Autor: Liddy, Richard M.

Buch: Transforming Light

Titel: Transforming Light

Stichwort: Geschichte, Analyse, Lonergan, Fortschritt, Niedergang, Erlösung, Kontingenz, Sünde, Christus

Kurzinhalt: Natur - Geschichte, materia, Intelligibilität, analytisches Konzept d. Geschichte, Newtons Bewegung, geschichtl. Vektoren, Sünde, Sünder -> Rechtfertigung; Erlösung durch Wahrheit; Christus das Haupt

Textausschnitt: () It was the beginning of Lonergan's awareness of the distinction between classical and historical consciousness.
()
Human beings, then, are interconnected. From the viewpoint of matter, the human family consists in discrete individuals. But from the viewpoint of intelligibility and intelligible decisions, the human family is interconnected. We are dependent on the wise or foolish decisions of people in the past; we are connected by persuasion and by the intelligent or unintelligent decisions of others before us. 'Thus the heritage of intellectual vacuity and social chaos given by the nineteenth century to the twentieth is the real reason why the twentieth century is such a mess.'
()
three basic 'differentials': what he later called 'vectors,' for understanding the complexity of the ebb and flow of historical process: that is, progress, decline, and renaissance. He will change the names through the years to progress, decline, and redemption
()
Thus, obscurantists to the contrary, there is such a thing as progress. 'It is a matter of intellect. ... To the extent that human beings understand their situations, develop intelligent and reasonable policies, put these policies into effect, there will be progress.
()
In the realm of human history, however, there is not just the thesis of progress, but the antithesis of human decline and sin. Where we would expect to find intelligibility, there is the surd.
()
There is the tendency to self-justification. The sinner hates his shame and his remorse, and cuts the Gordian knot by denying sin to be sin. If he is isolated in his sin, this attempt meets with little success and gives little satisfaction. But if the sinners are many, then the inner lie becomes an outward lie; the liars reinforce one another in their affirmations and fling their doubting consciences aside as superstition, the dark fears that attack man when he is alone. A society in this state is avid of excitement even if the excitement be only noise.
()
Finally, the third 'differential' is 'renaissance' or redemption. 'Man disintegrated by matter can be united only by truth.
()
Finally, the third 'differential' is 'renaissance' or redemption. 'Man disintegrated by matter can be united only by truth.' 'Christ is the supernatural head of man, first in the order of nature, of voluntary membership of an intelligible unity in a society, of the personality of the anthropos pneumatikos, of grace.