The publication of this work in 1892 made de Régnon the most influential and yet least known of Catholic historians of doctrine.1
Michel René Barnes, “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26 (1995) 51–79, at 51.
I come not to bury Théodore de Régnon but to praise him. Seldom has history shared this intent. In the hundred-odd years since the publication of his four-volume Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, de Régnon has been buried four times over, one funeral for each volume, it would seem.2
Théodore de Régnon, Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité (3 vols. bound as 4; Paris: Victor Retaux, 1892–1898). I deal primarily here with the first volume, published in 1892, whose fourth, fifth, and sixth études have proven so influential through the “de Régnon paradigm.” For ease, I shall refer throughout this essay to the second half of the third volume (bound separately) as volume four. While, ideally, I would wish to present de Régnon's words in the original French, I have chosen, for the sake of readability, to translate my quotations and to provide the French in the footnotes.
I use the headings “Greek” and “Latin” as de Régnon himself uses them, where “Greek” refers to patristic theologians writing in both Latin and Greek, and “Latin” refers to scholastic theologians. I place the headings between quotation marks in order to signal, against frequent misappropriations of these headings (and the groups they represent) by later recipients of the paradigm, their referential rather than descriptive quality. For an extended discussion of these headings and the groups they represent, see below the section in this paper entitled, “On the Terms ‘Latin’ and ‘Greek.’”
Barnes, to whose article “De Régnon Reconsidered” I owe my understanding of de Régnon's reception and influence, tells that French scholarship “has had a lively running argument over whether de Régnon was right about his paradigm” (55). Among those engaged, Barnes names Henri Paissac, Théologie du Verbe (Paris: Cerf, 1951); André Malet, Personne et amour dans la théologie trinitaire de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 1956); Ghislain Lafont, Peut-on connaître Dieu en Jésus-Christ? (Cogitatio fidei 44; Paris: Cerf, 1969); Marie-Joseph Le Guillou, “Réflexions sur la théologie trinitaire à propos de quelques livres anciens et récents,” Istina 17 (1972) 457–64; Bertrand de Margerie, La Trinité chrétienne dans l'histoire (Paris: Beauchesne, 1975).
Vladimir Lossky, Théologie mystique de l'Église d'Orient (Paris: Aubier, 1944) esp. ch. 3, “Dieu-Trinité.” While the French edition shows a substantial debt to de Régnon through citations that establish the provenance in de Régnon's volume of a number of the patristic texts Lossky uses, the English edition, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke & Co., 1957), removes these citations (Barnes, “De Régnon,” 58). While this removal may not, as Barnes maintains, prove an overt design to hide the influence of de Régnon on Lossky's thought, it nevertheless constitutes a kind of “burial,” in that de Régnon's presence becomes much less explicit in the English volume than in the French. However one may choose to interpret this removal, the fact remains that the English edition bears fewer explicit traces of de Régnon's influence over Lossky.
Barnes identifies the unacknowledged influence of “de Régnon's paradigm” in the following English volumes: Frederick Crowe, Doctrine of the Holy Trinity (Willowdale: Regis College, 1956–1966); James Mackey, The Christian Experience of God as Trinity (London: SCM, 1983); John O'Donnell, Trinity and Temporality: The Christian Doctrine of God in the Light of Process Theology and the Theology of Hope (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); David Brown, The Divine Trinity (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985); Catherine LaCugna, God for Us (San Francisco: Harper, 1991).
In her introduction to the recent volume, Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (ed. Sarah Coakley; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), Sarah Coakley uncovers further reverberations of the “de Régnon paradigm” in significant English textbooks on patristic trinitarianism: G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1952); J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958); Edward Hardy and Cyril Richardson, eds., Christology of the Later Fathers (London: SCM, 1954); Maurice Wiles, The Making of Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).
Michel René Barnes, “De Régnon”; idem, “Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology,” Theological Studies 56 (1995) 237–50.
So Dennis Jowers opens his recent article, “Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine” (Reformed Theological Review 60 [2001] 68–84), by declaring his intent to disprove “two dictums” that “most theologians in the English-speaking world have accepted unquestionably,” dictums he ascribes to de Régnon (68). Similarly, Lewis Ayres positions a recent study of Gregory of Nyssa against the “de Régnon paradigm,” namely against the tendency of scholars “to understand Gregory by reading his thought against the backdrop of a division of pro-Nicene theologians into general ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ groups according to their supposed preference for ‘beginning from’ unity or diversity in the Godhead” (Lewis Ayres, “On Not Three People: The Fundamental Themes of Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology As Seen in To Ablabius: On Not Three Gods,” in Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa, 15–16).
