LONGERGAN WORKSHOP Volume I LONERGAN WORKSHOP VOLUME I edited by Fred Lawrence Number I LONERGANWORKSHOP edited by Fred Lawrence SCHOLARSPRESS Missoula.Montana LONERGAN WORKSHOP VOLUME I editedby Fred Lawrence Publishedby SCHOLARSPRESS for LONERGAN WORKSHOP Distributedby SCHOLARSPRESS P.O. Box 5207 Missoula,Montana 59806 LONERGANWORKSHOP VolumeI edited by Fred Lawrence Boston College Copyright@ 1978 by BostonCollege ISSN 0t48-2009 Printed in the United States of America | 23 4 5 6 Printing Department University of Montana Missoula, Montana 59812 EDITORI S NOTE The essays collected in this inaugural volume of Lonergan Workshop were contributions for the third meeting of the Workshop held in June, L976 at Boston College. As a group they express the way the work of Bernard Lonergan, to the extent that it has generated something like a 'rmovementr" is open to the most diverse styles of thought and directions of research. As director of the Workshop and editor of this journal, I would like to take this opportunity to stress that the intent of the Workshop-- alive and in print--is to provide a forum for communica- tion and ongoing collaboration among persons who have found Lonergan's suggestions about self-appropriation helpful in venturing out "on their oh/n." Fred Lawrence October, L977 CONTRIBUTORSTO THIS ISSUE Frederick E. Crowe, S.J. Research Scholar Regis College 15 St. Mary Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M7Y 2R5 Philip McShane Professor of Philosophy Mount Saint Vincent ' s University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3J 2L3 Joseph F. Flanagan, S.iI. Associate Professor of Philosophy Chairman, Department of Philosophy Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 Robert Doran , S .J. Assistant Professor of Theology Marquette University l"Iilwaukee, WI 53233 Bernard Tyrrell, S.J. Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Gonzaga University Spokane, WN 99258 Sebastian Moore Campus Minister and Instructor of Theology Marguette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 Matthehr Lamb Assistant Professor of Theology Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 Frederick Lawrence Associate Professor of Theology Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 Bernard Lonergan, S.iI. Visiting Distinguished Professor of Theology Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 vrl- TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DIALECTIC A$ID THE IGNATIA\I SPIRITUAI. EXERCISES FrederickE. Cror'i/e . 1 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESENT OF THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY PhilipMcshane. 27 TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC OF DESIRE AND FEAR iloseph Flanagan 69 THE THEOLOGIANIS PSYCHE: Notes Toward a Reconstruction of Depth psychology Robert M. Doran 93 ON THE POSSTBILITY AND DESTRABILITY OF A CHRISTIAN PSYCHOTHERAPY Bernardil. Tyrrell. I43 CHRISTIAN SELF-DISCOVERY Sebastian Moore 187 ''THE POLITICAL TITEOLOGY AND LONGER CYCLE OF DECLINE'' Frederick Lawrence . 223 THE PRODUCTION PROCESS AND EXPONENTIAL GROWTH: A Study in Socio-Economics and Theology Matthew L. Lamb 257 RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE BernardLonergan. 309 IX DIALECTIC AND THE IGNATTAN SPIRTTUAL EXERCISES Frederick E. Crowe This week of study has been advertised as a Lonergan Workshop, so my first step is to determine an approach to such a workshop and to see how my paper can be located in the project. This is not just a simple exercise in thought, for there has been developing in regard to Father Lonerganfs ideas a certain polarization from which I for one wish to separate myself. It seems to me, then, that a sober approach is to apply the first four functional specialities of Method to the study of Lonergan himself and to settle, each of us for himself, which of the four tasks he is trying to perform. If one objects that this is begging the question, that we are endorsing the program of Method (see chap. 4) /L/ in order to study it, we can reduce the approach to simpler terms: assembling the data, determining their meaning, proceeding from meaning to r^rhat is going forward in the history of thought, and investi- gating the conflicts uncovered in this history with a view to taking a position of oneis own. Surely no one wil-l ob- ject to procedures described in these terms, or to our choosing any one of them as our interest at the moment. On that basis I would locate my own paper in the second areai it is an exercise in understanding, an attempt to discover what Lonergan means by dialectic. My plan is to put that notion to work as a tool of analysis in the Spiritual Ereteises of St. Ignatius LoyoJ,a /2/. In out- ward form, then, my paper is more directly a study of the Erercieest but r hope that in this application to a con- crete case an idea of the nature and function of dialectic will