A Vindication of Finitude

Through a fresh reading of the French Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel, this book confronts a fundamental theological and philosophical problem: how an infinite God can be united to finite human beings without bringing about their annihilation.

Unusually for his time, Blondel is presented as undertaking a proto-ressourcement of ascetic themes drawn from the mystical tradition. This recovery enables him to articulate a robust yet intricate realism that avoids the dangers posed by two competing, annihilative visions of personhood: absorption into nothingness, exemplified by Arthur Schopenhauer, and absorption into the infinite, exemplified by Baruch Spinoza.

Pritz-Bennett locates Blondel's philosophy of action between two extremes: the nothingness of creatures and their absolute identity with God. She asks how divine-human union can be possible without finite beings ceasing to be themselves and argues that Blondel's answer lies in a reciprocal abnegation of the human and the divine,; this is a proposal that calls for a renewed assessment of the value of ascesis within finite life.