Bernard Lonergan

Reviews the historical origins and principal elements of Karl Rahner's critique of Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan. Argues that Rahner's critique fails to come to terms with the basic problematic of Trinitarian theology, and misunderstands the significance of Thomas Aquinas's achievement.

Post-modern theology is highly suspicious of social theory and its secular origins. After all, the founder who gave us the word “sociology” also coined the term “positivism.” An alternative strategy is that of Bernard Lonergan, a theologian with a highly developed sociological imagination. He was quite aware of the secularity but devoted a life-time in trying to think through some of the key issues. His was a mind on the move and perhaps it is not surprising that his contribution has yet to be assimilated.
In this paper I shall take a look at a key text from Lonergan’s magnum opus, Insight. I will suggest that, in a sense, this may be regarded as “social physics” (another phrase from Auguste Comte). As we shall see, Lonergan’s thought wrestled with many issues of concern to the other founders of sociology: Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber, but his vision is quite original, and in fact, he will draw on Arnold J. Toynbee.
I do not believe Lonergan’s work is beyond criticism—as his later developments suggest—so I will try to identify some difficulties by examining closely some of those later changes. Before offering my appraisal, then, I will look at Lonergan’s social theory from five periods. First, I shall simply record his interest in the 1930s by referring to some work he retained in a file but never published. Then I shall give a more careful exposition of a chapter written in the early 1950s. I will suggest that Lonergan’s deployment of mathematical analogies to understand social theory underwent some changes and so I will look at that transition in the 1960s. I will then be able to take a glance at the new way Lonergan presented his ideas in Method in Theology (1972) and go on to sample a few developments in the last decade up to 1980. In my appraisal we will be able to see some of the strengths and weaknesses Lonergan encountered in his project of social physics and perhaps make a small increase to the stock of ideas myself.

Conceiving spirituality as a natural dimension of personal growth, this paper examines the relationships between self-esteem, sexual self-acceptance, and spiritual development. Two specific cases serve as examples: acceptance of one's homosexuality and living with disability. Psychological research has shown how central bodiliness and sexuality are to a person’s self-concept and self-esteem. Without comfort with one’s sexuality, a person could not be a fully functioning person, for such a person would always be running from him- or herself. And contemporary awareness adds the corollary: only a fully functioning person can be spiritually developed. Sexual self-acceptance is critical to a person’s self- esteem and, therefore, to a person’s spiritual development.

Today's presentation is an exploration in the philosophical foundations of theology. While theology does not necessarily need philosophy to do its work, I believe, as I'm sure the room will agree, that theology does its best work when its philosophical underpinnings are sound and well articulated. Therefore, if we seek a theology of history, a philosophy of history would be quite helpful in getting us there. One common approach to a philosophical theory of history is found in the writings of Karl Marx. Another approach is found in Lonergan's work. My presentation will serve as a contrast between a revolutionary theory of history and a redemptive theory of history. I will begin with a quick overview of what I understand to be the key features of Marx's theory of history: Dialectical Materialism and Revolution, with a general comparison to Hegel. I will then offer my critique of these elements, focusing on their anthropological weaknesses. Finally, I will make the case that Lonergan's theory of history corrects these problematic elements. This will all go to show that Lonergan's theory is a better fit for the foundation of a theological theory of history. As a matter of preface, I feel obligated to offer an explanation as to what is at stake in asking this question. As I mentioned before, theology is at its best when the philosophy underpinning it is sound and well-developed. Conversely, an underdeveloped, or improperly vetted, philosophical groundwork can lead to an inherently contradictory, and therefore implausible, theology. The issue at real stake is if we start building theologies on the arguments of Marx without first offering a critical evaluation of the arguments, we could end up with some warped theological structure that leads to imperatives that contradict basic tenets of the faith, as I will go on to show.

According to Bernard J. F. Lonergan, conversion of a human being involves changing of one’s horizon,  and the changing of one’s horizon involves the cognitional theory of Lonergan.  The cognition of a human being is a dynamic structure of knowing.  A person at different stage of life has different experience and different knowing. Thus one’s horizon at different stage of life is limited also by one’s knowing and experience.
      From the writings of St. Francis of Assisi and the relevant biographies of him we can find that he has different knowing and different horizon at his different stages of life.  Therefore the conversion of St. Francis of Assisi is also a dynamic changing. In this paper we try to discuss the first conversion of St. Francis and try to analysis how his experience affecting his conversion by the cognitional theory of Lonergan.