Before we cast the last clod over de Régnon and “his” paradigm, I would like to speak a few words over his body of work. For while “de Régnon's paradigm” has recently been exposed as simplistic and misleading, much yet remains to expound concerning de Régnon himself. So this essay aims to continue the work Barnes began, in sifting back through the layers that have accrued over de Régnon's Études. But whereas Barnes uncovered these layers in order to offer an initial reception history of that muddy entity, “de Régnon's paradigm,” this essay attends rather to what those layers have obscured, namely how de Régnon conceived of his own project, how he framed it, and what he hoped it would accomplish. This essay, in short, seeks to distinguish further between “de Régnon's paradigm” and de Régnon.
So this essay takes up de Régnon's Études on their own terms, to reveal de Régnon's underlying intent to stress the complementarity and unity that exist between the “Latin” and “Greek” theological approaches.10
Barnes does make, in passing, observations similar to those that I shall develop here regarding the unity and complementarity that de Régnon traces between the “Latins” and “Greeks.” Thus he remarks, “de Régnon's scholarly mission [is] to present different accounts of the Trinity without requiring or forcing the reader to choose among them since they are all necessary to understand God and since, as we shall see, there exists among them all a kind of unity” (“De Régnon,” 53). Barnes also notes de Régnon's insistence that one study many theological explanations in light of the mystery of the Trinity (52). Given, however, that Barnes swiftly passes over these points on his way to discussing the reception of de Régnon and particularly given that he quotes the receiving tradition but not de Régnon himself, I judge it worth returning to such matters anew in order to offer an extended and expanded portrait of de Régnon's views and to expound on the implications of these views for his and for our own time.
The labels, neo-Scholasticism and neo-Thomism, admittedly postdate the movements they describe. Those I refer to here as “neo-Thomists” would certainly not have labeled themselves by that name. While anachronistic, these labels nevertheless enable us to distinguish between those medieval scholastic thinkers whom the nineteenth-century theologians were reviving, and the nineteenth-century theologians themselves. Alas, de Régnon does not ease our task in identifying or labeling this group, for he refers to those contemporaries to whom he responds only by cagey barb and the general label, “modern theologians.” To avoid confusion, I shall refer to them here as “neo-Thomist.”
This understanding of de Régnon's project, with its ecumenical and apophatic dimensions, has ramifications for current trinitarian scholarship.12
De Régnon never directly employs the term “apophatic” in reference to his own project or other authors. But perhaps I may be forgiven for applying to his text a favored term of our day, given that his text is so pervaded by his own favored term—“mystery.” Whether we call his aims “apophatic” or trace how, through his particular form of positive theology, he hopes to lead the reader down the via negativa toward mystery, the point is ultimately the same: “Moins comprendre, mieux connaître, telle est la devise que je propose au lecteur” (1.49).
Yielding the floor to de Régnon and his Études, this essay goes against the trend of the last century. While many theologians and scholars borrow from his work, knowingly or unknowingly, few engage with him directly, and even fewer cite his Études.13
Thus Barnes notes that Le Guillou does not cite de Régnon directly in his rejection of “de Régnon's paradigm,” but rather cites Malet's and Lafont's characterizations of him (“De Régnon,” 59). How ironic, in light of the consistent reduction of de Régnon's vast project to a pat formula, that an early reviewer declared of the Études, “le résumé devient presque impossible, en présence d'un cadre à la fois si vaste et si complexe” (D. Urbain Baltus, review of Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, in Revue Bénédictine 16.7 [1899] 333).
Barnes, “De Régnon,” 60.
A cursory glance at de Régnon's Études does, to some degree, explain how the paradigm was first set into motion. For de Régnon reiterates, again and again, a portrait of “Greek” and “Latin” theologies that systematizes how each theology progresses in its consideration of the Trinity: the “Greeks” begin with reflection on persons and move to reflection on nature, and the “Latins” move from nature to persons.15
To offer a comprehensive listing of the occurrences of this paradigmatic distinction would be quite impossible, as it recurs ceaselessly across the studies in question (four, five, and six). For one of his fuller treatments, see 1.428–35.
De Régnon in Context
To trace fully the interaction of the Études with the complex historical situation in which they were written lies beyond the scope of this study. Happily, de Régnon eases the task of positioning him with regard to his context through asides he makes, throughout the Études, about the theological developments of his time. Although de Régnon never names his targets—he directs his barbs toward “modern theologians” en masse—he laments practices that proceed from the neo-Thomist revival then under way. Brief but potent, these critiques of “modern theologians” suggest how wary de Régnon was of the theological tendencies of his time and point us toward viewing his Études as a conscious response to the dangers he perceived.16
In accordance with that moment's complexity, de Régnon's response to his time was complex. While I shall trace here signs of de Régnon's distrust of the more rigid neo-Thomism that began to spring up following the release of Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris (1879), one could also note how the first volume of the Études participates in and is in accord with the tenor of its time. De Régnon's long “Introduction” on epistemology fits well within the efforts that Catholic theologians had already been making for some years to push back the tide of modern philosophy while at the same time responding to its epistemological challenges. Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor,” claims a certain pride of place in de Régnon's “Exposition de Dogme,” an exposition largely dotted with scholastic writers.
