Thesis advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence / There are two aspects, and thus two aims, of the dissertation. Primarily, the dissertation is an interpretation. It seeks to understand Louis Massignon's understanding of Islam as it developed across three stages of his life and work. Secondarily, the dissertation is methodological. It takes Massignon's experience as a test-case and attempts to show that, as a possibly relevant hypothesis, his understanding of Islam warrants further attention by contemporary theologians working on Catholic-Islamic dialogue, Catholic-Islamic comparative theology, and Catholic theologies of Islam. The dissertation consists of six chapters. The first is an introduction to the questions and the relevant secondary literature. In it I establish the work of Massignon, primarily a scholar of Islam, on the relationship of Islam to the Catholic Church as <italic>theological</italic>, that is, as faith seeking understanding, and as <italic>conversational</italic>, that is, as constitutive communication. In Chapter Two, I establish Massignon's Catholic beliefs and examine his early and fairly traditional position on the question of Islam's relationship to the Catholic Church. I focus primarily on his apologetic treatise, <italic>Examen du &ldquoPr&eacutesent de l'homme lettr&eacute&rdquo par Abdallah ibn al-Torjoman</italic> (1917), in which he presents the contrast between the Christian and Islamic apologetics in stark terms, arguing for the superiority of the Christian position at every turn. I argue that the Examen should be read less as a condemnation of Islam than as an articulation of Massignon's Catholic beliefs. In Chapter Three, I examine &ldquoL'h&eacutegire d'Ismaël,&rdquo the second of <italic>Les trois pri&egraveres d'Abraham</italic> (1935), in which Massignon articulates what the secondary literature has called his five-point <italic>credo</italic> of Islam, namely, that the God of the Muslims is the same as the God of the Jews and Christians, the Qur'an is in some sense inspired and retains a conditional authority, Muhammad is sincere and can be understood as a negative prophet, Islam has a positive mission in the divine economy of salvation vis-à-vis the Church and Israel, and Arabic, the language of revelation in Islam, has a particular spiritual vocation. This represents the second stage of his life and work. In Chapter Four, after considering the possible (and likely) influence that Massignon's work exerted on the statements on Islam in <italic>Lumen Gentium</italic> and <italic>Nostra Aetate</italic> as proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council, I establish the bases for a nascent Massignonian Catholic theology of Islam, whereby the two religions enjoy a complementary relationship such that the Church knows and communicates explicitly what remains implicit in Islam, while Islam provokes the Church toward greater fidelity, charity, and hospitality. In Chapter Five, I turn to the third stage of Massignon's life and work in which he was increasingly concerned to establish practical means for encouraging Muslim-Catholic understanding. I focus on the <italic>Badaliya Annual Letters</italic> (1947-1962) in which he articulates the philosophy of the Badaliya prayer sodality that he co-founded for the purpose of interiorizing the rites of Islam and praying with and for Muslims. I focus on Massignon's understanding of substitute mysticism, which I argue is actually an expanded understanding of Redemption such that through participation in what Massignon calls the <italic>secret of history</italic>, and what Bernard Lonergan, S.J. would call the <italic>Law of the Cross</italic>, the saints of Christianity and Islam (and other religions) knowingly or unknowingly participate in the saving mission of Jesus Christ. At the conclusion to each main body chapter I suggest possible lessons that one might draw from Massignon's engagement with Islam at that particular stage, and in Chapter Six I summarize the findings and the limitations of the dissertation and suggest possible lines of further enquiry. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

