Autor: Walsh, William J. S.J.

Buch: Workshop Rome 2001

Titel: PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION: IGNATIUS AND Lonergan

Stichwort: Feelings allgemein; Zwiespältigkeit d. Gefühle; Notwendigkeit d. Unterscheidung; Indifferenz

Kurzinhalt: Gefühle (intentionale Antwort auf Objekte) zw. Tatsachen- und Werturteilen; Notwendigkeit d. Indifferenz für Entscheidung;

Textausschnitt: Both innate desires to know and to act can of course be thwarted, often enough by disordered feelings. Lying midway between judgments of fact and judgments of value are apprehensions of values, those intentional responses to objects and values that are given in feelings. Feelings provide consciousness with its 'mass, momentum, drive, power.' Our intentional responses to the world around us are charged with feeling; Lonergan comments:
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But feelings can be responses to what is agreeable or disagreeable, satisfying or dissatisfying, ... But agreeable or disagreeable feelings can be ambiguous and self-serving and require discernment. For discernment to occur, one must be indifferent or, if not, one must make oneself indifferent. One must pause, be at equilibrium, poised for action, steady as a balance at rest, before attempting to assay the worth of any choice, any use of other things on the face of the earth. ... nothing is allowed to stand between man and his divinely appointed destiny

Autor: Walsh, William J. S.J.

Buch: Workshop Rome 2001

Titel: PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION: IGNATIUS AND Lonergan

Stichwort: Disordered Affections / Bias, Sünde (disordered affections), Indifferenz, Befolgung d. transzendentalen Imperative

Kurzinhalt: Haupthindernis des Gottsuchens: Sünde, ungeordnete (disorderd) Liebe, Gefühle; the only way to deal with bias: to obey the four imperatives; Pereyra, Ignatian Exercises

Textausschnitt: () For Ignatius, what prevents us from seeking and finding God's will is sin and at the root of sin is 'disorderly love' or disordered affections; and the Exercises, of course, are devised to help you rid yourself of them:
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Ignatius speaks of inordinate attachments. Lonergan speaks of bias. For him, bias is what blocks continuous growth in authentic living and leads to decline. He defines bias as a flight from understanding and a flight from responsibility. The manifestations are manifold:
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Ignatius targets areas where one ordinarily experience strong feelings which can influence decisions: feelings about health and wealth, honor and length of life may get in the way of praising, reverencing, and serving God. In his directory, Pereyra 'gets more specific and proposes a list of sample relevant questions: (23; Fs)
'How have I made use of [the things on the face of the earth] so that they would be means for my achieving this end? -food, clothing, property, honor, office, dignities; my senses
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A bias is a block or distortion of intellectual development, and such blocks or distortions occur in four principal manners. There is the bias of ...
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The outcome of bias for the individual human being is calamitous; but bias can have catastrophic social consequences as well:
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A civilization in decline digs its own grave with a relentless consistency.
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Ultimately, for Lonergan, the only way to deal with bias, to pursue self-transcendence, and to stop the decline of nations is for individuals and groups to obey the four imperatives:
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The use of the Principle and Foundation, I suggest, is just one such application of the use of Lonegan's four imperatives. Patterns of sinful behavior (the result of disorderly love) or biases block one from reaching the goal of the Exercises. So, the Exercises start with an exercise in self-awareness, that is, with an examination of consciousness. You ask yourself, 'Where am I? What have I been doing with my life?' You ask: 'Am I indifferent? If not, what is hindering me?' In Lonergan's terms, you start with an exercise in understanding and judging, with an exercise in self-knowledge and self-assessment. Ignatius invites you to be aware of your behavior, to understand how you have behaved, and to assess whether your decision to act is worthwhile or not. Ignatius is asking you, in effect, to be aware, intelligent, rational, and reasonable.
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you are indifferent, he says, 'if you are ready to entrust yourself to God, placing yourself in God's hands, abandoning yourself to Him, and taking at face value the words of Scripture: 'Cast all your cares on him,

Autor: Walsh, William J. S.J.

Buch: Workshop Rome 2001

Titel: PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION: IGNATIUS AND Lonergan

Stichwort: Indifference als Zustand kognitiver und willentlicher Gleichgewicht im voraus zur Entscheidung

Kurzinhalt: Ignatius über indifference, Zen Buddhism, Lonergan: detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know + willingness; Offenheit als Tatsache, achievment, Gnade;

Textausschnitt: Ignatius: It is necessary to keep as my objective the end for which I am created, to praise God our Lord and save my soul. Furthermore, I ought to find myself indifferent, that is, without any disordered affection, to such an extent that I am not more inclined or emotionally disposed toward taking the matter proposed rather than relinquishing it, nor more toward relinquishing it rather than taking it.
Instead, I should find myself in the middle, like the pointer of a balance, in order to be ready to follow that which I shall perceive to be more to the glory and praise of God our Lord and the salvation of my soul.()
The basic image here is of a balance at rest. ... Indifference, then, is a state of cognitional and volitional equilibrium prior to any deliberation about a decision or action.
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Zen Buddhism expresses much the same idea to express the ideal state of attentiveness in prayer, using the image of a taut bowstring. One sits motionless in the lotus position, the body as still as Mt. Fuji, 'firmly planted [...] , massively composed.' The mind is 'alert, stretched like a taut bowstring.' One is in a 'heightened state of concentrated awareness,' like someone 'facing death.'
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Ignatian indifference presupposes in the human subject what Lonergan calls openness and willingness: a detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know plus an antecedent unrestricted willingness to act. He analyzes openness as a fact and as an achievement. As fact, openness is an intrinsic component of the human subject's make-up; it is the pure desire to know, what Aristotle calls wonder, ... As achievement, says Lonergan, openness is the ultimate horizon one can reach, but which one reaches only through 'successive enlargements' of one's current horizon. And since man is fallen, he says, 'such successive enlargements lie under some law of diminishing returns.' And so, one stands in need of help, of grace, of God's gift of his enabling love. Lonergan sums up:
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What the Principle and Foundation supplies is the specific Christian ideal. And so, the retreatant asks: how open and willing, how indifferent am I to reach the end for which I am created?