Lonergan Studies

Reviews the historical origins and principal elements of Karl Rahner's critique of Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan. Argues that Rahner's critique fails to come to terms with the basic problematic of Trinitarian theology, and misunderstands the significance of Thomas Aquinas's achievement.

Há em todos nós algo que nos impulsiona a compreender e conhecer as coisas. Esse "algo" recebe diversos nomes: força, desejo, impulso, ímpeto ou tendência. Diante de um estímulo, sofremos ou podemos sofrer uma incitação que tende a nos levar da ignorância (não conhecimento) ao entendimento e, na melhor das hipóteses, ao conhecimento. Segundo Aristóteles, "todos os homens desejam por natureza saber" (Metaphysica I, 980a, 21). Sinal disso é o amor dos homens pelas sensações, que são amadas por si mesmas e não apenas por sua utilidade. Dentre os sentidos, destaca-se a visão, por permitir maior conhecimento. Tomás de Aquino, em seu Comentário à Metafísica, afirma que podem ser três as razões desse desejo natural de conhecer: (i) devido ao fato de que toda coisa deseja naturalmente a sua perfeição. O intelecto humano só é conduzido da potência ao ato e à perfeição pelo conhecimento; (ii) porque qualquer coisa tem uma inclinação natural para sua operação própria. A operação própria do homem, enquanto homem, é o conhecer; (iii) porque cada coisa é desejável para que se una ao seu próprio princípio. O princípio do intelecto humano é o conhecimento, assim como a cor é o princípio da visão, e por ela é desejada (Sententia Metaphysicae, I, l.1, 2-4).

Lonergan presents the 'structure of the human good ' in Method In Theology, 1972. This is presented as an (x,y) grid. I argue that Lonergan sought to introduce the historical dimension (developed in the 1930's) into a classicist scheme and trace the development of the idea in five phases. I introduce the notion of dimensions so that the phases can be thought of as removing and introducing dimensions into the structure: '(t)  (x,y)  (y)  (y,t)  (x,y,t).' I suggest that viewing the final structure as three dimensional may obviate some difficulties in the reception of Lonergan's thought.

Originally a lecture at Seton Hall University, January, 2015, this paper is an introduction to a few of the more striking themes from Lonergan's Christology, including Lonergan's approach to the NT, the development of Christological dogma, and the consciousness and knowledge of Christ. Lonergan's Latin treatise, De Verbo Incarnato (1964), is expected to appear later this year in Collected Works, vol. 8: The Incarnate Word, trans. Michael Shields, ed. Robert M. Doran and Jeremy D. Wilkins (University of Toronto Press).

In this bibliography I have compiled fifty essays on MuralGaga published between mid-July and mid-January. They detail my efforts of investigative journalism into the "info-wars" conducted by pro-Israel groups against the UK Labour Party immediately prior to the massacres in Gaza.

T 4 Piaget was studying the development of intelligence in children, an enterprise naturally cognate to Lonergan's interests. The encounter seems to have catalyzed, or at least contributed to, a significant transformation in Lonergan's thought; he found Piaget's ideas fecund for questions that might have surprised Piaget, such as a general account of the stages of cultural development. See, for instance, Lonergan, Method, 27-30. The rather brisk summary in Method is the distillation of years of reflection evidenced in the papers and theological method institutes of the 1960s. 5 Here I am summarizing Lonergan, "Time and Meaning," 109-10. There are parallel discussions. 6 Piaget, The Psychology of Intelligence, 20-55. Though the construction of a spatial field does not exhibit "reversibility" in precisely the same way as an operational field, nevertheless insofar as the subject is considered as an element within the field, changes of position are "reversible" in the sense that they can be countered by (actual or imagined) movements of one's own body; thus the complete group of (potential) displacements exhibits equilibrium: see ibid., 125.

The hypothesis of this (preliminary) study is a development in Lonergan’s thought on ‘first philosophy’. He was raised on
the scholastic assumption of metaphysics as first philosophy. In Verbum he made an initial break by expounding the psychology of Aquinas before the metaphysics. Insight marks a fundamental shift toward self-appropriation as the basic task of philosophy, and self-knowledge as its basic science. It sets up what Prof. Muratore has described as a ‘methodological demand’. The subsequent decade witnessed a series of
attempts to relate his procedure to the tradition he had inherited and to implement the method he had
devised. By the late 1960s, the methodological demand had effected a fundamental transformation, first in
Lonergan’s thinking about philosophy and then in his thinking about philosophy.

