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Analogies of Transcendence: An Essay on Nature, Grace, and Modernity
The problem of nature and grace lies at the heart of Christian theology. No dimension of divine revelation can be addressed without implicitly drawing reference to this issue. Analogies of Transcendence focuses on the central role that the analogies of being and faith play in developing a solution to the problem. These link God, as self-manifesting transcendence, to the human person as both fallen and justified, and to the material cosmos. Although the proposed solution draws on the work of Maréchal, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Rahner, it criticizes their approach for its underdeveloped analogies that diminish nature in grace's engagement with it. In redressing this weakness, Fr. Fields adapts its solution to the intellectual struggle of our time. This volume examines the origins and structure of modernity, which, it asserts, has not been superseded and is therefore critical of 'postmodernism,' as well as of some ambiguous legacies of Thomism.
The first part of Analogies of Transcendence probes selected understandings of nature and grace since Aquinas. These yield clues for a viable model, while also manifesting the deficiency of the theory of 'pure nature,' which contributes to fideism and secularism. More clues emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Vatican II and recent papal thought. The second part of the book constructs the model on the basis of the clues. It conceives the orders of 'creation' and 'redemption' as a continuum, and it develops a theology of nature. The third part then applies the model to other problems. These include reimagining the role of Christian art, revising the Thomist doctrine of God, and defending Christianity's unique claim in relation to other religions.
Throughout, this argument, both historical and systemic, enters the dialogue with the tradition, from the Fathers, to Augustine and the medieval, to Trent and the Baroque. Analogies of Transcendence also brings into sympathetic conversation the two often estranged titans of contemporary Catholicism, Balthasar and Rahner.
The first part of Analogies of Transcendence probes selected understandings of nature and grace since Aquinas. These yield clues for a viable model, while also manifesting the deficiency of the theory of 'pure nature,' which contributes to fideism and secularism. More clues emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Vatican II and recent papal thought. The second part of the book constructs the model on the basis of the clues. It conceives the orders of 'creation' and 'redemption' as a continuum, and it develops a theology of nature. The third part then applies the model to other problems. These include reimagining the role of Christian art, revising the Thomist doctrine of God, and defending Christianity's unique claim in relation to other religions.
Throughout, this argument, both historical and systemic, enters the dialogue with the tradition, from the Fathers, to Augustine and the medieval, to Trent and the Baroque. Analogies of Transcendence also brings into sympathetic conversation the two often estranged titans of contemporary Catholicism, Balthasar and Rahner.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published July 22, 2016
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January 16, 2024
This book addresses one of the perennial questions of Catholic theology: the relationship between nature and grace. What are human beings, and what happens when God freely infuses His grace into our nature so that we may have eternal life?
For Fields, the answer is that all people are made for God. Our natural end, paradoxically, is a supernatural end. There is no such thing as "pure human nature" despite what many modern and secular thinkers have posited since the Enlightenment. People, indeed all of creation, are infused with prevenient grace that keeps them oriented toward God and capable of responding to His invitation for eternal life. Moreover, this prevenient grace was not removed when human nature was corrupted by original sin, otherwise God could not make the first step in calling us back to Himself. The only question is whether we will accept the sanctifying grace to achieve this end or fail in our purpose for existing.
"The human person, as a spirit in the created world, is defined by a supernatural end not proportionate to created nature."
"Grace consummates the nature that incarnates it. These twin orders originate as a unity-in-difference in God's absolute freedom and together they return humanity, vitiated by the Fall, to the glory for which it is created."
Or in the words of St. John Henry Newman:
"Divine grace does not by its presence supersede nature; nor is nature at once brought into simple concurrence and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, now coincident with that of grace, now counter to it, in proportion to its own imperfection and to the attraction and influence which grace exerts over it."
The challenge with this position is that it seems to either undermine God's freedom or His goodness. If we are naturally meant to be with God in eternity, then it would seem that He owes us sanctifying grace when it is actually a totally free gift of His love. If the gift of sanctifying grace is free but not everyone receives it by virtue of being human, then it would seem that God is cruel when in fact He is infinitely good. Fields spends the first part of his book in an intellectual tour de force, highlighting how various thinkers in 2000 years of history have sought to reconcile this problem, from St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and Immanuel Kant to Georg Hegel, Karl Rahner, Louis Dupre, Henri de Lubac, St. John Paul II, and others.
Fields then synthesizes these competing theories into an analogical and sacramental model of nature and grace that resolves the tensions between human freedom, God's freedom, and what grace is required for justification. His reasoning complements various types of arguments to show that people indeed have only one end, including:
- The Rational Argument: The human mind is built in such a way that it will never be satisfied until God can answer all its questions
- The Volitional Argument: No one will ever be truly happy until their hearts rest in God, who alone is capable of satisfying all desires
- The Cosmic Argument: The entire universe is straining to be restored in the harmony of God's kingdom
After making his argument, Fields goes on to apply it in contemporary questions of Catholic theology, namely 1) aesthetics, 2) existence grounded in the utterly free love of God, and 3) ecumenism. The latter chapter is particularly incisive and entertaining. In it, Fields uses preveniently graced nature and the fact that everyone has a natural desire for God to explain the Catholic Church's position that all faiths can serve as a preparation for the Gospel, that everything which is authentically true and good in other faiths is implicitly oriented to Jesus Christ, and that the Catholic Church is the definitive bringer of salvation to souls that could nevertheless be saved through God's free and unknowable action of "baptism by desire" for sincere people of goodwill.
