The Quest for God and the Good Life

Introduction

I n t r o d uc t i o n My favorite chapter of Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology begins with this wonderful line: “The facts of good and evil, of progress and decline, raise questions about the character of our universe .”1 This book, like Lonergan’s own works, is written for those who care about such questions. It is written for those who have observed our world and celebrate what is good in it while lamenting what is not so good. It is written for those who love the world enough to be willing to work for its welfare, those willing to build themselves up in order to promote progress and reverse decline. More particularly, and perhaps more importantly, it is written for those who know that in order to make good choices, ones that will do more good than harm, this work must be directed by understanding —the kind of understanding that comes from serious contemplation of the deepest, most universal questions raised by the problems of human living: such questions as, Why is there so much violence and suffering in the world? Why do we hurt ourselves and each other? Why do we continue to do what we know is wrong? How can we stop this? How can we heal the damage? How can we start to live our lives in a way that promotes not mere survival , but full flourishing for everyone and everything? Are such lives possible? If so, what would make them possible? What truly makes life, or anything, “good”? Who decides? How can we know? Answering such questions is not easy. In fact, it may be that no one knows, or has ever known, the answers to such questions. Certainly this little book will not answer them, not completely or 1. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 101. ix x  Introduction perfectly. But I believe it is important that we try to answer them. For no matter what our answers are—even if we answer that there is no answer—we all live by our answers. And while there may be no perfect answers to these questions, I believe we can make progress . We can learn. We can grow. We can improve our lives and the lives of each other. Finally, I believe that even if we do so at different times, to different degrees, and from different contexts, we all care about our world, and we all ask ourselves these questions. I came to these questions in part through the work of my parents . My father directed Catholic Charities, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. They brought their work home, hosting foreign refugees, foster children, and others. And they brought my siblings and me to their work, to volunteer at adoption agencies, homeless shelters, and more. Personal friendships and conflicts with my siblings or schoolmates drove me continually to wonder about the best way to live and the right way to know. Community issues such as the push to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, national debates about cutting various social services, and international events from the People Power Revolution in the Philippines to the famines in Africa were just as challenging. In the early 1990s, when I was finishing high school and applying to college, my love for the world, my desire to help make it better, and my interest in life’s deeper questions led me to study international relations. It was the broadest major I could imagine, the one that promised to teach me the most about the world. It would encompass history, economics, languages, culture, political science, philosophy, religion, and (since I would be attending a Catholic university) theology. The overarching questions of our international relations program were about conflict: How was it caused? How could it be stopped? How could it be prevented? Conflict filled the pages of our textbooks, our newspapers, and our lives. Despite this, we students grew up thinking the world was mostly at peace. Was not World War I “the war to end all wars”? Were not biases like racism and sexism overcome in the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s? Slowly, through experience and study, we came to realize that while there has been progress, conflict and bias still pervade our world. Introduction  xi This fact was writ large and made inescapable by the horror of the Rwandan genocide...