GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, RÉGINALD

Dominican theologian and philosopher; b. Auch (France), Feb. 21, 1877; d. Rome, Feb. 15, 1964. Before entering the Dominican Order (1897) he studied medicine at the University of Bordeaux. When he completed his ecclesiastical studies under the direction of A. gardeil, he was assigned to teach philosophy and theology at Le Saulchoir, Belgium (1905). From 1909 until 1960 he taught fundamental, dogmatic, and spiritual theology at what is now called the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and served during the latter part of his career as a consulter of the Holy Office and of other Roman congregations. He began to write for publication in 1904, and produced in all more than 500 books and articles published in scholarly periodicals, many of which have been translated from the original French or Latin into other tongues. He was a zealous proponent of the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas as expounded by the classical commentators of the Dominican school— cajetan (tommaso de vio), Báñez, john of st. thomas, and Charles billuart. He combined a great respect for the past with an understanding and appreciation of the intellectual and spiritual needs of his own time. His principal theses are set forth systematically in his La Synthese thomiste (Paris 1946).

In the field of philosophy his first outstanding work was his Le Sens commun, la philosophie de l'être et les formules dogmatiques (Paris 1909). This was written against Modernism and its conception of the evolution of dogma. Reaffirming the validity of the philosophy of being, of moderate realism and of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics, which is simply the development of elementary and primordial ideas by natural intelligence, Garrigou-Lagrange showed how the human mind grasps first and self-evident principles in intelligible being, which is the first object apprehended by the intellect in the data of the senses. Turning then to dogmatic formulas, which he did not wish to enfeoff to any philosophical system, he showed their rational value and stability. Knowledge of dogma and of dogmatic expressions and formulas can progress, but the dogma remains always immutable in itself. Among his other philosophical works were Le Réalisme du principe de finalité (Paris 1932) and Le Sens du mystère et le clair obscur intellectuel (Nature et Surnaturel ) (Paris 1934). His most important philosophical work was Dieu, son existence et sa nature (Paris 1915). In this study, by which he hoped to provide a solution to the antinomies of agnosticism, he explained first principles, defending their ontological and transcendental validity. Then, basing his argument on them, he advanced the Thomistic proofs of the existence of God and of certain truths regarding the divine nature, laying great stress on the Thomist doctrine concerning the identity of essence and existence in God and the real distinction of essence and existence in the creature.

The major part of Garrigou-Lagrange's work, however, was theological. His classic De revelatione ab ecclesia proposita (Rome 1918; rev. ed. Rome 1932), fixed for his generation the main lines of Catholic apologetics. For him apologetics was a theological rather than a philosophical science, because he conceived it as a rational defense of divine revelation made by reason under positive direction by faith. Thus he tried, on the one hand, to protect the notion of faith as a gratuitous gift of God, a grace, and, on the other, to avoid the pitfalls of a fideism that ignores reason and human study. Faith, essentially a supernatural gift, transcends by far the elaborations of human thought and cannot be the fruit of a rational syllogism, which can lead the mind no farther than to the judgment of credibility.

Garrigou-Lagrange's magisterial commentary on the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas (7 v. Paris-Turin 1938–51) is a comprehensive development and treatment of the truths of faith according to the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Other theological works worthy of mention were La Prédestination des saints et la grâce (Paris 1935); L'Éternelle vie et la profondeur de l'âme (Paris 1950), his articles in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique —"Prédestination," "Promotion physique," "Providence selon la Théologie," "Thomisme"—and the article "Predestinazione" in the Enciclopedia cattolica.

In spiritual theology the principal points in his doctrine were established in the light of Thomistic teaching. Adopting the position of Juan Gonzalez arintero, he insisted vigorously on the universal call to holiness and therefore to infused contemplation and to the mystical life as the normal ways of holiness, or of Christian perfection. Among his most fundamental works in this field are Perfection chrétienne et contemplation (Paris 1923), Les trois conversions et les trois voies (Paris 1933), Les trois âges de la vie intérieure (Lyons 1941), De sanctificatione sacerdotum secundum exigentias temporis nostri (Turin 1947), and De unione sacerdotis cum Christo Sacerdote et Victima (Turin 1948).

Bibliography: "Essai de bibliographie du R. P. Garrigou-Lagrange," Angelicum 14 (1937) 5–37. c. mazzantini, "Nota a proposito del principio d'identità … nella filosofia del G.-L.," ibid. 318–322. h. d. gardeil, Catholicisme 4:1764. b. lavaud in Sacra Doctrina 2 (1957) 14–20. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Tables générales 1:1776–77. "Reginaldi Garrigou-Lagrange: In memoriam," Angelicum 42.1–2 (1965).

[r. m. pizzorni]