In a first aside, de Régnon criticizes the tendency of contemporary dogmaticians simply to “bring a text by saint Thomas to bear as an irrefutable rule” in any given discussion.17
De Régnon, Études, 1.46: “Apporter un texte de saint Thomas, comme une règle indiscutable.” Gerald McCool characterizes the neo-Thomist revival as “nothing less than a proposal to replace all the existing systems of Catholic theology with a single system,” that of Thomas (Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism [New York: Fordham University Press, 1989] 136).
De Régnon, Études, 1.46: “Trop souvent on sait en faire une règle de plomb, qui se plie et suit tous les contours que l'on veut!”
De Régnon, Études, 3.58: “La plupart des traités de théologie positive … ont pour but de montrer l'accord de la tradition universelle avec la foi romaine.”
McCool judges that “from the beginning of the neo-Thomist revival the glaring weakness of nineteenth-century Thomism had been its weakness in the areas of history and positive theology” (Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism, 239). In lieu of being encouraged to study ancient sources directly, on their own terms, students from the period following Leo XIII's influential encyclical were trained by “school manuals whose purpose was the clear exposition of safe ‘received’ Thomistic doctrine rather than the stimulation of original thought” (ibid., 238). In this context, de Régnon's “retour aux sources de la tradition doctrinale” shows itself decidedly against the grain.
See 1.47. In the second volume of the Études, de Régnon proves himself ahead of his time in the distinctions that he draws between scholastic theologians. These differences were largely ignored by the neo-Thomists of his moment, who blended the diversity of the scholastic thinkers into a single, unified viewpoint. That this approach was novel and threatening may be seen in the defensive rebuttal de Régnon voices in his third volume, a rebuttal that answers critiques he had evidently received following the publication of his second volume concerning scholastic theology: “On m'a reproché d'avoir exagéré les divergences entre leur enseignement et celui de saint Thomas. Ne pourrait-on reprocher à nos théologiens d'oublier complètement ces différences?” (3.397).
If the more staunch neo-Thomists found in Thomas the unifying answer to the Church's disparate teachings and the divisive attacks of modern philosophy, de Régnon perceived that a total reliance on Thomas's thought creates as many problems as it solves. So he rather daringly cautions his reader against looking to any single system, even Scholasticism, for an authoritative answer to theological questions: “Even while taking advantage of the benefits of this system,” he writes, “whether to refute heresy or to systematize orthodox teaching, we must nevertheless beware of becoming boxed in by it and resting in it as if it were a definitive system. There is nothing immutable but the faith.”22
De Régnon, Études, 1.328: “Tout en profitant des avantages de cette théorie, soit pour écarter l'hérésie, soit pour systématiser l'enseignement orthodoxe, il faut donc prendre garde de s'y renfermer et de s'y reposer comme dans une œuvre définitive. Il n'y a d'immuable que la foi.”
As McCool relates, the neo-Thomism spawned by Aeterni Patris showed the scholastic system to be “the essence of the patristic thought which it had superceded” (Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism, 233).
De Régnon, Études, 3.563–64: “Certains théologiens, largement instruits dans la méthode augustinienne, oublièrent que pour s'élever vers le mystère, la raison pouvait suivre d'autre ‘voies,’ alia via comme dit saint Thomas, et confondirent avec l'exposition canonique du dogme une explication de simple analogie.”
To de Régnon's mind, this singular focus had wreaked particularly devastating effects in the realm of trinitarian theology. He asserts that reflection on the Trinity had almost disappeared in his day: “Il semble qu'à notre époque, le dogme de l'Unité divine ait comme absorbé le dogme de la Trinité dont on ne parle que par mémoire”(1.365).
In fact, the broad design behind the Études directly responds to these dangers. At a moment when he feared that Thomas alone was being heard, de Régnon aimed to open the way for other voices to reenter the theological conversation. So his four-volume study prints large swaths of texts from the patristic and scholastic periods, which present multiple, varied ways of approaching and explaining the Trinity in the hopes of moving theological reflection back toward a fuller, more diverse understanding of the Trinity and the history of trinitarian reflection. This “retour aux sources”—strikingly like the ressourcement of the nouvelle théologie still years away—stood in real tension with the neo-Thomists' aim to unify all the tradition and all teaching under Thomas. Aware of this tension, de Régnon wisely claims Leo XIII as the authorizing figure behind his turn to a broader study of theological sources: “This is why Leo XIII recommends that all go back to saint Thomas, for he is the source from which all the streams of modern theology flow.”26
De Régnon, Études 1.331: “Voilà pourquoi Léon XIII recommande à tous de revenir à saint Thomas, parce que c'est la source d'où sont dérivés tous les ruisseaux de théologie moderne.”
