Autor: Melchin, R. Kenneth

Buch: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Stichwort: Lonergan (Insight 20): Humanwissenschaften - Theologie; Gnade - Geschichte;

Kurzinhalt: In Lonergan's view it is the habit of 'charity' in which the 'will' is ordered towards God, in which this habitual love of being manifests itself in an ordering of the intellect, and ...

Textausschnitt: 7.7.3 God's Love as the Wholly Transcendent Solution Operative Immanently in the Lives of Subjects

95/7 In his 'Epilogue' to Insight, we get an indication as to what Lonergan understood himself to be doing in chapter twenty, and how he conceived the whole of Insight as a bridge between the human sciences and theology. (248; Fs)

Still such human science would offer, not an adequate understanding of its proper aspect of human activity, but only the measure of understanding possible from the scientific viewpoint. For an adequate understanding reveals the manner in which man can remedy the evil in his situation. But the solution to man's problem of evil has been seen to lie, not in a human initiative, but in an acceptance of the solution that God has provided; and while empirical human science can lead on to the further context of the solution, the systematic treatment of the solution itself is theological. In a word, empirical human science can become practical only through theology, and the relentless modern drift to social engineering and totalitarian controls is the fruit of man's effort to make human science practical though he prescinds from God and from the solution God provides for man's problem.

96/7 My second suggestion is the obverse of the first. Grace perfects nature both in the sense that it adds a perfection beyond nature and in the sense that it confers on nature the effective freedom to attain its own perfection.1 A glance through the index to Insight reveals onto two entries beside the word, 'grace.' One might be led to conclude, from this, that Lonergan was not concerned with grace, in Insight, but with the solution(s) to the human problem which could be initiated by man. However, Lonergan's remarks above, as well as his conclusions on cosmopolis, summarized earlier, would suggest that he saw no possible solution that could be secured on the basis of purely human initiative. Consequently his analysis of 'The Heuristic Structure of the Solution' in chapter twenty must be understood as an analysis of the locus of the operation of grace. It should become clear that Lonergan understands the operation of God's grace, in its capacity to transform human subjects, to be the condition of possibility for the development and the fully competent operation of human intelligence and responsibility. (248; Fs)

97/7 His analysis of the structure of the solution begins with the fact of the goodness of being. Like all facts Lonergan's judgment here is an insight into the data of human experience which is pronounced v-probably true. And his proof is an extrapolation of the structure of proportionate being into the realm of transcendent being.2 But since Lonergan has ruled out the possibility of a solution at the level of purely human agency, this fact requires the introduction of further elements of his 'higher viewpoint.' (248f; Fs)
98/7 Fifthly, the solution can consist in the introduction of new conjugate forms in man's intellect, will, and sensitivity. (249; Fs)

For such forms are habits.

[...]

because man's living is prior to learning and being persuaded, it is without the guidance of knowledge and without the direction of effective good will; as long as that priority remains, the problem remains. The solution, then, must reverse the priority, and it does so inasmuch as it provides intellect, will, and sensitivity with forms or habits that are operative throughout living.

Seventhly, the relevant conjugate forms will be in some sense transcendent or supernatural.3 (notabene)

99/7 In accordance with the structure of emergent probability, the higher order conjugate forms are integrations in and of a lower order manifold in dialectical tension with an exigence of that manifold. Like all higher order integrations these habits are in no way a departure from the events and routines of the manifold but they are an ordering of the sensitive drives, passions, feelings, anticipations, habitual insights, values, outlooks, practical routines, skills, and aspirations of the human person. (249; Fs) (notabene)
Eighthly, since the solution is a harmonious continuation of the actual order of the universe, and since that order involves the successive emergence of higher integrations that systematize the non-systematic residues on lower levels, it follows that the relatively transcendent conjugate forms will constitute a new and higher integration of human activity and that that higher integration will solve the problem by controlling elements that otherwise are non-systematic or irrational.4

100/7 What is this higher order integration which will constitute a solution to the problem of the general bias and its longer cycle of decline? In Lonergan's view it is the habit of 'charity' in which the 'will' is ordered towards God, in which this habitual love of being manifests itself in an ordering of the intellect, and in which the overall effect on the subject is a transformation in the orientation of one's complete spontaneity. The solution consists in an inversion of the priority of living over knowing how to live. For with charity, the capacity of practical intelligence to devise and to implement courses of action which realize true value rests no longer simply upon the capacity of developed intelligence, but now upon the affective, intelligent and responsible spontaneity of the subject to seek and realize the good. In the thirteenth place, then, the appropriate willingness will be some type or species of charity. [...] (249; Fs) (notabene)

