The Method of Theology 6:2
Sku: 31200A0E060
Archival Number: CD/mp3 312
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): English
Decade: 1960
Description:
CD/mp3 312, second part of sixth lecture in the 1962 Institute 'The Method of Theology.' Sponsored by Rev. Conrad Dietz. The second lecture proceeds to discuss further the questions associated with belief. In the first three tracks, the various elements in the act of belief are enumerated, to come to the conclusion that the key element is the reflective act of understanding, a judgment of credibility and credentity, which itself follows from a grasp of the sufficiency of the evidence for affirming that I can and ought to will to believe that the tables are true. Tracks 4 to 6 discuss the relation between this act and the preambles of faith. The reflective act of understanding is not precontained in the preambles the way the subsequent acts are precontained in the reflective act of understanding. In the reflective act of understanding one names all the subsequent acts. It is anticipative. It looks forward to the act of belief. I grasp the sufficiency of the evidence for affirming that it is possible and right to will to believe that such and such is true. In tracks 7 to 9 it is emphasized that it is not possible for anyone in one's own mind to separate what he knows from what he believes. Tracks 9 to 23 discuss divine faith in contrast to human faith. While there recur the same elements in divine faith as are found in human faith, there is also an element of fundamental difference. Divine faith introduces a whole new order of truths that are supernatural; and the mediation that grounds the act of faith is a value in the supernatural order. The reflective act of understanding has to be a supernatural act. The light of faith involved in the reflective act of understanding grounding the judgment of credibility and credentity is the per se pivot in the genesis of divine faith, the point where there is effected the transition from a natural to a supernatural order. That light regards directly the question, An sit? and not, as for Rousselot, the question, Quid sit? In tracks 23 to 26 the light of faith is set in opposition to rationalism and yet reconciled with the critical exigence. In fact, there is even the possibility of a critical justification of believing the mysteries, in that we naturally desire to know more than we naturally can attain. The disparity between the proper and the formal objects of human intellect creates an openness for accepting a divine revelation beyond what we can naturally attain. Divine faith gives us a new interiority (track 26). Interiority is not merely a matter of experience, understanding, and judgment in virtue of one's experience and understanding. It is also a matter of what one believes, the interiority of the act of faith. Insofar as there is the community that is the Body of Christ and the movement to system that is contained in dogmatic and theological development, the relevant interiority is a believing interiority. And that believing interiority is the source of method in theology and in reflections on community. From track 26 to track 40, the discussion has to do with the meaning of theology and the relation of theology to faith and to other forms of knowledge. And at track 40 there is introduced the movement from faith, in the world of community, to theology, in the world of theory. It is likened to the comparison of the implicit and the explicit, the actus exercitus and the actus signatus.