De Régnon, Études, 1.331: “Mais la pensée du Pontife est encore plus haute, et son regard va plus loin. En rétablissant le culte des Docteurs grecs, il nous invite à remonter jusqu'à ces sources plus vives encore, parce qu'elles sont plus voisines de l'effusion primitive.”
While Leo XIII does in fact celebrate the rich tradition of Fathers who had established philosophy in the Church, de Régnon approaches these Fathers in a spirit not entirely in keeping with the one that governed the contemporary neo-Thomists or even the one in which Leo XIII praised them. For de Régnon shows how patristic writers offer an alternate system of trinitarian reflection to the scholastic one, but he does not prove, as Leo XIII and the neo-Thomist manuals might have wanted, how they had shown forth a preliminary version of the system that the Angelic Doctor later perfected.28
In a context of staunch neo-Thomism, the direct reading of primary sources, like de Régnon emphasized through his large quotations of patristic writers, could prove problematic. In fact, Barnes tells that there remained a “tendency,” even among Catholics of the twentieth century, “to regard the actual reading of historical sources as superfluous if not subversive in virtue of official interpretations (such as those of Thomas Aquinas)” (Barnes, “Augustine,” 241).
De Régnon, Études, 3.284: “Faut-il pour la centième fois rappeler aux esprits inquiets que cette comparaison n'est point une critique, mais un simple rapprochement, comme on met côte à côte deux couleurs semblables, pour mieux distinguer la nuance de chacune?” For another such remark, see 4.129.
On the Terms “Latin” and “Greek”
De Régnon's historical engagement has tended to get lost in the last century's reception of the paradigm, for later theologians and historians who built on de Régnon's model carelessly and loosely elided the true purpose of his speech about “Latin” and “Greek” trinitarianisms. Later writers would recapitulate a paradigmatic division between Eastern and Western trinitarian thought, tout court, or they would oppose the Cappadocians with Augustine.30
In the latter terms, David Brown recapitulates the paradigm: “In short the difference is constituted by whether one starts with the one as given or the threeness. Augustine will be taken as the obvious representative of the former approach … the slightly earlier Cappadocian Fathers of the latter model, particularly Gregory of Nyssa” (Brown, Divine Trinity, 243); O'Donnell and LaCugna follow suit in this recapitulation according to Augustine and the Cappadocians. Among those who reiterate the distinction along an East/West divide, one might cite Lossky (who contrasts “Orient” with “Occident,” even if he does nuance these categories) and, more recently, John Zizioulas, who characterizes “de Régnon's paradigm” as “the well-known textbook thesis that the West began with the unity of God and then moved to the Trinity, while the East followed the opposite course” (“The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution,” in Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Being and Act [ed. C. Schwöbel; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995] 46, quoted in Lewis Ayres, “ ‘Remember That You Are Catholic’ (serm. 52.2): Augustine on the Unity of the Triune God,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8.1 [2000] 40).
Barnes also notes the misuse of these original terms by later writers (“De Régnon,” 54). André de Halleux pushes this clarification of categories yet further, perceptively remarking that de Régnon “ne mettait pas en contraste les traditions latine et grecque comme telles et dans leur ensemble … À son sens, le ‘schéma grec’ restait donc représenté en Occident par la majorité des Pères latins ainsi que par des scolastiques tels que Richard de Saint-Victor et Bonaventure, tandis que les Grecs de l'école alexandrine, ou un Épiphane de Salamine, offraient une approche de type latin” (“Personnalisme ou essentialisme trinitaire chez les Pères cappadociens?” in Patrologie et æcuménisme. Recueil d'études [Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990] 216).
The difficulty arises from the fact that de Régnon does not use the terms of this comparison with great consistency or define them with great care. So while he does clearly declare, on separate occasions, that he wishes to compare the scholastic approach with the “Greek” one, he frequently slips into referring to the scholastic approach by the shorthand “Latin.”32
Among the scholastic theologians and commentators to whom de Régnon turns are Anselm, Richard of St. Victor, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Scotus, Catejan, Suarez, and Tiphanus. It is these scholastics whom de Régnon quotes in his fifth étude, the counterpart to his first volume's study of the “Greek” concept of the Trinity. Moreover, he devotes his entire second volume to scholastic theories of the processions, a volume which corresponds to the lengthy third and fourth volumes on “la dogmatique grecque.”
