Original Sin in the Context of Lonergan's Soteriology

Any survey of diverse methods applied by Catholic theologians teaching and writing in the twentieth century should include the Canadian theologian Bernard Lonergan, SJ. While Lonergan might best be known for his Method in Theology, published originally in English, his work on soteriology was originally in Latin in the context of his teaching Christology, De Verbo Incarnato. Only with the publication of his Collected Works are the relevant Latin texts now widely available, also with English translation.1 In contrast, a philosophy that rejects extrinsicism, that begins from the self-appropriation of the subject = his their self-mediation with respect to a tradition = mutual self-mediation within a tradition, begins with man the human as he one concretely is, as a member of a community, as a receiver and transmitter of a tradition, as in need of conversion such a starting point is isomorphic with the starting-point of one that inquires into Christian claims while there are two formally distinct starting-points, there is only one full solution: when one deals with man the human in the concrete, one is dealing with man the human under original sin, in need of grace, receiving it, and either accepting or rejecting it – one is in a theological context.3 Lonergan's soteriology is well summarised in a lecture title: 'Healing and Creating in History'.4 'History' identifies the context of 'the concrete situation of humans'; 'creating' locates the dynamic capabilities for generating good; and 'healing' refers to the woundedness of humanity, the extent of which is revealed in the complexity of the solution offered. The woundedness in question includes the reality of sin, both actual and original. There is only a brief mention of original sin in this essay.5 What is referred to here is Erbsünde rather than Ursünde, peccatum originale originatum and not peccatum originale originans. The focus is on inherited original sin, Erbsünde. As an additional introductory note, I should acknowledge Lonergan's distinction from Method in Theology between 'Doctrines' and 'Systematics' in the second four of the eight functional specialties.6 Doctrines indicates the task of establishing what the Church teaches on specific matters, while systematics takes on the task of explaining the teaching and integrating it with other elements of the Christian faith. In the texts dealt with in this paper Lonergan is largely engaged in the work of systematisation, taking doctrine taught by the Church as given. The following points are relevant: the role of history in Lonergan's theology; his replacement of metaphysics by cognitional theory and epistemology; his analysis of progress and decline (dialectic); the theme of healing. Finally, I ask why the offered explanation is an account of inherited original sin. Frederick Crowe, SJ, a student of Lonergan and one of his more careful defenders, highlights Lonergan's concentration on history, and his concern with Christ's historical causality, his influence on the healing of the world.7 Crowe provides a commentary on a supplement added to Lonergan's De Verbo Incarnato, where he treats soteriology, the redemption.8 De Bono et Malo, 'Of Good and Evil', is the title of the first of six chapters in this supplement, in total comprising 45 articles. Lonergan's exploration of good and evil in history, what he terms Progress, Decline, and Healing or Recovery, is the context, I suggest, for grasping what he has to offer about original sin. This topic of Christ's role in history is to be read in the context of Lonergan's own development of the notion of historicism or historical consciousness. An important article is 'The Transition from a Classicist Worldview to Historical Mindedness'.9 A theme in that article, 'Human Nature and Historicity', is also addressed in 'Natural Right and Historical Mindedness'.10 Lonergan distinguishes between two approaches to understanding the human: a classicist worldview that focuses on a universal human nature, common to all humans, in all places and all times; and a historically minded or modern approach that sees the human as changing and developing over time, framing in different contexts distinctive literatures, cultures, forms of law and language, and institutions. The acknowledgement of the latter has led many moderns to abandon completely all reference to human nature, or to any constant universal. While accepting the importance of recognising the historical dimension, Lonergan, along with other transcendental Thomists, holds that the universal human nature can be recognised in the operations of human subjects. He remarks in a comment on Rahner's article on natural law, '…the more concrete and historical apprehension of man (sic) provides itself with the appropriately concrete foundations in structural features of the conscious, operating subject, by a method that has come to be named transcendental'.11 Where Rahner had focused on the activities of listening and of questioning, Lonergan elaborates a fourfold structure of human cognitional and volitional operations, from experiencing, understanding, reflecting, and judging, deliberating and deciding. In his article on 'Natural Right' he contrasts a constant, human nature, and a variable, human historicity. 