Faith in Action seeking Understanding for Action: Lonergan and Practical Theology

OCTOBER 2006

ISSUE 8 - ISSN 1448- 6326

FAITH IN ACTION SEEKING UNDERSTANDING FOR ACTION: LONERGAN AND PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

JOHN FRANCIS COLLINS

Abstract

This paper is grounded in an understanding of practical theology as the transformation of evil and the overcoming of its effects. It is argued that the only way that evil is to be transformed is through the action of authentic individuals working together. Authenticity is defined as the fruit of ongoing religious, moral, intellectual and psychic conversion. The paper also argues and that anything less than a personal ongoing conversion at all levels of consciousness of the pastoral actor, creates a cognitive dissonance between “message” and “medium” in the consciousness of the recipient of the pastoral activity.

Introduction

This paper is an exploration of an understanding of practical theology as the transformation of evil and the overcoming of its effects. It suggests that that the only way that evil is to be transformed is through the action of authentic individuals working together in cooperation with God, responding to the reality of evil with good, and enduring the suffering that accompanies such a stance. For the purpose of this paper authenticity is defined as the fruit of ongoing religious, moral, intellectual and psychic conversion. It is also argued that anything less than a personal ongoing conversion at all levels of consciousness of the pastoral actor, creates in the consciousness of the recipient of the pastoral activity a cognitive dissonance between “message” and “medium”. This is the phenomena of pastoral actors promising much in the name of Christ, yet delivering much less, and sometimes delivering a counter message.

My theological reflection is grounded in the experience of many years working as a pastoral practitioner. I have worked in pastoral care in a hospital setting, secondary and tertiary education, adult faith education, community education, relationship education, group facilitation, organisational consultation, and social research, advocacy and policy development. As a layperson I am also a recipient of pastoral action.

Lonergan and Pastoral/Practical Theology

For that small band of individuals who identify themselves as pastoral or practical theologians the works of Bernard Lonergan usually do not have pride of place on the bookshelf. Lonergan is often dismissed as a philosopher whose work perhaps, might be useful to systematic theologians, “but so what? what they do is not of much use anyway”. Practical theologians are concerned about the real world. Such a view, it seems is shared by many, from the parish pastoral associate to the high powered heads of Catholic pastoral agencies.

In part, this situation is understandable as Lonergan does not endear himself easily to the practical theologian. For Lonergan pastoral/practical theology is an element of “Communications”; the eighth and final functional speciality, of his oft cited, but it would seem, rarely understood, theological method. Practical people are busy, and even if they take the time, and put in the effort to work through the first seven functional specialities, they are sorely disappointed by the scant treatment that their beloved discipline is afforded in Chapter 14 of Method in Theology.

In reference to the functional speciality “Communications” Lonergan writes

It is in this final stage that theological reflection bears fruit. Without the first seven stages of course, there is no fruit to be borne. But without the last the first seven are in vein, for they fail to mature.[1]

He continues “it is up to the theologians to carry out both the first seven specialities and no less the eighth”.[2]

Stressing the importance of “Communications” as a functional speciality Lonergan quickly sends the pastoral theologian, in a manner akin to hyperlink in a website, to a five volume, 2652 page German handbook of pastoral theology. I have a friend in Germany who is a pastoral worker. She assures me it is a great book. For me, and I suspect many pastoral theologian/workers who don’t read German, however, this is like a dead hyperlink, it frustratingly leads nowhere.

It seems that Lonergan was not all that interested in things practical. In a remark during his recorded lectures on Insight , the transcripts of which were later published as Understanding and Being, he makes a comment related to an organisational issue that “I am not that interested in practical things”, he goes on to qualify this seeming dismissal by saying “only because I am not very good at them”[3]. For those charged with dealing with urgent, important issues in a pragmatic, commonsense manner is not difficult to see why Lonergan is all too easily dismissed.

For this pastoral theologian however, who is somewhat jaded by a steady stream of formulaic pastoral plans, programs and strategies, key performance indicators and the seemingly ever increasing demand for specific measurable outcomes (even for specialist pastoral activity) the work of Bernard Lonergan offers the seeds of a practical method that has no peer, a method that operates in an open system of ever increasing horizons of understanding, to use Gadamer’s phrase, a method that evokes ever increasing levels of sophistication of planning and practice in the task of overcoming evil and its effects and building, stone by stone, the Kingdom of God.