Suppose you are preacher who wants to speak a word to a polarized situation. Words take on meaning within a context and unfortunately yours is a situation divided between " right " and " left " (here meant very generally to signify the two poles of a divided society) with the result that your word will inevitably be subsumed into the narrative of one context or the other. This is unfortunate because the meaning of what you want to say is distorted when taken up into an alien context: if you speak you are bound to be misunderstood, whatever you say. Call this the preacher's dilemma. As a matter of fact, a third option is silence, but this too may be misunderstood, so it's probably more accurate to speak of a trilemma. However, this phrase is not so snappy and does not convey the tragic note that " dilemma " does, so I have decided to sacrifice pedantic accuracy in this instance. Perhaps I am caught up in the very dilemma about which I am writing. The preacher's dilemma was in my mind last week as I followed the papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Pope Francis had to decide whether or not to say the word Rohingya. He had previously shown solidarity with the Rohingya nine months ago in February calling them by their name, making clear that the Rohingya are " good people, " peaceful, and that they are unjustly persecuted. However, that word is taboo in Myanmar. The Muslims in Rakhine state are recognised neither by Myanmar nor Bangladesh, and so to refer to the stateless group is to wade into an ongoing political struggle, something that the Pope would wish to avoid. Moreover, local Catholic bishops advised him against antagonising the majority Buddhist society for fear of backlash, and the Pope would obviously regret that outcome, not only because of the harm done, but because he would aspire to work collegially, heeding local advice. On the other hand, not to use the word would upset Rohingya activists, and probably the Rohingya as a whole. In view of the attention of the world media the Pope possessed a megaphone like few others, so his words were at this moment were at a premium. Surely he should seize the opportunity for justice. What to do? If the Pope failed to speak truth to power (with the thundering volume of a Guardian editorial) that would appear an understandable betrayal. The author of the Politics once wrote that most men will what is noble but do what is expedient, and perhaps this was how western, liberal journalists framed the situation. No wonder, then, that Catholic commentators did not anticipate the visit with relish. It was planned when the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi carried the hopes of a peaceful resolution, before the military crackdown had expelled 600,000 Rohingya. But now the situation had become notorious and the UN had spoken in terms of ethnic cleansing. So, the pope's dilemma was compared with that of Pius XII who was criticised for not speaking out strongly against the Nazis (albeit to protect the innocent). Still, Francis had tweeted that he had looked forward to the visit: there was no going back. What happened was that the Pope met the leaders of Myanmar, first the military (in a rescheduled visit on Monday) and later the Nobel Laureate. On the Tuesday he spoke up publically for the rights of all, and the need for decisive action, but to the dismay of activists, refrained from mentioning Rohingya or ethnic cleansing. Then he travelled to Bangladesh and on the Friday in Dhaka at an inter-faith gathering met twelve Rohingya including a twelve year old girl whose entire family had been murdered by the military. Unscripted, and in the midst of tears, Francis finally pronounced the word: the presence of God today is also

From a social-scientific perspective, this paper addresses an overlooked dimension of material poverty, namely spiritual poverty or the lack of spiritual sensitivity, and calls it a psychological disorder. Religions link deep spirituality with a kind of "pov-erty," namely simplicity of lifestyle and generosity toward the needy; but none advocates the poverty of outright destitution. A fully psychological "spiritualogy"-built on Bernard Lonergan's analysis of human consciousness or spirit and consonant with the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and current psychotherapeutic understanding-explains the link between spirituality and poverty as a matter of personal integration and suggests interventions to address the corrosive epidemic soul sickness of the postmodern world, so different from traditional societies in which religion and culture intertwined and functioned effectively. Keywords Bernard J. F. Lonergan · Abraham Maslow · Income inequality · Poverty in religious traditions · Psychology of spirituality · Carl Rogers

Peace on earth is not to be expected. First, at least in its subhuman form, the law of nature is survival of the fittest, not self-deferential cooperation. Second, a philosophical consensus to provide needed epistemological agreement and ethical criteria for peace is nonexistent in the postmodern world. Third, conflicting beliefs among the world's religions and a sharp decline in religious affiliation incapacitate the traditional agencies of support for transcendent values, including peace. Thus, the daunting challenge has become the nonreligious and even nontheological spiritualization of secular society. Only this hope remains as history forces humanity to mature: Elaborate and rely on a humanistic basis for lofty values. In evocative terms, philosophers and humanistic psychologists have narrated that hope. More incisively, Bernard Lonergan has detailed the humanistic basis of that hope: distinctively human consciousness or spirit, the self-transcending dimension of the human mind, a bimodal, quadrilevel, epistemologically, and ethically normative dynamism. But no agency exists to implement this hope, and peace still depends ultimately on elusive human goodwill. Still the empirical specification of a philosophical foundation at least provides needed guidance, which, coupled with today's scientific, medical, psychological, and sociological technology, does sustain hope for peace.