'Nature is given man (sic) at birth. Historicity is what man makes of man (sic).'12 Corresponding to the fourfold structure of human consciousness: Experience, Understanding, Judgement, and Decision, are the four transcendental precepts that Lonergan proposes as articulating the common law of this nature: 'be attentive, be intelligent, be rational, be responsible'. The ongoing process of self-transcendence constituted by the dynamic of the corresponding questioning has its completion in the embrace of value, the state of being-in-love.13 The dynamic of self-transcendence is presented for pedagogical reasons as from below upward, culminating in decision and commitment. However, reality is more complex, and once Lonergan had introduced the explanatory terms he shifted attention to the dynamic in the other direction, from above downward. This is the dynamism beginning with the affective encounter with value (another person, parent, teacher, pastor, partner) leading to the adoption of life-shaping commitments and convictions, thereby framing experience. But whichever the direction of the dynamism in any instance, the account of the human is dynamic, and can be interpreted in line with the transcendental precepts. Accordingly, the notion of natural law is not abandoned, but it is disconnected from a static concept of a universal human nature. Historicity is contrasted with the constant, human nature, dynamically understood. Historicity is the changeable, variable component of human reality, and in various lists Lonergan indicates that he is referring both to cultural achievements—'religions and art-forms, languages and literatures, sciences, philosophies, the writing of history', and social institutions—'the family, the state, the law, the economy'.14 All these have a history, they undergo change, sometimes as progress and sometimes as decline. The key to understanding such cultural achievements and social institutions is to approach them as constructions of the human spirit. I use the word 'construction' in its obvious sense of making, building, producing. And the genitive is deliberately both subjective and objective: the constructing is done by the human spirit, and it is the human spirit which is constructed. In Lonergan's era-conditioned sexist language, it is the 'making of man by man'.15 Construction is a making, but what is made and what is changed is meaning. We are dealing with the human world, that mediated by meaning. The natural and cultural world mediated by meaning are to be distinguished from the world of immediacy. The latter is available to us now only in abstraction from our present adult existence, but we can point to it as the world of the infant or of the animal. As adults we orient ourselves in a world which is a rich web of meanings. The study of human affairs has been challenged to move from a universalist, abstract discussion of natures to an historically minded account of the particular, the concrete, and the local. The challenge arises also for theology, and Lonergan accepted the challenge, leading to his major work on Method in Theology (1972). At the heart of Method was a philosophical position that required of theologians a 'personal appropriation of their own intelligent, rational, and responsible being'.16 The achievement of such appropriation presupposes a threefold conversion, religious, moral, and intellectual. Conversions involve replacements, acceptance of divine love replacing existential angst, values replacing satisfactions as guide to decisions, comprehension of the real replacing uncritical reliance on perceptions.17 Lonergan's shift of focus from a universal human nature to the historical particular relegates metaphysics to a subordinate position in his hierarchy of disciplines. He replaces Aristotelian style metaphysics with intentionality analysis. It does not follow that Lonergan abandons all questions of metaphysics, but that he no longer sees metaphysics as the comprehensive science providing other sciences with their distinctive formal objects and approaches. Analysis of cognitional structure, and questions of epistemology, precede metaphysics: 'for me, a metaphysics is not first but derived from cognitional theory and epistemology'.18 These are distinguished as corresponding to three questions: 'Cognitional theory: what are you doing when you are knowing? Epistemology: why is doing that knowing? Metaphysics: What do you know when you do it?'19 Intentionality analysis reflects on what one is doing when knowing; what are my conscious operations as I am knowing in different contexts, in interpersonal relationships, in doing science, in using common sense? The answers are in terms of my operations of attending to experience, understanding the observed, checking my understanding and formulating judgement, and deciding if anything is to be done. Especially in philosophy, theology, and human studies, the empirical approach requires attending to the data of consciousness, and so doing can lead one to awareness of conversions already achieved, and an appreciation of what might yet be possible. The point of this becomes clear when we advert to the fact that we do not stand outside of the 'human affairs' we study, but that defects and dangers we identify in our analysis may apply also to ourselves, our culture, and our scholarly community. The common humanity of original constructors and subsequent interpreters, so understood, grounds the abstract possibility of a successful interpretative reconstruction. Both the human world of cultural achievement and social institutions, and the interpretative reconstruction of the meaning and value which constitute that world, are products of the same human spirit. The creation in history to which Lonergan refers in the title of his essay appears when all functions well. However, not every architect's dream is realised, many forces are brought to bear before a building is completed, and few are without fault. The original construction may well have been a successful realisation of a well-founded plan, or it may have been flawed in some way. Similarly, the effort at reconstruction may be a fine accomplishment of research and interpretation, or it may be flawed also. Either or both the original construction and the reconstruction may be authentic, or unauthentic. They are authentic in so far as they are cumulatively the result of a process in conformity with the transcendental precepts, 'be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible'. They are unauthentic insofar as they are the product of cumulative inattention, obtuseness, unreasonableness, or irresponsibility.20 Authenticity is a fruit of the triple conversion, Intellectual, Moral and Religious. But it is a precarious achievement, because unauthenticity is a constant possibility from a single failure to attend, to understand, to judge reasonably, or to decide responsibly. Authenticity and unauthenticity occur both in the originating construction and in the interpretative reconstruction. