A first point is obvious and simple, but too easily ignored or forgotten. It is this, that Lonergan′s vocation as a Christian thinker is a vocation within a vocation. His first vocation was to be a Christian, that is, to be an authentic human being and an authentic follower of Christ. Within that horizon and retaining its dominant orientation, he found his particular vocation to be a Christian thinker. This hierarchy of calls he himself fully recognized and pointed out now and then as a reminder to his readers and audiences. He knew that a theologian is a believer before...

The general theme of this workshop is meaning and mystery. Meaning and mystery, I would say, is an almost perfect pair of words to take us to the center of Bernard Lonergan′s life and work. For mystery was at the heart of his religion, meaning informed his mind as he studied the problems of theology, and religion and theology pretty much define his life and work. He lived and worked, in the beautiful and illuminating phrase ofMethod in Theology, in ′the ongoing contexts within which mystery is adored and adoration is explained.′² Or, to expand that a little with...

The title of my paper names for discussion two aspects of the bookInsight. The second aspect, the book′s ongoing context, is ultimately equal in importance to the first. However, it will not receive equal time in my talk today, the far larger amount going to the book′s genesis. This first part I will therefore subdivide according to me chronology of Lonergan′s life over a quarter of a century. First, there was the breakthrough of 1928 to 1929, a breakthrough of great creative potential, but not one he was ready then to exploit; it was at that time, I would...

This article is an omnium-gatherum of ideas in Bernard Lonergan that relate, either centrally or tangentially, to the topic of communication. It therefore has to be sketchy on those ideas singly, but may provide an overall framework in which more detailed studies can be located and related to one another.

That does not mean that the article will attempt a synthesis of Lonergan′s views. It remains simply a collection, from end to end of the spectrum, of points that seem to be relevant. Still, even an omniumgatherum should show some order, based on an external principle if not on the...

Back in 1977, Lonergan remarked, ′The whole problem in modern theology, Protestant and Catholic, is the introduction of historical scholarship.′² Three years later he summarized his own lifework under that heading, declaring, ′All my work has been introducing history into Catholic theology.′³ At the same time he set that work within the wider context of the Second Vatican Council: 'The meaning of Vatican II was the acknowledgement of history.′⁴

All three remarks were made in conversation, and survive on taperecordings. They have a value like that of headlines in respectable newspapers: on the subjective side they focus our attention,...

The work under study in the fall 1994 issue ofMETHOD: Journal of Lonergan Studies, ′Philosophy and the Religious Phenomenon,′ is one of a series of papers, some published, some unpublished, that Lonergan wrote on the topic of religion in the last years of his life.² Like most of the series, this paper maintains quite explicitly ′a universalist view of religion.′³ That universalism, as Lonergan conceived it, is the central theme of my article; but I need a preface to determine exactly what Lonergan meant by the ′religion′ of which he takes such a view, and I need a sequel for...

A book on Lonergan and feminism is an instance of a genus, ′Lonergan and ...′ The genus itself seems to merit some attention, especially since instances of the present kind are multiplying (Lonergan and hermeneutics, Lonergan and communications, and so on). It occurred to me that under that general heading I might make a contribution to this collection of articles, though I hope to offer some suggestions on the particular application as well.

In general, if ′X and Y′ is the title of a study, and both X and Y are writers with something to say on a certain topic,...

The title of this volume,Searching for Cultural Foundations, suggests the aim of its chief contributors: the constructive work of laying foundations in specific areas of culture. It also obliges me to justify the contribution I am offering, for I have not attempted, and would not attempt, that kind of constructive work. Still, my justification need not be farfetched. The other studies are all inspired by, and would carry forward, the seminal ideas of Bernard Lonergan. Now I know that their authors share the conviction that a basic task, still far from finished, is that of understanding Lonergan himself, that...

Education can be conceived in a stricter sense as formal education - the instruction given to the young, most often in an institutional setting. Or it can be conceived in a wider sense to include the instruction one receives from life itself throughout one′s years. The two modes should not be too sharply differentiated, and in fact we are now learning (indeed, are being educated) to see them more as parts or aspects of a single process. Even the sharp distinction that once was operative between the teaching and the learning church has lost much of its relevance. We now...

The contemporary scene in theology is vast, fluid, and diversified. If we are to say anything coherent about it and still be brief, we must be highly selective. In Part I, I have selected three features that seem to me significant. More exactly, I have chosen two features and a third - two that are familiar and admit of briefer exposition, and a third that is less familiar but of absorbing interest to me. I hope of course that it will interest you as well; in any case, here too I will aim at brevity. Then, in light of the...

