Artículos de revistas
The sacramental vision of Lonergan's Grace and freedom
Fecha
1995Registro en:
0036-4703
Autor
McDermott, John M.
Institución
Resumen
Resumen: That Bernard Lonergan stands as one of the theological masters of twentieth
century Catholicism is beyond doubt. Even during his lifetime internacional conferences
were assembled, dissertation and books written, joumals established to penetrate,
apply, and perpetuate his thought: Most scholarly attention has been directed
to his heuristic theory, a well plowed field of intellectual endeavor, that many other
philosophers and theologians have harrowed in the second half of this century. Surely
Lonergan' s interest in scientific, historical, philosophical, and theological method,
begun when he was a Jesuit scholastic, accompanied all his reflections long
before flowering in Method in Theology. Yet beyond his concern for the proper way
of discovering and presenting truth Lonergan devoted most of his life to actually
explaining the truth in various dogmatic and philosophical treatises. Ultimately the
thinker, especially the Christian theologian, must be more concerned with the truth
than with his manner of thinking it. The scholarly neglect of Lonergan's theological
treatises is to be regretted. That neglect, however, becomes difficult to justify with
regard to Grace and Freedom, a revised version of Lonergan's doctoral thesis on
gratia operans published in the newly nascent Theological Studiesl. This work deserves
attention for many reasons. First, it was introduced by Lonergan's first developed
reflections on theological method2. Second, it devotes prolonged reflection to
conversion, a central notion in Lonergan's later heuristic theory. Third, Lonergan
refers to it repeatedly in his later works; indeed Method not only employs it as a paradigmatic
illustration of theological progress but also admits «profound affinities»
with its positions despite «severa! significant differences».