Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion

✍ Scribed by Maurice Blondel; Olivia Blanchette

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 279
• Series: Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Although a towering figure in the history of twentieth-century Catholic thought, the later systematic works of Maurice Blondel have been largely inaccessible in the English-speaking world. Oliva Blanchette, who previously translated Blondel’s early groundbreaking work Action (1893), now offers the first English translation of Blondel’s final work to be published, Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion. This work of transition from mere philosophy to a consideration of Christian religion consists of two main essays, The Christian Sense and the shorter On Assimilation, followed by a Reconsideration and Global View and an Appendix: Clarifications and Admonitions written in answer to an inquiry by a young scholar about method.

The first essay explores the Christian sense of the spiritual life and how Christian religion, even as supernatural, can come under the purview of critical philosophy. The second essay examines the move from analogy to assimilation in speaking of the Christian life. Blondel tackles the question: How does the human spirit combine with the divine spirit in such a way that neither is lost in the process?

Philosophical Exigencies of Christian Religion is critical for understanding Blondel’s thought. This high-quality translation and Blanchette’s concise preface will appeal not only to philosophers and theologians but also to spiritual writers and directors of spiritual retreats in the Ignatian and Jesuit traditions.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Translator’s Preface
1 The Christian Sense
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Historical Aspect: What Is Specific about It in Christian Religion
Chapter 2. The Intellectual Aspect and the Permanent Unity of the Christian Spirit
Chapter 3. The Internal Proofs and the Spiritually Vivifying Aspect of Catholicism
Chapter 4. Is It Possible to Define the Christian Spirit by Reducing It to a Principle of Essential Unity?
Chapter 5. On the Enabling Method for Acceding to the Domain Where Lives the Indissoluble Unity of the Christian Spirit
Chapter 6. The Catholic Unity
Chapter 7. The Inventions of Charity and the Supernatural
Chapter 8. The Destiny Offered and Imposed on Man
Chapter 9. Synthetic Exploration and Progressive Elaboration Starting from the Generative Idea of Christian Religion
Chapter 10. Unity of the Work of Creation for the External Glory of God through Supernatural Elevation
Chapter 11. The Conditions for Realizing the Divine Plan for Surmounting the Difficulty of Uniting Two Incommensurables, the Creator and the Creature: On the One Hand, the Invention of Divine Charity to Cross the Abyss through the “Verbum Caro Factum” [the Word Made Flesh] and the Hypostatic Union, on the Other Hand, the Testing Imposed on Man by the Transformative Union
Chapter 12. The Doctrine of the Supernatural Considered under Its Triple Metaphysical, Ascetic, and Mystical Aspect
Chapter 13. How the Order of Grace Completes the Natural Orderand Forms with It in Us a Life and a Personality That Is Truly One
Chapter 14. The Union of Nature and Supernature in the Practical Order Itself
Chapter 15. The Philosophical Problem of Sanctity
Chapter 16. The Proof of Christian Religion through the Idea and the Very Word—Catholicism
Chapter 17. The Character of Apostolicity in Catholicism
Conclusion
2 On Assimilation as Fulfillment and Transposition of The Theory of Analogy
Foreword
Chapter 1. Twofold Traditional Sense of the Word “Assimilation”
Chapter 2. Getting beyond the Metaphors That Risk Masking the True Problem
Chapter 3. Is the Issue One of a Simple Ideal Participation or Do We Have to Conceive of a Truly Vital Participation?
Chapter 4. Irreplaceable Role of a Laborious Trial of Parturition for the “New Birth”
Chapter 5. Paradox of the Tribulations of the Just and Scandal of the Sufferings Judged According to Our Human Views
Chapter 6. Supreme Objection: The Problem of Evil in Its Most Universal Form
Chapter 7. The Only Appeasing Solution of an Assimilative Theogony by Way of Renunciation and Even Death
Chapter 8. Exigencies of Divine Charity
3 Reconsidertion and Global View : Circumincession of The Problems and Unity of Perspectives
1. Twofold Inspiration of Our Inquiries
2. Objections and Contradictions through Which the Enlightened and Enlightening Way Is Opened
3. How Philosophical Thought Can Resolve the Enigma of Our Indeclinable Destiny
4 Appendix: Clarifications and Admonitions
1. Remarks on Our Method of Implication against the Abuses of Abstractive and Constructive Methods
2. Some Precisions on Terminology
3. On the Relation between the Philosophical Trilogy and the Study of Philosophy and the Christian Spirit
4. Appeasing Clarities for Reason Projected by Revelation