The Triune God: Doctrines by Bernard J. F. Lonergan, The Triune God: Systematics by Bernard J. F. Lonergan (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 488 etc.) were engaged in a common enterprise in which another master’s positions might be respected but they were not sacrosanct. The medieval schools were vibrant hubs of intellectual activity where no mere mortal opinion was given a free pass. So it was that, far from being destructive forces, theologians such as Scotus and Ockham pressed epistemological boundaries to see what reason could finally bear. Nor was the truth of the faith ever in question for them; witness their unwavering adherence to the Eucharistic statements found in canon law. Whether or not one is satisfied with their metaphysical conclusions, Scotus and Ockham did not undo the essential bonds of fides et ratio. They posed legitimate questions that had to be addressed if one is to remain true to the theological task itself: fides quaerens intellectum. IAN CHRISTOPHER LEVY Providence College Providence, Rhode Island The Triune God: Doctrines. By BERNARD J. F. LONERGAN. Edited by ROBERT M. DORAN and H. DANIEL MONSOUR. Translated by MICHAEL G. SHIELDS. Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, volume 11. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Pp. xxiii + 776. $95.00 (cloth), $45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8020-9967-9 (cloth), 978-0-8020-9667-8 (paper). The Triune God: Systematics. ByBERNARDJ.F.LONERGAN.Edited by ROBERT M. DORAN and H. DANIEL MONSOUR. Translated by MICHAEL G. SHIELDS. Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, volume 12. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Pp. xxiv + 823. $95.00 (cloth), $39.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8020-9168-0 (cloth), 978-0-8020-9433-9 (paper). A classmate used to complain that Lonergan’s copious reflections on method would be much clearer if he had produced a few examples of theology. It would be difficult to propose a finer example than the work contained in the present volumes. They make available, for the first time with an interleaf English translation, Lonergan’s monumental textbook, De Deo Trino, 1. Pars Dogmatica and 2. Pars Systematica (Rome, 1964), together with an excellent selection of supporting materials. This is theology of a very high order, composed with methodological awareness and philosophical acuity. Although subject to the requirements of the genre then in force at the Gregorian University, these volumes are a welcome departure from the eclecticism and oversimplification typical of textbooks today. Lonergan develops a cogent interpretation of the doctrinal tradition, illuminated in turn by a profound analogical theory. In his preface to Doctrines, Lonergan explains that, while the task of the positive part of theology is to understand the particular as particular—the mind BOOK REVIEWS 489 of Paul, say, or of Athanasius—the task of the dogmatic part is to grasp the universal in the particular, the one faith in the many witnesses. Doctrines is divided into two sections. The first section (previously published, in a translation by Conn O’Donovan, as The Way to Nicea, 1976) deals with the way from the New Testament to the dogmatic context of the fourth century, that is, from the particularities of the New Testament and patristic witnesses to the formulation of the one faith in a simple rule: what is true of the Father is true of the Son, except the name Father. It would be a mistake, however, to expect original research, novel interpretations, or doctrinal history; Lonergan called his exercise here “dialectic,” which he compared to an x-ray’s bringing into view the issue behind the issues (736). On the surface were questions about the divinity of the Son raised by the Christian message; underneath was the formation of the notion of dogma itself, wrought by the truth-claims of the word of God. What none of the ancient writers envisioned or intended, the conflict of interpretations nevertheless brought about: the emergence of a dogmatic theological context to secure the meaning of the word of God as true. Against those who would maintain that the criterion of theology is praxis rather than truth, or that Christianity is a mission only and not a message, or that doctrines are but models or symbols or practical prescriptions, Lonergan insists upon the ineluctable realism of the word of God, and therefore upon the dogmatic character of Christian faith. The...