Jacob W. WOOD. To Stir a Restless Heart: Thomas Aquinas and Henri de Lubac on Nature, Grace, and the Desire for God. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. 2019. HC pp. xvi-472. ISBN 9780813231839. $65.00. Reviewed by Peter C. PHAN, Georgetown University.

Originally a doctoral dissertation at the Catholic University of America, To Stir a Restless Heart is a study of the development of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine on nature and grace spanning two decades, from 1252 to 1272. Its subtitle, Thomas Aquinas and Henri de Lubac on Nature, Grace, and the Desire for God, is somewhat misleading as it gives the impression that the book is a study of both theologians in equal measure. On the contrary, of the 438 pages of text, 356 are dedicated to an analysis of Aquinas’s teaching, whereas de Lubac occupies a meager 80 pages. Indeed, far from being an Auseinandersetzung between Aquinas and de Lubac, the book’s primary aim is to provide a historical analysis of Aquinas’s doctrine of the natural desire for God and use it as a resource to solve a contemporary debate on nature and grace, sparked by de Lubac’s Surnaturel: Études historiques (1946), between two theological schools, Neo-Thomism and Radical Orthodoxy, and, more remotely, between Cajetanian/Suarezian Thomism and Aegidian Thomism.

The “nature and grace” problem of whether fallen humans can even desire God without God’s grace first stirring their restless hearts did not, of course, begin with Aquinas. It has an ancient pedigree going back to Augustine who first broached it, mainly in his anti-Pelagian writings. The phrase “A Restless Heart” comes from Augustine (Confessions 1:1) and is a perfect metaphor for the human desire for God. Wood provides, as background for the discussion of the “nature and grace” problem, a helpful summary of Augustine’s struggle to reconcile fallen humanity’s natural desire to praise God and thus find happiness in God and its inability to do so without Christ’s healing and elevating grace (1-15). How can a desire be said to be “natural” that aims at a “supernatural” end that cannot be achieved without divine grace?

The much-debated question is how Aquinas himself understood this natural desire for God. In their answers to this question, Thomists are divided into two main groups. On the one hand, there are those who follow Francesco Suárez who distinguishes between an innate, absolute, and non-free desire to know God which culminates in a philosophical knowledge of God as first cause and an elicited, conditional, and free desire for God which is fulfilled only by God’s grace in the supernatural vision of the divine essence. On the other hand, there are those who follow Giles of Rome’s (Aegidius Romanus) interpretation of Aquinas according to which Aquinas sees in nature itself a desire for the supernatural vision of God.

Into this debate came de Lubac’s Surnaturel which rejects Suárez’s interpretation of Aquinas with his distinction between the two kinds of desire and the entire Thomistic tradition that follows him, represented by Thomas de Vio “Cajetan” and Suárez. Instead, de Lubac speaks of “the natural desire for a supernatural end.” De Lubac’s thesis has been challenged from two directions. On the one hand, Neo-Thomists charge that it goes too far and compromises the integrity of both nature and natural law. On the other hand, Radical Orthodoxy theologians argue that de Lubac does not go far enough in so far as he still operates with the “concursus” theory of secondary causality and not with the older “influence” theory of secondary causality which infuses in nature a natural desire for a supernatural end.

Wood’s unique contribution to this debate on Aquinas’s teaching on the human desire for God is by examining the contemporary sources from which Aquinas drew and the contemporary interlocutors with whom he interacted. This historical approach is now made possible thanks to the recent historical-textual scholarship on Aquinas’s writings, permitting a possible way to reconcile Aquinas’s seemingly inconsistent statements on the restless heart’s desire for God. Wood performs this historical analysis in four chapters (2-5), corresponding to the four stages of Aquinas’s theological development on this issue. Prior to discussing Aquinas’s teaching, Wood provides the theological context of the debate on nature and grace between1231 and 1252 (“The Parisian Conversations”) which is dominated by interpretations of Augustine resulting in various Augustinianisms (Latin, Latin-Aristotelian, Latin-Avicennian, and Latin-Averroistic Augustinianisms) and ending with Bonaventure. Then follows Wood’s description of the four stages of Aquinas’s development: (1) Aquinas’s first Parisian period (1252-1259) with The Commentary on the Sentences and De Veritate. (2) Aquinas in Orvieto (1259/61-1265) with Literal Commentary on Job and Summa contra Gentiles. (3) Aquinas in Rome (1265-1268) with Quaestiones disputatae de potentia,  Quaestiones disputatae de anima, Sententia libri de anima, Quaestiones disputatae de spiritualibus creaturis, and Summa theologiae, Prima pars. (4) Aquinas’s second Parisian period (1268-1272) with Sententia libri physicorum, de unitate intellectus, and Summa theologiae, Prima secundae.

The book concludes with a consideration of de Lubac’s thesis of “the natural desire for a supernatural end” by first tracing its roots in the Aegidean tradition and contrasting it with the neo-Thomist tradition represented by Cajetan and Suárez via John Duns Scotus. In particular, he raises the question of whether de Lubac faithfully follows Giles of Rome and correctly interprets Aquinas in the grace-and-nature issue and the desire for God. Wood expresses his opinion on the matter in a paragraph marked by historically informed and judicious balance: “On the basis of the Aegidian tradition, de Lubac correctly imputed to Thomas the idea of a natural desire for the vision of God, but then incorrectly imputed to him the view that nature is active with respect to grace. A return to the delicate balance that Thomas strikes between natural appetite and natural desire can present a way forward in present debates about de Lubac and the commentators, preserving de Lubac’s commitment to our ‘natural desire for a supernatural end’” (358).

To Stir a Restless Heart is a tour de force of historical scholarship on Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition. Its approach to a solution to the debate on the natural desire for God and the larger issue of nature and grace though a close historical examination of Aquinas’s theological development in four stages is highly productive. Though the subject matter is intellectually taxing, Wood writes clearly and engagingly. Though ordinary readers may not possess the stamina to plow through almost five hundred pages of dense text replete with scholastic terms, anyone possessed of an innate appetite and natural desire for Aquinas’ thought and medieval theology will reap large profits from perusing this magnum opus.