appear. Insofar, of course, as the notion of dialec- tic is found helpful for an understanding of the Exercises, we will be providing an element for judging and evaluating Lonergants Method, but that is a tentative by-product and 2 not my direct purpose. The paper is a study of dialectic as an idea, not an exercise in di-alectic iEseLf /3/' The subtitle of the Workshop is Theology as Public Discourse; I have to relate my paper to that heading as we11. Two difficulties occur at once in proposing the Ignatian Ere?cises as a term of comparison with the public discourse of theology. First, the Enet'eises are a very private affair between the exercitant and God; their re- sults may be manifest, but the dialectic of their process i-s not, and does not therefore seem to offer a good anal- ogy for dialectic as public discourse. Secondly, theology is a highly specialized academic pursuit, and Lhe Etet'- e,Lses are not academic at all; there is certainly a cog- nitional element involved in making them, and it is surely related to theology, but the two forms of knowledge are as remote from one another as the realms of common sense and theory. I hope the paper witl itself be an answer to these difficulties. In fact, one of my aims is to distinguish more clearly public and private factors in the Enercises, and I think this distinction will clarify also the study j-t of theology as public discourse. Again, is true that Ehe Enercises are not theology, much less the highly specialized form of theology supposed by the functional specialties of Method. But there are striking similari- ties all the same. The ExereLses head for a choice in 1ife, as dialectic heads for a choice in theology. The choice they head for is a rather fundamental option in- volving a new religious horizon, much in the way that diatectic may involve a new horizon for the theologian. Both dialectic and the Etercises are initiated by an encounter with the past in the form of a person with a message. Both employ a technique in which self-searching is a central and crucial exercise. Both suppose the two phases of hearing and responding. We do seem to have at least a prima facie case for beginning our study; but' of course, to move our metaphor from lawcourt to kitchen, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. 3 My plan is simple. I will make an analysis of the Esere'Lses from a Thomist viewpoint, using the analytic tools of the Thomist organon. I will show how the notion of dialectic may be used to carry the analysis further. I will conclude with some suggestions on further avenues of investigation. It is naturaLenough to begin an analysis of the Eaereieee from a Thomist viewpoint, for it was after his studies at the University of Paris, and to some extent under the influence of his Thomist studies there, that Ignatius made the final version of his tittle book /4/. To come to specifics, the election of the Enereisee, which is so central to their purpose and strucbure /5/, is con- ceived in Thomist terms, as, for example, when Ignatius exhorts the exercitant not to adapt the end to the means but rather to make the means appropriate to the end (No. 169) /6/. This is clearly the language of St. Thomas, who analyzes the election or act of choice in terms of willing an end, deliberating on means to that end, and choosing the means accordingly. His stock example is that of a sick person who s/ants to get well,--the end therefore is the restoration of health--who takes counsel on how he may do so, and decides to call in the doctor (5.t. L-2, q.8, a.3; 9.9, a.4 and passim). The example is not very thrill- ing to us; maybe calling in a doctor was a bigger deal in the middle ages than it is now, or maybe St. Thomas con- siders that the stark simplicity of this example will serve better to outline the structure of the process. What are the characteristics of the Thomist election? St. Thomas regularly describes it from the analogy of a syllogism. The end, he says, functions in rnatters of con- duct the way a premise does in matters of understanding (5.t, L-2, 9.9, a.3). Again, the object of choice is con- ceived in syllogistic terms, for election of the object follows the practical judgrment which is like the conclu- sion of a syllogism (S.t. L-2, g..13, a.3). Further, one can arrange a chain of syllogisms in a hierarchical order 4 descending from the more universal premise to the less universal, and you can do the same for a series of ends' with one person taking as an end in life what someone else, seeking a higher end, will reduce to a means. Thus' the patient's health is an end for the doctor; he takes this for granted, and does not deliberate about it at al1' But health is subordinate to the good of the soul' so the patient himself may deliberate about health, whether he ought to seek a cure or be content to remain i11, in ef- fect turning it from an end into a means (S-t.