In this week’s episode (which we recorded… a long time ago now), Ryan interviews Jon about his take on the problem of the supernatural in light of its Twitter-mediated contemporary relevance. To start out, Jon gives a quick-and-dirty review of the history of the problem of the supernatural, from the problem of merit and the necessity of grace to the Dei auxiliis controversy to the Surnaturel controversy to the present Anglophone controversy over the natural desire for God. Along the way, Jon gives some attention to the implied political questions at work in and behind the controversy. The major contention is that the political questions are assumed to be resolvable at the level of metaphysics. He thinks this is a mistake (“the problem with the problem of the supernatural is that it is, in fact, two problems and they’re irreducible to one another”). At Ryan’s prompting, Jon outlines what he thinks the two problems are: a medieval, metaphysical problem and a modern, hermeneutical one.

TITLES REFERENCED:

Bernardi, Peter J. Maurice Blondel, Social Catholicism, and Action Française: The Clash over the Church's Role in Society During the Modernist Era. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Blondel, Maurice. Action (1893): Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice. Translated by Oliva Blanchette. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1984.

———. Une Alliance Contre Nature, Catholicisme Et Intégrisme: La Semaine Sociale De Bordeaux, 1910. Bruxelles: Lessius, 2000.

———. The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

Feingold, Lawrence. The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. 2nd edition. Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010.

Hütter, Reinhard. "Aquinas on the Natural Desire for the Vision of God: A Relecture of 'Summa Contra Gentiles' III, C 25, Après Henri De Lubac." The Thomist 73, no. 4 (2009): 523–91.

———. "Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei – Est Autem Duplex Hominis Beatitudo Sive Felicitas: Some Observations About Lawrence Feingold's and John Milbank's Recent Interventions in the Debate over the Natural Desire to See God." Nova et Vetera 5, no. 1 (2007): 81–131.

Larsen, Sean. "The Politics of Desire: Two Readings of Henri De Lubac on Nature and Grace." Modern Theology 29, no. 3 (July 2013): 279–310.

Lonergan, Bernard. Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Long, Steven A. Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2010.

———. "On the Loss, and the Recovery, of Nature as a Theonomic Principle: Reflections on the Nature/Grace Controversy." Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 5, no. 1 (2007): 133–83.

Milbank, John. The Suspended Middle: Henri De Lubac and the Renewed Split in Modern Catholic Theology. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2014.

———. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2006.

Nichols, Aidan. "Thomism and the Nouvelle théologie." The Thomist 64 (2000): 1–19.

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