On Nature and Grace: Part 8, Enchantment, the Ache, and the Shape of Joy

We've taken a slow walk through Jordan Hillebert's reading of Henri de Lubac in his book Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence. The reason I have done so is because I deeply resonate with de Lubac's navigation between intrinsicism and extrinsicism. In many ways, de Lubac solves many of the issues and tensions I have wrestled with over the years. So when I read Hillebert's book, I said, "Yes, here it is. This is the way." In the next few posts I'd like to share why.

To start, de Lubac's "natural desire for the supernatural," which is a "longing born of lack," sits behind much of Hunting Magic Eels and The Shape of Joy.

First, in Hunting Magic Eels I move away from extrinsicism to connect nature with grace. Because we exist, we are connected to God. Everything is spiritual. Nature is tethered to and oriented toward God. Thus, de Lubac's "natural desire for the supernatural" describes and becomes a resource for re-enchantment. Nature is touched, infused, and filled with grace.

And yet, as with de Lubac, our relation to grace is a "longing born of lack." In writing Hunting Magic Eels I was alert to the temptations of a totalizing intrinsicism, from both Christianity and neopaganism. On the Christian side, as I've described in this series, you see things within liberal and progressive Christian spaces that set aside the economy of salvation for a gnostic vision of affirmational enlightenment. From the neopagan direction, you see a pantheistic sacralization and consecration of nature. All we have to do is recognize nature's always-already blessedness.

But I resist intrinsicism in both Hunting Magic Eels and The Shape of Joy. I call our longing born of lack "the Ache" in Hunting Magic Eels. Human flourishing flounders when God goes missing from our lives. And in The Shape of Joy I describe how our happiness is ordered toward a transcendent, supernatural finality. We become sick when we turn toward ourselves for our beatitude. At the core of our being is an Augustinian restlessness that can only find rest in God. 

The point I'm making here is that de Lubac's navigation between intrinsicism and extrinsicism maps onto my own investigations concerning nature and grace. With de Lubac, against extrinsicism I want to embrace nature as graced, enchanted, and intrinsically ordered to a supernatural finality. But also with de Lubac, I push against intrinsicist views of nature, from both Christian and neopagan perspectives, by describing our desire for the supernatural as a longing born of lack.