Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: Tradition - Authentizität; The issue is the struggle of authenticity against unauthenticity

Kurzinhalt: THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE; What is fundamental is human authenticity; minor - major authenticity, to pay a double price for their personal attainment of authenticity

Textausschnitt: 14/8 Because man is a symbolic animal, his development is only partly a matter of his genes. All its higher reaches depend upon his historical milieu with its techniques of socialization, ..
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The sower, we read, went out to sow his seed, and some fell by the wayside, some among thorns, some on stony ground, but some on good soil where it brought forth fruit now thirty-, now sixty-, now a hundred-fold. The seed, we are told, is the word, for the word is the tool of the symbolic animal. The ground is human consciousness in the polyphony of its many levels. But consciousness does not heed when absorbed in outer cares, or distracted by pleasures, or hardened in waywardness. And even when it is fruitful, its fruitfulness will vary with the cultivation it has received. (119; Fs)

16/8 In time there emerge professional cultivators: ascetics and mystics, seers and prophets, priests and ministers. There is sought the transformation of consciousness that makes possible a human life that is a life of prayer. There is found the inspiration that speaks to the heart of a tribe or clan,
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19/8 But it would be a mistake, I think, to concentrate on such differences to the neglect of what is more fundamental. For in the main such differences represent no more than the ongoing process in which man's symbols become ever more differentiated and specialized. What is fundamental is human authenticity, and it is twofold. There is the minor authenticity of the human subject with respect to the tradition that nourishes him. There is the major authenticity that justifies or condemns the tradition itself. The former leads to a human judgment on subjects. The latter invites the judgment of history upon traditions. Let us dwell briefly on both these forms. (120; Fs)
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22/8 So it is that commonly men have to pay a double price for their personal attainment of authenticity. Not only have they to undo their own lapses from righteousness but more grievously they have to discover what is wrong in the tradition they have inherited and they have to struggle against the massive undertow it sets up.