Gratia Transfigurat Naturam : Scheeben and the Nature‐Grace Controversy

Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s theology of grace embodies the rhythmic, parallax model of nature and grace that Aaron Pidel, relying on the work of Erich Przywara, has rightly claimed provides the way forward in the dispute between Lubacians and Thomists over the relation between nature and grace. The key to Scheeben’s approach is his adroit handling of the relation between the human person’s “essential destination” to a natural knowledge and love of God and “actual destination” to supernatural deification. Whereas de Lubac conflates these two destinations, Scheeben distinguishes them in such a way that offers a better framework for portraying the drama and glory of supernatural deification. Though Scheeben and Thomists both maintain that human nature in se is ordered to a connatural end, his emphasis on the supernatural character of the current dispensation distinguishes his thought from certain contemporary Thomists and addresses Lubacian concerns about natura pura . Scheeben’s treatment of the essential and actual destinations culminates in his conception of the supernatural “transfiguration” ( Verklärung ) of the graced human person; this embeds the mystery of grace in the deeper mysteries of Christ’s Incarnation and the Trinity, brings out the perichoretic interpenetration of nature and grace, and exhibits the grandeur of the supernatural.