Lonergan’s Theory is meant to represent the operative faculties that occur in the human mind, and explain how we come to know and understand things. As we progress, we can address specific issues in a given level.<ol><li>Experience: The Data we work with, either by the senses or the imagination</li><li>Understanding: How we, ourselves, understand the data. We ask questions, and we update our understanding</li><li>Judgements: Our affirmation, whether our understanding of something is enough to us to say that it is true.</li><li>Decision: We must make a choice, how do we act based on our understanding and judgements?</li></ol>

Lonergan’s Cognitional Theory

Heavily inspired off of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Circle of Understanding, Lonergan proposed to reverse the philosophical approach to questions, as to bring to light the importance and power of a well formed Theology.The Ancient Greeks wanted to promote the Metaphysics by Ordering their Philosophy as:<ol><li>Metaphysics</li><li>Epistemology</li><li>Ethics</li></ol>Lonergan found that one could not rely on the ever changing (yet helpful) metaphysical laws as grounding or as a basis, and how we must instead focus on the operations of the mind. He proposes a new order:<ol><li>Cognitional Theory</li><li>Epistemology</li><li>Metaphysics</li><li>Ethics</li></ol>

Lonergan And The Hermeneutical Approach To The Metaphysics

Insights are immediate acts of understand that occur when we actively work through something and try to understand it.”Eureka!!”, shouted Archimedes upon his discoveryThat’s an insight. It’s a sudden clarity that organizes information, and prompts deeper thinking. It allows us to go forward to judgement, providing us answers to the intended questions we ask. Sometimes insights are so strong and particular, that they have no further relavent questions result from them. We call these invulnerable insights. Lonergan went into excruciating detail on the idea in his predating Magnum Opus ‘Insight’.

The Nature of Insights

As we pursue these particular goods, and work to understand more notions, and judge more values, and act, and authentically question and improve ourselves, we work towards Lonergan’s True Idea of Good, Self-Transcendence.We transcend, go beyond our previous selves. We get better, understand faster, it is a never ending, cumulative and progressive cycle. As we change (convert), we improve ourselves, reform ourselves. As we accept new values, we undergo Moral Conversion, from Satisfactions to Well-Judged and good values.In our endless pursuit, our capacity for truth, and ourselves, expand.

Self Transcendence & Coversion

“The church always arrives on the scene a little breathless and a little late.”

“Faith ... is a conscious apprehension of something inevident, something which unlike this desk and this chair is not seen to be there, even if it enters into the fabric of our personal relations to reality with at least as much force, relevance, and moment as things which are seen to be there.”

DIAGRAM OF THE HERMENEUTIC CIRCLE

Lonergan wants us to be better. To put it bluntly. Just as being Selfless, is the most redeeming quality one could have, considering and judging based off of ideas and objects beyond our selves and our biases (referred to as Transcendental Notions), can help us determine what is important and good for us.Lonergan calls these particular goods. And as a part of our gregarious nature, lonergan finds that as we pursue out particular goods, we take on roles, that let us incidentally and purposefully contribute to our communities and what he calls the Good of Order .

Lonergan’s Good & Transcendental Notions

In this idea of Self-Transcendence, and the beauty of the pursuit, and love we have, does religion come into play. Religion not only asks, but it requires the user to Self-Transcend. To consider ideas, a love, a God, one has to move beyond themselves. The rest of his ‘Method in Theology’, pursues the cognitional theory in the context of theological inquiry, and the understandings that must be undertaken if we wish to convey and interpret scripture and doctrines appropriatelyI invite you to take a read, go past these fundamental beliefs, and explore Lonergan’s brilliant mind and love for God.

Theology & The Method

Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will and his implementation into philosophic culture at the turn of the 20th century is one of the most hard hitting, and sharp breaks in philosophic development. His Anti-Metaphysics and counter to socratic ideals set up for many to fall under his umbrella. He promoted ideas that while not sourcing, are often used in the Atheistic argument. He worked to discredit Socrates, and the Greek philosophers as being the biggest mistake in all of philosophy. Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will asked us to pursue happiness, and we will eventually know our virtues.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Anti-Metaphysical Followup.

Judgment is both a level and a distinct act. It allows us to act on certain notions, and reflect. Different judgements result from different objects and questions.Types of Judgments: <ul><li>Judgments of Fact: An assertion of existence (e.g., "It is raining").</li><li>Judgments of Value: An assessment of personal significance (e.g., "This artwork is beautiful").</li><li>Judgments of Preference: Expressing Inclinations (e.g., "I prefer tea over coffee").</li></ul>Lonergan wants us to judge objects and notions beyond ourselves (transient), and pursue such notions as to avoid bias and pursue something that we find good.

The Notion of Judgements

Following the brief period in philosophy known as “The Enlightenment”, skepticism brought down the credibility of the Metaphysics. Whilst praised and encouraged by Great Minds such as Plato and Aristotle, and brought forth in a theological context by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the resulting Thomist schools were left to fend for themselves. Every philosopher had his own understanding of Metaphysical laws and principals. Little to no one could agree on anything, and the philosophical halt led many falling under such suspicion of the metaphysic’s credibility, as to reject them completely.

Post-Enlightenment

This is a ‘brief’ introduction to  Bernard Lonergan’s ‘Method in Theology’; where we touch on the importance of a Cognitional theory prior to a Metaphysics, Lonergan’s approach towards the post-enlightenment philosophy, and the importance/necessity of a theology and religion.

Method in Theology stands with Insight as Bernard Lonergan's most important work. It is Lonergan's answer to those who would argue that in this time of cultural change and dissolution, the believer is afloat on a sea of multiplying theologies, without rudder or compass. Lonergan was resolute in his refusal to be defeatist on this point. While agreeing that theology must continually change to mediate between religion and culture, he worked out an integral method to guide and control this ongoing process. Method in Theology is the fruit of this labour. This critical edition has benefited from extensive research into Lonergan's typescripts and from consulting the recordings from several institutes where he lectured over the course of the work's development. Lonergan's intention was to provide a set of methods that would guide a collaborative community in the ongoing construction of a theology that would move from recovery of the data through resolution of conflicts to contemporary formulations and applications. With this work, the cognitional theory of Insight: A Study of Human Understanding underwent a surprising set of developments in the form of what he calls functional specialization.

- BERNARD LONERGAN

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