Henri de Lubac and the Shaping of Modern Theology

A Reader

The French Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) lived through the most pivotal events of twentieth-century Europe. He fought in the First World War, worked for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France, and observed the rise and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Being well acquainted with political theory and philosophy, he diagnosed the pathologies of modern materialist ideologies and presented a Christian alternative.

Within the Church, too, de Lubac was a witness of his times. A leading ressourcement theologian, he brought patristic and medieval texts to bear on doctrinal questions. In the 1950s, he experienced internal exile within the Church, forbidden to publish theological writings. After de Lubac's rehabilitation, however, Pope John XXIII asked him to serve as a consultant for the Second Vatican Council. In 1983 Pope John Paul II named him a cardinal.

De Lubac's theological writings are voluminous and wide-ranging, and this is the first time his most important texts have been combined into a single book. Annotated and arranged by theme, these passages address God, Christian faith, the Church, grace and nature, Scripture, the Eucharist, Buddhism, and the renewal of theology.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, including some only recently made available, the introduction sheds new light on de Lubac’s work—its intellectual, social, and political contexts—and on his life, especially his later years. An extended postscript appraises the most important scholarship on de Lubac regarding the key themes covered by the texts.