Customer Reviews

Letters of Etienne Gilson to Henri De Lubac

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Without being too wry, I might suggest amending this book to be called "Commentary by Henri de Lubac, with Letters of Etienne Gilson". If you are familiar with De Lubac's scholarship (and I can't imagine any prospective reader of this work would not be), you won't be surprised to find a typical super-abundance of footnotes and bibliographical references in the notes added to the letters. Not that this is a bad thing, but, unless you are very well versed in Gilson's life and work, it does almost require reading the notes first and then the letter. (I would estimate 70% of the book is either commentary by De Lubac or documents relating to Gilson in the appendices.) Gilson's style is winsome and brisk as always. By the time you make it through the commentary, however, you may have forgotten what it referred to in the letter itself.

Again, I don't mean to come off as dissatisfied. This book is a true gem of "behind the scenes" thinking in the decades bracketing Vatican II. Of especial interest is how Gilson's anti-neo-Thomistic Thomism dovetails with De Lubac's then controversial work. Perhaps even more interesting is how De Lubac and Gilson frequently, but charitably, diverge over Teilhard de Chardin's work. This Gilsonian tension is manifest (by descent, as it were) in Fr. Jaki's "methodical realism" cum anti-Teilhardism. Frankly, I'd love to see a version of this book that included Jaki's commentary on De Lubac's commentary!

This book can well serve as a sort of cliffnotes for both De Lubac's and Gilson's dominant academic concerns (e.g., Gilson's acute anti-Suarezianism and De Lubac's Augustinian-Thomistic synthesis), so I recommend reading it in conjunction with their major works. The bottom line is, if you want a quick, titillating look at either of these scholars in their own words, get this book and enjoy!