Evil

I want to argue that a conceptual framework involving the notion of evil and the transformation its effects is foundational to the work of pastoral ministry. In Book 7 Chapter 5 of Confessions Augustine writes

“Where then does evil come from, if God made all things, and because he is good, made them all good too? It is true that he is the supreme Good, that he himself a greater Good than these lesser good which he created. But the Creator and all his creation are both good”[4]

If, like Augustine we wish to avoid the notion of created evil, we are logically left with the conclusion that the origins of evil are in the created order. However, as evil by definition, is not good, it therefore cannot be part of the created order. If this is the case we are left with evil understood as simply a lack of the good, experienced as a lack of meaning, a lack of goodness etc.

Robert Doran, in his notes to accompany a course on Insight states, “Because the order of the universe is an emergent probability, we can expect and will that things and persons grow and develop.” [5] The notion of growth and development necessarily implies incompleteness.

Evil however is not only the result of an incomplete cosmic process. Cosmic evil, earthquakes volcanoes etc. can be legitimately viewed as the result of an incomplete creative process. Following a “traditional” understanding, human beings play a role in producing the lack of intelligibility that is evil.

Lonergan’s operative anthropology sees human beings as the conscious, self-aware product of an emergently probable process of God’s creative action. Human beings are a compound-in-tension of spirit, sensitive psyche and body with the sensitive psyche acting as the mediating agent between the spirit and body. The operant term here is “in-tension”. Christ, as our exemplar while predestined as Word of God, from eternity, to do the Father’s which lead to his suffering and death as the result of human evil, as man had to freely choose to accept the implications of his life course. (Two natures, one person, hypostatically united without confusion) It is one thing to know the good, it is another thing to do the good. The social surd of evil has its origins in the decisions and actions of human beings deciding and acting. While decisions and actions are bounded by the current limits of understanding it is within this horizon that freedom is exercised and actions arising from decisions made by unauthentic subjects have negative ongoing implications.

Thus evil exists in one form as the results of cosmic incompletion and in another form as the accumulated consequences of freely made choices. These consequences then become embedded in history and culture as habitual ways of thinking and acting develop. Individuals are born into a historically conditioned culture. Through socialisation processes, evil penetrates the value stances, attitudes and actions of individuals, communities and indeed the whole of the human race. We are in need of salvation, not just enlightenment. Christ’s salvific action does not simply reveal to humanity a “way” of understanding through which humanity can now work out its own way. The Christ event actually makes a difference with regard to the Christian’s capacity to accept the gift of grace and in doing so, sustain the task of overcoming evil with good, and in doing so, endure the inevitable suffering that results from such a stance.

We now move to the notion of the transformation of evil. In this section I am drawing extensively on the work of Robert Doran from his notes on lectures on Insight given at Regis College, Toronto and the Lonergan Research Institute 2003-2004.

Doran writes

The fact of evil becomes a problem of evil when we acknowledge the existence of God and if we attempt to reconcile the fact of evil with the goodness of God. But if God is truly good, then there is not only a problem of evil but also a solution. If God is unrestricted understanding, God knows our plight; if God is unlimited power God can remedy it; and if God is complete goodness, God wills to do so.[6]

The fact of evil in the human situation becomes a significant theological problem if we acknowledge the existence of an all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing God. Faced with the fact of evil, another theological option is to modify our understanding of God. Process theology with its notion of an evolving God attempts to make sense of evil through an ongoing dialectical relationship. While this idea is potentially intellectually stimulating I would argue that the experience of pastoral practice seriously challenges the validity of this view.

Doran continues

[A]ny answer to this question must involve the actual existence and functioning in this world of something more than is available to be studied in the sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and cognitional theory. There is a further component in this universe, and it is always present, not just as a consequent solution to a problem that necessitates the emergence of the solution, as if it were an afterthought, but as an 'existential' of the human situation, as what Karl Rahner calls the supernatural existential. [7]

For Lonergan the solution to evil is grace. Doran commenting on the importance of grace proposes

Grace is one set of realities, universally accessible and so offered to all, and represents a harmonious continuation of the actual order of this universe. It represents a new set of conjugate forms in human intelligence, will, and sensitivity, and these will be in some sense supernatural, in the sense that they are not the result of our accumulated insights, judgments, and decisions, but are given to our transcendental intending as sheer gift to an obediential potency to receive them. [8]

To summarize this section, evil is a reality that calls forth a divine solution. The divine solution represents a continuation of the actual order of the universe but is supernatural in the sense that the effects of grace build on, but go beyond, our accumulated, naturally arrived at, insights, decisions, values and attitudes.