The notion of collective responsibility is not without its difficulty. One may claim that, as men are responsible for the lives they lead, so collectively they must be responsible for the resultant situation. But that claim is too rapid to be convincing. No doubt, single elements in the resulting situation are identical with the actions or the effects for which individuals are responsible. But the resulting situation as a whole was neither foreseen nor intended, or when it does happen that it was, still such foresight and intention are apt to reside not in the many but the few and rather in secret schemes and machinations than in public avowal. 1 Thus Lonergan on some difficulties in an idea that he will nonetheless go on to defend. In this short note I will look at one difficulty in the idea of collective responsibility by introducing the idea of collective intention. Here we may begin by recalling St. Anselm, " Every will inasmuch as it wills something, wills as it does because of something … Wherefore every will has a what and a why, for we will absolutely nothing unless there be a reason why we will. " 2 Or in other words, we may speak of an agent X who wills an object Y because of an intention Z. The problem as regards common responsibility is that we can suppose two agents (or groups sharing a common aim) who find a common cause in wanting the same object but do so for different reasons. In other words, X1 and X2 both want Y but X1 wants Y for the sake of Z1 but X2 for the sake of Z2 where Z1 ≠ Z2. We may also recall that St. Thomas, in his commentary on that locus classicus of Aristotle on the idea of responsibility, by no means reduces responsibility to intentionality. For he argues that " it is unreasonable to assert that a man who does unjust actions does not wish to be unjust. " And he deploys the metaphor of someone who goes for a walk on a hot day and becomes sweaty. 3 Although it was unintended it was foreseeable that the walker would become sweaty – but concretely the agent is responsible. For here and now the choice is either to walk and get sweaty or to avoid the sweat by not walking: the choice manifests the preference schedules of the agent. In this sense one wills the effect if one wills the cause. Returning to collective responsibility, we can imagine two groups getting together to attain a common object, perhaps agreeing to act in particular circumstances (at a definite time, for example) when the action may be seen to lead to consequences that are actively intended by the first group but not by the other. Indeed, if such intentions were spelled out to the others some of the others would harbour misgivings on that project: X2 does not want Z1. This of course underlines Lonergan's point about " secret schemes and machinations " – for the first group may be aware that their intentions are not commonly shared, and this is why they keep them secret. Still, in this example where certain consequences are foreseen by only one group, we can suppose that eventually those consequences will become obvious to others, at any rate to those willing to raise questions-awkward because they indict X2 for choosing Y when it contributed to Z1 even though X2 did not intend Z1.

ABSTRACT: Drawing on Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology (1972) I argue that theology can be taught because personal knowledge, of which it is an instance, is at the heart of academic inquiry; and it should be taught because critical engagement with basic ways of taking one’s life as a whole (religion in a broad sense) furnishes a critique of the typical oversights of contemporary culture. The appropriation of one’s subjectivity entails an awareness of an existential dialectic which pushes towards a decisive option for affirming the possibility and worth of growth in one's powers of self-determination and self-transcendence. Because of this, conversion – precisely defined in terms of this dialectic – has not only a religious but importantly moral and intellectual dimensions and its promotion goes to the heart of the academic enterprise. Nevertheless the full articulation of this personal reality is to be found in the humanities and particularly in theology but contemporary culture to a large extent works with a model of knowledge which disinherits these intellectual traditions. By distinguishing theological disciplines mediating the religious tradition (such as hermeneutics) from those in which the tradition is mediated by the existential stance taken by the theologian and re-articulated for the contemporary context (for example systematics), Lonergan opens the way towards seeing any theology presented as one world view among others, the critical element necessary for any university discipline being situated precisely in the standards set up by the demands of the existential dialectic.

