This article argues that Erich Przywara's analogical understanding of the nature-grace relationship, though sometimes thought to align with the anti-extrinsicist positions of Blondel, de Lubac, and Balthasar, differs from these by virtue of its "parallax" view. The standard bearers of the nouvelle théologie hold that Aquinas teaches a natural desire for the beatific vision and deny, more generally, the utility of the concept of pure nature for safeguarding the gratuity of the supernatural. Przywara, by contrast, holds that Aquinas, like the Christian tradition more broadly, alternates between theoretical lines of sight, with the result that the capacity for the beatific vision appears to lie, by turns, both in and beyond human nature. This apparent difference of position is what this article calls the "parallax" effect. According to Przywara, one attains the least inadequate view of nature and grace by entering the "rhythm" of mutual correction between various perspectives. Though he refines his articulation of this rhythm across the course of his career, Przywara consistently upholds the concept of pure nature as a legitimate theological Konstruktionsprinzip and salutary corrective to "intrinsicist" accents. The complete picture of nature and grace thus lies in the interplay of the various ecclesially approved theological traditions. Suspendium elegit anima mea-Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis ad Deum 7, 6.
Paul Ricoeur and Joseph Ratzinger both challenge the pretended omnicompetence of the historical critical method in the field of biblical interpretation. Moreover, their respective counterproposals for coordinating historical analysis and hermeneutical synthesis exhibit structural similarities: each draws attention to a twofold "distance" intervening between the text and the "world behind the text," on the one hand, and between the text and the "world before the text," on the other. The two authors, however, are not fully agreed on the nature of this distance. Ricoeur, patterning this distance after the philosophical models of Husserl and Heidegger, tends to push the historical and cognitive dimensions of the biblical to text to the margins. Ratzinger, though appreciative of Ricoeur's work, argues from theological premises in favor of preserving a more robust—though not exclusive—role for both. These nuanced differences eventually terminate in appreciably different descriptions of the well-disposed interpreter, with Ricoeur emphasizing a kind of sympathy-in-distance with the interpretive community and Ratzinger recommending an immediate sympathy with the doctrinal faith of the church. Diverse ecclesiological presuppositions obviously come into play. I favor Ratzinger's approach for its ability to affirm a dynamism and elasticity of biblical meaning without altogether sacrificing the historical and cognitive controls on biblical interpretation.
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