Again, a man or woman knows that he or she is in love by making the discovery that all spontaneous and deliberate tendencies and actions regard the beloved. Now as the arm rises spontaneously to protect the head, so all the parts of each thing conspire to the good of the whole, and all things in all their operations proceed to the realization of the order of the universe.5
101/7 I would suggest that the deficiencies pointed out above in Lonergan's retention of the older, faculty psychology distinction between intellect and will, show up again when Lonergan states that 'good will follows intellect.'6 It might seem as if Lonergan were presenting an intellectualist account of grace by affirming that an act of intelligence needs to precede an act of love and that grace is, first and principally, a good insight. But his meaning, I would suggest, is better understood by noting that with charity the will follows the 'desire of intellect.' (250; Fs)

For good will follows intellect, and so it matches the detached, disinterested, desire of intellect for complete understanding; but complete understanding is the unrestricted act that is God; and so the good that is willed by good will is God.7

102/7 The point Lonergan is making here is that just as intelligence, in its appetite for understanding and truth, is oriented towards God, so too practical, responsible intelligence 'follows' the earlier stages or operations in the complete skill of intelligent, responsible human living in this hunger for God. Whereas the actual operations of understanding and judging truth may be performed either competently or incompetently, charity is the orientation of practical, responsible living in accordance with the ultimate desire of intelligent humanity, irrespective of the subject's failures, defects, biases, or incomplete development in some or all aspects of the overall range of skills. Consequently while the charitable will 'follows' the 'desire' of intellect in the sense that it shares its orientation towards God, it need not, and in fact does not, 'follow intellect' in the temporal sense of awaiting the correctly judged insight. And for this reason Lonergan can conclude that good will has the subsequent effect of functioning as the condition of possibility for the perfection of intelligence. (250; Fs)

In the fourteenth place, besides the charity by which the will itself is made good, there will be the hope by which the will makes the intellect good.
For intellect functions properly inasmuch as the detached and disinterested desire to know is dominant in cognitional operations. Still this desire is merely spontaneous. It is the root of intelligent and rational self-consciousness, and it operates prior to our insights, our judgments, and our decisions. Now if this desire is to be maintained in its purity, if it is not to suffer from the competition of the attached and interested desires of man's sensitivity and intersubjectivity, if it is not to be overruled by the will's connivance with rationalizations,then it must be aided, supported, reinforced by a deliberate decision and a habitual determination of the will itself.8

103/7 I have discussed above, some of the problems associated with Lonergan's insistence that 'the detached and disinterested desire to know' stands in contrast and in competition with 'the attached and interested desires of man's sensitivity and intersubjectivity.'9 Whereas this mode of expression might seem to lead one to conclude that knowing stands opposed to the other human and intersubjective desires, and that those other desires constitute an intrusion into the proper operation of intelligence, I have suggested that Lonergan's analysis understands knowing as an act of coordinating or integrating these other desires and that the integration effected by knowing (most particularly knowing value) seeks an isomorphism with a structured dynamism operative in all of human spontaneity.10 However, Lonergan's subsequent analysis of belief and faith, in Insight, does place considerable emphasis upon the role of knowledge in the reversal of the longer cycle of decline. (251; Fs)

There is needed in the present a universally accessible and permanently effective manner of pulling men's minds out of the counter-positions, of fixing them in the positions, of securing for them certitude that God exists and that he has provided a solution which they are to acknowledge and to accept. [...]

