Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life by Oliva Blanchette (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 481 Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life. By OLIVA BLANCHETTE. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. Pp. xvi + 820. $45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-08028 -6365-2. As Oliva Blanchette points out on the first page of his magisterial and massive exploration of the life and writings of Maurice Blondel, as both a Catholic and a philosopher Blondel trod a singular path in late nineteenth-century France. He was a very pious young man who had come from the provinces (Dijon) to study at the most prestigious schools in Paris (L'École Normale Supérieure, La Sorbonne), where the philosophical climate was decidedly anti-religious. “At first he was seen as a defender of religion in philosophy in a University that was resolutely secular, and as a threat to the autonomy of reason” (1). Not only was this rather audacious provincial demanding that there be a place in philosophy for the study of religion, he insisted that when properly done philosophy did not exclude religion but rather showed an inevitable human need for supernatural religion. As one might expect, Blondel had to overcome considerable opposition among the faculty at the Sorbonne to obtain approval of his dissertation, L'Action. Blanchette quotes the reaction from one member of his board: “Here is what people would like to know: are you all by yourself, coming in from the wild, or are you the spokesman or even the instigator of a concerted campaign against the conception we have here of philosophy and its role?” (6-7). By contrast, soon after the publication of L'Action in 1893, Blondel was welcomed by those who were defenders of religion in France. Yet he was not an apologist in the usual sense, and did not defend religion in the usual way. Blanchette notes that the joy at having a philosopher defend religion soon turned to suspicion on the part of some, when it became clear how Blondel proposed to “defend” religion, not by cutting reason short, as even many philosophers were quite willing to do in the spirit of neo-Kantianism, but by extending its power of inquiry into the very idea of supernatural religion, thus apparently bringing the very content of such religion, supposedly the exclusive domain of a theology based on revelation, under the domain of critical philosophy. (1) Blondel would make no compromises in philosophical method or abridge the scope of philosophical investigation. For him, this rigor was in the interests not only of philosophy, but also of religion. He insisted: “Non libera nisi adjutrix, non adjutrix nisi libera philosophia. Philosophy is not free unless it helps and does not help unless it is free” (143). Blanchette explains: Philosophy will serve the cause of religion all the better only “if it is not changed into an apologetic.” This is a distinction that the more theologically inclined interpreters of Blondel (Bouillard, de Lubac, Saint Jean) have not always had clearly in mind, thereby reintroducing a theological confusion into his philosophy that he had BOOK REVIEWS 482 tried to avoid, even in what could be called his apologetic intent. It is a distinction that was probably better understood by earlier theologians like Aquinas, but tends to get lost in the reaction of modern theology against modern philosophy or rationalism. (143) Blondel argued that if philosophical inquiry is carried forward consistently, with no arbitrary halting points or omissions of matters to be left unexplored, it will eventually lead to the acknowledgment of a need for the supernatural and thus for supernatural religion. He avoided subsuming religion under philosophy, as other modern philosophers had done, because he clearly recognized that what is needed is precisely supernatural, to which philosophy cannot attain. “Blondel made no claim of entering into the supernatural itself as a philosopher, or of discovering what is its content” (19). In his view, there is no need for an extrinsic limit on philosophy to prevent it from encroaching on the domain of religion. Philosophy comes to acknowledge its own limits (151). Philosophy finds in human action an inevitable “necessity” for the supernatural, which philosophy by definition cannot provide (23). Blondel's concern here is properly philosophical, not theological. What he wants to rule out above...