Pope Francis, Ad theologiam promovendam (2023)

1. Theology cannot simply repropose abstract formulae and schemes of the past. Called to interpret the present in a prophetic manner and to discover new paths for the future in the light of Revelation, it must face squarely the new and profound cultural changes that are taking place. (ATP 1)

3. A synodal, missionary and "outgoing" Church calls for a theology "in uscita." We have to abandon an armchair theology. We need to theologize on the frontiers, the peripheries. Good theologians, like good pastors, must have the smell of the sheep and of the street. with their reflections they pour oil and wine on the wounds of human beings. And such contact cannot be merely "tactical." Reflecting on the frontiers cannot be a strategy that involves merely extrinsic adjustment to contents that are already crystallized. Theology must engage in a rethinking of its epistemology and its methodology (cf. VG).

4. Theological reflection is called to a change of paradigm, a "courageous cultural revolution" (LS 114). In the first place, it must be a contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gosplel in the concrete conditions in which men and women live their daily lives, in the different geographical, social and cultural contexts. The archetype of such a method is the incarnation of the eternal Logos, his entering into culture, into a worldview, into the religious tradition of a people. 

Starting from this, theology cannot but develop within a culture of dialogue and of encounter between different traditions, wisdoms, christian confessions, religions. The need for dialogue is intrinsic to the human being and to the whole of creation. It is the task of theology to discover 'the Trinitarian imprint that makes the cosmos in which we live a “network of relations” in which “it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things”.' (VG 4a)

5. This relational dimension connotes and defines the status of theology from an epistemic point of view. Theology cannot be self-referential; it has to take its place in a network of relationships, first of all with other disciples and wisdoms. This is the cross-disciplinary approach. Interdisciplinarity in a weak sense is happy to get a better understanding of the object by considering it from different points of view. Cross-disciplinarity or strong interdisciplinarity involves "situating and stimulating all disciplines against the backdrop of the Light and Life offered by the Wisdom streaming from God’s Revelation." (VG 4c)

6. The dialogue with other disciplines presupposes the dialogue within the ecclesial community, and the awareness of the essentially synodal and communion nature of doing theology. The theologian cannot but be a person of fraternity and communion, at the service of evangelization, and for reaching the hearts of all. [He has to be religiously and morally converted.] "Ecclesial synodality therefore commits theologians to do theology in a synodal form, promoting among themselves the ability to listen, dialogue, discern and integrate the multiplicity and variety of instances and contributions". (Francis, Address to members of the ITC, 24 Nov 2022) It is therefore important that there be places, including institutional ones, in which to live and experience theological collegiality and fraternity. [Crowe had suggested monasteries, and seminars and congresses and workshops preceded by live-ins for praying and sharing and talking together; we could think of ashrams.]

7. The necessary attention to the scientific status of theology must not obscure its sapiential dimension. (S.Th. 1.1.6) For Rosmini, theology was a sublime expression of "intellectual charity"; he wanted the critical reason to be oriented to the Idea of Wisdom, which is a union of Truth and Love. It is impossible to know the truth without practising charity. (Degli studi dell'Autore, nn. 100-111)

"In this way, theology can contribute to the current debate of 'rethinking thought', showing itself to be a true critical knowledge insofar as it is sapiential knowledge, not abstract and ideological, but spiritual, elaborated on its knees, pregnant with adoration and prayer; a transcendent knowledge and, at the same time, attentive to the voice of the people, hence 'popular' theology, mercifully addressing the open wounds of humanity and creation and within the folds of human history, to which it prophesises the hope of an ultimate fulfilment."

8. "This is about the pastoral 'stamp' that theology as a whole, and not only in one particular area, must assume: without opposing theory and practice, theological reflection is urged to develop with an inductive method, which starts from the different contexts and concrete situations in which peoples are inserted, allowing itself to be seriously challenged by reality, to become discernment of the 'signs of the times' in the proclamation of the salvific event of the God-agape, communicated in Jesus Christ." Theology must give privileged place to the commonsense of the people, which is a theological place...