Shows how a cumulative and remarkably fertile tradition of theological understanding developed from Augustine. Augustine grounded the missions of Word and Spirit on their distinctive processions in God, and coordinated the missions in relation to the interior and exterior conditions for redemption. Thomas Aquinas built on this tradition by refining the Trinitarian theology, systematically distinguishing nature and grace, and making charity as friendship central to his account of redemption. Lonergan situated this achievement within an account of divine-human intersubjectivity and the structure of history.

The Commission raises the question of the ethical and philosophical foundations of the biological sciences.

My response: At the center of our thesis is the empiricist's assumption about knowing: " What is obvious in knowing is what knowing obviously is " (Lonergan 2000/441). Or: since knowing seems immediate and occurs simultaneously with looking or otherwise sensing, it must be or be LIKE sensing. From that erred epistemology flows a similarly erred ontology: Reality is visible or " already out there now; " images are vague replicas of it; and interiority is " already in here now, " but invisible; so, it cannot be real or knowable. What, then, can ground invisible ethics as real? We bring Lonergan's notions of polymorphism, the existential gap, and philosophical genuineness2 to President Obama's Gray Matters Commission where scholars refer to " silo-thinking " and " obstinate resistance " to ethics and field integration as common in students of science. Our goal, then, is to explain how scientists' silo-thinking and obstinate resistance begin in deeply buried but wholly influential developmental errors that have "infected" the sciences for centuries.

My thesis, in brief, is that Lonergan is important today because the contemporary situation puts in stark relief the perennial problem for theology: the wisdom of theologians. The solution is not in the appropriation of any external ‘system’ but in the practices of self-appropriation by which the dimensions of the problem of measuring up to our tradition become explicit. The classic office of wisdom is to order, which means knowing what problems are the first problems. In theology, what is existentially first is the concrete reality of theologians in their attention, intelligence, and honesty, their freedom and loving self-surrender to Christ. The adequacy of the theologian is, concretely, theology’s first problem. Hence, I speak of Lonergan’s program as a ‘wisdom of the concrete’. It is a wisdom, for it deals with first principles; but it is of the concrete, a wisdom not through the appropriation of a system but through self-appropriation. It is a wisdom of praxis, of promoting religious, moral, and intellectual order in the soul.

The study moves from the most general categories—finality and history—to the specifically theological categories of grace and providence.  After a brief glance at the precursors to Insight, the study turns to Insight itself to explore how Lonergan brought metaphysics into conversation with modern science. A third section places this consideration of natural and historical process within the context of God’s transcendent dominion, while a fourth shows how human and historical finality is transformed by the supernatural gift of participation in the divine life. The study concludes by outlining a heuristic perspective on human history as the dialectical unfolding of finality, sin, and redemptive grace.

The Catholic Church professes that everyone is offered grace sufficient for salvation and that this grace is not necessarily identical to the grace of explicit Christian conversion. This paper  is an effort to connect this doctrine with the traditional Christian claim that Christ is head of all and no one is saved apart from him. What is sanctifying grace, what are the requirements of saving faith, and how might they be related to the historical Jesus Christ, even if they may be given and received apart from explicit Christian confession?

Thomas Aquinas's theory of habitual grace rests on a generically metaphysical account of the faculties of the soul and of the natural and supernatural habits that perfect them. Bernard Lonergan opened up fruitful avenues for rethinking nature, grace, and virtue in a developmental perspective. His intentionality analysis transposes the conception of human nature; the dynamic state of being in love transposes sanctifying grace; the development of skills provides an analogue for virtue; and the role of love in the development, orientation, and transformation of skills provides an analogy for grace as habitual. RACE PERFECTS AND ELEVATES NATURE. Of all the doctrines commonly associated with

This study examines Lonergan’s metaphysical method and some of its implications for a renewed theology, in the context of Robert Doran’s efforts to bring Lonergan’s scholastic theology forward. Doran and I share a commitment to Lonergan’s metaphysical program, but understand its entailments differently. The difference comes to light in our respective readings of Lonergan’s statement, “for every [metaphysical] term and relation, there will exist a corresponding element in intentional consciousness.” For Doran, the statement includes the categories of (Lonergan’s) scholastic theology; in my judgment, it is limited to metaphysical categories in the strict sense.

