Abstract

How should the Church realize its public mission? How do different understandings of the nature-grace relationship influence the conception of the Church's role in society? In the heat of the Modernist crisis, Maurice Blondel sharply criticized Pedro Descoqs's qualified defense of French Catholic collaboration with atheist Charles Maurras and his neo-monarchist movement Action Francaise. Blondel viewed Descoqs's position as rooted in an extrinsicism, dubbed "monophorism," that separated the orders of nature and supernature. At the same time, Blondel defended the social Catholics of the Semaines Sociales from the accusation of "social modernism." These social Catholics and Blondel were accused of confusing the orders of nature and grace. Employing historical and theological methods, this dissertation describes and analyzes this dispute. ;Chapter one relates the background of Blondel's "Testis" articles by describing the social Catholicism of the Semaines sociales, the addresses of their president Henri Lorin, and the accusations made against them by their anti-modernist critics. Chapter two situates the "Testis" series in the context of Blondel's philosophical project and sets out the content of the initial articles. Chapter three describes Descoqs's background and the context and content of his series defending Catholic collaboration with Maurras. Chapter four deals with Blondel's initial criticism of Descoqs. Chapter five reviews the heart of the exchange. Chapter six reviews the subsequent editions of Descoqs's work. Chapter seven investigates "later echoes" of the dispute. Chapter eight assesses the philosophical and theological dimensions of the dispute, and indicates some contemporary applications. ;The author concludes that epistemological, ontological, and theological differences played a significant role in the contrasting conceptions of the Christian renewal of the social order held by Blondel and Descoqs. Both positions are vulnerable to criticism. Descoqs's "restorationist" view was uncritically tied to a social scientific positivism and tended to view the socio-political sphere as a mere staging ground for the Church's saving work. Blondel's "transformationist" view tends to a new "integralism" that could undermine the proper autonomy of the natural order. Contemporary arguments over the Church's role in society can be usefully illuminated by this dispute