Even if the reader does manage to remember every time de Régnon references the “Latin” approach that he really means the scholastic one, the problem still remains that he rarely, and even then but briefly, defines to whom he intends the “Greek” heading to point. The common assumption about the “de Régnon paradigm”—that the term “Greek” refers to those fourth-century Greek theologians whom he most frequently cites—while understandable, does not grasp the greater breadth that de Régnon means for this term to encompass. To de Régnon's mind, the fourth-century Greek authors offer the richest expression of an approach that reaches centuries before and beyond them in both the Latin-speaking and Greek-speaking worlds.33
He explains that he calls this approach “Greek” because, “although one also encounters it in the most ancient Latins, it was above all cultivated by the Greek Doctors” (“parce que, bien qu'on la rencontre dans les plus anciens Latins, elle a été surtout exploitée par les Docteurs grecs,” 1.428). His reasons for focusing on the fourth-century Greek theologians may be surmised: his own polemical concern, to present an alternate system of reflection to neo-Scholasticism, encourages him to look beyond the familiar Latin authors of the Christian West; the polemical concerns of the fourth century, when the crises of heresy swelled the hottest and the trinitarian formulas were finally set, further determined his selection of this century as the richest moment for reflection. See also 1.127.
In his third and fourth volumes, devoted entirely to “la dogmatique grecque,” de Régnon offers further explanations for the allure of this particular period. He there traces distinctions within the fourth-century Greek theologians, between the “école Alexandrine” and the “école d'Antioche.” While the Alexandrine school continues firmly in accordance with the first visée, the Antiochene theologians begin to tend, in their responses to the Arian crisis, toward the second visée, toward considering the divine nature in itself: “L'école d'Alexandrie demeure fidèle à la méthode primitive malgré l'abus sacrilège des ariens, et distingue le plus possible les rôles des personnes divines. L'école d'Antioche, pour fortifier le dogme de la consubstantialité, insiste surtout sur l'unité divine de substance et d'opération. L'école scolastique adopte plus résolument encore ce point de départ” (3.145). Straddling as it does the two visées, the Antiochene school becomes, for de Régnon, “le lien entre la dogmatique orientale et la dogmatique occidentale” (3.142). As I shall explain below, the “école d'Antioche” gains this intermediary position through its influence on Augustine.
De Régnon justifies his silence on Latin patristic theologians: “Les œuvres ecclésiastiques de l'Occident méritent, sans doute, d'être étudiées en elles-mêmes, et pour elles-mêmes. Cependant je ne veux m'en occuper ici qu'au point de vue des lumières qu'elles jettent sur l'étude de la théologie grecque” (3.537). For his views concerning the influence of Greek thought on Latin theologians, see 3.77–78, 3.537–46.
The headings “Latin” and “Greek” are not meant, then, to delimit the groups they describe, so much as to point, as a useful convention and a means of identification, to the chief examples that he selects to illuminate two essentially conceptual approaches to the Trinity. Thus he celebrates how certain “Greek” thinkers embrace the “Latin” approach, even as he lauds those “Latin” thinkers who show elements of the “Greek” approach.36
De Régnon cites, among others, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, Didymus, and John Damascene as those “Greeks” who show traces of the second, the “Latin” visée (see 3.255–56, 3.77, 3.142).
A number of the formulaic, false interpretations now attributed to “de Régnon's paradigm” actually derive from a misappropriation of the categories “Latin” and “Greek” by later users of the paradigm. First, as I related above, de Régnon does not present Cappadocian theology as the definitive statement of the “Greek” view; it merely offers the most developed and clear explanations of an approach four centuries in the making but equally present in the earlier Latin and Greek Fathers. Second, de Régnon does not champion Augustine as the chief representative of the “Latin” view.37
De Régnon unequivocally declares Thomas to be the “most illustrious representative” of the “Latin” approach (1.305). Even if Augustine was the first to introduce certain key elements of the “Latin” approach in the West—such as his tendency to consider nature on its own terms, his introduction of the “psychological analogy,” his distinction between absolute and relative subsistence, and his looking to the divine operations for a formal reason for the processions—de Régnon is quite clear about the fact that Augustine cannot be identified with the “Latin” approach: “Il ne faudrait pas croire cependant que l'influence de saint Grégoire et de saint Augustin ait inverti le sens du courant traditionnel. Sans doute ils ont assoupli la pensée, ils lui ont fait prendre l'habitude de considérer la nature divine en elle-même, comme on le constate en lisant Cyrille d'Alexandrie. Cependant toute l'école grecque est restée fidèle au concept des premières siècles. … On peut dire la même chose des Latins, jusqu'à la Scolastique” (1.263).
De Régnon, Études, 1.262: “Nous trouvons dans le grand Docteur de l'Occident le germe ou, du moins, le prétexte du système de certains scolastiques, distinguant en Dieu la subsistance absolue et les subsistances relatives.”
It seems likely that de Régnon stresses the rational, systematic aspects of Augustine's work in order to indicate how he is a precursor of the scholastic system he prepares. Thus, de Régnon asserts, “le but principal que se propose saint Augustin est d'établir sur des bases théologiques la dogmatique de la Trinité, en s'appliquant la raison à bien définir les termes et à fortifier les arguments” (3.416).
