The Dynamism of Desire: Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S. J. on The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. By James L. Connor (original) (raw)
This is a document study on Ignatius de Loyola's Spiritual Exercises and how this programme combats the force of the medieval Reformation by swaying church members from being involved in something deeply ecclesiastical and dogmatic to something deeply devotional and altruistic, i.e., piety, humility, and benevolence.
Bernard Lonerganʼs Philosophy of Knowing La filosofía del conocer de Bernard Lonergan
The paper gives a general presentation of the profile and philosophical achievements of Canadian Catholic theologian and philosopher Bernard Lonergan, especially his cognitional theory and epistemology. It confines itself to expounding his views from his main philosophical book: Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London 1957, the critical edition: Toronto 1992). To present Lonerganʼs philosophy of knowing it addresses the following issues: 1. Life; 2. Influence; 3. Works; 4. A general account of Lonerganʼs philosophy; 5. Knowing as a subject of philosophy; 6. Self-appropriation as the aim and method of philosophy; 7. Basic philosophical questions and a hierarchy of the areas of philosophy; 8. Cognitional theory and the cognitional question: a. The generalized empirical method; b. The dynamic structure of knowing (experiencing, understanding, judging); 9. Epistemology and the epistemological question: a. The aim of knowing; b. The notion of objectivity; 10. The metaphysics of t...
CREDIBILITY AND VALUE IN THE THOUGHT OF BERNARD LONERGAN a dissertation
This contribution to Lonergan Studies is a work of interpretation that explains Lonergan’s strategic option for value theory and reconsiders various interpretations of his claim that ‘values are apprehended in feelings.’ It argues that Lonergan’s account of the human good must be seen in the light of his apologetic concern to refashion the notion of philosophy as handmaid to theology. In particular, Lonergan’s ethics must be seen in the light of his Analysis of Faith. In general this is to be understood as an attempt to break from ‘extrinsicism’ (roughly, ‘forgetfulness of the subject’) and that the special contribution of the 1952 work involves appropriating Newman’s illative sense. ‘The apprehension of values in feelings’ is a term indicative of the later (post-1968) Lonergan: it has been the subject of debate in Lonergan scholarship. This study will re-examine sources for the later work including Scheler and Hildebrand. Lonergan uses these sources creatively. It will be argued that Lonergan is closer to Scheler in that there is no fourth level insight (or intellectual perception) in the apprehension of values, but that nevertheless Lonergan draws on Hildebrand for his account of motivation. The study traces the development of Lonergan’s thought on motivation and proposes what for short can be termed ‘the motivation theory’: In general, values are apprehended insofar as the felt experience of the subject is motivated by self-transcendence. Specifically, this involves two cases according as feelings respond to an object that is known or unknown. The next three paragraphs attempt to flesh these ideas out. Feelings can be in response to objects that are known, and may include feelings that are self-transcending. Such feeling is revelatory—the objects in question are then revealed as values. In this way the ‘apprehension of values in feelings’ is intentional—that is, it is directed to/for the sake of an object. Nevertheless, as well as being intentional, it is conscious. Consciousness, or self-awareness, can be, as in the apprehension of values in feelings, a self-awareness of self-transcendence. That is, we are not merely aware (just as we are aware that we are about to sneeze) but we are also aware that we are moving into a fuller, deeper experience (as in moral or religious conversion). We are aware of a felt experience of self-transcendence. The object (which is first known) can be seen as a value. In a proper sense, this is what values are. Now, although as a rule self-transcending feeling is intentional in that it involves a response to an object that is known, self-transcending feeling may not be in response to an object in any ordinary sense. For example, religious objects may also occasion a felt-experience of self-transcendence, yet these ‘objects’ are not, properly, known. For example, they may be represented symbolically, but we may have little idea of God as the final end. In such cases self-transcendence is both similar and different to that outlined in the previous paragraph. It is similar in that it also involves self-transcending motivation; it is different in that no object need be known. Lonergan’s position deliberately allows the possibility of an orientation to a mysterious value which can be felt, and thus experienced, even though the value is not known as an object—such experiencing being that of a self-transcending subject. Thus, in speaking of ‘levels’ of consciousness, with the ‘apprehension of values in feelings’ on a fourth level, Lonergan ‘turns to the subject’ by moving away from the known object of intentionality and towards the conscious subject. Lonergan’s turn to the subject is motivated by the desire to highlight self-transcending feeling. It is a ‘turn to the vertical.’ In general such self-transcending feeling can emerge in relatively familiar situations. However, by way of exception there is also the special case of self-transcending that is the apprehension of religious value. Thus Lonergan speaks of faith as the ‘knowledge born of religious love.’ In many ways it is this special case that is in the foreground of Lonergan’s concerns. Thus Lonergan’s teaching on the apprehension of values, and more generally, his conceptual system fashioned in the later work is readily seen in the context of what he taught regarding general and special categories. That is to say, it provides an apologetic clarification of issues. He has set up a general context that allows him to speak about the gift of God’s love without presuming confessional commitment. Thus, although he was an orthodox, Catholic theologian, Lonergan has a method that facilitates dialogue in an age of pluralism. By explicitly refraining from talk of ends and objects he has not assumed prior metaphysical commitments. Accordingly, the thesis presents an alternative perspective to much of the commentary that has evolved on Lonergan’s new notion of value and its tendency to intellectualism. Possibly this arises because sympathetic commentators are too inclined to turn to Lonergan for general positions in ethics without appreciating the narrower focus of Lonergan’s concerns. The thesis insists that Lonergan’s account of value must be seen in the light of his new notion of belief. A consideration of sources such as Rahner, Cantwell Smith, and Stewart reveals how this is now motivated by ecumenical considerations in an age of pluralism. Although this appreciation of Lonergan’s new notion of value as just that, new, represents a hermeneutics of discontinuity, a term of art is fashioned (‘two types of deliberation’) that reveals the continuity in Lonergan’s thought as regards deliberation. Here, Lonergan’s abiding concern with conversion is highlighted. It will underline what might be called the ‘vertical’ as opposed to ‘horizontal’ concern that can be traced back to Lonergan’s essay on Finality, Love and Marriage in 1943, and indeed, in his doctoral work on Aquinas. As a matter of fact (and somewhat confusingly) the ‘notion of value’ is a technical term in Lonergan which will be elucidated by using the technical term fashioned here: Lonergan’s ‘notion of value’ corresponds to ‘vertical deliberation.’ With this term of art Lonergan stamps his mark on the new approach to value on display in Method. The notion of value, however, represents a development of the earlier notion of being. Continuity is also traced in the development of the structure of the human good over thirty years (in four phases) always in the context of redemption. This can be seen as incorporating Lonergan’s idea of two vectors: the way up and the way down. Lonergan’s turn to the subject, then, can be viewed as moving away from extrinsicism to a softer form of apologetics. Taken as a whole this thesis will shed light on why Lonergan regarded value theory a fruitful approach in ethics and how he could claim both that values rested on feelings, and that beliefs rested on values. That is to say, it studies the connection between value and credibility in the thought of Bernard Lonergan.
Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904-84): A Theologian of Change and Judgment
Theology Today, 2005
At least two elements pervade Lonergan's contribution to theology: a faith-based desire for religious “orthodoxy” and an indefatigable desire for “understanding.” This concern receives distinctively new form in Lonergan, being forged against a background of competing voices whose mastery over belief and thought stultifies faith and restrains insight. The article investigates this dynamic in three basic parts: Lonergan's contribution to the distillation of the Catholic “orthodoxy” upon which he was reared; the conscious operation of “judgment,” which earmarks Lonergan's revalorization of orthodoxy as against the fundamental failure he saw in reactionary thinking to Catholicism; and a brief illustration of how these elements correlate in Lonergan's Christology.