In the second half of the twentieth century there has been an ongoing fascination with the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in natural science.  In the predominant contemporary metaphysical accounts of mathematical beings, that effectiveness is indeed condemned to remain a mystery.  While the Thomist account, in which mathematical objects are abstractions from the real category of quantity, does a great deal to explain the effectiveness of mathematics in describing the physical world, it was broadly rejected due to seeming incompatibilities with nineteenth and twentieth century developments in the logical foundations of mathematics.  The most historically important claims of incompatibility, however, are apparent rather than real, and reflect limitations in the claimants understanding of both Aquinas’s views and the implicit metaphysics of mathematical formulae.  I show this by first situating the Thomist position within contemporary debates in philosophy of mathematics, second illustrating the need for quantity in motivating accounts of number rich enough for analysis, and third showing that Thomism is not incompatible with the mathematical analyst’s need for infinite sets.

Pensar la mision de la formacion sacerdotal implica considerar los fundamentos sobre los cuales se cimienta el proceso formativo. La dinamica vocacional se realiza en una constante relacion entre la realidad del sujeto llamado y la perspectiva que se le abre al mismo como proyecto de vida. Por esto, la formacion sacerdotal se encuentra permanentemente con la realidad del sujeto formativo y la conversion a la que es llamado. Considerar el sujeto formativo significa asumir una antropologia cristiana que considere de manera integral el misterio de la persona humana. Asumir la dinamica de la conversión significa volver el rostro del sujeto hacia la verdad, el bien y la belleza del amar a Dios y entregarse a los hombres. De esta manera los fundamentos propuestos para la formacion humana pueden ayudar a vislumbrar, en medio de tantas contradicciones, sombras y grises de la sociedad y la Iglesia, algunas luces que ayuden a entender la realidad sacerdotal de manera profundamente humana, y desde esta profundidad, abiertos con confianza y claridad al discernimiento de la presencia de Dios que sigue hablando y llamando.

After two millennia we are still only at the beginning of the mission of Christ to redeem the human race. " The mission of Christ the redeemer, which is entrusted to the church, is still very far from completion. As the second millennium after Christ's coming draws to an end, an overall view of the human race shows that this mission is still only beginning and that we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service… [T]he church's function in every age, and particularly in ours, is to direct man's gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity toward the mystery of Christ. " This is a wonderfully Catholic perspective on the call to evangelization which Pope John Paul II has issued from the beginning of his pontificate. The mission of the Church is the continuation down through all ages of the mission of the Word Incarnate. Especially in modern times it is important to acknowledge how what is new — in this case the " new evangelization " — does not contradict or oppose what was old. Innovation does not negate tradition. There is a tension between tradition and innovation, and that tension is present in every age. It came to the fore in the Vatican II Council, as its two tasks were usually seen as both a Ressourcement, a recovery of the tradition, and an Aggiornomento, a bringing up to date, an innovation. It has ever been the responsibility of the teaching authority of the Church and theologians to foster both of these elements, without letting one overrule or negate the other. In this essay I shall first revisit Catholicism's criticisms of modernism and Americanism. This revisiting will be dialectical rather than historical. Theologians have unfinished work in these areas. I indicate how the new dedication to evangelization called for by John Paul II points the way toward transforming modern cultures. Then I shall outline some major dialectical differences between

Since its inception, modern psychology has struggled to be a genuine science. The impressive natural sciences set the standard; and especially in the era of behaviorism, psychology tried to match them. But things human are much more subtle, complicated, variable, even mysterious, compared to physics and chemistry. Besides, an even greater challenge looms: Psychology also suffers from the pervasive postmodern dilemma: creeping skepticism and cultural relativism. They now not only befog academia but also fragment and confound our communities, nations, and world. With “false news” and “alternative facts,” the problem has become popular, not just academic. There exists no consensus on the meaning of truth and goodness or on the means to know them. Bernard Lonergan offers a solution to these challenges.

The teachings about homosexuality in various religions differ, so they cannot specify therapeutic goals regarding sexual orientation. The psychological consensus-opinion emerges as a valid alternative-if it is recognized as spiritual. Grounding spirituality in a self-transcending dimension of the mind: the human spirit, and not in appeal to religious belief or metaphysical entities (e.g., God), the author argues that psychology routinely and legitimately treats spiritual matters, namely, the meanings and values by which individuals and societies structure their living. Three considerations support this claim. If this claim is correct, ongoing personal integration is tantamount to spiritual growth, and integration of one's homosexuality sets the ideal but not always attainable psychologicalspiritual goal of therapy and personal growth.

