in light of its historical context. For many North Americans, as the Canadian author of this recently published study of the central themes of his work points out, Chenu remains to be discovered since so few of his essays and monographs have been translated into English. His scholarship, however, provides a worthwhile discovery, not only for systematic theologians in general but especially for those who are interested in the important links between doxis and praxis, or among systematics, spirituality and ethics. Professor Potworowski's work introduces the reader to both the font of Chenu's work, the Dominican understanding of contemplation, and the centerpiece of his method: the mystery of the incarnation and the analogy of incarnation that it provides the Church. Potworowski carefully constructs a path through the thicket of Chenu's writing and leads one to appreciate the scope of his contribution to Vatican II and to the dramatic shifts in western theology that took place in the last century.

It is axiomatic today that spirituality and systematic theology need the interplay of the two subspecialties to provide authenticity to either. But a bare two generations ago theologians would not have taken such interaction for granted at all. Marie Dominique Chenu, Dominican spiritual director, seminary rector and theologian for seven decades of the twentieth century, is one of the principle architects of such an integrated understanding of sacra doctrina. The labor of retrieving the necessary interrelationship between the academic study of systematic theology and that of spirituality was a great and worthy project in the second half of the twentieth century. Chenu was one of the most persuasive voices before, during and after Vatican II who undertook this labor of dissolving dualisms that separated "scientific theology" from the various pastoral theologies, and that separated affective from intellectual constructions of faith.

I was first attracted to the title of this book, Contemplation and Incarnation, for two reasons. The first was that my own research project is focused on the development of the pneumatological focus in the work of Yves Congar, and I had been searching for more insight into the Dominican spirituality that shaped Congar's vision. In several crucial autobiographical reflections Congar reveals that Chenu was his most influential spiritual formator and scholarly mentor. Potworowski's work provides a key to Chenu's spiritual formation and the Thomist spiritual tradition that contributes greatly to understanding why affective and intellectual integration were so crucial.

My second reason for being drawn to the title was the promise it offered as a resource for a course in the doctrinal foundations of Christian spirituality that I teach. The narratives of the struggles of the Christian movement to conceptualize the formulae for bearing forward the great mysteries of faith, the formulae themselves, and the interplay of various methodologies for developing further understanding of the formulae by the Churches East and West through the centuries, have created a matrix of textual forms that sometimes offer doorways into deeper faith and occasionally present brick walls that block such movement. But sacra doctrina is never a neutral force in the formation of a pattern of Christian life that we identify as Christian spirituality. Chenu saw this clearly, wrote about it continuously, and implemented his insights during the years that he directed the Dominican seminary of Le Saulchoir.

Potworowski's thesis is that for Chenu the incarnation is the means by which God acts within and on behalf of creation. The incarnation—the mystery of God becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ—is the paradigm for Divine Presence in the world...