Doing theology and learning theology

I've been trying to reformulate the following from 24 FSDB 04.11.2023 EN, Appendix 7: The program of studies: specific formation of the salesian priest:

A simple theoretical exposition of the tenets of Christian faith will not suffice. There must be a balance between two approaches in theological formation: knowledge leading to a relational experience of God in Christ and the need for propositional knowledge of Christ. In other words, theological education has to integrate faith as kerygma, koinonia, diakonia, martyria and leitourgia, keeping in mind that “the whole tradition of the Church cannot be reduced to the mechanical transmission of inert objects, since it is carried by a living subject and knows a development.”  

A serious hermeneutics of the tradition of the Church and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.

The original problem arose from the attempt to translate "the need for propositional knowledge of Christ" into Italian. One does not easily say "conoscenza proposizionale" in Italian, says Silvio Roggia. Cloe Taddei-Ferretti suggested "conoscenza di Cristo attraverso proposizioni". 

Perhaps I just need to reformulate the two paragraphs.

I have been dipping into Lonergan, first to find how "propositional truth" has been translated into Italian, and then asking myself: how would Lonergan talk about the teaching / learning of theology? 

I've dipped into "Christ as Subject: A Reply" (CWL 4:153-184); "The Dehellenization of Dogma" (13:11-30); "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" 17:352-383); "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (13:140ff). Also a bit into Method in Theology (CWL 14).

Reading "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (CWL 13:140ff), I am struck by the structure of the text: (1) Authenticity, (2) The Spirit, (3) The Word, (4) Sending.

I had never noticed the two missions there, in sections 2 and 3: the Spirit and the Word.

And then the Church, in section 3. "The gift of the Spirit can be everywhere at once, but the challenge of the Word radiates to the ends of the earth only through human mediation." (CWL 13:148)

See "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" (CWL 17:358): In the Christian religion as lived but not yet thematized there may be distinguished three moments: (1) the ontic present of God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us; (2) the objective past in which God's revelation of his love to us through Christ Jesus has been mediated down the ages by the ongoing Christian community; (3) the eschatological consummation and, on the way, the command and the duty to preach the gospel to every class in every culture. 

Doing theology = mediating between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in that matrix. (CWL 14:3)

Teaching or learning theology: what is it? I guess it is moving from the Christian religion as lived, and as lived with a largely symbolic thematization (scripture, catechism, doctrine) to a properly theological thematization. "A Christian theology thematizes the Christian religion on the level of the times in which the theology is composed." (17:358)

That thematization, for an ordinary student of theology in the first cycle, would involve thematizing his own lived experience (the gift of God's love, the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life), in interaction with the objective past and present mediation by the Christian community of the revelation of God's love in Jesus. 

There is no "individual experience" hermetically sealed from the experience of others in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions, so lived experience includes one's own experience in interaction with that of others. Theology will help one to access one's own experience and enlarge "that of others" to include "the tradition" as well as "the current trends of contemporary culture." (see the Ratio text above)

Reading: Francis, "Ad theologiam provendam" (2023). (See the blog entry of 10.11.2023)

Formulation:

The study of theology in preparation for the Salesian priesthood cannot be a question of merely studying abstract formulae and schemes of the past with no effort to connect them to one's own experience of faith and to the places and times in which one is living. 

The study of theology involves appropriating the faith as lived in the past and in the present in order to deepen one's own faith, and to serve God's people, especially the young. Formation in mission involves also, therefore, theologizing in mission: the young to whom we are sent and our mission to them must enter into our study and our reflection: "For you I study", just as it enters into our prayer. Theology, apostolic experiences, prayer, all must flow together. 

A serious hermeneutics of Scripture, tradition and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.

From Mark T. Miller, 11.11.2023:

Wow, I can't think of something that has all of those things.  I'm still looking though. Here's two good ones I've found so far in Method, 1973 red edition, p. 278:

It may be objected that nihil amatum nisi praecognitum. But while that is true of other human love, it need not be true of the love with which God floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5). That grace could be the finding that grounds our seeking God through natural reason and through positive religion. It could be the touchstone by which we judge whether it is really God that natural reason reaches⁵ or positive religion preaches. It could be the grace that God offers all men, that underpins what is good in the religions of mankind, that explains how those that never heard the gospel can be saved. It could be what enables the simple faithful to pray to their heavenly Father in secret even though their religious apprehen­sions are faulty. Finally, it is in such grace that can be found the theological justification of Catholic dialogue with all Christians, with non-Christians, and even with atheists who may love God in their hearts while not knowing him with their heads.

