Transforming Desire: The Relation of Religious Conversion and Moral Conversion in the Later Writings of Bernard Lonergan Author: Steven Douglas Cone Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1990 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Theology TRANSFORMING DESIRE: THE RELATION OF RELIGIOUS CONVERSION AND MORAL CONVERSION IN THE LATER WRITINGS OF BERNARD LONERGAN a dissertation by STEVEN DOUGLAS CONE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 . © copyright by STEVEN DOUGLAS CONE 2009 ABSTRACT Transforming Desire: The Relation of Religious Conversion and Moral Conversion in the Later Writings of Bernard Lonergan by Steven Douglas Cone Directed by Frederick Lawrence This work argues that religious conversion sublates moral conversion and also, de facto, serves as a necessary foundation for moral conversion. Religious conversion acts this way by transforming the religiously converted subject’s feelings. Through this radical change in the subject’s motivation, and the consequent change in the kinds of meanings that constitute the subject, religious conversion also transforms the nature of the human good of which the subject is a part. It thereby provides the basis for the right ordering of the human good toward transcendent value and a supernatural end. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1. Earlier and Later Lonergan …………………………………………… 12 Illustration of the Shift or Turn to Intentionality Analysis ………………… 13 Probably Inadequate Influences ……………………………………………. 16 A Possibly Relevant Way of Appropriation ………………………………... 22 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. 30 Chapter 2. From Faculty Psychology to Transcendental Method …………………. 32 A Preliminary Question …………………………………………………….. 33 Empirical Basis ……………………………………………………………... 34 The Examined Consciousness ……………………………………………… 37 Relations of Consciousness ………………………………………… 39 Transcendental Precepts ………………………...…………………. 41 Intersubjectivity ……………………………………………..…….. 44 Patterns and Differentiations ……………………………………… 46 Feelings and Values ………………………………………………… 48 Transcendental Method …………………………………………………….. 50 Empirical Basis in Cognitional Theory …………………………….. 52 From Cognitional Theory to Epistemology ………………………… 53 From Epistemology to Metaphysics …………………………… 56 An Operational Basis for Unity …………………………………….. 56 From Faculty Psychology to Intentionality Analysis ……………………… 58 Aristotle’s Psychology …………………………………………… 59 Contingency ………………………………………………………… 61 Scientific and Ordinary Language ……………………………… 63 Cosmology ……………………………………………………………..….. 64 History ……………………………………………………………… 65 Metaphysical Basis …………………………………………………. 67 Verifiability ………………………………………………………… 69 Wisdom …………………………………………………………….. 71 The Question of God ……………………………………………….. 72 Piaget and Habit ……………………………………………………………. 75 Aristotle and Aquinas on Habit …………………………………….. 75 Lonergan and Piaget on Habit ……………………………………… 77 Skills ………………………………………………………………... 81 Advantages of Lonergan and Piaget ……………………………… 84 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. 85 Chapter 3. The Hierarchical Ordering of the Universe …………………………… 86 The Hierarchical Ordering of the Universe ………………………………… 87 The Concreteness of the Good …………………………………….. 87 Emergent Probability ……………………………………………….. 89 Things ………………………………………………………………. 91 The Human Good …………………………………………………………... 95 Presentation of the Charts ……………………………………….…. 95 Explanation of the Chart in Method in Theology ………………… 100 iv Chapter 3: The Hierarchical Ordering of the Universe (continued) Transcendence and the Human Good …………………………………... 107 Incarnate Meaning ……………………………………………… 108 Vertical Finality ……………………………………………… 110 Horizons ……………………………………………………………..….. 118 Self-Transcendence as the Possibility of Horizon ……………….. 122 Intentional Responses and Values ………………………………… 124 Judgments of Value ……………………………………………… 128 Sublation ………………………………………………………….………. 133 Karl Rahner ……………………………………………………….. 133 Negations and Purification ………………………………………. 134 Elevation …………………………………………………………... 137 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… 140 Chapter 4. Faith and the Supernatural ……………………………………………. 142 Faith and The Supernatural ………………………………...…………….. 143 The Order of the Supernatural …………………………………………….. 144 The Horizon of Faith ……………………………………………………… 153 Transition from a Metaphysical to a Transcendental Context …………… 159 Abraham Maslow …………………………………………………. 163 Religious Experience ……………………………………………… 172 Rudolph Otto ……………………………………………………… 174 Paul Tillich ………………………………………………………... 179 Ignatius Loyola …………………………………………………… 181 Grounding Transcendental Method ……………………………….. 