De Régnon, Études, 4.356: “Lorsque nous avons commencé à étudier la théorie grecque du Saint-Esprit, j'ai comparé cette théorie et celle que la scolastique a reçue de saint Augustin aux deux branches d'une lyre qui s'écartent d'une base commune … ces deux branches se rapportent et se touchent au sommet. C'est à saint Augustin lui-même que nous nous adresserons pour établir cette concorde.”
I borrow Sarah Coakley's apt phrasing for the phenomenal influence of this single text on recent textbook accounts of trinitarianism (“Introduction,” in Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa, 3).
See 1.380, 381, 382, 385. In fact, de Régnon is often none too complimentary with regard to Ad Ablabium. Again and again, he characterizes it as “singulier,” an ambiguous qualifier, and he refers to its logic as “outré” and “bizarre.” He explains that he cites it at such length only “de peur qu'on ne m'accuse d'avoir travesti la pensée d'un si grand homme” (1.377). If others later attributed to it a representative quality, it was not in this light that de Régnon presented it. He rather remarks on the awkwardness of its “interprétation inexacte” of the Trinity (1.381), the unsuitability of saying “plusieurs hommes” (1.380), and its “bizarre et fausse” discussion of the term godhead (1.481). Overall de Régnon rejects the text as manifesting “un Réalisme qui paraît outré” (1.377). To his mind, this interpretation “était dangereuse; car elle semblait réduire l'unité divine à une simple unité spécifique, détruisant ainsi le mystère même de la Trinité” (1.380).
The Paradigm de Régnon Wrote
De Régnon's substantive portrait of “Greek” and “Latin” trinitarian theologies corresponds directly to his aim to open the increasingly entrenched neo-Scholasticism to conversation with other systems of thought.43
De Régnon ascribes both theological and pastoral benefits to this project, hoping that it will “aiguillonner l'ardeur des théologiens” and “rajeunir … le peuple chrétien” (1.330, 365). De Régnon's interest in reaching the “peuple chrétien,” as well as his conscious intent to distance his work from that of official Roman neo-Scholasticism, can be seen in his decision to publish his work in French, rather than Latin. A contemporary review of the first volume of the Études, in the Catholic publication The Month, marvels rather extensively at “this departure from the more obvious course of proceedings,” which would have been to publish in “the language of the schools” rather than “that of his fellow-countrymen” (no. 332 [1892] 287).
De Régnon explicitly positions himself against theologians who cling to narrow, oppositional formulae—a strange position for him to claim, indeed, who has so often been blamed for just that inclination: “Laissons aux écoles les débats contradictoires; car la contradiction provient de l'élément humain qui, en systématisant le dogme, en rend la formule trop étroite” (1.49). The fact that de Régnon declares himself against that very type of dualistic opposition in which “his” paradigm has been reproduced makes all the more pointed Barnes's observation that “this penchant for polar categories reveals something about methodological choices systematicians have made in this century” (Barnes, “Augustine,” 239).
De Régnon, Études, 1.251: “Or les théories dogmatiques contiennent deux éléments: un élément théologique fourni par la révélation, une explication philosophique élaborée par la raison. L'élément de foi est toujours le même, mais la systématisation rationnelle peut varier avec les génies différentes des Docteurs.” Because the “faith element” remains always the same, de Régnon can later characterize even his first volume, with its two diverse portraits, as showing how “la plus complète communauté de foi a toujours régnée entre les Églises orientale et occidentale” (3.3, emphasis mine).
De Régnon, Études, 1.49: “Sucer partout la même moelle dogmatique.” Yves Congar, in his Je crois en l'Esprit Saint (vol. 3; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1980), particularly lauds de Régnon's desire to show the continuity of faith between the two systems, exclaiming, “Nous lui devons tous beaucoup” (16). Given de Régnon's interest in tracing the unity between the two systems, it is notable that, among the “Greek” authors he quotes, Gregory of Nazianzus figures most prominently, since de Régnon names Gregory “le grand scolastique grec” (1.417) and often describes him as being in harmony with the “Latins” in that his thought “dérive vers la considération de la nature visée en elle-même” (1.257).
Note also that while the neo-Thomists he criticizes attend to the Cappadocians in order to prove Thomas the nec plus ultra, de Régnon presents the Cappadocians with the opposite intent, in order to prove the necessity of looking beyond Thomas.
De Régnon, Études, 1.263: “De Thèbes à Athènes et d'Athènes à Thèbes le chemin est le même; mais le parcourir dans un sens et le parcourir dans l'autre ne sont pas choses identiques.”
De Régnon pushes this rapprochement between the two systems yet further: he not only shows the “Latin” and “Greek” approaches to be essentially united in their shared project and revelatory source but also insists that they are necessarily complementary in light of the rational limit imposed on any inquiry into the divine mysteries.49
De Halleux, a perceptive reader of de Régnon, also recognizes that de Régnon “parlait plutôt en termes de complémentarité … dans un esprit remarquablement œcuménique,” insofar as he “considère déjà ‘les Églises grecque et latine comme deux sœurs’ ” (André de Halleux, “ ‘Hypostase’ et ‘Personne’ dans la formation du dogme trinitaire (ca. 375–381),” in Patrologie et œcuménisme, 213). He also notes, elsewhere, that “le P. de Régnon s'était soigneusement gardé d'opposer irréductiblement deux approches complémentaires du mystère trinitaire” (de Halleux, “Personnalisme,” 216).
