Incarnate Meaning

How is our fundamental vision of the world rooted in our own self-knowledge? Excellent answers to this question can be found in these two great writers – John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984). To a great extent Lonergan found the answer to his question in Newman’s 1870 Grammar of Assent – the most philosophical and psychologically oriented of Newman’s writings. He went on from Newman to subsequently study Plato, Augustine and especially Aquinas, and then the modern sciences in preparation for his 1957 Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. He subsequently went on to study modern historical consciousness in preparation his 1971 Method in Theology. Through it all, he called Newman "my fundamental mentor and guide."

Incarnate Meaning traces Newman’s influence throughout Lonergan’s life and suggests how that influence can be discerned in the general orientation of Lonergan’s thought as well as in specific areas. Lonergan’s concern for the basic structure of our knowing as well as its historical unfolding mirrored Newman’s interests in his Grammar of Assent and in his other writings.

Lonergan’s concern for concrete history as distinct from abstract classsicist tendencies mirrored Newman’s interest in the concrete history of early Christianity. Eventually Lonergan would root the various concerns of the Second Vatican Council in Newman’s thought: a concern for preaching the Good News to the poor, a willingness to dialogue with all peoples and religions and even with atheism. In all of this he repeatedly calls attention to Newman’s brilliance in communication. He called him "a terrific rhetorician" and would often repeat Newman’s motto when made a Cardinal, cor ad cor loquitur – "heart speaks to heart."

All this provided much of the background for Lonergan’s own methodological and theological achievements in the twentieth century. Both writers together constitute a wonderful background for Christian and Catholic thought facing the future. In a world in which humanity is tempted to seek answers in AI, Newman and Lonergan represent humanity’s openness to the divine and what Lonergan called "the spark in our clod, our native orientation to the divine."