A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace / Henri de Lubac

The great twentieth-century theologian, Henri de Lubac, sought to clarify the relationship between nature and grace, a relationship that he thought had been greatly misunderstood by certain theologians. De Lubac’s insights revolutionized the modern discussion of nature and grace, and it influenced thinkers such as Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as Hans urs Von Balthasar.

This book, written after the Second Vatican Council and toward the end of de Lubac’s long life, summarizes and extends key ideas he sought to recover from the classical sources of early and medieval Christianity. De Lubac revisits the theme of his work, Surnatural, as well as its development in his later works, while addressing issues of the post-Vatican II era. Confronted with distortions of Christian teaching, de Lubac repudiates the extremes of, on the one hand, radically opposing nature and grace, as if the grace were entirely alien to nature, and on the other hand, of radically confusing them.

A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace also contains appendices, including de Lubac’s famous discussion, “The Council and the Parachurch”, in which he examines widespread misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council.

PREFACE
I. Natural and the Supernatural
1. Two Correlative Terms
2. The True Supernatural
3. Adjective or Noun?
4. Admirabile Commercium
5. A Distinction Which Remains

II. Consequences
1. Humility
2. Mystery
3. Ascesis, Transformation, Synthesis
4. Transcendence
5. The Role of the Church

III. Nature and Grace
1. Conversion
2. Allergy to Sin
3. Evil and History
4. Realism
5. Liberation and Salvation

CONCLUSION
APPENDICES
A. The “Supernatural” at Vatican II
B. The “Sacrament of the World”?
C. The Council and the Para-Council
D. The “Cult of Man”: In Reparation to Paul VI