Hans-Georg Gadamer said that he was finally forced to write Truth and Method after so many years because whenever his students had spoken proudly of having been formed by him they were met by the puzzled question, “Who?” To Lonergan scholars Professor Lawrence will need no introduction, notably because since the 1970s he has hosted an international Lonergan conference at Boston College (where both Lonergan and Gadamer, the subjects of his doctoral dissertation, came to teach). But to those unacquainted with this leading theologian, The Fragility of Consciousness will make an excellent introduction, especially since only now have these twelve inter-disciplinary essays seen publication in a single volume.

The main work of the Canadian philosopher Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) is the book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957). In this book, Lonergan presents his version of Aquinas' philosophy of knowing from a contemporary perspective. His task is to understand 'what is to understand' and he focuses primarily in the knowing and secondly in the known. He begins the study on insight considering the 'dramatic instance' illustrated by Archimedes rushing naked from the Baths crying 'Eureka!'. With this instance, Lonergan gives to the reader " an insight on insight " and introduces the characterization of this important concept. The aim of this paper is to make some considerations on Lonergan's philosophy of knowing and to provide other examples of well-registered insights from history.

Better to sharpen the sword than to slog a soldier out! In a sense, "the tool is very
much important than the task‟ for which it is employed. How a thing has to be done is equally
important to what has to be done. This "tool‟ or "the how‟ is the fundamental concern of
Bernard Lonergan in Method in Theology.

Questo riassunto è stato scritto con lo scopo di facilitare la lettura e lo studio di una delle più importanti e originali opere di teologia del '900, per diffondere la conoscenza di Bernard Lonergan al di là delle ristrette cerchie specialistiche.

As I read him, the heart of Lawrence’s project as philosophical is an articulation of the conversational link between the transcendental structures of conscious intentionality, and the world mediated by meaning. As theological, it is historical entry into divine self-meaning. On both levels it brings into focus the decisive interplay between conversion and conversation. Here I would like to explore his achievement, starting with his dialectical appropriation of Strauss’s narrative of the three waves of modernity. Lawrence exposes the underlying issue in this dialectical process to be a counterpositional construal of consciousness as perception. Further, by transposing Strauss’s waves via the synecdoche of ‘language’, he brings into focus the extent to which the transformations are not only philosophical and political but also cultural and radically condition the possibilities for our self-understanding. He articulates the transcendental dimensions of the issue in terms of the ‘conversational’ structure of consciousness. This, in turn, makes it possible to show how what he calls Lonergan’s ‘hermeneutics of interiority’ really lays the axe to the root of the tree. Finally, he connects these dimensions to the theological and religious significance of Christian conversation.

University of Notre Dame Press Yale philosophy emeritus Michael H. McCarthy has been reading Lonergan since the 1960s, and is convinced of the enduring value of a critical, Christian humanist, one of the " great unheralded thinkers of the twentieth century. " He seeks to build a bridge to those who wish to think things through, and despite the complexity of Lonergan's thought, achieves his aim magnificently. This is a superb introduction to Lonergan's enduring insights, and their relevance for our day. The book takes the form of four long essays. In the first, McCarthy carefully explains how Lonergan (invoking the motto of Pope Leo XIII) perfects and augments the old with the new, untying the tangled knots therein. Briefly, the vetera include aspects of the classical tradition from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas. To take just one example, the Trinitarian theology of Aquinas synthesised Aristotle's discovery that nous grasps forms in (illuminated) phantasms with Augustine's teaching on the production of the inner word in a manner that Lonergan demonstrated accords well with our experience of coming to understand. As for the nova, Lonergan transposed such achievements in the light of: modern empirical science (no longer the true and certain knowledge of causal necessity but an ongoing collaboration of probably verified theory); modern historical studies (with its attention to the multiple functions of meaning); modern philosophy (beginning not from metaphysics but the turn to the subject and, later, the hermeneutic turn); the modern political reality of liberal democracy; and our pluralistic ecumenical situation in religion. McCarthy explains comprehensively and concisely how Lonergan responded to the complex cultural challenges he faced. These are preceded with extremely helpful, sweeping historical analyses that provide an overview of all the major trends in modern and postmodern thought. A second chapter, " Objective knowing and Authentic Living " explains what Lonergan meant in claiming that the " polymorphism of human consciousness is the one and only key to philosophy. " The problem is that our inauthentic subjectivity (resulting from the complexities of our history, our modes of inquiry, our patterns of experience and our biases and ideologies) requires the self-transcendence of epistemic, moral and religious conversion. To take just the former, Lonergan broadens and deepens the horizon of the intentional subject to go beyond the restricted horizons of sense and imagination (picture thinking): McCarthy carefully explains what this means, and argues that Lonergan's greatest metaphilosophical contribution was his " brilliantly conceived dialectical strategy " of dividing philosophical statements into positions and counterpositions insofar as they are rooted in intellectual conversion. A third chapter draws on Charles Taylor's work, particularly, A Secular Age, and finds commonalities with Lonergan, for example, between the above mentioned performative contradiction on which Lonergan bases his dialectical strategy, and the tension Taylor identifies between our concord as regards moral advocacy despite radical disagreement with regards to moral ontology. It is this troubling gap that lies at the heart of the instability of our

