Imperfect Happiness and the Final End of Man: Thomas Aquinas and the Paradigm of Nature-Grace Orthodoxy

247 The Thomist 78 (2014): 247-89 IMPERFECT HAPPINESS AND THE FINAL END OF MAN: THOMAS AQUINAS AND THE PARADIGM OF NATURE-GRACE ORTHODOXY THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE, O.P. Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception Washington, D.C. HE TWO MOST influential paradigms in modern theology concerning the relationship of grace to nature are at opposite extremes of the spectrum, and yet the extremes touch in their criticism of Thomism as it is exposited in the classical Dominican tradition. On the one hand, there is the influential view of Karl Barth, whose radical vision of the extrinsic transcendence of grace to nature was paired with an equally radical—some would say dialectical—disavowal of any predisposition or potential inclination in human nature for the gift of divine life. On the other hand, there is the vision of Henri de Lubac in his Surnaturel, which charts out the idea of an inclination toward the supernatural inscribed in the human spirit from its creation, such that we are always and everywhere animated by a latent natural desire for the gratuitous gift of supernatural beatitude, the vision of God. One paradigm sees in man no natural point of contact (Anknüpfungspunkt) upon which grace might act to elevate him beyond his own natural capacities (such that grace must itself create in human nature the very conditions for its own reception).1 The other sees in man’s natural capacities an innate, we might say inherent, inclination toward divine life, a life that is provided by grace alone, such that man is an enigma 1 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/1, English trans. by G. W. Bromiley (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2003), 27-36. T 248 THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE, O.P. or paradox of natural desiring for that which grace alone can disclose and resolve.2 There are nuances to the positions that both Barth and de Lubac developed on these matters over the course of their careers. Both paradigms, however, maintain important forms of opposition to the classical Dominican tradition, and not least because of the Aristotelian character of its interpretation of Aquinas on the matter of the final end of man. The Barthian paradigm perceives with distrust the attempt by Thomists to demonstrate a natural openness to God by way of the philosophical ascent to God through metaphysical analysis of created being and through a corresponding reflection on the natural final end of man as made in some real way for the contemplation and love of God.3 The other paradigm sees this same metaphysics and anthropology as, if not theologically illicit, then at least as potentially misleading, particularly as interpreted by figures such as Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, and Domingo Báñez.4 The reason for this is that it risks formulating the notion of an autonomous human nature, knowledge of God, and natural beatitude that have their own rational integrity in distinction from (and therefore over and 2 Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Études historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), 231-60, 43334 ; “Duplex hominis beatitudo (Saint Thomas, I-II, q. 62, a. 1),” Recherches de science religieuse 35 (1948): 290-99; The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1998), 55-56, 140-66. 3 On Barth’s mistrust of the analogy of being as the “invention of the anti-Christ,” see Church Dogmatics 1/1:xiii, 40-42, 69, 119-20, 239-40; see also Bruce L. McCormack, “Karl Barth’s Version of an ‘Analogy of Being’: A Dialectical No and Yes to Roman Catholicism,” in Thomas Joseph White, ed., The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Anti-Christ or the Wisdom of God? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010), 88144 ; Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 4 See, for example, Surnaturel, 153-54. 174-75, 437; Mystery of the Supernatural, 68-74, 157-59, 194. One can identify common themes in texts of Dominican commentators on Aquinas such as Cajetan’s commentary on STh I, q. 78, a. 1, n. 5 (Leonine ed., 5:252); STh I-II, q. 3, a. 8 (Leonine ed...