Our relation to God has to inform not only our will, but how we think and how we construct our institutions.

"Threads" interview of David L. Schindler

David L. Schindler is Gagnon professor of fundamental theology at the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C., and editor of the North American edition of Communio, the international theological review. A nationally recognized author, teacher and lecturer, his latest book is "Heart of the World, Center of the Church" (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich.). He spoke with "Threads" recently from his Washington office.

THREADS: How would you describe the central themes of 20th-century Catholic theology -- the main accomplishments and reversals over the last 100 years?

SCHINDLER: Let me begin by focusing on one theologian in particular, and then point out some of the themes that revolve around his work. The theologian is Henri de Lubac, and his life, interestingly enough, spanned most of the century: He was born at the turn of the century and died just five years ago. In a certain sense, De Lubac's work was part of all the major controversies from the late 1930s right up until the last decade or so of his life -- both the pre-Vatican II debates and the post-conciliar ones.

The basic theme of the 20th century -- and in a way, it's the theme of every century, but it has a particular urgency in our time -- is our sense of God in light of the problem of atheism. This finds its abstract formulation in the question of nature and grace, which was so controversial from the beginning of De Lubac's career up through the years following the council. The question has to do with the way in which relation to God becomes constitutive of the human being, such that life is fundamentally a drama, an engagement with God.

What De Lubac understood [most profoundly] was this problem of atheism; one of his best known books is "The Drama of Atheist Humanism." The battle before the Church, as she faces the culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, is the question of atheism. In the 19th century, you had an atheism of the style of Nietzsche. In the 20th century, at least in America and in Anglo-American liberal society, the problem of atheism takes the form of Jack Kevorkian or the philosopher Richard Rorty --

I'm curious why you'd pick De Lubac as pivotal, rather than Balthasar or Congar or some of the German theologians.

The quick answer is that, in a way, De Lubac was first. His work became the galvanizing point of debate. His book "The Supernatural," published in 1946, criticized what he saw as too much dualism in the modern Catholic tradition. In other words, he perceived that Catholic theology, by excessively separating the natural and supernatural orders, was actually colluding with a kind of naturalism in the culture. That's putting it abstractly. But the point for De Lubac is: Is the relationship to God constitutive for the human being, does it constitute his being, or doesn't it? Is God something accidental and abstract, or Someone the relation to whom goes very deep in the creature? De Lubac's work became the classical point of reference, and even though Balthasar may one day be seen as the great interpreter of the Second Vatican Council, the one whose writings most profoundly grasp the council's main themes, still the council itself was really shaped by the theology of De Lubac.

The aftermath of the council was marked by the divergence of "Concilium" and "Communio" theologians in interpreting what Vatican II actually intended. What was that split about?

In the opening phase of the council, theologians shared a common view that a certain kind of traditional Catholic theology had to be renewed. That had a lot to do with the sense of God and the relation of the natural and supernatural orders. But, as so often happens when you have a negative unity, a common enemy, you discover that once you're victorious, not much positive unity remains. So as the council went on, theologians seeking renewal bifurcated into one group that wanted to adapt as much as possible to modern culture, post-Enlightenment culture; and another group who insisted that, in order to achieve renewal, we had to go back to the sources and immerse ourselves in the tradition. As Charles Peguy said, one has to go to the bottom of the well to retrieve the freshest water.

This divergence continued into the years after the council and resulted in the creation, first, of a review called "Concilium" --



Who were the motive thinkers behind "Concilium," as opposed to "Communio?"

For "Concilium," they were Karl Rahner, Schillebeeckx and Hans Kung. For "Communio," De Lubac, Danielou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Ratzinger and Karol Wojtyla [now John Paul II]. The difference between them, again, was this nature/grace question. Theologians like Rahner tended to emphasize human experience. The "Communio" theologians tended to stress the need to start from within revelation, within the tradition, as the key interpreter of human experience.