Aquinas’s Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac: Not Everything Is Grace by Bernard Mulcahy, O.P. (review)

152 BOOK REVIEWS This final chapter, besides continuing Ku’s exposition of Thomistic texts, also makes ample use of other like-minded Thomists such as Gilles Emery, Emmanuel Durand, and Émile Bailleux. For Ku, there is evidence in the Thomistic corpus that supports the position that the Father has a proper role in the economy, with regard to both creation and the life of grace. Ku is careful to point out, as Aquinas himself does, that one must uphold the ontological divide between Creator and creature. Furthermore , one must be attentive to the rule that says that all operations of the Trinity ad extra are done without distinction of persons; although there are three divine persons, there is only one Creator, not three creators. Nevertheless, Ku argues, each divine person is Creator “according to his personal identity,” even though “creatures do not have the ontological weight to cause or even manifest these distinctions of the divine persons” (309). If in creation there is a proper role of the Father, then in the life of grace that is even more the case, argues Ku. Going beyond mere appropriation, Ku wants to show that Aquinas’s understanding of grace, although a work of the undivided Trinity, produces effects of wisdom and love that assimilate the justified soul to the Son and Holy Spirit respectively. The telos of these gifts is none other than the Father who “is experienced as the innascible source and ultimate end of all things to whom the Son and Holy Spirit lead us” (320). In this way, the Father has a proper role to play in the life of grace. Ku’s effort provides the reader ample texts from the Thomistic corpus on God the Father which will occupy even those scholars most familiar with Aquinas’s writing on the topic. As the author intends, the work is mainly expository in nature. On this score, those readers who are nonspecialists will benefit from Ku’s familiarity with the Thomistic corpus and his ability to expound Aquinas’s position with clarity and depth. DAVID LIBERTO Notre Dame Seminary New Orleans, Louisiana Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac: Not Everything Is Grace. By BERNARD MULCAHY, O.P. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. Pp. 259. $80.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-1-4331-1393-2. This book offers a well-constructed defense of the legitimacy and usefulness of the notion of pure nature in theology. It revolves around two contrasting notions and three theologians. The two opposing notions are pure nature and integralism, and the three theologians are St. Thomas Aquinas, Henri Cardinal de Lubac, and John Milbank. Pure nature is understood here as human nature considered in itself, in its constitutive principles, and with regard to what is due to it as such. In other words, this notion considers human nature, abstracting from its BOOK REVIEWS 153 supernatural elevation to the order of grace and glory. Thus Mulcahy understands pure nature as “the idea of human nature which can be had by any reasoning person” (2). He argues that St. Thomas Aquinas in particular abundantly presupposes this notion throughout his theology. The concept of pure nature is defended against a certain Christian “integralism” which seeks to view everything within a unitary or integral supernatural perspective, denying legitimacy to the notion of pure nature, such that it could meaningfully and usefully be considered on its own. This integralism is associated with two theologians in particular: Henri de Lubac and John Milbank. De Lubac rejects the notion of pure nature because he claims that: (1) pure nature has never been the state of any real human being, (2) it is alien to Christian tradition (not found in the Fathers or even St. Thomas), (3) it denies an intrinsic link between natural human life and the life of faith, and (4) it is to blame for the marginalization of Christianity in the Western world. Mulcahy concedes the first point, but contests the second and fourth. The third objection (extrinsicism) is not dealt with. Milbank radicalizes the position of de Lubac and uses the term “integralism” to describe the rejection of the validity of all nontheological knowledge...