Dear fellow ciellini:
I discovered that Fr.
Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s The
Principles of Catholic Apologetics: A Study of
Modernism Based Chiefly on the Lectures of Père
Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s «De
Revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita» Adapted
and Re-Arranged contains a very good criticism of the
"New Apologetic" (p. 28, 42-43) used by Msgr. Giussani:
The method of Immanence…in human nature presupposes an
exigency for the Supernatural
…
Before proceeding to note how the advocates of this new Apologetic
regard criteria external and internal, the reader will distinguish
[cf. Pascendi
§19] between (i), the doctrine of "immanence," i.e.
God's intimate presence in His creation of which the complementary
truth is God's transcendence—acknowledged teaching of Catholic
philosophy, and (ii), the doctrine of "immanence" in apologetics
which accepts the internal religious sense as the only valid
criterion of religious truth [cf. The
Religious Sense p. 15]—one of the
fundamental tenets of Modernism.
…
Criticism of the New Apologetic
1.— It is founded on Semi-Agnosticism, vis., the
untrustworthiness of speculative reason. [Giussani: "The
summit of the conquest of reason is the perception of an
existing, unreachable unknown." (The
Religous Sense p. 155-6)]
2.— It is founded also on an aspect of the doctrine of
immanence. If Catholic Faith is demanded by our nature, that Faith
is not in truth the supernatural. In truth the Supernatural is
above not only the powers but the exigencies of human nature.
These Apologists fail to see that it is natural happiness
arising from the natural knowledge and love of God that our nature
strives to attain. [cf. Feingold's The Natural
Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His
Interpreters and this
The Thomist review of it]
3. — The formal motive of Faith consists in the authority of God
who reveals, and not in religious experience.
{Also, he considers Card. Newman one of the apologists who
"appeal to internal criteria" (p. 41), as does Giussani; however,
he doesn't appear to consider Newman a New Apologist like Blondel,
as he likely would consider Giussani.}
God bless.