Here's a longer one from Method 326-27:

There are two ways in which the unity of the faith may be conceived. On classicist assumptions there is just one culture. That one culture is not attained by the simple faithful, the people, the natives, the barbarians. None the less, career is always open to talent. One enters upon such a career by diligent study of the ancient Latin and Greek authors. One pursues such a career by learning Scholastic philosophy and theology. One aims at high office by becoming proficient in canon law. One succeeds by winning the approbation and favor of the right personages. Within this set-up the unity of faith is a matter of everyone subscribing to the correct formulae.

Such classicism, however , was never more than the shabby shell of Catholicism. The real root and ground of unity is being in love with God—the fact that God’s love has flooded our inmost hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5). The acceptance of this gift both constitutes religious conversion and leads to moral and even intellectual conversion.

Further, religious conversion, if it is Christian, is not just a state of mind and heart. Essential to it is an intersubjective, interpersonal component. Besides the gift of the Spirit within, there is the outward encounter with Christian witness. That witness testifies that of old in many ways God has spoken to us through the prophets but in this latest age through his Son (Heb. I, 1.2).

Thirdly, the function of church doctrines lies within the func­tion of Christian witness. For the witness is to the mysteries revealed by God and, for Catholics, infallibly declared by the church. The meaning of such declarations lies beyond the vicissitudes of human historical process. But the contexts, within which such meaning is grasped, and so the manner, in which such meaning is expressed, vary both with cultural differences and with the measure in which human consciousness is differentiated.

Ryliskyte, Ligita

Ryliskyte, Ligita. Cur Deus Cruciatus?: Lonergan’s Law of the Cross and the Transpositions of “Justice over Power.” PhD Thesis. Boston College, 2020. The basic question of this dissertation is, “Why a crucified God?” The history of this question is traced through strategically chosen increments in Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Lonergan. Each contributes in some important way to the development of a tradition that focuses on the choice of divine love and wisdom to answer evil through the justice of the cross rather than by coercion. In light of these earlier transpositions and Lonergan’s own development, this dissertation examines the meaning and justice of the cross, as epitomized in Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, and re-contextualizes this law in relation to our collective responsibility in and for history. This teleological re-reading of Lonergan’s soteriology brings to the forefront that a fitting remedy to the problem of a dis-ordered love is a re-ordering and (re-)ordered love, not coercive power. According to Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, the intrinsic intelligibility of redemption is the transformation of evil into good by love. This love, caritas ordinata et ordinans, is understood by analogy with the antecedent offer of diffusive friendship and by analogy with sacramental penance. The restoration of right order through the cross is fitting because, if the laws of nature and history are not suspended, retaliation would only multiply the objective surd. The constructive part of this dissertation further specifies ontological conditions for the fittingness of the cross by bringing the lex crucis into dialogue with Lonergan’s general theory of historical process. In continuity with the emerging world order (as subject to classical, statistical, dialectical, and genetic laws), the cross manifests an orderly communication of divine friendship to sinners. Correspondingly, the justice of the cross regards, not retributive justice, but the possibility of justice among sinners. This possibility, it is argued, is inaugurated by Christ’s transformation of suffering into the means of a new finality in history, the probabilities of which are decisively shifted in the cross event and concretely realized through the emergent agape network, the higher integration of the human good of order through the whole Christ, head and members, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The justice of the cross, then, is an emergent agapic justice which proceeds from the dynamic state of being in love with God as its principle and is realized in a dialectic unification of all things in Christ, constituting the “cruciform” transformation of human September 2020 5 (inter-) subjectivity and the recovery of human progress as ordered to the eschatologically definitive reign of God. Ryliskyte, Ligita. “Conversion: Falling into Friendship Like No Other.” Theological Studies, 81/2 (2020) 370-93. In the context of contemporary vicissitudes, this article examines how Lonergan’s grasp of the meaning of redemption illuminates our understanding of Christian conversion. Lonergan’s Law of the Cross implies that the effectiveness of Christian conversion hinges on one’s antecedent willingness to undertake suffering for the sake of the transformation of evil into good. His analogies for Christ’s salvific work with the sacrament of reconciliation and with friendship further clarify the christomorphic, penitential, and community-building character of conversion, which proceeds from the total, transformative, and diffusive falling into friendship with God.

