Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: Verhältnis (Schlussfolgerung): Religionswissenschaft (Religious Studies) und Theologie

Kurzinhalt: the more religious studies and theology put to good use the whole battery of methods, the more they will move asymptotically towards an ideal situation

Textausschnitt: 61/10 I have distinguished different methods: experimental, foundational, historical, dialectical, critically practical. (164; Fs)

My first conclusion is that the more religious studies and theology put to good use the whole battery of methods, the more they will move asymptotically towards an ideal situation in which they overlap and become easily interchangeable. (164; Fs)

62/10 As a second conclusion I would say that such overlapping and interchangeability are ideal in the sense that they are desirable. Theology and religious studies need each other. Without theology religious studies may indeed discern when and where different religious symbols are equivalent; but they are borrowing the techniques of theologians if they attempt to say what the equivalent symbols literally mean and what they literally imply. Conversely, without religious studies theologians are unacquainted with the religions of mankind; they may as theologians have a good grasp of the history of their own religion; but they are borrowing the techniques of the historian of religions, when they attempt to compare and relate other religions with their own. (164; Fs)

63/10 Thirdly, if any agree that such an ultimate overlapping and interchangeability are desirable, their praxis will include a recognition of the obstacles that stand in its way and an effort to remove them. Now a discovery of the obstacles is not difficult. For we concluded to this end from the assumption that both theologians and students of religions would put to good use the whole battery of methods that have been devised. It follows that there are as many possible obstacles as there are plausible grounds for rejecting or hesitating about any of these methods. It follows, finally, if the methods really are sound, that the obstacles may be removed, at least for authentic subjects, by applying both the hermeneutic of suspicion and the hermeneutic of recovery: the hermeneutic of suspicion that pierces through mere plausibility to its real ground; the hermeneutic of recovery that discovers what is intelligent, true, and good in the obstruction and goes on to employ this discovery to qualify, complement, correct earlier formulations of the method. (164; Fs)