Lonergan’s Method in Theology and Objectivity in Moral Theology

LONERGAN'S METHOD IN THEOLOGY AND OBJECTIVITY IN MORAL THEOLOGY THE PUBLICATION of Bernard Lonergan's longawaited Method in Theology 1 is an event that promises to further much-needed discussion on the question of method in moral theology. The discussion has been underway for some time, but in the welter of comments and suggestions it is obvious that broad agreement has not been reached, in spite of some common ground among the discussants. In this essay we propose to outline briefly a possible contribution of Bernard Lonergan to the on-going discussion among moral theologians, with particular reference to the problem of objectivity in morals. I. Method in Theology is a significant attempt to integrate values into the very definition of theology. Lonergan conceives of theology as a related series of " functional specialties," 2 but the foundation of "mediated theology," which includes the doctrinal affirmations and systematic elaborations of moral theology, is established by "conversion." 3 Conversion can be three-fold, according to Lonergan: intellectual , moral, or religious. Intellectual conversion is the elimination of the myth of the " already out there now real " as the criterion of reality, objectivity, and human knowing. For the intellectually converted, knowing is not like seeing; 1 New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. • The notion gained some familiarity from the publication of the chapter on functional specialities in Gregorianum 40 (1969), pp. 485-504. • On conversion see Method, pp. 287-44. What follows summarizes tho~~e pages. We should state clearly from the beginning that conversion for Lonergan is not an event within theology. But it is within the horizons established by the conversions that the theologizing subject operates. 589 590 JOHN P. BOYLE the real is not what is " out there " to be looked at. Rather the real world is the world mediated by meaning and not the world of immediate experience. The real world is that which is known by a cognitional process of experiencing, understanding, judging, i.e., by a process of progressive cognitional self-transcendence . Moral conversion means a shift from satisfaction to values as the criteria of one's decisions and choices. The realization of such a shift, however, can be a long process even after a basic choice has been made. Religious conversion is the culmination of this process of self-transcendence: Religious conversion is to a total being-in-love as the efficacious ground of all self-transcendence, whether in the pursuit of truth, or in the realization of human values, or in the orientation man adopts to the universe, its ground, and its goaJ.4 The relationship of the conversions to one another is one of sublation in Karl Rahner's sense: what sublates goes beyond what is sublated, introduces something new and distinct, puts everything on a new basis; yet so far from interfering with the sublated or destroying it, it includes it, preserves all its proper features and properties, and carries them forward to a fuller realization within a richer context. Conversion, therefore, implies a radical shift in the horizon within which meanings and values are perceived.5 And in that fact lies a point of interest to the contemporary discussion among moralists. As a preliminary remark, we note a comment Vernon Bourke makes at the conclusion of the chapter on axiological ethics in his History of Ethics: • Lonergan, Method, p. 241. 5 Lonergan describes a horizon thus: " So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge. (Method, p. 286) The description differs verbally, but not in content, from the often quoted definition in "Metaphysics as Horizon," in Collection, ed. by Frederick E. Crowe, S. J. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), pp. 218-14. LONERGAN'S " METHOD IN THEOLOGY " 591 In a sense value ethics has been too successful. Practically all ethicians now talk about values and mean many different things when they use the term. As a result, the notion of...