ABSTRACT
One of the twentieth century’s greatest theologians, Henri de Lubac, S.J. (18961991), was also an astute socio-political observer. In him, as a matter of fact, these two ostensibly contrasting tendencies came together. As Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., writes: “De Lubac never believed that theology could be pursued in isolation from current trends, whether ecclesiastical or secular.”1 Here “isolation” could signify a literal disregard of the era’s most pressing issues, but, for de Lubac, it also could mean considering those issues “from the outside,”2 as if one were not personally affected by them. As he explains: “If you do not live, think, and suffer with the men of your time, as one of them, in vain will you pretend, when the moment comes to speak to them, to adapt your language to their ear.”3 Thinkers, then, do not exist in cultural vacuums. Their ideas are intelligible only insofar as they relate to the intellectual, political, religious, and social circumstances of their given epochs.4