Von Balthasar, symbol and theory

I am guessing that von Balthasar made an option to return from a systematic to a more symbolic theology - much in the way perhaps that Heidegger wanted to return to the pre-Socratics. In this case, what of Lonergan? Lonergan surely is not one who would ever want to set aside systematic theology. Does that mean that von Balthasar's project is entirely foreign to him? I would think not, because for that matter Lonergan would not want to set aside the symbolic either. There is place for both. Theory is necessary but does not warm hearts. Symbolic language is not everything, but it is what warms hearts. And perhaps von Balthasar's project is part of the sensible symbolic aspect that is so much part of the incarnation.

And perhaps here Rossi de Gasperis' insistence on the sensible might tie up.

The new relationship between philosophy and theology

As early as 1957, we find Lonergan saying:

“We have the meaning of ‘philosophy’ as concerned with truths that can be known by the natural light of reason, but when the Catholic philosopher moves to the consideration of things existentially, he finds that things as they exist in all their concreteness cannot be completely illuminated without a consideration of the supernatural.” … [Mathematical Logic and Existentialism 1957 CWL 18:297.]

Then again in 1959:

“Again, the natural and the supernatural are really distinct, as distinct as matter and form, soul and body, but in the concrete order of divine providence in this world they are united dynamically….” [Topics in Education 1959 CWL 10:70.]

A "perhaps not numerous center"

Quotable Quotes from Lonergan"

Neither the solid right nor the scattered left but a “perhaps not numerous center”. [see Lonergan, “Dimensions of Meaning,” Collection, CWL 4:245.]

New relation between philosophy and theology

Quotable Quotes from Lonergan: 

“Indeed, once philosophy becomes existential and historical, once it asks about man, not in the abstract, not as he would be in some state of pure nature, but as in fact he is here and now in all the concreteness of his living and dying, the very possibility of the old distinction between philosophy and theology vanishes.” ["Dimensions of Meaning," Collection, CWL 4:245.] 

Crowe, innovation in theology

Crowe, "Theology and the Future: Responsible Innovation", Appropriating the Lonergan Idea (1989): headings:
The need of new categories in theology
The relation of the old categories to our new times
The foundations of the new categories
The precedent in our tradition for assigning these foundations
The subjectivity of this approach to doctrines and theology
The role of the community and of intersubjectivity in the process to counteract individualism. (266)

A neat, accessible summary / introduction to Lonergan's suggestions for a future looking theology.

An interreligious theological method

Again, since the sources to be subjected to research are not specified, they could be the sacred books and traditions of any religion. (B. Lonergan, "Bernard Lonergan Responds (1)," Shorter Papers, CWL 20: 274)

This also had escaped me: the clarity with which Lonergan here indicates that his method can be used by all religions, or (implicitly) in an interreligious manner. So the interreligious data does not have to come in only at Communications, as I recall someone (McShane?) saying recently. But of course, this is self-interpretation, and anyone is free to challenge it - provided she has good reasons.

Magisterium and theology

Luca Badini sent me a long response saying that he did not see any differnce between the procedure of theology and the magisterium, and, besides, that the magisterium should not be identified with any single group in the churc. Two days later, he sent me this shorter note:

I have also found an enlightening passage in Carl F. Starkloff, A Theology of the In-Between: The Value of Syncretic Process (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2002), 82: “With Karl Rahner, Lonergan renounces “Denzinger theology” or a “Christian positivism” of manual theology (330). Each local church must rather, under guidance (the true role of the “magisterium”), make its own progress toward appropriating the authentic truth that doctrine and dogma symbolize. Lonergan, who was never a missionary in the accepted sense of the term, expresses a profound appreciation of the role of mission theology: it must inculcate true “responsibility” in new Christians and local theologians. His words on this point deserve a fuller quotation:

There is much to be gained by recognizing autonomy and pointing out that it implies responsibility. For responsibility leads to method, and method if effective makes police work superfluous. Church officials have the duty to protect the religion on which theologians reflect, but it is up to the theologians themselves to carry the burden of making theological choices as much a matter of consensus as any other long-standing academic discipline (332).

