The Experience of Grace in the Theologies of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan
- Format:
- Dissertation
- Year:
- 2009
- University:
- Boston College
- University URL:
- Thesis type:
- Doctoral Dissertation
- Place published:
- Chestnut Hill, Mass.
- Language:
- Abstract:
The first chapter begins by delineating Lonergans philosophy of development. It then applies this philosophy to a range of literature on grace and discerns, in the historical data, a basic line of intellectual progress. For this reason, this chapter implements a genetic method. More specifically, the chapter proposes an explanatory framework for understanding the contemporary transposition of scholastic metaphysics. Special attention is placed on the notion of grace as experience in relation to the evolution of theology as a science. The first chapter implements a genetic method to chart the developments in the history of the theology of grace. The last section of that chapter sketches the basic contours of a development that enabled a transposition from the second to the third stage of meaninga development that made possible a description of grace in terms of consciousness. The second chapter addresses the question of grace and consciousness in the context of Lonergans thought. In this chapter, I bring to light the complexities and challenges of identifying and describing grace as a datum of human experience. I also attempt to offer the Lonergan scholar some guidance by developing a set of normative criteria that will assist him in navigating these complexities and surmounting these challenges. The chapter is not an exercise in foundational theology but is written from a dialectical and methodological viewpoint. The dialectical and methodological work of the second chapter will prepare for the task of the third chapter. Chapter three compares Rahners and Lonergans theologies of grace; it focuses on a comparison of Lonergans notion of being-in-love unrestrictedly and Rahners notion of the supernatural existential in order to clarify their respective positions and to demonstrate an affinity in their writings on grace. Chapter four uses Rahners and Lonergans account of grace in terms of experience, developed in chapter three, to work out a theology of rel
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