Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: Bedeutung: pastoral? Augustinus: (innerer u. äußerer Lehrer); Paulus; drifter

Kurzinhalt: Augustine : the teacher outside us whose words we hear; and the teacher within us: God the Father, his Son, and their Spirit: Paul; drifter - commitment (incarnation of a meaning)

Textausschnitt: 12/14 What then does "pastoral" mean? For Fr. Chenu one gets into difficulty when one puts the cart before the horse. The words of the Good Shepherd preceded conciliar decrees. But if first one clarifies the meaning of "doctrine" and then sets about explaining the meaning of "pastoral," one tends to reduce "pastoral" to the application of "doctrine" and to reduce the application of "doctrine" to the devices and dodges, the simplifications and elaborations of classical oratory. But what comes first is the word of God. The task of the church is the kerygma, announcing the good news, preaching the gospel. That preaching is pastoral. It is the concrete reality. From it one may abstract doctrines, and theologians may work the doctrines into conceptual systems. But the doctrines and systems, however valuable and true, are but the skeleton of the original message. A word is the word of a person, but doctrine objectifies and depersonalizes. The word of God comes to us through the God-man. The church has to mediate to the world not just a doctrine but the living Christ. (227f; Fs) (notabene)
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17/14 On this point St. Augustine composed a dialogue with the title, The Teacher, in which his main point was the existence of two teachers: the teacher outside us whose words we hear; and the teacher within us: God the Father, his Son, and their Spirit. The teacher outside utters sounds. If we are familiar with the language, the sounds will be recognized as words; memory will recall their meanings; intelligence combines them into sentences; and sentences coalesce into discourse which we can understand. But if we go further and ask whether the discourse is true or false, wise or foolish, we may have recourse to the common sense or the wisdom we have acquired over the years. Still we must bear in mind that, while common sense and human wisdom may suffice in human affairs, they are unequal to the affairs of God. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "'Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him,' these it is that God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9-10). And in contrast with that revelation he shortly added, "A man who is unspiritual refuses what belongs to the Spirit of God; it is folly to him; he cannot grasp it, because it needs to be judged in the light of the Spirit" (! Cor. 2:14). (229; Fs)

19/14 Still their condition is not hopeless. To each may come the existential moment when they discover in themselves and for themselves that it is up to themselves to settle what they are to be. Whether their tradition be Jewish or Christian, Muslim or Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist, there are things to be done and things to be left undone, things to be said and things to be passed over, thoughts to be entertained and thoughts to be dismissed. As a life spent in mere drifting lacks meaning, so a lifetime of commitment to a selected style or pattern of thinking, saying, doing is an incarnation of a meaning and makes one's living meaningful. Again, the greater the commitment, the more meaningful the life; and the less the commitment, the obscurer and the more dubious is the meaning. (230; Fs) (notabene)