The Turn to Mystery in the Thought of Henri de Lubac

Description

Henri de Lubac is famous for what is called his eucharistic theology. His claim that the ‘Eucharist makes the Church’ has, in Catholic theology, paved the way for a new understanding of the Church that is less focused on the institutional and more on the liturgical. But his theology has more to offer. Especially in contemporary theology that is focused on ‘lived religion’ and often tries to draw from ‘ritual studies’, de Lubac may offer a systematic perspective that values these enterprises as truly theological in nature. In this paper, I want to focus on his concept of ‘spiritual intelligence.’ It is interesting to see that this concept is derived from exegesis and liturgy, but acquires its full meaning in de Lubac’s more systematic treatment of the church. Behind this concept lies a sacramental epistemology that is concerned with mystery and in the meantime provides an almost postmodern critique of modern reason. As such, it might benefit the dialogue between systematic theology and the more empirical social sciences.
After a short analysis of this concept, I will suggest, therefore, that we might move beyond de Lubac, and use his prioritization of church praxis as a means to more systematically think about recent attempts to do ecclesiology by means of ethnography.

Period	16 Jan 2019
Event title	Een contemplatieve wending in de theologie? Congres 2019: Vereniging voor Theologie
Event type	Conference
Location	Utrecht, Netherlands
Degree of Recognition	National