De methodo theologiae–5.2.62
Sku: 425D0DTL060
Archival Number: A425d
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): Latin
Decade: 1960
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3 pp. headed De methodo theologiae, and dated 5.2.62, with the subheading De theologia. These are notes from or pertinent to the 1962 course of the same title. The question of method is not part of the introduction to theology but rather a reflection upon theological knowledge already possessed; it is intended not for rehearsing what is already known but for directing the course of further investigation. Theology treats God and all other things as referred or ordered to God, and it is customarily divided into natural and dogmatic theology. These have in common that they are mediated sciences, but they differ in their principle, their object, their mediation, and their concreteness. They are to be distinguished but not totally separated: they exist in the same mind and are about the same God, and one adds to the other only a new mediation and greater concreteness. The relation of n.t. to d.t. is compared to the relation of logic to mathematics, of math to physics, of physics to chemistry, of chemistry to biology, of biology to psychology: ita multo magis theologus dogmaticus cognoscere et adhibere debet theologiam naturalem. Then he goes into both the similiter and the magis. Then he goes into the relation of d.t. to human sciences. As its connection with n.t. is ratione obiecti, so its connection with h.s. is ratione mediationis. An analogy is set up between d.t. and h.s. on this basis. `There is a similarity: each deals with the meaning and the order of human life; but there is also a difference, in that the human sciences treat meaning and order as their object, whereas theology uses a divinely revealed meaning and a divinely established order as the means of attaining its object.' Other connections between d.t. and h.s. are explored. The manifold interrelation of their objects [meaning of word of God and meanings and orders investigated by human sciences] (cf. `a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion within that matrix') is `radix actualis problematis de methodo theologiae.' Finally recent questions of `the new object of theology' and `the new theology' itself are examined, and L gives his own position. Mediation resolves the first problem: God (not the whole Christ) remains the object of theology, but mediated through the whole Christ.
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