185 Conclusion ……………………………………………..………………….. 186 Chapter 5. Sin ……………………………………………………………………. 188 Sin as Discussed in Lonergan’s Early Writings ………………………… 189 The Overall Context of Sin in Lonergan’s Later Writings ………………... 193 Unauthenticity …………………………………………………………… 196 Alienation …………………………………………………………………. 197 Absurdity ………………………………………………………………….. 197 Bias ………………………………………………………………………... 198 Individual Bias ……………………………………………………. 200 Group Bias ………………………………………………………… 201 General Bias ………………………………………………………. 204 Dramatic Bias …………………………………………………….. 205 Bias and Emergent Probability …………………………………… 213 Decline ……………………………………………………………………. 217 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 220 Chapter 6. The Conversions …………………………………………………….. 221 The Notion of Conversion …………………………………………….. 222 Conversion in Lonergan’s Early Writings ………………………… 223 Conversion in Lonergan’s Later Writings ………………………… 228 v Chapter 6: The Conversions (continued) Religious Conversion ……………………………………………………... 232 Religious Conversion and Religious Experience …………………. 233 Religious Conversion and the Horizon of Faith ……………..……. 235 Religious Conversion and Love …………………………………... 237 Religious Conversion as Grace …………………………………… 239 Religious Conversion as Basis ………………….....…………... 242 The Inner and Outer Words of Grace ………………………….. 251 Emergent Probability …………………………………………….. 252 Undoing Decline ………………………………………………….. 253 Freedom and Authenticity ……………………………………….. 254 The Law of the Cross ………………………………………… 256 Faith, Hope, and Love …………………………………………….. 257 Concluding Observations …………………………………………. 262 Moral Conversion …………………………………………………………. 263 Intellectual Conversion ……………………………………………………. 272 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………... 278 Chapter 7. The Conversions Related: Feelings …………………………………... 280 Feelings …………………………………………………………………… 281 Max Scheler ……………………………………………………………….. 282 Dietrich von Hildebrand ………………………………………………….. 293 Lonergan’s Appropriation ………………………………………………… 317 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 333 Chapter 8. The Conversions Related: Feelings and Meaning ……………………. 335 The Transformation of Meaning ………………………………………….. 337 Intersubjectivity and Intersubjective Meaning …………………… 338 Artistic Meaning …………………………………………………... 339 Symbolic Meaning ………………………………………………... 354 Healing the Bias of the Unconscious Motivations ……………….. 360 Linguistic Meaning ……………………………………………….. 362 Incarnate Meaning ………………………………………………… 368 Religious and Moral Conversions Related ……………………………….. 373 Religious Conversion Sublates Moral Conversion ……………… 374 Religious Conversion Critical for Moral Conversion ………… 376 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 381 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………… 383 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………… 389 Works by Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S.J. …………………………………… 389 Other Works ………………………..……………………………………. 393 vi ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: The Phases of Conscious Intentionality ………………………………….. 38 Figure 2: The Human Good Chart from Method in Theology ……………………… 97 Figure 3: The Algebraic Chart from “Finality, Love, Marriage” ………………… 98 Figure 4: The Algebraic Ordered Sequence from “Finality, Love, Marriage” …….. 98 Figure 5: The Expanded Chart and Ordered Sequence from “Finality, Love, Marriage” …………………………..……………………………….. 99 Figure 6: Responses in Von Hildebrand …………………..………………………. 299 vii INTRODUCTION Find your delight in the LORD who will give you your heart's desire. —Psalm 37:4 Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. —Romans 5:3-5 In this work, I have one main question: “What is the relation of moral conversion to religious conversion in the later writings of Bernard Lonergan?” In other words, how and why does the gift of God’s love change us, according to Lonergan’s later theology, relative to our choosing the good for its own sake? It seems there should be some connection, and Lonergan in fact explains one. What is it?1 The question is simple, but to answer it I will have to take some time. Lonergan’s collected works will compose twenty-two volumes, with the original compositions produced from the time of the Second World War on into the 1980s. Moreover, the topic I have chosen, namely “conversion,” occupied a great part of his attention in his later years. I will argue that religious conversion sublates moral conversion and also, de facto, serves as a necessary foundation for moral conversion. Religious conversion acts this way by transforming the religiously converted subject’s feelings. Through this