Over the last decade, new research on the role of feelings in decision making has emergence. Martha Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Barry Schwartz, Paradox of Choice, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Dan Arliely’s Predictably Irrational, and Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide are perhaps the most well know, comprehensive, and important works in this area of study.  When this literature—which spans philosophy, economics, sociology, and psychology—is read alongside Bernard Lonergan's understanding of feelings as intentional responses to values, it confirms the basic contours of his thought and refines it, clarifying the role of feelings in decision making.  This paper synthesizes this new research to present a Lonerganian account of feelings, one that draws upon but also develops Lonergan’s original work.  It argues that feelings:  a) “frame” one’s experience in b) an eudaimonistic way and, in doing so, c) propose a script, a possible course of action, that is then d) evaluated by a judgment of value.

Reviews past attitudes toward the relationship between sexuality and spirituality. Notes some sources of the negative attitude prevalent in Western civilization. Relates authors' own understanding of sexuality as a complex phenomenon that pervades every aspect of the human. Concludes that sexual integration and spiritual integration are correlative dimensions of personal integration.

This paper illustrates how the key elements of the emerging synodal Church are oriented to transformation, and how this transformation is effective at the three levels of ecclesial life as individual, community, and universal Church.
Several themes are emerging as foundational to the task of building a synodal Church. This paper focusses upon three in order to demonstrate synodality as commitment to transformation: journeying, bridge-building, and responsibility.
This paper employs the theology of Bernard Lonergan and the Transcendental Method of intentional consciousness as the most appropriate means of engaging with synodality and its demands upon philosophical and theological thinking. Concrete examples of the paradigm of synodality at work in the life of the contemporary Church are drawn from recent diocesan synods in the USA, and from the words and actions of Pope Francis. These are also instructive for Australia’s Plenary Council in 2021-2022.

This thesis examines Fr. William A. Van Roo's contribution to the wide field of theological reflection on the relationship between theological method and the religious experience of the theologian as believer. While the 'turn to experience' became a hallmark of theology after 1952, and much was written on the topic, no solid consensus emerged. The thesis concludes that Van Roo's contribution, which passes through his reflection on symbols and symbolizing, offers a synthesis of the important elements of the question, around which a consensus could be built.

I shall first sketch briefly the epochal, indeed, millennial, challenge of Fides et Ratio.  In a second section the important achievements of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in mediating faith and reason through wisdom will be presented in order to show how we are to move, as the Holy Father says we must in the opening quotation, from phenomenon to foundations.  Finally, the need for this wisdom at the dawn of the new millennium will be explored as contemporary cultures struggle with the dehumanizing nihilism, pragmatism, and historicism analyzed in the encyclical.

This article explores the relative lack of attention to the sin of pride in Bernard Lonergan, a lack he shares with Aquinas, in contrast to the Augustinian tradition. In order to explain this lack the article considers the dialectical nature of pride leading in turns to suggest a slightly surprising detour into the origins of social structures which Lonergan explains in terms of 'challenge and response.' Most significant is the redemptive response to the challenge of sin, and it is here that we can discover Lonergan's delicate transposition of traditional teaching in his deployment of the concept of general bias.

To offer insight and stimulate discussion regarding a burgeoning but enigmatic area of clinical concern, this paper presents an understanding of spirituality as a fully human phenomenon that is essentially independent of, yet open to, matters of personal religion and belief in God. The suggestion is that spirituality, though commonly expressed through religion and theist belief, is a universal mental phenomenon with an inherent normativity and, as such, can be legitimately addressed as a prescriptive aspect of psychology apart from theology and religion. Most fundamentally, spirituality entails attention to the felicitous unfolding of a self-transcending dimension of the human mind, whose hallmarks are the meanings and values, the visions and virtues, by which people live. Thus, as specialists in the life of the mind, secular therapists may legitimately attend to spirituality in both its religious and nonreligious expressionsand, wittingly or unwittingly, already often do. However, simply acknowledging the value-laden status of one's therapeutic stance or being respectful of a variety of clients' religions is not yet to address spirituality as a psychological concern. An adequate psychological treatment must, against verifiable criteria of human growth, also assess the beliefs and values in question, for not all are equally acceptable, not all are conducive to growth. With an elaborated psychology of spirituality, therapists can focus the psychotherapeutically relevant and spiritual issues in the client's presentation, whether couched religiously or not; build on the client's healthy commitments and reinterpret or deflect the unhealthy; and, thus, foster the client's personal integration and, ipso facto, the client's spiritual growth. Examples are given, a contrast with pastoral counseling is made, and implications for therapists are discussed.