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there can be both large- and small-scale authenticity. Lonergan distinguishes between the minor un/authenticity of the subject, and the major un/authenticity of a tradition.21 As well as the possibility of breakdown for individuals, there is the possibility that whole communities may be sidetracked. Despite the best intentions and efforts of social actors or scientists, the set of meanings they have inherited from their social milieu or from the community of scientists may exhibit distortion owing to some failure to attend, to understand, to judge, and to decide. The bias of some particular perception, some particular interest or group, may be solidified in the conventional wisdom of some culture or scientific community. In 'Healing and Creating in History', Lonergan refers to the intrinsic limitations of insight which allow us to make sense of failure and breakdown of creativity. He identifies four levels or kinds of bias that may prevent people and groups from identifying problems, or recognising solutions, or moving to act. Neurosis, selfishness, sectional interest, or the self-assurance of common sense can block development and impede progress.22 In chapters 6 and 7 of Insight Lonergan provides a thorough analysis of these four forms of bias distorting human cognition: scotosis, individual bias, group bias, and general bias. The latter includes the anti-intellectual prejudice of common sense. These brief reflections on the dynamic structure of human consciousness, on the triple conversion, on the precariousness of authenticity and the possibility of unauthenticity, on the plurality of horizons such as those of common sense or science, and on the variety of specialisations within the horizons, highlight the complexity of the reality referred to as construction and reconstruction. If human studies involve the interpretative reconstruction of the constructions of the human spirit, then it must be recognised both that the human world to be understood may be a mixed product of authenticity and unauthenticity, and that the attempt to interpret the human world may be affected by the personal or inherited unauthenticity of the investigators.23 For instance, in medicine, bias in sampling and research has resulted in an under-representation of women's experience and concerns, with the result that misdiagnoses more often occur for female patients.24 The discovery of the operative biases identified the objective problem, and the efforts to change in the relevant professions illustrate the recognition that solutions required change in the individuals and communities conducting research.25 Practitioners are challenged to strive for personal and corporate authenticity. Human sciences have developed appropriate methods for handling such problems. Ricoeur's distinction of the hermeneutics of recovery and suspicion, Marx's critique of ideology, and Lonergan's own proposal of the functional specialty, dialectics, are relevant examples. Dialectic is defined as the concrete unfolding of linked but opposed principles of change.26 In the application of dialectic, social events can be retraced to their origin in two related but opposed principles of movement. In the ongoing process of history, dialectical reconstruction can discern either progress or decline. Both are cyclical and cumulative, the one rooted in authenticity, and the other in unauthenticity.27 As well as the objective dimensions of problems such as institutionalised bias in medical research, there can be subjective dimensions also, in the failure of researchers to address their own limitations. Interpreters and historians may themselves be rooted in an unauthentic tradition. Both the individual scholar and the community of scientists may be part of the problem which they identify and investigate. In that case it is not possible to solve the problem addressed without the scholar and perhaps the community of scholarship undergoing change. 'Dialectic describes concrete process in which intelligence and obtuseness, reasonableness and silliness, responsibility and sin, love and hatred commingle and conflict. But the very people that investigate the dialectic of history also are part of that dialectic and even in their investigating represent its contradictories.'28 The implication of this reflection is that the answers to certain questions in cultural studies will depend on the personal development of the scientists investigating those questions. To reconstruct the human world, they must reproduce the acts of understanding, judgement, and decision which constitute that world, but the commitment, wisdom, and intelligence required for such an accomplishment is not to be taken for granted. Healing is required when a dynamic of decline is to be reversed, or blocks to incomplete development are to be overcome. The usual trajectory of development is from below upward, from experience and understanding to decision and action, but that upward thrust can be halted before it reaches its completion. Development can be complete or incomplete. At the same time, achieved development can be passed on, and this occurs in the transmission of tradition, customs, and values. Then the direction of the dynamism is from above downward. The child, or pupil, or youth, in the affectionate relationship with parent, guardian, guru, or teacher, apprehends values on which beliefs are founded. 