Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: Geschichte, Bewusstsein - Sünde, Abweichung; moralische Impotenz, Gnade, Rationalisierung; Sprung (leap) - Gnade

Kurzinhalt: The moral impotence of man creates in man a demand for false philosophies in our day, for a high-level rationalization, just as it created a demand for degrading myths in ancient times

Textausschnitt: In what consists the aberration of consciousness and of history? We will deal with this in more detail later, but for the moment it will suffice to distinguish between the ideal tendencies of the human spirit to what is true, to what is right, to what is good, and on the other hand, what in the concrete individual is conjoined with these spiritual aspirations, that is, his concern. His total concern includes his ideal aspirations, but it includes more as well; and it can deform, misdirect, those aspirations. Every closing off, blocking, denial of the empirically, intelligently, rationally, freely, responsibly conscious subject is also a closing off, a blocking, of the dominance of the higher aspirations of the human spirit and the human heart. Again, historically, every failure to unblock is () That incapacity to avoid sin without grace is moral impotence. The moral impotence of man creates in man a demand for false philosophies in our day, for a high-level rationalization, just as it created a demand for degrading myths in ancient times. The objectification of sin in social process provides the objective empirical evidence for the false philosophy or degrading myth. The incomplete development and the sins of the philosopher or the bard make them incapable of conceiving and expressing a true philosophy or a true symbolic vision of life. Moreover, those who do uphold what is true give scandal by acting and writing unworthily. Again, the refutation of n false philosophies, where n is as big as you please, does not exclude - in fact it invites - the creation of the (n + 1)th false philosophy. There is in man a demand for false philosophy, for degrading myths, because of his moral impotence. What is needed in man to break away from the aberration of sin is a leap - not a leap beyond reason, as irrationalist philosophers would urge, but a leap from unreason, from the unreasonableness of sin, to reason. That leap is not simply a matter of repeating, pronouncing, affirming, agreeing with the propositions that are true, while misapprehending their meaning and significance. That is just what lies behind the decadence of philosophic schools. The leap is rather really assenting to, really apprehending - Newman's distinction between real and notional apprehension and real and notional assent. What is wanted is something existential - real apprehension and real assent to the truth. (63f; Fs) (notabene)

Now what I have said of philosophy and myth is true of all departments: of human science, of natural science, of arts and letters. All are expressions of the orientation of the human soul and the social situations produced by souls and expected in the future from souls. All are determinants of, and determined by, the social situation, which is simply the result of the influence of the group on the individual, and of each individual on the group. To surrender to this aberration produces a series of lower syntheses. Hegel spoke of the series of ascending syntheses, but one can design without any great difficulty a series of descending syntheses as well: medieval unity shattered at the Reformation on the struggles between church and state; the wars of religion disgusted men with all supernatural religion, and led to rationalism, the guidance of life not by any divine revelation but simply by man's own reason; the fact that men could not agree effected the transition from rationalism to liberalism and tolerance; and the fact that, when people merely tolerate one another's views, they cannot have any common view, and they cannot act effectively to deal with social evils, gives rise to totalitarianism. And so we can discern in that progress, which is the progress of modern thought in one of its aspects, a succession of lower syntheses. In the face of that succession of lower syntheses, the Catholic can wish to retire into an ivory tower, to condemn the new good because it is associated with new evils; but that is just another form of the aberration. (64f; Fs)