Originally a lecture at Seton Hall University, January, 2015, this paper is an introduction to a few of the more striking themes from Lonergan's Christology, including Lonergan's approach to the NT, the development of Christological dogma, and the consciousness and knowledge of Christ. Lonergan's Latin treatise, De Verbo Incarnato (1964), is expected to appear later this year in Collected Works, vol. 8: The Incarnate Word, trans. Michael Shields, ed. Robert M. Doran and Jeremy D. Wilkins (University of Toronto Press).

At first sight the title must seem like a misunderstanding at best, at worst an intentional perversity. After all, the 'Prodigal Son' is not a person, but a character in a parable, a literary form where from the beginning both speaker and hearers are fully aware that it is not a story of fact, or even a mythos partly based on fact but exaggerated over countless retellings. A parable intends truth of a kind, but not factual truth, rather an archetypal truth (if that isn't too much of an anachronistic way of conceiving how parables were understood in Jesus' time, as well as how they're understood in contemporary readings).

However, the parable of the Prodigal Son has always seemed to me  to be uniquely parabolic in the sense that it is commonly the best remembered of the parables, yet the most unyielding to common understanding. The problem, not simply of why the father takes back the errant son, but even in his explanation to the brother appears to merely be mollifying the less favoured of the two sons, has barely been touched on in the theological literature I have been able to find. While this is problematic in itself, the usual touch-up on the parable fails to consider the rather obvious issue that the 'father' in the parable is highly unlikely to represent Jesus (who didn't call himself the Son of God, never mind refer to himself as the father).

In its response to common sense judgements such as “here are two hands,” On Certainty gave an analysis of reasoning as structured in hinge propositions. As Duncan Pritchard points out, here Wittgenstein was influenced by Newman and should be understood in the context of faith and reason. One issue, though, is “quasi-fideism,” and another is whether knowledge and certainty are as distinct as Wittgenstein appears to claim. In response, I present Lonergan’s alternative account of common sense in Insight.

In this bibliography I have compiled fifty essays on MuralGaga published between mid-July and mid-January. They detail my efforts of investigative journalism into the "info-wars" conducted by pro-Israel groups against the UK Labour Party immediately prior to the massacres in Gaza.

The use of psychological testing and services has become a commonplace in the American dioceses and houses of formation.  However, the routine and special recourse to psychology is not without its problems and critics.  On the one hand, church leaders acknowledge their limitations in the realm of psychology and the advantages of collaborating with professionals to provide assistance to vocational candidates.  On the other hand, those same church leaders are aware that an ecclesial vocation and the life of faith are not simply psychological phenomena.  The established pattern of cooperation in the current milieu is a division of labor absent a guiding understanding of the most important issues facing human and faith formation.  A more complete and authentic response to the current situation would seem to rest on the transposition of earlier achievements in the ongoing collaboration of theologians and psychologists into the context of interiority analysis and the third stage of meaning.

Are all God’s activities identical to God?  If not, which are identical to God and which not?  Although it is seldom noticed, the texts of Aquinas (at least on the surface) suggest conflicting answers to these questions, giving rise to a diversity of opinion among interpreters of Aquinas.  In this paper, we draw attention to this conflict and offer what we believe to be the strongest textual and speculative support for and against each of the main answers to these questions.