An under-developed part of the book is Fields' engagement with the theology of St. Paul. While Fields briefly quotes Paul's letter about the universe "groaning in labor pains" until all of creation is made anew in the kingdom of God, he does not directly apply his model of nature and grace to St. Paul's other teachings about people being "reborn" and "putting on new flesh" in baptism. Directly addressing these core aspects of Catholic teaching would help Fields' argument that people have one supernatural end and that grace does not invade or violently supplant fallen human nature.
Stephen Fields is a Catholic theologian, Jesuit priest, and professor at Georgetown University. This book is a highly technical work intended for his academic peer audience. To not throw the book down in frustration, amateur readers like me should have previously read the works of Aquinas and Augustine, have a basic understanding of church history, and have a minimal idea of who Karl Rahner, Louis Dupre, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Henri de Lubac are (the primary 20th century theologians that Fields engages with to form his own conclusions).
Read this book if you want to see contemporary Catholic theology in action. It shows that theology is not a dead letter or needless quibbling over a museum of pre-decided questions. Fields has made a lively and original contribution to Catholic thought which leads us ever deeper into the person of Jesus Christ and the final truth of who we are.
For Fields, the answer is that all people are made for God. Our natural end, paradoxically, is a supernatural end. There is no such thing as "pure human nature" despite what many modern and secular thinkers have posited since the Enlightenment. People, indeed all of creation, are infused with prevenient grace that keeps them oriented toward God and capable of responding to His invitation for eternal life. Moreover, this prevenient grace was not removed when human nature was corrupted by original sin, otherwise God could not make the first step in calling us back to Himself. The only question is whether we will accept the sanctifying grace to achieve this end or fail in our purpose for existing.
"The human person, as a spirit in the created world, is defined by a supernatural end not proportionate to created nature."
"Grace consummates the nature that incarnates it. These twin orders originate as a unity-in-difference in God's absolute freedom and together they return humanity, vitiated by the Fall, to the glory for which it is created."
Or in the words of St. John Henry Newman:
"Divine grace does not by its presence supersede nature; nor is nature at once brought into simple concurrence and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, now coincident with that of grace, now counter to it, in proportion to its own imperfection and to the attraction and influence which grace exerts over it."
The challenge with this position is that it seems to either undermine God's freedom or His goodness. If we are naturally meant to be with God in eternity, then it would seem that He owes us sanctifying grace when it is actually a totally free gift of His love. If the gift of sanctifying grace is free but not everyone receives it by virtue of being human, then it would seem that God is cruel when in fact He is infinitely good. Fields spends the first part of his book in an intellectual tour de force, highlighting how various thinkers in 2000 years of history have sought to reconcile this problem, from St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and Immanuel Kant to Georg Hegel, Karl Rahner, Louis Dupre, Henri de Lubac, St. John Paul II, and others.
Fields then synthesizes these competing theories into an analogical and sacramental model of nature and grace that resolves the tensions between human freedom, God's freedom, and what grace is required for justification. His reasoning complements various types of arguments to show that people indeed have only one end, including:
- The Rational Argument: The human mind is built in such a way that it will never be satisfied until God can answer all its questions
- The Volitional Argument: No one will ever be truly happy until their hearts rest in God, who alone is capable of satisfying all desires
- The Cosmic Argument: The entire universe is straining to be restored in the harmony of God's kingdom
After making his argument, Fields goes on to apply it in contemporary questions of Catholic theology, namely 1) aesthetics, 2) existence grounded in the utterly free love of God, and 3) ecumenism. The latter chapter is particularly incisive and entertaining. In it, Fields uses preveniently graced nature and the fact that everyone has a natural desire for God to explain the Catholic Church's position that all faiths can serve as a preparation for the Gospel, that everything which is authentically true and good in other faiths is implicitly oriented to Jesus Christ, and that the Catholic Church is the definitive bringer of salvation to souls that could nevertheless be saved through God's free and unknowable action of "baptism by desire" for sincere people of goodwill.
An under-developed part of the book is Fields' engagement with the theology of St. Paul. While Fields briefly quotes Paul's letter about the universe "groaning in labor pains" until all of creation is made anew in the kingdom of God, he does not directly apply his model of nature and grace to St. Paul's other teachings about people being "reborn" and "putting on new flesh" in baptism. Directly addressing these core aspects of Catholic teaching would help Fields' argument that people have one supernatural end and that grace does not invade or violently supplant fallen human nature.
Stephen Fields is a Catholic theologian, Jesuit priest, and professor at Georgetown University. This book is a highly technical work intended for his academic peer audience. To not throw the book down in frustration, amateur readers like me should have previously read the works of Aquinas and Augustine, have a basic understanding of church history, and have a minimal idea of who Karl Rahner, Louis Dupre, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Henri de Lubac are (the primary 20th century theologians that Fields engages with to form his own conclusions).
Read this book if you want to see contemporary Catholic theology in action. It shows that theology is not a dead letter or needless quibbling over a museum of pre-decided questions. Fields has made a lively and original contribution to Catholic thought which leads us ever deeper into the person of Jesus Christ and the final truth of who we are.
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