De Régnon, Études, 1.49: “Quelque beau que soit un système, il ne peut embrasser la révélation dans toute sa splendeur.”
De Régnon, Études, 1.301: “À la vérité, l'intelligence créée ne peut percer complètement la divine obscurité, et il faut que son dernier mot soit l'aveu de son ignorance.”
While de Régnon presents this final admission of ignorance arising at the limit of human reason as a truth of all theological reflection, he pointedly directs this caution against the rationally powerful system of scholastic thought. In fact, nearly every reminder of reason's limits falls within one of his discussions of the “Latin” system. So, in one instance, having conceded that “we must admire the methodical spirit that introduced rational links between all theological propositions,” and having concurred that “the incomparable glory of Scholasticism is to have thus put reason in the service of faith,” de Régnon hastens to add his caution regarding the limits of even this most authoritative, reasoned system: “But, since the revealed doctrines are incomprehensible, we must confess that while we can push back the point of mystery, we shall always finish at this point upon the close of any systematic explanation.”52
De Régnon, Études, 1.48: “Certes il faut louer l'esprit méthodique qui introduit un lien rationnel entre toutes les propositions théologiques, et l'incomparable gloire de la Scolastique est d'avoir mis ainsi la raison au service de la foi. Mais, puisque les dogmes révélés sont incompréhensibles, on doit confesser que, si l'on peut reculer le point mystérieux, on finira toujours par le rencontrer au bout de toutes les explications systématiques.” See also 1.313.
To reinforce these cautions regarding divine mystery and the limits of reason, de Régnon structures his portraits of “Greek” and “Latin” theologies to reveal how they encounter the divine mystery in complementary and inverse ways.53
De Régnon shows how each framework encounters obscurity and clarity in inverse ways: “Le mystère se présente sous deux forme différentes.—L'unité de substance divine: voilà qui est clair pour le Latin; mais comment un seul Dieu peut-il y avoir trois subsistances différentes? Voilà l'obscurité.—Chaque personne est Dieu: voilà pour le Grec ce qui ressort clairement de la révélation; mais comment la même substance est-elle contenue dans ces trois réalités subsistantes? Voilà l'obscurité” (1.434).
De Régnon, Études, 1.328: “Les difficultés nous prouvent, comme on devait s'y attendre, que cette manifestation n'est que partielle, et ne laisse entrevoir qu'un côté de l'incompréhensible réalité.”
“Nous venons de voir,” he summarizes this complementarity, “comment est splendide la théorie grecque, et comment elle évite tous les obstacles de la théorie scolastique. À son tour, elle rencontre une difficulté toute contraire. Si le danger de concevoir la nature avant la personnalité est d'absorber la Trinité dans l'Unité divine, le danger de concevoir la personne avant la nature est de diviser l'Unité en trois individus séparés” (1.366). But, where one would then expect him to explain how the “Latin” system offers a corrective to this problem from the “Greek” approach, he instead enters into a lengthy explanation of how the “Greek” theory of circumincession “évite cette erreur” (1.413). Thus, in the final count of “Advantages” and “Difficulties,” the “Greek” system seems to come out ahead, offering solutions to its own difficulties as well as to those encountered by the “Latin” system.
De Régnon, Études, 3.564: “Le rôle de la théologie positive est de percer des ouvertures dans les murs del'École, et [d']y faire entrer la lumière de tous les points de l'horizon. À cette lumière, on comprend mieux combien le mystère trois fois saint est au-dessus de toutes nos conceptions.”
See 1.49: “Veut-on connaître du plus auguste de nos mystères tout ce qu'il nous est donné d'atteindre, il est bon de ne pas s'inféoder à un système particulier, mais de puiser dans chacun quelque trait de lumière.”
Ultimately, de Régnon's complementary presentation of “Greek” and “Latin” trinitarian systems aims not to resolve the divine mystery—as if the two, taken together, could solve such a mystery—but rather to reinforce the recognition of this mystery.58
De Régnon's insistence on mystery continues through the third and fourth volumes of the Études. There he reveals the ultimate aim of his diverse portrait of “Greek” theologies as being the reinforcement of mystery: “cette variété de méthodes nous montre, mieux que toute explication, combien le mystère de la Trinité est impénétrable” (3.144).
De Régnon, Études, 1.301: “Il y a dans toute théorie de la Sainte Trinité, un côté lumineux et un côté obscur, comme une colonne ne peut être éclairée par le soleil sans projeter son ombre.”