Patrick Byrne is a philosophy professor at Boston College and a distinguished Lonergan scholar. His major work is the fruit of many years reflection on Lonergan's foundations of ethics focussing on that refined form of attention we call discernment, especially as concerned with self-transformation. The first chapter begins by noting antecedents in the tradition with Ignatius and Paul, and Byrne offers an interesting discussion of Aristotelian dialectic—prior to the rise of modern empirical science the pre-eminent method for philosophy—and euphuia, our disposition to the good. This provides the basis for Lonergan's method of self-appropriation. In fact, the first of the five parts of this book provides an excellent introduction to the project of Insight which may be summed up by answering the three questions: What are we doing when we are knowing? Why is doing that actually knowing? What is known when we know? For example, Byrne elucidates the role of further pertinent questions in our judgement of the correctness of insights and how this is made possible by the unrestricted nature of our desire to understand correctly. Byrne structures the next three parts of the book by extending Lonergan's questions: What are we doing when we are being ethical? Why is doing that being ethical? What is brought about by doing that? To the first question Byrne provides an answer consonant with the early Lonergan's intellectualism. Activities in ethical intentionality include experiencing, inquiring, understanding and judging what is going on in the situation, and what could be done, thus arriving at creative practical insights that entail reflecting on judgements of value, deciding and acting. However, the later Lonergan, in dialogue with phenomenologists such as Scheler and Hildebrand, recognised the significance of feelings, indeed, spiritual feelings, and spoke of a transcendental notion of value, unrestricted being in love, and (provocatively) of apprehending values in feelings. Such remarks have occasioned vexed discussion among Lonergan scholars and Byrne deploys considerable technical acumen in constructing a reading that shows how these developments fit with the earlier thought, again putting centre-stage the role of invulnerability (the absence of further pertinent questions) as fulfilling the conditions for unconditioned judgements of value. Still, Byrne spends three more chapters explicating the significance of feelings in this account. He explains that, while allowing that somatic feelings such as hunger are in a sense intentional (they take food as their object) we may speak, with Scheler and Hildebrand, of a kind of feeling that is an intentional response to value. Then, Byrne recurs to the very early studies of Word and Idea in Aquinas to recall the idea of multiple intentionality—'object' may be used in many ways, as referring to the thing outside the mind, or the illuminated image that triggers understanding, or the intelligibility that is proper to the act of understanding, or the product that the mind uses to express such understanding. Byrne transposes the idea into an axiological context by enumerating diverse triggers for affective responses, for example, a skilful move in athletics, the proper object of the intentional response (which is the value grasped through feeling), and the various ways we might express such evaluation, as indicated, say, by the different ways that people might smile. On the problem of objectivity, Byrne introduces the idea of a 'horizon of feelings' which he connects with our scale of values. In effect this dictates what further questions are pertinent for us as we reflect on the objectivity of values. As to the question dealt with in the third part, why doing that is being ethical, Byrne resumes his discussion of this thorny problem. One difficulty is that there seems to be no guarantee

A review essay on Frederick Lawrence, *The Fragility of Consciousness: Faith, Reason, and the Common Good,* ed. Randall Rosenberg and Kevin Vander Schel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016). The version posted here is the version originally submitted to the journal, prior to their editorial process. Any use of this essay should refer to the published version.

The purpose of this article is to show in what respects Strauss’ account of the three waves of modernity and Lonergan’s account of the longer cycle of decline mutually illuminate and add to each other. For reasons of scope, I will largely con- fine myself to Strauss’ article, “The Three Waves of Modernity,”6 and the sections of Lonergan’s Insight7 on the longer cycle of decline. I will show that the three waves of modernity as described by Strauss qualify as instances of the succession of ever lower viewpoints spoken of by Lonergan, which have their beginnings in a scotosis, which at once is productive of bias and leads both to shorter cycles and the longer cycle of decline. At the same time as Lonergan provides an explanation for what happened cognitionally in the successive waves of modernity, Strauss provides the content. Strauss also adds an important critical detail to Lonergan’s account of the longer cycle. While Lonergan mostly attends to the cognitional aspects of the longer cycle, beginning with a scotosis engendered by the disordered passions, Strauss points out that the origin of modern political philosophy began not with disordered passions (which had already produced scotosis, in Lonergan’s terminology), but with the deliberate choice to elevate the passions and the scotosis to the level of philosophy in a conscious rejection of all previous political philosophy. Failure to grasp either the cognitional aspects or the conscious, deliberate act at the origin of modernity necessarily leads to the misunderstanding of it and undercuts any attempt to deal adequately with the problems of modern thought so manifest in the totalitar- ian breakdowns of the twentieth century. I will proceed first by explaining Lonergan’s account of the longer cycle of decline, from the production of scotosis by disordered passion wanting to avoid inconvenient insights, to the formation of bias, to the systematic exclusion of theoretical concerns by practical common sense characteristic of the longer cycle. I will then outline Strauss’ argument in “Three Waves,” first by presenting the three waves and by explaining how each are waves, that is, further developments of what came before— what Lonergan calls successive lower viewpoints—and then by showing Strauss’ account of the continuity of the starting point of modernity in Machiavelli and the ending point with twentieth-century totalitarianism. Finally, I will briefly present the suggestions of Lonergan and Strauss for what is needed to engage with modern thought after its origin, character, and the root of its break-down have been grasped.