Now the argument outlined above goes to prove that there is no probability of men generally moving from the counter-positions to the positions by immanently generated knowledge. On the other hand, as far as the argument goes, it reveals no obstacles to the attainment of truth through the communication of reliable knowledge.11

104/7 It is clear that his focus here upon the importance of knowledge (particularly knowledge of value) in reversing the longer cycle of decline is a focus upon knowledge as a communal, cultural, historical, religious inheritance and that within the context of his analysis of charity, the condition of possibility for the appropriation of this knowledge in 'belief is a transformation of the 'will' in love.12 However, while I am convinced that the role of knowledge in reversing the general bias cannot be underestimated I would say that his analysis of the route towards reversal, in Insight, remains to be complemented by a fuller study of the role and nature of conversions, the massive effect of symbols, cultural traditions, economic and social modes of life and work, and, most generally, the various ways in which human spontaneity, patterns of action, and profound feelings aroused by literature can shift the f-probabilities of virtuous action in cultures in the absence of immanently generated or responsibly appropriated knowledge of fact. Lonergan's work in Method marks a first step in the direction of this complementary study.13 (251; Fs)



105/7 One final word needs to be said here on the particular way in which charity constitutes a reversal to the historical cycle of decline generated by the general bias. (251f; Fs)

Now the will can contribute to the solution of the problem of the social surd, inasmuch as it adopts a dialectical attitude that parallels the dialectical method of intellect. The dialectical method of intellect consists in grasping that the social surd neither is intelligible nor is to be treated as intelligible. The corresponding dialectical attitude of will is to return good for evil. For it is only inasmuch as men are willing to meet evil with good, to love their enemies, to pray for those that persecute and calumniate them, that the social surd is a potential good. It follows that love of God above all and in all so embraces the order of the universe as to love all men with a self-sacrificing love.14 (notabene)

106/7 How this dialectical attitude of 'will' would translate into concrete economic, political, social programs of action remains to be discovered in an analysis of history and an in-depth study of the economic, political, social problems of our times. Lonergan's account here focuses only upon the structure of a solution which would stop the ever-accelerating cycles in which progressively deformed cultural patterns of experience become the data base for progressively shrinking ranges of insights on human life, and such shrinking ranges of insights become implemented as the practical routines of the subsequent cultures. The root of this cycle of decline is common sense's tendency to generalize insights from common experience. As actual experience becomes more and more deformed common sense develops theories that ratify the deformations, it despairs of the possibility of broader explanations of human potentials, and it pronounces the rule of force as the only corrective for the deformations. The dialectical attitude of 'will,' on the other hand, breaks the ever accelerating cycle of decline because it refuses to respond in kind to the fact of evil. The 'will' transformed by love refuses to accept the fact of evil as the whole story, it refuses to explain the totality of life on the basis of an appeal to the massive proliferation of evil, and it refuses to base its practical response upon a despair of man ever rising above the corruption of common practice.15 (252; Fs) (notabene)

107/7 Lonergan conceives the charitable 'will' as practical intelligence's grace-full refusal to act in accordance with common sense's generalizations from corrupt practice. It is the refusal to meet evil with evil, to meet aggression merely with the punitive rule of force. It is, more positively, humanity's willingness to respond to the fact of evil with an act of love, to look to the historical evidence of such benevolence as an integral part of the foundation for a science of man, and to base the programs of action of a society upon a political theory which anticipates graceful benevolence and which is itself animated by such benevolence. What we find in Insight, chapter twenty, is the completion of Lonergan's analysis of cosmopolis, begun in chapter seven. With the transformation of the 'will' (clearly a misleading term) in an act of charity, practical intelligence is liberated from its bondage to the experience of corrupt practice, and theoretical intelligence is given an orientation and a data base upon which to understand and act towards realizing new human possibilities. While the solution is the liberation and the orientation of intelligence towards truth and value the condition of possibility for this operation of intelligence is not itself an act of intelligence, the fruit of human initiative, but an act of grace which orders human intelligence and responsibility while at the same time respecting its essential freedom. (252f; Fs)

108/7 Insight, chapter twenty, is clearly the transition to Lonergan's book on theology, the book which Lonergan set out to write when he began Insight, and which he had to leave until Method. There is no doubt in my mind that Lonergan understood a theology to be the only adequate foundation for a science of man. And if I am right in noting the novelty of his emergent probability foundations for a theology, then it is clear that Lonergan did not conceive such a theology to be a completed enterprise. I would say that his life's work was devoted to laying foundations for a theology that could take seriously the procedures and the discoveries of the nineteenth and twentieth century natural and human sciences. And his call for a theology to provide a foundation for a renewed human science was born of the conviction that any other approach would paralyze human science with a heuristic and a foundation that progressively stifled that of man which is most distinctively human, his and her drive towards self-transcendence, towards God." (252; E01, 29.10.2001)