Pure nature

How to balance the gratuity and dear relevance of grace is a perennial difficulty. Drawing on phenomenological analysis, Rahner postulates a Supernatural Existential in part to avoid pitfalls, real or alleged, of the " pure nature " tradition and the " natural desire for the supernatural " tradition. Are there causal grounds for the postulate? Inductive analysis suggests there are not. Indeed, the postulate's viability as an alternative rests on an evasion of the causal question that grounds its power as answer. So, it seems a solution in name only. Notwithstanding, the postulate might be qualifiedly retrieved by causal commitments similar to those of the pure nature tradition Rahner rejected.

This article aims to show that for Thomas Aquinas the condition of humanity in the state of original sin, and the condition of man in the state of pure nature are one and the same. I show that Thomas holds the natural principles from which humanity is composed to be incapable of producing a state of Integral Nature. Deprived of the sanctifying grace that produces the state of Original Justice, and left in a condition of "pure nature," operating by the principles that it possesses through its nature alone, humanity necessarily suffers the disorders of the state of Original Sin.

Recent Thomistic discussions about Divine Grace and Human Freedom continue to consider the prospects of human moral action in the state of “Pure Nature,” influenced on this point especially by the writings of Garrigou-Lagrange and his taxonomy of the different possible states in which humanity might exist, both actually and hypothetically. Two of the hypothetical states of human existence that Garrigou-Lagrange presents are those of Pure Nature and of Integral Nature, in both of which humanity is not ordered to or raised to any end beyond those which it can attain by its natural principles of operation.
These two states differ, however, for in the state of Pure Nature, those natural principles operate at cross-purposes, resulting in a necessarily-disordered human life that fails to attain its proper natural end. In this condition of Pure Nature, humanity lacks integrity of body, of powers and of operation. Garrigou-Lagrange thus distinguishes a separate hypothetical state, whereby humanity is aided by an infusion of grace that is supernatural in origin, but not in its end or its operation. By these praeternatural gifts, humanity is given the additional help necessary for the integrity of body, of virtues and of operations, such that some (perhaps very few) people are able to attain the perfect happiness proportionate to human nature. Yet by positing this gratuitous integrity as a principle of perfect natural operation, this hypothesis runs up against a limit: this perfect operation of adhering to God as one’s object of natural beatitude is taken to both the cause of integrity, but also the result of a prior integrity whereby the diverse powers of the soul pose no obstacle to that perfect operation (as they do in the state of Pure Nature).
Present discussions of grace and free-will that seek to continue the commentatorial tradition and employ the hypothetical state of Integral Nature will need to distinguish explicitly the state of Pure Nature from the state of Integral Nature, and also to account for the integrating principle, either internal or external, by which that integrity is effected such that it is capable of producing, but not presupposing, an attainment of a happiness proportionate to the unelevated powers of human reason. Some authors such as Steve Long do this implicitly, but might benefit from explicitly accounting for how those principles function, and how this account diverges from the account Thomas Aquinas gives of this same possibility.

When Henri de Lubac published Surnaturel in 1946, he ignited a debate that has left its mark at the intersection of philosophy and theology. Advancing a view of human nature as intrinsically ordered toward one final end in the beatific vision, de Lubac left behind distinctions that twentieth-century Neo-Scholastics saw as crucial to understanding human nature, such as “pure nature.” With the debate rekindled in recent years, contemporary critics of de Lubac advance a dynamic conception of a separate natural end within a strict duplex ordo of nature and grace. Both of these approaches explain the supernatural elevation of nature, albeit through different vehicles: de Lubac through the natural desire for the supernatural, and his critics though the Thomistic idea of ‘obediential potency.’ Their approaches differ primarily in their fundamental assumptions about human nature. These fundamental assumptions have ramifications in other fields. Bringing the debate to bear on other contemporary discussions, I assess the inviability of New Natural Law due to its rejection of a unified natural end, and instead propose a return to Thomistic Natural Law that has its basis in a robust understanding of human nature.

Christian Personalists (such as Balthasar and Yannaras) have objected to Thomism's claim that humans could have existed in a state (status) of pure nature, on the grounds that this claim entails that historical states like grace do not give fundamental meaning to us, that these states are merely accidental, and that it led to modern secularism. I show that Thomism can affirm its traditional claims regarding grace and pure nature, while denying the first two implications, by developing the Thomistic metaphysics of status. On Thomism rightly understood persons develop historically through status in non-accidental ways and grace gives fundamental meaning to our lives. But I also argue that modern secular experiences (such as experiences of secularity, anxiety, and absurdity described by Heidegger, Camus, and Taylor) are natural to the human person, not merely the result of sin, and that this is rightly supported by the theory of pure nature.

Robert Barry argues that man’s condition in a state of pure nature and man’s condition in the state of original sin are one and the same. This article aims to show that this thesis is false and is not the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Angelic Doctor teaches that man in pure nature would be more capable of doing the good proportionate to his nature and would be able to love God above all things with a natural love. Important here is the truth posited by many in the Thomist commentatorial tradition, namely, that on account of sin man is directly averted from his supernatural end and at least indirectly averted from his natural end. Furthermore, this thesis has undesirable consequences, albeit consequences unintended by Barry, for Christology and soteriology. We must understand what pertains to human nature as such if we are to understand the various states in which we find human nature, including in Christ. If a natural analogue to supernatural charity cannot even in principle obtain, charity will be something alien to human nature. Christ came not only to elevate us to supernatural life and divine friendship, but to heal human nature.