(Note that the rejection of Denzinger theology means the rejection of considering the magisterium as the point of departure of theological investigation, in favour of starting from the sources of revelation in scripture, tradition, and reason--and by dialectically interpreting those sources, reach doctrines. Note that to leave the development of theology to the local church is precisely what is required by subsidiarity).

This is what I replied to Luca:

I have not read all that you have sent, but am responding to your comments above.

It is absolutely true that Lonergan rejected Denzinger theology. One does not quote magisterium and argue to conclusions; that is no longer theology, if ever it was.

In Insight, he did, however, accept the truths of faith (as revealed or as defined by the magisterium) as part of the data of theology. There is a slow migration from this position to placing the starting point of theology in data rather than in truths of faith. I have traced that migration in my book, Hermeneutics and Method. That is certainly Lonergan shaking off his residual classicism and becoming fully methodical by the time of Method in Theology.

But this methodical theology with starting point in data is the procedure of theology. I think Lonergan would still distinguish between the procedure of theology and the procedure that characterizes those who hold official teaching authority in the church. The latter is not the same procedure as the former.

I agree that this doctrine about the distinct magisterial teaching authority is itself one of the doctrines which a methodical theology would 'test' and accept/reject. Nonetheless, it is a doctrine which is distinct in its position from the one you are espousing.

Reconceiving the Immaculate Conception

John Dadosky just gave a wonderful paper on the Immaculate Conception: "Women without Envy: Reconceiving the Immaculate Conception." He used Rene Girard and James Allison (the latter quite new to me) to interpret the doctrine of original sin which is at the basis of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Theologians usually regard Pride as the root of Adam's sin; Girard and Allison seem to suggest that it is Envy that is the real root. Dadosky brought in Aquinas' distinction between good and bad desire: good desire is the desire to be like God with God's grace; bad desire is the desire to be like God on one's own.

Whatever: Mary, woman conceived without original sin, is the woman without envy, without bad desire. She is what she is entirely thanks to the grace and love of God. And, interestingly, Satan-Lucifer is envious of her: Lucifer who was the most beautiful, the brightest, second only to God, has to yield place to Mary, and that is one root of his envy and his revolt... And Mary is marked by Humility and Charity, the opposites of Pride and Envy: My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit exults in God my saviour.

Gilles Mongeau asked about the connection between Mariology and Ecclesiology: that would be important, he said, in offsetting the feeling (envy?) that many people have that Mary is somehow so special, so set apart. I asked Dadosky whether he was familiar with Ratzinger's Daughter Sion, he said no. Ratzinger has this wonderful connection - so obvious now to me - between Mary and the Church, Mary, the faithful woman, the new Israel....

Dadosky's work is a wonderful example of how to take Lonergan's hints further. Lonergan hints in Method in Theology that the development of Marian dogma has to do with humanity's development and refinement of feelings....

What psychology can contribute to theology

Inspired by a dialogue with Catherine Whittle at tea this afternoon:

Possibly an article for the Indian theological public on the contribution of psychology to theology. How Lonergan has learnt from psychology, and integrated these findings into his method.

Distinguishing, of course, different types of differences; dismissing those rooted in data, in perspectives, to concentrate on those that are truly radical and dialectical. These are rooted, not in data, not in perspectives, not in development, but in fundamental options – philosophical, moral, religious. These options are the presuppositions of all argument, proof. All proof, all logic, presupposes a system; and the system itself is rooted in fundamental options, which cannot be proved.

What then? Only: objectification of these options; bringing them to light; raising / objectifying horizons. Objectification of subjectivity. The crucial experiment.

But also: ensuring an irenic atmosphere. [McShane, SURF 2, 11: “Yes, there are two levels of dialectic, but it seems to me that if the second is done properly, there is no need to add dialogue…. The second level of dialectic is very discomforting dialogue of colleagues who share the Standard Model. The latter point is very important to absorb: the cycling is not done with adversaries, but with colleagues within the Standard Model. See http://www.philipmcshane.ca/SURF-02.pdf.] Also the venerable theme of friendship as a condition for philosophy - and for theology.

And: creating community. How to give and receive feedback. How to handle the customary (emotional) blocks to communication. How much of current interaction in philosophy, and especially in Christian theology, is an interplay of ego, emotions, and so on...

