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19 chapter฀2 From Discovery to Risk Cynthia Crysdale When I was an associate dean in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America, I regularly received calls from prospective students asking, “If I come to study at CUA, can I be assured that I will be getting the true teachings of the magisterium?” What always struck me about this question was the latent concern for certainty in faith, the assumption that theology is all about correct propositions. I was also struck by the canon within a canon—most of these students did not know the full body of magisterial teachings. I often replied that, indeed, our program adhered to magisterial teachings, which is why we expected them to take courses in religion and culture and to learn about world religions. The documents that promote the understanding of culture and dialogue with other religions clearly were not the ones these inquirers were referring to when they asked about magisterial teachings. This concern for orthodoxy, the desire to have certainty in truth, reminds me of my own personal and intellectual struggles three decades ago. Coming from a Protestant tradition with an evangelical formation, I was determined to find educational programs that I could trust were safely grounded in biblical teaching. My peers at the time had very clear criteria for which professors, courses, and programs were theologically safe. I have come a long way from this concern for a clear litmus test for authentic theology. Rubbing shoulders with faithful inquirers in the Roman Catholic tradition, the ecumenical expansion of my world, has had a lot to do with the revision of my narrow worldview. In particular, the work of Bernard Lonergan contributed to a much more nuanced understanding of “true teachings”—one that has had a profound impact on my personal faith as well as my scholarly career. My objective in this chapter is to introduce a few key insights that Lonergan’s work has offered me. I do this in the context of my own personal narrative. At the end I reflect on how these key concepts might influence an understanding of Catholic education on college campuses today. How Do I Know Anything Is True? I began my formal theological studies at the University of St. Michael’s College , Toronto, in the mid-1970s. One of the core courses in the master’s program was titled Foundations of Theology and, under the influence of Karl Rahner, was divided into sections on the “mediation of revelation”—via 20 Cynthia Crysdale scripture, tradition, reason, and so on. Raised under the Calvinist influence of Presbyterianism, and affected in my college years by evangelical campus ministries, I was most distraught over the section on the mediation of revelation through scripture. How, I wondered, can anyone be assured that the Bible is truly the word of God? How could I know that what the Bible says is true? In an effort to make sure that what I was reading was correct, I had studied Koine Greek. But did that get me any closer to answering my skeptical friends, to reassuring me that the world of faith I had committed myself to was the real one? Increasingly disturbed by such questions as the semester unfolded, I finally visited my professor, Margaret O’Gara. When I concluded my barrage of angst-filled questions, she perceptively responded: “It sounds as if what you are really asking is ‘How do I know anything is true?’” Thus began my career in epistemology. I had no idea at the time that Dr. O’Gara’s perceptive answer was the inroad to a host of complex further questions. I could not have even used the word “epistemology” at that point. I had never heard of Bernard Lonergan. But I was a precocious and bright student in my early twenties who would not settle for easy answers. I had spent the previous year at Wycliffe College because my evangelical Anglican friends had assured me this was a theologically safe place to study. I quickly discovered that “safe” meant that there were certain questions one did not ask and methods one did not use. Most notably, these methods included the higher criticism of scriptural texts that was taught at other schools in the Toronto School of Theology. The Introduction to the New Testament course at Emmanuel College was dubbed by my Wycliffe colleagues “Introduction to Heresy.” The fact that my studies at Wycliffe coincided with the ordination of the...

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