Practical Theology

Three other understandings of the nature and purpose of practical theology are now examined. I begin with Dr Terry Veling’s recently published book Practical Theology. Bernard J Lee in his introduction to the book writes “It is Veling’s insistent refusal to let practical theology become the next scholastique that I admire about this book.” Lee describes the book in complimentary terms as “systematically unsystematic”[9].

From my theological location, Veling’ s book appears as a collection of thoughts and reflections which sits in a halfway house between spirituality and theology and is of limited use to the pastoral practitioner. From the point of view of pastoral practice, I want to argue that there is nothing as practical as a good theory and nothing as destructive as a mistaken theory. The seemingly refusal to let practical theology develop into a set of theories that might assist practitioners in the exercise of systematic pastoral practice presents a troubling perspective. Perhaps Veiling’s book could be best described as an attempt to encourage conversion in the pastoral actor. This is a positive thing, but in this sense the book fits in to the functional speciality of Foundations and perhaps would have been better titled “Towards a Foundation of Practical Theology”.

Many people in need of pastoral assistance live a life that is systematically unsystematic. Systematic pastoral practice involves attempts to bring some order into the lives of disordered individuals, families and communities. It seems that Veiling is attempting to disturb the comfortable. This is no doubt a noble aim, but it is not the sum total of practical theology. One might argue that practitioners and pastoral theologians are disturbed enough already from the individual and subsequent systemic confusion they encounter daily. It seems to me that much of the practical theology that is written in the academy appears to have as its primary task, the desire to differentiate itself from systematic theology rather than an attempt to address the concrete concerns of the oppressed, the distressed, devalued and disabled.

In a similar vein Pattison and Woodward in the The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, a popular text book in higher degree ministry training, write

Practical theology is unsystematic. Because it continuously has to re engage with fragmented realities and changes of the contemporary world and the issues it presents, much practical theology is not systematic or complete. It provides shafts of light into situations and issues rather than find answers or durable solutions. It is, in a way “throw away” theology that has always to reinvent its tasks and methods.[10]

These ideas are reinforced by the same authors in another article where they write of pastoral theology

It takes time and effort to develop complex systematic theologies and they may be of limited practical use once they have been manufactured. Pastoral theologies will need to content themselves with being, for the most part, fragmentary, partial and unsystematic. In the modern world this should perhaps be recognized as grounds for pride rather than an inferiority complex.[11]

For Pattison and Woodward the practical pastoral response to the fragmented contemporary world is an intentionally unsystematic, “throw away” theology. Indeed the partial, fragmented, unsystematic response is portrayed as something to be proud of. It seems the logic behind this pride is that the theological response to fragmentation should be as “throw away” as the pastoral concern it is attempting to address. From the point of view of pastoral practitioners, particularly those working in Catholic pastoral agencies, there is a real danger that this line of thought would perhaps be simply dismissed as “academic”. One would not want to create the impression that these theorists in practical theology view clients as not worthy of substantial thought. Worse still this devaluation of the discipline of pastoral theology as partial, fragmentary and unsystematic is then re-framed as a virtue, a source of pride.

James D. and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead have been a major influence in the field of practical/pastoral theology in Catholic circles through the method proposed in their 1980 book Method in Ministry.

According to the Whiteheads Ministry is concerned with the immediate and concrete, it has little time for reflection, and it has the ministers personal skills and experience as its source of authority. In this view the task of the Christian community is to live up to its ideals through community building and problem solving. Theology for the Whiteheads is characterised as reflecting on questions about God in a philosophical and historical context. Its task is principally concerned with intellectual insight and by consequence it is endlessly delayed from actually acting.

The Whiteheads place Bernard Lonergan, among others, in theology category and dismiss his work as obscure speculative theology, “too complex for all but the most astute minister” [12]

In contrasting their own method with that of Lonergan, the Whiteheads write “thus the scope of this method is broader than a reflection on immediate concern but more experientially rooted than a reflection in the method of Lonergan.”[13]

In a somewhat patronizing tone on page 21 of Method in Ministry they write “the minister cannot be asked to become either a philosopher or social scientist”. Perhaps, but the minister should be attentive to the data of his/her experience, he/she should be able to think about their experience in a intelligent way, he/she should then be able to judge the real from the apparent and then apprehending the real, be open to assimilating new data leading to the possibility of conversion on an intellectual, moral, religious and psychic level.