Mission and Apologetics

This is a particularly brilliant new opening for Christian mission:

In religious matters love precedes knowledge and, as that love is God's gift, the very beginning of faith is due to God's grace. On this showing, not only is the ancient problem of the salvation of non-Christians greatly reduced, but also the true nature of Christian apologetic is clarified. The apologist's task is neither to produce in others nor to justify for them God's gift of his love. Only God can give that gift, and the gift itself is self-justifying. People in love have not reasoned themsleves into being in love. The apologist's task is to aid others in integrating God's gift with the rest of their living. Any significant event on any level of consciousness calls for adjustments elsewhere. (Lonergan, Method in Theology 123, cited in Lovett, For the Joy Set Before Us 206 n 23)

God's gift is given - to all. It is not our job as Christians to produce that gift or to justify it, much less to tell people that we alone have been privileged to receive it. But it is our job to be able to recognize it. And it is our job to aid others to integrate that gift with the rest of their living.

Here we could of course ask ourselves: how exactly might we 'aid others'? How could we be of help?

And again: what exactly is the 'rest of their living'? Could that 'rest' be as large as the world? And what would it mean to integrate the gift of God's love in contemporary India? The question of how we relate to other groups and to the world arises inevitably. There is an inevitably boundary-breaking component in any apologetic task.

The eye of faith

In Regis 1962 (Lecture 7, section 3.4: The Light of Faith) Lonergan says that, by lumen fidei, he does not mean something like Rouselot's les yeux de la foi, because Rousselot does not have (Lonergan's) sharp distinction between What is it? and Is it so? Faith, Lonergan goes on, does not involve understanding anything. We believe, not because we understand, but because of the authority of God.

But in Method in Theology, faith is no longer assent to truths, and Lonergan does go on to speak of faith as the eye of love.

Is there something to be deepened here? What kind of shift is that? Anything substantial?

Religions and the supernatural

In my paper on Francis Xavier and the missions (Boston 2006), I pulled in an older reflection / comparison between Christianity and Islam. There was much discussion on that. I said that Islam was a religion that could easily fit into what we used to call natural or philosophical theology, because there was nothing in it that 'exceeded the natural capacity of the human mind.' In that sense, Islam was not a 'supernatural' religion.

Scholars like Pat Bryne and also Fred Lawrence, I think, were not so sure about that. They said that all religions were supernatural.

I have still to get to the bottom of that. However, I think it is a question of defining 'supernatural' very clearly.

In Regis 1962, Lonergan seems to be distinguishing supernatural acts from supernatural objects. He says, for example, that de facto, because there is need of gratia sanans, and because of the way grace is granted in this order, there will normally be supernatural acts before one reaches the reflective act of understanding (which is supernatural when it is a question of divine faith). Still, he goes on, the objects prior to that reflective act of understanding need not be supernatural. (Lecture 6, Section 3.3: Human and Divine Faith).

So maybe in one sense (as far as acts are concerned) the religions are all supernatural, while in another sense (as far as objects are concerned) they are not all supernatural.

But I need to master here the distinction between acts and objects: how can an act be supernatural, when the object is not? And what does supernatural mean in the case of the act here?

In fact, I might have misunderstood Lonergan above. He says, for example: "it is at the point of specification of the act by a supernatural object that per se, that is, in every case, one is having a supernatural act." And again: "There would be nothing supernatural quoad se, quoad substantiam, in any of the acts and, consequently, not in the praeambula."

Conflating finitude and falleness

Unlike Heidegger, Caputo speaks well of Aquinas and seems to be far less negative about the history of Western thought. That is why it is suprising that, like Heidegger, he also seems to conflate finitude and fallenness in some way. Thus he can say:

Grace perfects nature. As a Christian with an Aristotelian streak, Aquinas thought that our nature was wounded by sin but not that it was vitiated and corrupted all the way down and that we should fall back on faith in desperation. That particular idea broke out with a fury in the Reformation and it went back to Augustine, not to Aquinas. Aquinas thought that our senses and our rational faculties were made by God and they were capable of working very well, as is anything God has made, but that as natural and human faculties they were limited and imperfect, and this imperfection is made up for by grace, thanks be to God. (Philosophy and Theology 17, emphasis mine)

Caputo does not seem to know about the distinction between gratia sanans and gratia elevans. He does know about grace, but he thinks grace is needed only to make up for the natural imperfect and limitation of human faculties.

