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Religious Experience in Lonergan and Whitehead

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Kathleen Fischer
Affiliation:
Professor of Theology, University of Portland, Oregon

Extract

This comparison of some aspects of the treatment of religious experience in the writings of Bernard Lonergan and Alfred North Whitehead is intended to be a contribution to the continuing dialogue between process thought and classical theism, especially as the latter is represented in proponents of a newer or renewed Thomism. Continued exchange will hopefully be fruitful for the common theistic task, as well as a source of insight on the problems and limitations faced by each approach.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

page 69 note 1 Lonergan, Bernard J. F., S. j., Philosophy of God and Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), p. 12Google Scholar. The shift in Lonergan's thinking is dated from the years 1964–5. See Crowe, F. E., ‘Early Jottings on Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology’, Science et Esprit, xxv (1973), 121–38Google Scholar; and Lonergan, , A Second Collection, ed. by Ryan, William F. J., , S.J. and Tyrrell, Bernard J., , S.J. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974Google Scholar), ‘Introduction’.

page 69 note 2 Lonergan, , Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), pp. 340–2.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 Whitehead, Alfred North, Religion in the Making (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1960), p. 76.Google Scholar

page 70 note 2 Whitehead, , Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 173–4, 178–9.Google Scholar

page 70 note 3 For a very helpful comparison of this aspect of the thought of Lonergan and Whitehead, see Ogden, Schubert M., ‘Lonergan and the Subjectivist Principle’, Language, Truth and Meaning. Papers from the International Lonergan Congress 1970, ed. by McShane, Philip (Notre Dame: University Press, 1972), pp. 218–35.Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 Method in Theology, p. 105.Google Scholar

page 71 note 2 Ibid. p. 9.

page 71 note 3 Ibid. pp. 106–7. Cf. Mueller, Philip J., ‘Lonergan's Theory of Religious Experience’, Église et Théologie, 7 (1976), 235Google Scholar 51.

page 71 note 4 Philosophy of God and Theology, pp. 10, 20Google Scholar. Cf. Method in Theology, pp. 115, 122–3.Google Scholar

page 71 note 5 Philosophy of God and Theology, p. 38.Google Scholar

page 71 note 6 Method in Theology, p. 289.Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 Ibid. p. 105. Cf. A Second. Collection, p. 129.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World’, A Second Collection, p. 172.Google Scholar

page 72 note 3 Method in Theology, p. 105Google Scholar; Philosophy of God and Theology, p. 36Google Scholar. Cf. Carmody, Denise Lardner, ‘Lonergan's Religious Person’, Religion in Life, XLIV (1975), 222–31.Google Scholar

page 72 note 4 Science and the Modern World, p. 185Google Scholar; Religion in the Making, p. 120.Google Scholar

page 72 note 5 Cf. Cobb, John B. Jr, A Christian Natural Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965), pp. 225–46.Google Scholar

page 72 note 6 p. 60.

page 73 note 1 Religion in the Making, pp. 5960.Google Scholar

page 73 note 2 Whitehead, , Modes of Thought (New York: The Free Press, 1968), pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 (New York: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 284–96.Google Scholar

page 73 note 4 Adventures of Ideas, pp. 295–6.Google Scholar

page 73 note 5 Ibid. pp. 285–6.

page 74 note 1 Cf. Whitehead, , Symbolism. Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Capricorn Books, 1959)Google Scholar; Process and Reality. An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan Co., 1929), pp. 184 ff., 255 ff.Google Scholar

page 74 note 2 Process and Reality, p. 408.Google Scholar

page 74 note 3 Method in Theology, p. 115.Google Scholar

page 74 note 4 ‘An Interview With Fr. Bernard Lonergan, S.J.’, ed. by McShane, Philip, A Second Collection, pp. 220–1.Google Scholar

page 75 note 1 ‘The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World’, p. 172.Google Scholar

page 75 note 2 Method in Theology, pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

page 75 note 3 Religion in the Making, p. 81Google Scholar. Cf. p. 83.

page 76 note 1 Process and Reality, p. 318.Google Scholar

page 76 note 2 See, for example, Mackey, J. P., ‘Divine Revelation and Lonergan's Transcendent Method in Theology’Google Scholar, and Jean-Pierre Jossua, ‘Some Questions on the Place of Believing Experience in the Work of Bernard Lonergan’Google Scholar, Looking at Lonergan's Method, ed. by Corcoran, Patrick, , S.M. (Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1975Google Scholar), chapters 10 and 11. For a helpful summary of Lonergan's treatment of myth and symbol, as well as a constructive critical assessment of his approach, see Braxton, Edward K., ‘Bernard Lonergan's Hermeneutic of the Symbol’, The Irish Theological Quarterly, XLIII (1976), 186–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 76 note 3 Method in Theology, p. 276Google Scholar. Cf. pp. 305–9; 328–9; Natural Knowledge of God’, A Second Collection, p. 132.Google Scholar Lonergan's explicit treatment of the symbol is found in Method in Theology, pp. 64–9.Google Scholar

page 76 note 4 ‘The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World’, p. 172.Google Scholar

page 77 note 1 Lonergan, , Insight. A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 532.Google Scholar

page 77 note 2 Cf. Adventures of Ideas, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 77 note 3 Religion in the Making, pp. 109–11, 115.Google Scholar

page 77 note 4 Modes of Thought, pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

page 77 note 5 Religion in the Making, pp. 17, 36.Google Scholar

page 77 note 6 Philosophy of God and Theology, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 77 note 7 ‘Natural Knowledge of God’, p. 129Google Scholar. Cf. Theology and Man's Future’, A Second Collection, pp. 146–7Google Scholar; Method in Theology, pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

page 78 note 1 p. 118.

page 78 note 2 Religion in the Making, p. 16.Google Scholar

page 78 note 3 Method in Theology, p. 289.Google Scholar

page 78 note 4 Ibid. p. 118.

page 78 note 5 Religion in the Making, p. 19.Google Scholar

page 78 note 6 Modes of Thought, p. 164.Google Scholar

page 79 note 1 Religion in the Making, pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

page 79 note 2 ‘Natural Knowledge of God’, p. 129.Google Scholar