Foundational Reality and Three Approaches: Mackinnon, Harvey, and Lonergan

REVIEW ARTICLE: FOUNDATIONAL REALITY AND THREE APPROACHES: MACKINNON, HARVEY, AND LONERGAN I N THE LAST chapter of his recent book Truth and Expression (New York, 1971) Edward MacKinnon makes a key distinction between the truth of a theological doctrine and the conceptual framework against which the doctrine is framed and spoken. For example, the doctrine on the two natures of Christ as expressed at Chalcedon is a creedal statement, but the believer is not thereby committed to the underlying conceptual world view that understands a person as "nature plus properties." (p. 154) Furthermore, maintaining a theological formulation is no guarantee that one is maintaining the same theological proposition. (p. 184) Frameworks can shift, and the primary meaning of a formulation arises in terms of a given cultural and philosophical world view, even if the ontology operative in one's language and thinking remains unexpressed. " The meaning attached to such formulations is not fixed by the formulations themselves." (p. 135) The recurrent theme and focus of MacKinnon's discussion is " covariance under conceptual transformations." This idea originates in science and concerns the place of empirical generalizations in conceptual systems. Such a generalization seeks to express in a unified way a functional relationship found in a multitude of particular instances. It achieves this by the introduction and systematic deployment of technical terms and by an idealization which smooths out the individuating features found in particular instances. . . . Empirical generalizations use a conceptual framework as a vehicle for distinguishing and relating elements, but the emphasis is on the relation expressed rather than on the manner in which the elements are categorized. For this reason the distinguishing truth-feature of such generalizations is their covariance (or form-invariance) under conceptual transformations . (p. 151) And again: Accepting an empirical generalization as true need not entail accepting the conceptualization employed as correct or irreformable. What it does entail is that any subsequent conceptualization of the same domain contains propositions which play the role played by empirical generalizations accepted as true in the original framework. (pp. 106-7) In attempting to reformulate ancient doctrines for his day, the con5U FOUNDATIONAL REALITY AND THREE APPROCHES 513 temporary theologian must " distinguish and relate the constitutive elements of those doctrines in such a way that they manifest a covariance with the structure of the authoritative but outdated formulation." (p. 156) With respect to propositions that are designated " theologically certain " and which, like doctrines, are embedded in conceptual frameworks, MacKinnon suggests it may be necessary to redefine " theologically certain " in terms of "non-revealed doctrines that must be accepted as true in any framework in which doctrines, accepted as true because revealed, can receive an intelligible formulation." (p. 17~) Again, one cannot accept a scriptural teaching as true unless he admits to a covariance between scriptural propositions and our own formulations. (p. 177) And again, if the Fathers of the Church were able to relate allegorical meaning to scriptural meaning, there had to be some covariance across interpretative frameworks. (p. 15~) Finally, in redeveloping theological doctrines, as in the development of science, " true progress preserves and makes manifest the invariance that is present at a deep structural level." (p. 18~) Our concern here is with what precisely is invariant at the deep structural level of theology. MacKinnon has put the problem of redeveloping formulations quite well, but it remains to be seen what covariance across conceptual frameworks consists of in theology. Even the christological problem which he offers as the representative theological sample of an empirical generalization in shifting conceptual systems does not reveal the basic invariance in theology. Now we can easily cite a series of statements on the divinity of Christ all of which were put forward by different people at various times: To accept as valid the conceptual framework in which any one of these statements is embedded while denying the truth of the particular statement is to deny the divinity of Christ. To affirm them all as true in a maximal sense, the propositions along with their framework presuppositions, entails affirming contradictory propo· sitions. (p. 184) Presumably the core of each proposition is that Christ is both human and divine, but how do we grasp the core meaning...