Lonergan on philosophy and theology

Lonergan uses three devices to help him describe the new relationship between philosophy and theology: the moving viewpoint, sublation, and the two vectors of human development.

The first device is predominant in Insight. It is exemplified within elementary arithmetic when new rules have to be found to handle negative numbers, fractions and surds: these rules are able to handle not only the old numbers but also the new. Again, it is exemplified in the shift from elementary arithmetic to algebra, and from Newton to Einstein: Einstein’s theories account for Newton’s laws as well as what those laws could not account for, so that the latter become a subset of the former (see Lonergan, CWL 17:410). The moving viewpoint is therefore not a logical device, for logic can only bring out the virtualities inherent in the initial set of premises, but the moving viewpoint is able to take into account emergent novelty, and it does so only by modifying the initial premises. Thus the shift from philosophy or the ‘purely humanist viewpoint’ to the viewpoint of faith and theology is a movement in the viewpoint: faith and theology go beyond philosophy without disturbing what is proper to philosophy.

The second device emerges in the post-Insight years: theology is an Aufhebung or sublation of philosophy. But Lonergan is quick to specify that Aufhebung here is to be taken in Rahner’s sense rather than Hegel’s. (This would have to be clarified with all the observations Lonergan makes about the difference between his own position and that of Hegel: Lonergan's position is intellectualist rather than conceptualist, non-necessitarian, etc.)

The third device emerges in the post-Method years. The first two devices indicate clearly that theology goes beyond while respecting the competence of philosophy (and here Lonergan is far clearer than Caputo). The third device, however, without denying such sublation, exemplifies the intricate and intimate relationship between philosophy and theology better than the first two – for in the concrete we are often at the vectorial intersection between faith and reason, between what is received and what is personally appropriated.

Lonergan, Caputo, Benedict XVI on faith and reason

Lonergan, Caputo, Benedict XVI: three takes on faith and reason, and there is surprising resonance...

Benedict XVI broadens the picture in several ways. He points out that the Septuagint was a great rapprochement between the best of Greek enlightenment and the faith of the Hebrews. He brings in Liberal Theology and Modernism.

Like Lonergan and Caputo, he mentions Scotus and his voluntarism for the sundering of the Augustinian-Thomist synthesis. He links it to Islam and to the Protestant Reformation. He traces the consequences in contemporary scientism.

Distinction between faith and reason

Caputo's take on the distinction:

The distiction between philosophy and theology is between two kinds of faith, by which I mean two kinds of 'seeing as.' (Caputo, Philosophy and Theology 57.)

The distinction is between a common or philosophical faith, which is the complex web of presuppositional structures built into every human enterprise,and another, specifically religious faith. This is a distinction between two kinds of interpretative slants.Faith is an elemental form of human life, a basic ingredient in our existence, as necessary for philosophy as for theology. (Ibid. 57-58.)

Perfectly acceptable. In the 1962 course on Method, Lonergan makes much the same kind of distinction between a common faith, and the light of faith; and he is not saying anything new, but merely recalling (probably) Thomist doctrine. Still, I think he would distinguish the two in a way Caputo has not (yet) done.

Postmodernism and theology

This is interesting, Caputo's own take on postmodernism and theology:

A lot of the postmodern philosophers are thorough-going secularists and their nineteenth-century hero and predecessor is not Kierkegaard but Nietzsche. Their interest in defusing the intimidating prestige of the natural sciences and in gaining a hearing for other forms of discourse is aimed at promoting their interest in art and literature, not religion. But the clear and unmistakable result of what even these very secular thinkers did, the unavoidable implication of what in my view they very successfully accomplished, was to gain a hearing for - God help us - religion and theology, a point that discomforts secularizing postmodernists every bit as much as it discomforts modernist critics of religion. (Caputo, Philosophy and Theology 52.)

He ends like this:

When philosophers really have an axe to grind about theology, that axe trumps the distinction between modern and postmodern. When it comes to theology, some philosophers take no prisoners. (Ibid.)