Engaging the thought of Bernard Lonergan / Louis Roy.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Part 1 Method : An empirical method -- An integrative method. Part 2 Religious experience, faith, and belief : An original understanding of religious experience -- The religious quest and faith -- Faith and belief -- Meaning and truth -- Neither classicism nor relativism. Part 3 Application to various fields : Some implications for theology -- Some implications for mysticism -- Some implications for liturgy -- Implications for education. Part 4 Ethics : A comparison with Macmurray -- A comparison with Gandhi -- Foundations for human rights -- God's Providence: for what kind of world? General conclusion -- Index.

"Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, theologian, and economist. The University of Toronto has undertaken the publication of The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, for which 20-25 volumes are projected. His groundbreaking work Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) attempted to understand how knowledge was advanced in the scientific disciplines, and how this could be applied to the human sciences, the arts, ethics, and theology. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "The success of the empirical methods of the natural sciences confirms that the mind reaches knowledge by an ascent from data, through hypothesis, to verification. To account for disciplines that deal with humans as makers of meanings and values, Lonergan generalized the notion of data to include the data of consciousness as well as the data of sense." Lonergan sought to apply this insight to the field of theology in his next major work, Method in Theology (1972), which aimed to establish a basis for agreement and progress in the discipline."-- Provided by publisher.

"Louis Roy is an expert on the thought of Bernard Lonergan. He was a professor for twenty years at Boston College, a centre of Lonergan scholarship, and was the chief translator of Method in Theology into French. In this book he provides an overview of Lonergan's major themes and how those themes engage or open avenues in a wide range of areas: "My aims are as follows: to represent his thinking faithfully, to further it, to compare it with other stimulating thinkers, and to demonstrate how seminal his works are for diverse areas. The objective of my book is to discuss Lonergan's ideas, not topics in themselves." The book is organized into a series of fifteen studies, contained within four parts. Part One provides a broad overview of Lonergan's thought, stressing the empirical aspect of his cognitional theory, the role of meaning, the relationship of objectivity and subjectivity, and the importance of historical consciousness. Part Two examines Lonergan on religious experience, feelings and value, faith and belief, meaning and truth, and classicism and relativism. Part Three draws out implications of Lonergan's cognitional theory in the areas of theology, mysticism, liturgy, and education. Part Four applies Lonergan's thinking, directly and indirectly, to the field of ethics."-- Provided by publisher.

Issued also in electronic format.