Abstract
Reviewed by: Neil Ormerod, Australian Catholic University, Strathfield, New South Wales
This book is the latest volume to appear in the series Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (CWL). Previously only ‘officially’ available in Latin – though an English translation by Charles Helfing was widely circulated – this long awaited volume is the major part of courses Lonergan taught at the Gregorian University during the 1960s. It is not the whole of the material, with an equally eagerly awaited volume still to come on Lonergan’s theology of the redemption (CWL, Vol. 9), containing his often discussed work on the ‘Law of the Cross’.
These works, together with Vol. 7, On the Ontological and Psychological Constitution of Christ and Vols 11, The Triune God: Doctrines, and 12, The Triune God: Systematics, present Lonergan at the height of his theological powers, struggling within the confines of a neo-scholastic framework and the demands of the educational system of the day, to engage creatively and intelligently with classical theological questions on the Trinity and Incarnation. As with these other volumes the reader is presented with both the Latin text and the English translation on facing pages.
The structure of the work is in four parts. The first deals with the biblical evidence concerning the Incarnation, that Jesus is both true man and true God. This is no standard exercise in proof-texting but rather a thorough and sophisticated presentation that orders the biblical material into a coherent whole. It is worth noting that at this time Lonergan was also undertaking research that would lead to his major work, Method in Theology, first published in 1971.
The second part concerns the doctrine of the hypostatic union, that Christ is one person in two natures, human and divine, as taught by the Council of Chalcedon. Here he considers the various theological and doctrinal developments from the end of the New Testament era, together with some contemporary accounts, often tracing difficulties back to pre-existing philosophical commitments (anticipating his later notion of dialectics and the need for intellectual conversion), as well as to various terminological difficulties present in different authors.
The third part examines the theological conclusions that can be drawn from the hypostatic union. This is most closely related to the earlier volume on the ontological and psychological constitution of Christ, taking on questions about how best to understand the Incarnation as a metaphysical reality, and how one can properly address questions concerning the consciousness of Christ. Here Lonergan draws from his understanding of consciousness as developed in his major philosophical work, Insight (Vol. 3 of the CWL).
The fourth and final (for this volume) section deals with ‘what belongs properly to Christ’. This deals, in particular, with the question of Jesus’ beatific knowing and its relationship to his normal human knowing, leading on to questions of his impeccability and his obedience to his mission from the Father. These are difficult topics and Lonergan is perhaps at his most creative in handling them. Again, it is the philosophical positions he developed in Insight that ground his approach to the question of Jesus’ knowing. Based on his position that knowing requires understanding and that God is ipsum intelligere Lonergan argues that Jesus’ beatific knowing is strictly ineffable, an insight impossible to conceptualize in itself. Even granted this beatific knowing, Jesus still requires both further supernatural acts and natural acts of knowing in order to be able to convey anything at all to his disciples.
It is difficult to know what a contemporary theological audience will make of this work. Lonergan himself acknowledged that the strictures under which he worked in the Gregorian meant he could not produce theological works that accorded best with his own understanding of what theology should be like. The questions he addresses are often not the questions being asked today, particularly the ontological questions and issues of Jesus’ beatific knowing. Still, we might be left to wonder what we have lost in the process. Certainly there is a level of rigour in the argumentation that we rarely if ever find in contemporary writings. Indeed if anything a contemporary audience may be suspicious that such rigour is somehow theologically unbecoming. Again, we might be left to wonder what we have lost.
Lonergan scholars, however, will be particularly grateful for this volume, which makes available such an important piece of Lonergan’s theological contribution for scholarly study. The translation expertly undertaken by Charles Hefling is clear and readable, and retains Lonergan’s droll dry humour: basically these are class lecture notes with a strong sense of immediacy to the reader. The footnotes are all supplied by the editors, Robert M. Doran and Jeremy D. Wilkins, and are helpful in untangling the references to authors who have long since faded from memory. The production is up to the usual high standards of the University of Toronto Press, and is available in both paper- and hardback. At the time of writing this review I believe another volume of the CWL has appeared, A Second Collection. By my count this makes for 20 volumes published so far with perhaps four or five to go. This is a monumental achievement for which the editors can be justifiably proud.