Braman, Brian J. "Bernard Lonergan On Being Yourself" in Meaning and Authenticity: Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor on the Drama of Human Existence. University of Toronto Press, 2008.
"Finally, one commits oneself to a moral way of life because it is 'existentially' grasped as the valuable thing to do" (67). What causes moral conversion. To know the right thing to do does not necessarily mean doing the right thing. Lonergan thinks that we "possess the capacity for moral self-transcendence, it only remains a possibility until we fall into love" (67). It is through becoming in love that we become a "being-in-love ... It is the first principle. From it flow one's desires and fears, one's joys and sorrows, one's discernment of values, one's decisions and deeds" (67). Being-in-love causes a new understanding of values. Our decisions and choices is not obsessed with one's own person. Instead, being-in-love is caring about the other.
Lonergan thinks that when we fall in love "then life begins anew. A new principle takes over and, as long as it lasts, we are lifted above ourselves and carried along as parts within an ever more intimate yet ever more liberating dynamic whole" (67). Lonergan thinks there are different kinds of being-in-love. "There is the intimate love between husband and wife, love of children, love of one's country, and love for our neighbor" (67-68). These different kinds of love "manifests itself in the care, concern, and welfare that is exhibited towards the objects of love" (68). Our lives are reorganizes around our loves. There exists another kind of love which drives our other loves. It is "unrestricted being-in-love." Just like our other forms of love manifests values we did not recognize, "so also being in love with the divine ground is the fulfillment of moral conversion that brings 'deep joy and profound peace. Our love reveals to us values we had not appreciated, values of prayer and worship, or repentance and belief' (68)." Being in love with the divine ground makes us aware "whom we are ultimately responsible and to whom we ultimately respond in self-transcending love" (68).
For Lonergan, just like "the question of God is implicit in all our questioning, so being in love with God is the basic fulfillment of our conscious intentionality" (68). Religious conversion means to be in love with God. Lonergan believes that God's love and action precedes our love for Him. To be in love with God is to be completely committed to Him. "Just as unrestricted questioning is our capacity for self-transcendence, so being in love in an unrestricted fashion is the proper fulfillment of that capacity" (68). Religious conversion sublates both moral and intellectual conversion. Absolute being is "intended in our questioning," and absolute goodness in our choices, and being in love in an unrestricted fashion is to fall "completely" in love with God, "is the fulfillment of my unrestricted thrust to self-transcendence through intelligence and truth and responsibility, because the one that fulfills that thrust must be supreme in intelligence, truth, goodness" (68). Being in love with God is a result of God's action within us, creating us anew. Paul states that God's love has been poured into our hearts. It is a result of God's work that we are brought into a new horizon "in which the love of God will transvalue our values and the eyes of that love will transform our knowing" (68). Religious conversion brings about both fulfillment, wholeness, and fullness. The wholeness that comes as a result of God' love creates a concern and love for the other. "Without religious conversion, the originating value is not God but the person, and the terminal value is alone the human good" (69). With religious conversion, the originating value is "divine light and love, while terminal value is the whole universe" (69).
Finally, although one is conscious of religion conversion does not mean that they actually know it. Knowing includes experiencing, understanding and judging. None of these operation by itself is knowing. "As long as this conscious and dynamic state of being in love in an unrestricted fashion remains unthematized, it is an experience in mystery" (69). God's love brings fulfillment and completion to the person. Falling in love with God "is the fulfillment of what it means to be an authentic human being, and this fulfillment overflows into love of one's neighbor as oneself" (69). Being in love with God is a "collaboration and cooperation with God and others to sustain and realize the order of the universe" (69).
No comments:
Post a Comment