If a minister has not got the capacity to attend to data, think intelligently, come to a judgement, assimilate a new understanding and act in accordance with this new understanding, this lack presents a serious barrier with regard to ordination, appointment or employment in the exercise of pastoral duties undertaken in the name of the Christian community.

The Whiteheads’ method is developed in a closed system to meet specific concrete concerns. The problem is first identified then outcomes by which to measure proposed solutions are developed and articulated. The process then is to devise a solution to meet the articulated outcomes using the three steps of Attending, Assertion and Decision. The method takes problems seriously, in that ideal states or outcomes of pastoral action are articulated, it is systematic in its three-step approach, but at base it is method that operates within the container of a closed, three step, system. In the step of Attending both the concrete problem and the religiously relevant sources of data are identified. In Assertion the identified problem is evaluated in the light of the religiously relevant data leading to a Decision for action. As a method, it has clear parallels with See-Judge-Act of the Jocists. See-judge-act however was never intended to be adopted as a foundation for a method in ministry. Such an idea confuses the notion of evangelisation through witness, with the concept of diakonia or service within, or on behalf of the community. This distinction has been developed exhaustively by John N Collins in his major work Diakionia.

The Whiteheads propose a method that operates in a closed system. Veling and Pattison and Woodward reject the notion of a closed system but appear to confuse the notion of systematic with the idea of a closed, self-contained system. While it is true there are systematic closed systems of thought and reflection, Neo Scholasticism is perhaps the most obvious example,[14] systematic does not equal closed.

I want to argue that a more appropriate practical theological response to the fragmentation of communities, families, individuals and indeed cultures that we have described as evil is through the use of a systematic method that operates in an open system. The theological method of Bernard Lonergan is a systematic approach that does have the capacity to address contemporary pastoral concerns. Lonergan’s method operates in an open system. The ground of this method is the authentic subjectivity of the pastoral theologian in the mystery of his/her relationship with God, in and through Jesus Christ.

Authenticity

In the Lonergan Wordbook, a Primer of Lonergan Terminology, Carla Mae Street citing Lonergan writes of Authenticity:

A person is becoming authentic who is consistent in the struggle to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible and in love. The precarious and ever-developing state of a human being is reached only by long and sustained faithfulness to the[se] transcendental precepts. [15] The human being achieves authenticity through self-transcendence[16] and through a continual withdrawal from unauthenticity[17]

The authentic pastoral actor is in a constant state of becoming and in this knowledge recognises his or her limitations. The recognition of limitation necessarily leads to the conclusion that there is a need to work with other pastoral actors in order to minister effectively. The pastoral expert, working alone, over-confident in his or her own skill as a pastoral actor, necessarily, is acting in an unauthentic manner.

Pastoral work undertaken by unauthentic pastoral actors is at the very best a theatre piece where both pastor and recipient are engaged in a sham activity with the recipients, perhaps having to suspend their critical faculties in the interest of charity. “He means well”. Such activity can range in severity from being a missed opportunity for evangelisation and reinforcement of a pre existent cultural bias at one end of the spectrum, to a view of the pastoral worker as identified with the oppressor at the other end. With the best will in the world mixed race Aboriginal children were taken from their parents by government authorities. In this case the pastoral actors responding to this policy, at the very least, contributed to a social surd while attempting to build community and problem solve. But who can blame them, to quote the Whiteheads again,” the minister cannot be asked to be a philosopher or social scientist”, or drawing on Pattison and Woodward we had a throw-away theology for a discarded people. In cases like this, and they are more common than you might imagine the pastoral actor acts as crucifier rather than crucified, to cite Sebastian Moore’s powerful image.

Conclusion

If the catch cry of the systematic theologian is “the truth will set you free”. Perhaps the catch cry for the authentic, practical theologian, as he or she deals daily with the reality of evil, is “Love is stronger than death.”

This paper is has sought to argue that the work of Bernard Lonergan provides a foundation for the development of a method of practical theology that has the potential to transform and overcome evil, a vision of practical theology as faith in action, seeking understanding for action.