Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1965-1980.
5 Religious Self-transcendence
Individual persons have the capability for self-transcendence through questions of intelligence, questions of reflection and questions of deliberation. Having the ability to achieve self-transcendence and actually doing it is not the same. Lonergan argues that the ability to achieve self-transcendence is helped by falling in love. "Then one's being becomes being-in-love" (325). There are many causes for its occurrence, but once it occurs, it becomes predominant. Lonergan writes, "It becomes 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" (325).
There are different kinds of loves. There is the love between husband and wife, parent and child, love between friends, and love for God. Lonergan states, "There is the love of intimacy, of husband and wife, of parents and children. There is the love of one's fellow men with its fruit in the achievement of human welfare. There is the love of God with one's whole heart and whole soul, with all one's mind and all one's strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Mark 12:29-30). It is God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us (Romans 5: 5)" (325).
Lonergan is speaking in relation to the Christian experience, but it has "parallels" in other religions. Lonergan asserts, "religious love is the basic fulfillment of our conscious intentionality, of our questions for intelligence, for reflection, for deliberation" (326). It produces a deep joy that can remain despite the troubles of this life. It brings a peace that "the world cannot give." The fulfillment motivates a love for one's neighbor that seeks to bring God's kingdom to this world. "on the other hand," Lonergan writes, "the absence of that fulfillment opens the way to the trivialization of human life stemming fom the ruthless exercise of power, to despair about human welfare springing from the conviction that the universe is absurd" (326).
Lonergan states that religious experiences are ambiguous. What is important is how we live. The Bible teaches that we know them by their fruits. He asserts, "What really reveals the man or woman is not inner experience but outward deed" (326).
Lonergan thinks that the person who wants to know if they love God should not look within through introspection. Instead, he should consider his actions. Professor Maslow though that most people are not aware of their "peak experiences."
Lonergan writes, "Now being in love with God, if not a peak experience, at least is a peak state, indeed a peak dynamic state. Further, it will be marked by its unrestricted character. It is with one's whole heart and whole soul, and all one's mind and all one's strength. Hence, while all love is self-surrender, being in love with God is being in love without limits or qualifications or conditions or reservations. 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" (326).
This fulfillment is not caused by own actions, but is a gift from God. Instead of it coming from our knowing and choosing, "it dismantles and abolishes the horizon in which our knowing and choosing went on, and it constructs a new horizon in which the love of God transvalues our values and the eyes of that love transform our knowing" (326).
Even though it is not a result of our knowing and choosing, "it is a dynamic state of love, joy, peace that manifests itself in acts of kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22)" (326-327).
Lonergan distinguishes between consciousness and knowing. He asserts, "To say this dynamic state is conscious is not to say that it is known. For consciousness is just experience, while human knowing is a compound of experiencing, understanding, and judging" (327).
Since the conscious state is not known, it "is an experience of mystery" (327). Since it is an experience of being in love, Lonergan states that the mystery is both "fascinating" and "attractive," and "by it one is possessed" (327). Since it is an "unmeasured love, the mystery is otherworldly; it evokes awe; in certain psychic contexts it can evoke terror" (327). The gift of God's love is similar to Rudolf Otto's view of the holy, his mysterium et tremendum. It also is similar to Paul Tillich's "being grasped by ultimate concern" (327). In addition, it is similar to St Ignatius Loyola's "consolation without a cause," a consolation that has "content but is woithout an apprehended object" (327).
Lonergan says he has been talking about religious experience, but he must not "overlook the religious word. By the word is meany any expression of religious meaning or value" (327). It can be carried by different things: "intersubjectivity, or art, or symbol, or language, or the portrayed lives or deeds or achievements of individuals or groups" (327). It is usually carried by all these modes, but it is through language the "meaning is most fully articulated, the spoken and written word are of special importance in the development and clarification of religion" (327).
"By its word," Lonergan asserts, "religion enters the world mediated by meaning and regulated by value. It enters the world with its deepest meaning and its highest value. It sets itself in a context with other meanings and other values. Within that context it comes to understand itself, to relate itself to the object of ultimate concern, and to draw on the power of that relationship to pursue the objectives of proximate concern all the more fairly and all the more efficaciously" (327). Before it "enters the world mediated by meaning," religion existed as the inner word that speaks within our heart through God's loves which flows within us. This inner word is not the word mediated by meaning, but the word in immediate experience, "to the unmediated experience of the mystery of love and awe" (328). The word that is spoken "outwardly" is "historically conditioned: its meaning depends on the human context in which it is uttered" and these contexts change from "place to place and from one generation to another" (328).
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