'On affectivity rests the apprehension of values. On the apprehension of values rests belief. On belief follows the growth in understanding of one who has found a genuine teacher and has been initiated into the study of the masters of the past. Then to confirm one's growth in understanding comes experience made mature and perceptive by one's developed understanding.'29 However, this transmission of development can also be either complete or incomplete. When incomplete, there is need for healing. An adequate understanding of human affairs presupposes the authenticity of communities of scholarship and the authenticity of individual researchers. Lonergan is primarily interested in theologians, but the same holds true for other disciplines.30 He draws their attention to their practice that flows from a decision and so is guided by a dynamic that moves from above down. The commitment to engage in discussion with others about divisive issues is rooted in an acceptance that their common humanity grounds the possibility of healing and reconciliation. Constitutive of that common humanity is the desire to understand, the capacity to judge reasonably and to evaluate fairly, and the openness to friendship and love.31 In dialogue in which the partners reveal their humanity to one another there is the possibility of personal development, and therefore the possibility of that healing, change, or conversion in the scientist and the community of scientists, enabling progress. Lonergan in Insight proceeds philosophically, sketching what a solution to the problem of evil might look like. He offers a heuristic account of a solution based on the analysis of the problem. Healing in Christian tradition is also known as redemption, and in his theology of redemption Lonergan no longer writes about what the solution might look like, but writes from the standpoint of having recognised and accepted the solution. He concentrates on the Law of the Cross as the paradigm for how good can be brought from evil. Hence, the twin terms of progress and decline are not presented alone, but there is always also the third term of healing. And central to a theological account of healing is his emphasis on the Law of the Cross. Among his treatment of the redemption, thesis 17 is central to Lonergan's explanation of the healing achieved in the death and resurrection of Jesus: 'This is why the Son of God became man, suffered, died, and was raised again: because divine wisdom has ordained and divine goodness has willed, not to do away with the evils of the human race through power, but to convert those evils into a supreme good according to the just and mysterious Law of the Cross.'32 The evils that require transformation are the distortions of relations of human beings with one another and with God that hinder genuine community from being realised. Evil is to be replaced by good, and according to the thesis, by a supreme good. Lonergan specifies that supreme good as 'the whole Christ, Head and members, in this life as well as in the life to come, in all their concrete determinations and relations'.33 Ligita Ryliskyte has devoted an extensive monograph to elucidating the Law of the Cross in Lonergan's theology.34 On her reading, Lonergan maintains that, out of love, God has chosen not to do away with the evils of humankind through power but to convert them into a supreme good. There is a dual purpose: the advancement of good, and the elimination of evil. She writes: 'In respect to each end, the Law of the Cross does not violate human freedom but works by way of transforming and healing our free rationality through faith, hope, and love.'35 We speak of the cross of Christ, but in fact the cross is ours. Christ has taken on our cross of suffering and death, and so made it possible for us to live with the reality of inevitable suffering in the face of inevitable death. This possibility is grounded in the transformation effected by Christ, taking something really evil and making it into something good. His act of love, renouncing any retribution against his murderers that might only add more evil and harm, shows humankind a way of dealing with injustice that opens the way to reconciliation. Ryliskyte identifies three steps or transitions in the Law of the Cross: 'evil from evil, good from evil, and good from good'. The first step is the familiar story of the evils arising from the originating evil of sin, including the fate of an all-destroying death. The second step is Christ's act of love in accepting that death and turning it into a possible source of good. The third step is the fecundity of good, the benefits that follow from love expressed and accepted. She proceeds to elaborate on how these three steps are realised in Christ and his members. Those who accept his example and are bonded with him in the Church are the body of Christ, and are charged to offer the same love, forgiveness, and reconciliation to others. 'The Justice of the cross, hence, is redemptive rather than retributive.'36 Faithful to Lonergan's emphasis on Christ as historical agent, she explores how the third step is played out through history as Christians motivated by love live from their faith convictions and persevere in hope. Lonergan devotes an extra article 42 to discussing Christ as historical agent, to illustrate some of the ways in which the claim of thesis 17 is realised.37 He builds on his analysis of the intelligibility of the good, cultural goods, and the good of order in elaborating how the healing in history is achieved, and as noted, Christ himself as a historical figure is given prominence. Lonergan notes both the historical effect directly intended by Christ and the effect indirectly intended by him. His historical effectiveness is not only his influence on individual members but on the social and institutional body. 