Jean Daniélou and Humanity's True Vocation

Jean
Daniélou and Humanity's True Vocation | Carl E. Olson | CWR

An
interview with Marc C. Nicholas, author of Jean
Danielou’s Doxological Humanism

Although
not as well-known today as his fellow Jesuit Henri de Lubac and
theological contemporary Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Daniélou holds
an important place in twentieth-century Catholic theology, recognized
for his dialogue with other world religions, his writings on the
Church Fathers and Scripture, and his insights into the nature of
divine revelation and Tradition. Trained in philology––the study
of classical languages––and theology, Daniélou was a professor
at the Institut Catholique in Paris and a vital member of the
controversial "New Theology", or ressourcement,
movement. However, relatively little has been written about
Daniélou's theological project and vision. Now, in his book, Jean
Daniélou's Doxological Humanism : Trinitarian Contemplation and
Humanity’s True Vocation (Wipf
& Stock, 2012), Marc C. Nicholas has taken up the task of
providing an overview of Daniélou's theology, with “with
extensive reference to his vast corpus of writings by highlighting
what seems to be the key to his thought: that all human beings were
made for contemplation and that one is only truly human when one
exercises this innate calling in a Trinitarian fashion.”

CWR:
For those who might not be very familiar with him, who was Jean
Daniélou? What were some of his notable achievements as a writer,
scholar and theologian?

Nicholas:
Jean Daniélou (1905-1974) was a French
Jesuit priest who was a prolific scholar and theologian who taught at
the Institut Catholique in Paris from 1944-69, was a peritus
(“expert”) at the Second Vatican Council and was named a cardinal
in 1969.

When
looking at Daniélou as a scholar-theologian and writer concerning
Christian spirituality, it is important to remember that each of
these disciplines flows from the other. It would be an error to
trifurcate his thought into separate domains. He was always at pains
to maintain the interrelatedness of theology, history and
spirituality.

With
that in mind, Daniélou made significant contributions in the areas
of Church history, theology and spirituality. In the academic world,
Daniélou is perhaps most well-known for his expertise in the history
of the Church during the earliest centuries of Christianity. His
writings on the development of doctrine, on the great events of early
Christianity and on the great theologians of the patristic period
enjoy considerable prestige because of their value for the historian
of the Church.

Also,
Daniélou is well known for his endorsement of the ressourcement
adage, ad fonts,
or “return to the sources” which sought to reconnect contemporary
Catholicism with the great Christian sources of the past. To this
point, Daniélou, along with Henri de Lubac, established the Sources
Chretienne series in France which
inspired other non-francophone attempts to make the Church Fathers
accessible to the greater reading public.

Of
lasting importance is Daniélou’s defense of the Church’s
traditional teaching concerning the “spiritual interpretation”
(Daniélou specifically argues for typological)
of the Christian Scriptures. In his The
Bible and the Liturgy and From
Shadows to Reality, Daniélou maintains
that the modern tendency to limit the interpretation of the biblical
texts to the literal-historical meaning of the text—which modern
historical-critical methodology does—is a serious breach of
tradition and violates a holistic understanding of the text which was
protected by the spiritual interpretation of texts.

Lastly,
Daniélou is well-known as one of the catalysts to the Novelle
Théologie (a label given to Daniélou
and his confreres by his theological opponents) which emphasized a
return to the earliest Christian sources as a way to renew theology,
a revival of the historical nature of Catholicism and a rejection of
the notion that the Neo-Thomism of the 19th
and 20th
centuries was the sole arbiter of Catholic doctrine.

CWR:
Your book begins by outlining a significant “split between
theology and spirituality.” What is that split, how did it come
about, and how does Daniélou address it?

Continue reading on the CWR site.