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Religious diversity has become a central topic in the philosophy of religion. This study proposes a methodological approach to the topic by exploring the division of tasks set out by Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984). Lonergan's methodological framework, which he called functional specialization, provides a generic differentiation of tasks, each of which is central to the overall project of understanding religious diversity. This thesis explores the relevance and utility of functional specialization as a methodological approach to religious diversity in the philosophy of religion. / The first chapter is an analysis of the literature on religious diversity as a topic in the philosophy of religion. It unearths the dominant concerns in the field and some of the obstacles which continue to hinder the development of this enquiry. The second chapter provides the epistemological grounds of functional specialization. While the division of tasks outlined by Lonergan's methodology is useful simply insofar as it differentiates the tasks of academic enquiry, there are more theoretical grounds by which this division is justified. / The third chapter provides an explanatory account of the operations and tasks involved in each of the eight functional specialties. It elucidates these specialties by drawing upon relevant analogies from outside the field of religious studies. The fourth chapter brings together the two main concerns of the study by suggesting ways in which functional specialization can make a methodological contribution to the enquiry into religious diversity. It organizes the distinct but related tasks which constitute the philosophical study of religious diversity, demonstrates the current trends regarding each of these tasks, and suggests ways in which they can be made more effective. / Lonergan's notion of functional specialization makes an important contribution to the philosophical debate over religious diversity in significant ways. It provides an effective methodology which delineates both the fundamental tasks of scholarly enquiry and the operations involved in these tasks. It explains how current work in the philosophy of religious diversity could benefit from a clear delineation of the relevant tasks. It provides a framework which is open to collaboration among scholars of diverse philosophical and theological viewpoints.

Bernard Lonergan's economic writings have not been fully evaluated by economists although two recent papers by Burley (1989a, 1989b) show that work has begun. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to situate Lonergan's (1944) economics essay, Circulation Analysis, in the history of economic thought of the period as well as to present a Lonerganian cycle model. / Circulation Analysis examines fundamental macrodynamic processes to explain fluctuations. It was written in the early 1940s following a period of controversy and debate that led to the current paradigms of economic dynamics. The two sides of the debate are exemplified by Harrod (1936) and Hayek (1933 (1928), 1939), in particular. The controversy ended with World War II and the emerging hegemony of the Anglo-American approach, which separated macrodynamics into growth theory (long-run supply problems), and stabilization theory (short-run demand problems). / This dissertation argues that this dichotomy is unsatisfactory and proposes Lonergan's pure cycle as an alternative paradigm. Lonergan's pure cycle restores the importance of supply-side dynamics in the short-run, without denying the primacy of demand issues in the analysis of deviations. A Lonerganian approach views demand shocks as essentially monetary, but also contends that the distribution of nominal income can cause shocks, if it is not synchronized with changes in real variables. / In this thesis a Lonerganian model is presented that uses a Kydland-Prescott (1982) type of "time-to-build" technology. The model is subjected to permanent productivity shocks to investment, which explain, with a lag, equilibrium output. The monetary and distributional shocks to demand, which are temporary, can then explain the deviation of actual output from its equilibrium value. The model uses a Beveridge and Nelson (1981) approach, which specifies changes in growth rates of variables as a function of permanent and temporary shocks. The shocks are identified because the model is recursive: first, the productivity shock determines investment and equilibrium output; then, the monetary shock determines prices and sales of consumer goods. Simulation results are presented.

Within the thought of Bernard Lonergan, is described a universal dynamic structure immanent within intellectual, moral, and religious consciousness. In Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, his analysis of the invariant pattern of that structure grounds a cognitional theory, an epistemology, and a metaphysics which then enables him to propose an ethic based on the structure of the good as immanent within every act of rational self-consciousness. In later works, principally Method in Theology, his orientation shifts to incorporate a new notion of value, which is distinct in that it is apprehended through feeling. The result is an ethic oriented to the transcendental objective of value and developed from the patterns of cognition which apprehend that value. This thesis studies that shift, and focuses on Lonergan's admitted sources to it: Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Jean Piaget, Susanne Langer, Abraham Maslow, and existential thought generally. In reconstructing it, the thesis finds grounds to differentiate the cognitional theory based upon analysis of intellectual as opposed to affective operations, their invariant norms for authentic operation, and their contents in facts and values respectively.