'Christ's action is directly aimed at ordering human life on earth to the future life in heaven. Since, however, this ordering liberates us from evils and turns us towards true good with the result that the human good of order in itself is greatly improved, this improvement itself is necessarily intended indirectly by Christ as historical agent.'38 The 1964 passage quoted at the beginning of this essay might easily mislead.39 The danger arises from a template of 'problem—solution', thinking that the solution only appears once the problem has been recognised and addressed. The application of the 'problem—solution' template reads the problem as 'the human in the concrete, … the human under original sin, in need of grace'. The template then reads the solution as 'grace'. This template would fit with the familiar way of presenting the gospel that outlines the need for salvation, and then shows how the offered salvation meets that need. Reliance on this template often implies a temporal order—first comes the problem, and then afterwards the solution. Such a reading of the passage would be untrue to what Lonergan actually says. The humans as they are, are not simply 'under original sin', but are at the same time 'receiving grace, and either accepting or rejecting it'. The concrete human reality to be grasped is one in which the solution is available, and is received by some and rejected by others. Needing grace and accepting or rejecting it is the human reality. This is a reality that Lonergan strove to comprehend, with all the resources of theology, philosophy, human sciences, and human wisdom. Hence, we can see the complexity intended in that short sentence from his 1964 lecture notes: '… there is only one full solution: when one deals with the human in the concrete, one is dealing with the human under original sin, in need of grace, receiving it, and either accepting or rejecting it—one is in a theological context.' I do not address the long tradition of biblical commentary on Genesis, theological reflection on the Fall, especially by Augustine, and the Church's elaboration of doctrine notably at Trent. But I cannot simply ignore this context, and so I remark on some programmatic dynamics. First, I note the accepted reconstruction of the story of Adam's sin and the punishment of his progeny as an aitiology, an attempt to explain the prevalence of evil in a creation that is God-given and held to be good.40 As noted above, Lonergan avoids extrinsicism, the search for external causes, and seeks explanation in terms of the operations of human subjects. In referring to Genesis, Lonergan considers the whole human race as facing the existential choice between good and evil. From the short article on original sin in his volume on The Redemption, the English translation misses Lonergan's emphasis. The published translation has: 'The whole human race, in the person of the first human being as its head', translating the Latin: 'in primo homine quasi in capite genus humanum'.41 That 'quasi' qualifies significantly the meaning of what the translator renders as 'in the person of the first human being as its head', by adding an 'as if'. This is not an affirmation of an historical fact but an invoking of the traditional story to make sense of the common human reality that all are charged with responsibility and all equally are burdened with the intrinsic difficulties of exercising that responsibility. This should be read in conjunction with Lonergan's warning about seeking intelligibility where none is to be found. Second, I note the dynamic of theological reflection which could argue from knowledge of the solution to knowledge of the problem: (1) baptism conveys the forgiveness of all sin; (2) infants who are without personal sin are also in need of baptism, as is shown in the practice of the Church in baptising them; (3) it follows that there is sin for which individuals including infants are not personally culpable which must also be forgiven; (4) this is the inherited peccatum originale originatum, in all humans from the ancestral sin, peccatum originale originans. Third, formalised doctrine from the Council of Trent (1546) repeating the Council of Orange (529) that had been confirmed by Pope Boniface II, reaffirms that individuals are not morally culpable for inherited original sin; and that their falling under the pain of punishment for inherited original sin is not due to their own evil actions but to their belonging to humankind. The six canons of Trent's decree address various themes: canon 3 affirms that original sin in Adam's descendants, transmitted by generation, is removed by baptism; canon 4 repeats earlier teaching that the baptism of infants is appropriate for the remission of original sin, even though they have no personal guilt, and even though their parents were baptised; canon 5 explains that baptism takes away the 'guilt' of original sin, but not its effects such as concupiscence; canon 6 intends to prevent any interpretation of the decree on original sin which might be prejudicial to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.42 Implicit in Trent's treatment is a concept of sin that is used analogously. The common aspect between actual sin and inherited original sin is that a state of 'alienation from God' obtains in the human being. Trent's canon 5 affirms that inherited original sin has the nature of sin. Canon 4 affirms that there really is sin in the infant who has so far been unable to act herself. As remarked several times, Lonergan does not directly discuss inherited original sin, but it is nonetheless present in his thought as contributing to the problems for which the offer of grace is the solution. The question I address is whether we can reliably reconstruct an account of inherited original sin from his writings. As noted above, his work on healing in history belongs to the functional specialty of systematics. He accepts the Church's teaching, and in the material discussed here he is not concerned with establishing the relevant doctrines, as would be appropriate to the functional specialty of doctrines. His approach in systematics draws on his distinctive philosophical approach that has many elements in common with other transcendental Thomists such as Rahner. As noted above