De Régnon explains the apophatic dimension of the paradigm's inverse portraits: “Je n'ai pas commencé de penser à l'Unité, que la Trinité me baigne dans sa splendeur. Je n'ai pas commencé de penser à la Trinité que l'Unité me ressaisit” (1.107). Although later readers seem to have passed over the strongly apophatic dimension of de Régnon's Études, Lossky quotes this passage precisely as a proof that “on est obligé de faire appel à la théologie apophatique afin de se libérer des concepts propres à la pensée” (44).
Both err, by assuming a clarity incompatible with the veil of mystery…. For this reason, it is good to study, at once, these two different theories. It allows us to draw near to the divine mystery along two inverse paths, to approach this mystery from two opposing sides. Each theory corrects the other. Each teaches the other that it is incomplete, that it remains outside of the divine mystery. Each one, so to speak, holds a hand out to the other across the darkness; and so each draws each into the bosom of the Unknown.61
De Régnon, Études, 1.430: “Toutes les deux, elles pèchent par un excès de netteté incompatible avec les voiles du mystère …. Voilà pourquoi il était bon d'étudier à la fois ces deux théories si différentes. C'était se rapprocher du mystère par deux voies inverses, et l'aborder par deux côtés opposés. Chaque théorie corrige l'autre. Chacune notifie à l'autre qu'elle est incomplète, qu'elle est hors du mystère. Chacune, pour parler ainsi, tend la main à l'autre à travers les ténèbres, pour s'attirer mutuellement au sein de l'Impénétrable.”
Conclusion
Where de Régnon knit together “Latin” and “Greek” approaches to the Trinity in order to inspire a properly humble view of theology's capacities at a moment when Roman theologians were becoming increasingly rigid and assured, those who came later would reiterate only division and false certainty. Later readers and, especially, readers of those readers would find in “de Régnon's paradigm” a very different lesson than the one he meant to confer. No longer would de Régnon's paradigmatic portrayal of the two systems evade theological certainty, it would come to impose certainty through a paradigm that dissolves the nuances and divergences of theological reflection into a pat and overly simplifying formula.
How, then, can we account for the distance between the paradigm that arose and the one de Régnon presents in the Études? Barnes offers one provocative answer in his diagnosis of the influence of “de Régnon's paradigm.” He suggests, “We are almost to the point where we can say that modern theology, needing the doctrinal opposition between ‘Greek’ and ‘Latin’ trinitarian theologies, invented it.” Barnes goes on to propose, “Rather than treating de Régnon's paradigm as a description of fourth- and fifth-century trinitarian theologies, we should imagine it as a symptom or a structural prerequisite of modern thinking about trinitarian theologies.”62
Michel René Barnes, “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon,” in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric, and Community (ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones; London: Routledge, 1998) 61.
Ironically enough, some of the goals of de Régnon's Études, seen in this way, prove not wholly incompatible with the goals of the new historiography discussed in this issue of HTR. Surprising resonances emerge between the two projects, broadly sketched. For de Régnon aims ultimately to moderate—not to enforce—stark dualities through his complementary presentation of “Latin” and “Greek” theologies. Indeed, his subtle account of the relations among the different Greek Fathers, and between them and Augustine, suggests that he might well concur with Ayres's characterization of their “pro-Nicene” unity. Second, de Régnon aims to balance overly cataphatic, rational approaches to the Trinity with his persistent reminders of the apophatic, the perdurance of mystery. And, finally, he argues for the ecumenical and theological necessity of bringing about a rapprochement between two divided sides of reflection, in this case “Latin” and “Greek” approaches to the Trinity. To be sure, de Régnon does not go so far as to efface this duality altogether; it does run persistently throughout the first volume of his Études. But, as we have seen, he frames this duality in such a way as to temper its rigidity, encouraging his readers to see the complementary and necessary relation between the two sides, in light of the mystery of the Trinity. This subtlety is far more than “de Régnon's paradigm” can boast. Ceasing to view de Régnon as the villain who rent East from West, we might instead hear him as an ally, counseling us away from the evils of that paradigm for which he has been blamed, but did not create:
Let us leave behind these divergences and rival fluctuations of language. Let us not be Sabellians, defending the one against the three by a confusion that suppresses distinction. Nor let us be Arians, upholding the three against the one by a division that destroys unity. … These are the very tricks of the devil, who plays wickedly with us, as with an unsteady balance.63
De Régnon, Études, 1.210: “Laissons donc toutes ces déviations et ces oscillations rivales de langage. Ne soyons pas sabelliens, en défendant le ‘un’ contre le ‘trois’ par une confusion qui supprime la distinction. Ne soyons pas ariens, en soutenant le ‘trois’ contre le ‘un’ par une division qui détruise l'unité…. Ce sont là enfantillages du démon qui joue méchamment avec nous comme une balance folle” (quoting Gregory of Nazianzus, In supremum vale, 42.16).