Those of us who have trouble giving a title to what we write are considerably relieved when we find the title already provided, especially when we are allowed a comfortable margin of interpretation in determining what the suggested title means. That is the case for the present paper and, using the liberty granted me, I propose first to draw on Lonergan for an uncomplicated view on what human living is, then to add two complicating factors that suggest the untapped riches of the field, and finally to conclude with some reflections on theory and practice in living our lives.

My...

There is a tendency, seen more in passing remarks than in thematic studies, to equate Jesuit spirituality with the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. I do not know whether anyone has ever made the equation in so many words, but one hears it said that the Exercises are the wellspring of Jesuit life, that Jesuit spirituality is to be found above all in the Exercises, that the Exercises are the basis of Jesuit spirituality, that Jesuits have a vision given them by the Exercises, and so on.

There is a profound truth in all these statements, but just...

When I was preparing this talk, a famous line from Kipling came to mind: ′Oh East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.′ The association of ideas is obvious enough, for our question is about the meeting of disciplines, about dialogue between them; and when disciplines try to meet, chemistry with cultural history, say, or music with demography, they seem to have little or nothing to say to one another: they form a twain that will never meet. And a university which has ten faculties, a score of colleges, schools, and institutes, and half a...

Law and insight are two areas of study that for many years have been the interest of the scholar we are honoring in this issue ofThe Jurist. His interest in law, of course, needs no proof or documentation. His interest in insight, and in the cognitional theory of Bernard Lonergan in general, is probably not so well known; but it is one that I share with him, and so I venture a little way into the unknown to try to relate these two interests of Ladislas Orsy and to carry forward a line of thought that has engaged his...

Magisterium means teaching function, especially that of the church. There is a great deal to be said about that teaching function: its conditions, its authority, its procedures, its limits, its agents. In all this multitude of aspects I will deal with only one in particular, which I will call the learning function of the church.

It might seem that this has nothing to do with the magisterium, which is the topic assigned me for this conference – that when I was asked to talk on one subject, I decided quite arbitrarily to talk on another of my own choosing. Teaching,...

It is almost fifty years since Pius XII spoke of ′a new and mysterious outpouring of the Holy Spirit.′² He was followed a few years later by John XXIII, announcing ′a new Pentecost, so to speak.′³ Those two statements are startling, and one who took them seriously back in the 1950s might reasonably have expected history to repeat itself in a new and modern Acts of the Apostles. But that same person might also now be quite disappointed by the general lack of interest in the matter, or even disturbed by what is a barely concealed hostility. The first Pentecost...

The question why we have to die seems at first sight to be a non-question, or one for which the answer is there already, spelled out in the pages of scripture on the history of the human race. Adam and Eve failed their test, and death was the punishment: ′Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all ...′²

But is the sin of Adam and Eve the ultimate explanation of the entry of death into our world? St Thomas Aquinas has taught us that we must...

Our topic is cognitional foundations. More precisely, we are concerned with the two approaches to those foundations represented by reason with its first principles and by Lonergan with his foundations in authentic subjectivity. The focus is on the second: the whole effort is to find out what Lonergan means by that much quoted statement, ′Genuine objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity.′² What is the relationship between those two functions? What are the mechanics of their collaboration? Vegetables are the fruit of gardening: that I understand. A conclusion is the fruit of premises: that too I understand. But how is...

Just over fifty years ago Bernard Lonergan finished his series of articles ′The Concept ofVerbumin the Writings of St Thomas Aquinas′;² and though his general thesis has made an impact on Thomist studies and been recognized in the wider academic world,³ there are still many particular points to study and many implications of the main thesis to explore. The present article explores the meaning and implications of an intriguing statement Lonergan makes in the concluding pages of his study: ′Thus, the Augustinian psychological analogy makes trinitarian theology a prolongation of natural theology, a deeper insight into what God...

In keeping with the theme of this workshop my question here began as a question about the future of Lonergan studies. That is still a major interest, but it is framed now by a general interest in the future. As the question became generalized, the attempt at an answer followed suit, and will be given only in the most general terms. That is no cause for apology, since students of Lonergan are supposed to be generalists,³ but my audience should be warned that I have no details on tomorrow′s weather, no tip on the stock market. My means are likewise...