The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Théologie: Concerning the Truth of Dogma and the Nature of Theology retrieves the most important and largely forgotten exchanges in the mid-20th-century debate surrounding ressourcement thinkers. It makes available new translations of works by the leading Thomists in the exchange: Dominican Fathers Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Michel Labourdette, Marie-Joseph Nicolas, and Raymond Bruckberger. In addition to a lengthy historical and theological introduction, the volume contains sixteen articles, thirteen of which have never appeared in English. All the major critical responses of the Dominican Thomists to the nouvelle théologie are here presented chronologically according to the primary debates carried on, respectively, in the journals Revue Thomiste and Angelicum. A lengthy introduction describes the unfolding of the entire debate, article by article, and explains and references the ressourcement interventions. Unfortunately, the history of this important debate is largely surrounded by polemics, half-truths, caricatures, and journalistic soundbites. In the articles gathered in this volume, along with the accompanying introduction, the Toulouse and Roman Dominicans speak in their own voice. The central theses that define the two sides of the debate are sympathetically set forth. However, the texts gathered here show the immense lengths to which the Thomists went to initiate an authentic and fraternal theological dialogue with the nouveaux théologiens. Frs. Labourdette and Nicolas repeatedly argued for the importance of ressourcement work: they applauded its historical efforts, and they were generally sympathetic and complementary (although always pointed and persistent in gently expressing their concerns). Even Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange—whose infamous intervention is remembered as being a theological "atomic bomb"—is revealed as being no more guilty of escalation than the Dominicans' interlocutors in their own responses to him and Fr. Labourdette. This volume will greatly aid in the task of theological and historical reconstruction and will, undoubtedly, assist in a certain rapprochement between the two sides, as the essential texts, concerns, and theological arguments are made available in their entirety to professional and lay Anglophone readers.

An Avant-garde Theological Generation examines the Fourviere Jesuits and Le Saulchoir Dominicans, theologians and philosophers who comprised the influential reform movement the nouvelle theologie. Led by Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, Yves Congar, and Marie-Dominique Chenu, the movement flourished from the 1930s until its suppression in 1950. It aims to remedy certain historical deficiencies by constructing a history both sensitive to the wider intellectual, political, economic, and cultural milieu of the French interwar crisis, and that establishes continuity with the Modernist crisis and the First World War. Chapter One examines the modern French avant-garde generations that have shaped intellectual and political thought in France, providing context for a historical narrative of the nouvelle theologie. Chapters Two and Three examine the influential older generations that flourished from 1893 to 1914, such as the Dreyfus generation, the generation of Catholic Modernists, and two generations of older Jesuits and Dominicans, which were instrumental in the Fourviere Jesuits' development. Chapter Four explores the influence of the First World War and the years of the 1920s, during which the Jesuits and Dominicans were in religious and intellectual formation, relying heavily on unpublished letters and documents from the Jesuits archives in Paris (Vanves). Chapter Five analyses the crises of the interwar period and the emergence of the wider generation of 1930-to which the nouveaux theologiens belonged-and its intellectual thirst for revolution. Chapter Six examines the emergence of the ^ ressourcement thinkers during the tumultuous years of the 1930s. The decade of the 1940s, explored in Chapter Seven, saw the rise to prominence of the members of the generation of 1930, who, thanks to their participation in the resistance, emerged from the Second World War, with significant influence on the postwar French intellectual milieu. Finally, the monograph concludes in Chapter Eight with an examination of the triumph of French Left Catholicism and the nouvelle theologie during the 1960s at the Second Vatican Council.