From these conference notes: "Lonergan's idea of doctrine as judgment has shaped the way I train lay people for ecumenical encounter between church and parish.  I have learned the following:
1. That healthy ecumenical dialogue—whether international or local—embraces doctrine;
2.  That lay people are much more capable of theological judgment than we give them credit for, especially where understanding precedes judgment;
3.  That honesty about the differing judgments of their traditions can bring local Christians together, rather than further separating them."

In this essay my aim is threefold.  In the first part, I briefly comment on my experience of meeting, greeting, and protecting undergraduates and graduate students in the last twenty years in the United States and Mexico.  In particular I focus on two questions: “What do you want?” and “What do we want?”  In the second part I suggest some ways to implement heuristics in order to ask these two questions soberly and humbly.  In the third and final part I respond to Philip McShane’s claim regarding "the unashamed shamefulness" of leading figures in Lonergan Studies.

In Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Bernard Lonergan executed his programme to " thoroughly understand what it is to understand. " i He did so by developing a theory of cognition with the act that he called " insight " at its core, outlining two main kinds, direct and reflective. Despite the elusive nature of insight, Lonergan covered the ground comprehensively. Nevertheless, it seems as though there are one or two insights about insight that still require elucidation. In particular, I suggest, we need to explain why the reflective insight is so-called, and, indeed, how the need for them arises from direct insights. In this article, then, I will try to extend Lonergan's cognitional theory by reexamining the two kinds of insight. I will show that even with direct insight we may legitimately use the metaphor of " reflection, " and that we may do so in two ways. For the act of insight is described by Lonergan using the related metaphor of " pivoting " (insight pivots between concrete and abstract ii) and again, when we understand, we understand that we understand. In both cases we can discern a duality; a prior knowledge or activity that is supposed by the reflection. I will try to get a better understanding of the " reflective " nature of direct insights by exploring some of the cases that Lonergan provides because, as we shall see, the paradigmatic case of a direct insight is merely a special case, and this fact has implications for our need to reflect. The reflective nature of direct understanding is not a point that Lonergan stresses, for direct insights occur in what Aquinas called the first operation of the mind, (or equivalently, on what Lonergan called the second level, intelligent consciousness), but reflective understanding is a feature of what Aquinas calls the second operation of the mind, (that is, on Lonergan's third level, rational consciousness). However, I will argue that by looking at the reflective nature of direct understanding, we might better understand reflective insights proper; for the duality of the one explains the duality of the other. In this way we may appreciate just why as human beings we do reflect in the way that we do. Insight as Pivotal: Thomist Roots Lonergan's cognitional theory emerged from his intellectualist reading of the Thomist equivalent. Intellectualism, here, refers to the position that the products of our minds, concepts and judgments, have their origin and ground in acts of understanding. iii Thus, in the " first operation of the mind " we form concepts because we first understand, and this act of understanding is to be seen in terms of what Lonergan calls " insight into phantasm. " In this act there is a duality, for in it we understand what we imagine. It is this duality that I shall explore in the next section as justifying, to some extent, the metaphor of the reflective nature of direct insights. Lonergan noted, actually, that in the Saint's affirmation of insight (which, with Aristotle, he made " as clearly and effectively as can be expected " iv) Thomas Aquinas had deployed a metaphor of the mirror, something we not only look in, but may look at, v and Lonergan also noted how Aquinas had recourse to the " reflective " metaphor of intellect " converting to phantasm " —which Lonergan reads as the native orientation of the mind as it attends to images. vi In these ways it could be said that insight is a pivot, or hinge, or mediator between sense and conception (as Lonergan explains in his independent writings vii). Lonergan does not, however, to refer to the " first operation " as reflective.

In Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Bernard Lonergan executed his programme to " thoroughly understand what it is to understand. " i He did so by developing a theory of cognition with the act that he called " insight " at its core, outlining two main kinds, direct and reflective. Despite the elusive nature of insight, Lonergan covered the ground comprehensively. Nevertheless, it seems as though there are one or two insights about insight that still require elucidation. In particular, I suggest, we need to explain why the reflective insight is so-called, and, indeed, how the need for them arises from direct insights. In this article, then, I will try to extend Lonergan's cognitional theory by reexamining the two kinds of insight. I will show that even with direct insight we may legitimately use the metaphor of " reflection, " and that we may do so in two ways. For the act of insight is described by Lonergan using the related metaphor of " pivoting " (insight pivots between concrete and abstract ii) and again, when we understand, we understand that we understand. In both cases we can discern a duality; a prior knowledge or activity that is supposed by the reflection. I will try to get a better understanding of the " reflective " nature of direct insights by exploring some of the cases that Lonergan provides because, as we shall see, the paradigmatic case of a direct insight is merely a special case, and this fact has implications for our need to reflect. The reflective nature of direct understanding is not a point that Lonergan stresses, for direct insights occur in what Aquinas called the first operation of the mind, (or equivalently, on what Lonergan called the second level, intelligent consciousness), but reflective understanding is a feature of what Aquinas calls the second operation of the mind, (that is, on Lonergan's third level, rational consciousness). However, I will argue that by looking at the reflective nature of direct understanding, we might better understand reflective insights proper; for the duality of the one explains the duality of the other. In this way we may appreciate just why as human beings we do reflect in the way that we do. Insight as Pivotal: Thomist Roots Lonergan's cognitional theory emerged from his intellectualist reading of the Thomist equivalent. Intellectualism, here, refers to the position that the products of our minds, concepts and judgments, have their origin and ground in acts of understanding. iii Thus, in the " first operation of the mind " we form concepts because we first understand, and this act of understanding is to be seen in terms of what Lonergan calls " insight into phantasm. " In this act there is a duality, for in it we understand what we imagine. It is this duality that I shall explore in the next section as justifying, to some extent, the metaphor of the reflective nature of direct insights. Lonergan noted, actually, that in the Saint's affirmation of insight (which, with Aristotle, he made " as clearly and effectively as can be expected " iv) Thomas Aquinas had deployed a metaphor of the mirror, something we not only look in, but may look at, v and Lonergan also noted how Aquinas had recourse to the " reflective " metaphor of intellect " converting to phantasm " —which Lonergan reads as the native orientation of the mind as it attends to images. vi In these ways it could be said that insight is a pivot, or hinge, or mediator between sense and conception (as Lonergan explains in his independent writings vii). Lonergan does not, however, to refer to the " first operation " as reflective.

Physics has been regarded as a reasonably successful science, a field of study that can help us along. It is worthwhile for non-physicists to get a sense of that help. This essay intends to show that physics can indeed help us to appreciate the strategy and structure of functional collaboration that is the main topic of Bernard Lonergan's (1904-1984) *Method in Theology.* My hope is that this essay will encourage parallel efforts in other areas.

A lecture at the Gregorian University, Rome, November 6, 2015. Having realized that its institutions and cultural forms are not normative, the West is facing a crisis of normativity: is anything normative, and can we know it? In this context Lonergan has a threefold relevance. First, his foundational practice of self-knowledge and self-appropriation brings to light the normativity of intelligence, reason, and responsibility. Second, his framework for collaboration provides a way forward for theology in the post-scholastic context. Third, his analysis of horizon and conversion recognizes the existential primacy of love. (My paper, "Why Lonergan Still Matters," is a revised version of the text on which this lecture was based.)