Thesis advisor: Dominic Doyle / I argue for a performative reading of the Summa theologiae in relation to Thomas Aquinas’s coordination of the trinitarian processions with the trinitarian image and the process of teaching and learning. Specifically, I argue that the Summa is skillfully arranged in order to initiate the student into the graced process of conceiving words about the Triune God that burst forth into love—the very processions by which we are ad imaginem Dei and become more like God. Learning to speak truly and love rightly prepares students to preach about God within their culture, just as Thomas’s own efforts to preach the trinitarian mystery indicate. My argument takes into account Thomas’s life as a Dominican preacher and teacher in thirteenth-century Europe as well as his theology of the mixed life of contemplation and action. With respect to the latter, Thomas maintained that the Dominican must draw in contemplation what he will pour out later on in preaching (contemplata aliis tradere). Thomas wrote the Summa theologiae with this pastoral orientation in mind. In light of this historical context, I argue that the Summa is a performative text and transformative encounter with sacra doctrina written to prepare Dominican students to hand on the fruits of their contemplation. This interpretation of the Summa theologiae and Thomas’s trinitarian theology enriches standard contemporary interpretations of the psychological analogy. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Jeremy D. Wilkins / The basic question of this dissertation is, “Why a crucified God?” The history of this question is traced through strategically chosen increments in Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Lonergan. Each contributes in some important way to the development of a tradition that focuses on the choice of divine love and wisdom to answer evil through the justice of the cross rather than by coercion. In light of these earlier transpositions and Lonergan’s own development, this dissertation examines the meaning and justice of the cross, as epitomized in Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, and re-contextualizes this law in relation to our collective responsibility in and for history. This teleological re-reading of Lonergan’s soteriology brings to the forefront that a fitting remedy to the problem of a dis-ordered love is a re-ordering and (re-)ordered love, not coercive power. According to Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, the intrinsic intelligibility of redemption is the transformation of evil into good by love. This love, caritas ordinata et ordinans, is understood by analogy with the antecedent offer of diffusive friendship and by analogy with sacramental penance. The restoration of right order through the cross is fitting because, if the laws of nature and history are not suspended, retaliation would only multiply the objective surd. The constructive part of this dissertation further specifies ontological conditions for the fittingness of the cross by bringing the lex crucis into dialogue with Lonergan’s general theory of historical process. In continuity with the emerging world order (as subject to classical, statistical, dialectical, and genetic laws), the cross manifests an orderly communication of divine friendship to sinners. Correspondingly, the justice of the cross regards, not retributive justice, but the possibility of justice among sinners. This possibility, it is argued, is inaugurated by Christ’s transformation of suffering into the means of a new finality in history, the probabilities of which are decisively shifted in the cross event and concretely realized through the emergent agape network, the higher integration of the human good of order through the whole Christ, head and members, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The justice of the cross, then, is an emergent agapic justice which proceeds from the dynamic state of being in love with God as its principle and is realized in a dialectic unification of all things in Christ, constituting the “cruciform” transformation of human (inter-)subjectivity and the recovery of human progress as ordered to the eschatologically definitive reign of God. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

No description available.

No description available.

<p> This dissertation examines Bernard Lonergan' s understanding of value, its assumptions and its development, for the sake of determining the role of human nature and human historicity in the experience of value. The categories of nature and history reflect a specifically modem form of the long-standing question of the relationship between physis and nomos- i.e., nature and convention, or 'nature and nurture'-for modernity has made us accutely aware of the historicity of cultural conventions. We ask of Lonergan: how or to what extent is the experience of value determined by human nature, and how or to what extent is it historically conditioned?</p> <p> To understand Lonergan' s position one must appreciate both the difference and the continuity between his earlier and later thought. Lonergan' s earlier thought reflects a rather Kantian fonnalistic account of value as the rational good, but his later thought embraces Scheler' s non-fonnal, material account of value-i.e., the good is an object of natural appetite-a position in which affectivity plays a role in revealing value. In spite of this development, there yet remains an underlying unity: there is a fundamental opposition of affect and intellect that precludes the possibility of understanding value as both rationally and materially good. Lonergan associates affect with natural spontaneity, and intellect with the deliberate:, progressive dynamic of history. Because of this, in his earlier work he presents value as rationally, and therefore historically, determined; yet in his ma1ure position value is grasped primarily in affective apprehensions, which are ahistorical intuitions, grounded in human nature and the 'reasons of the heart'.</p> <p> In response, it will be argued that this dichotomy of feeling and rationality can be transcended without sacrificing Lonergan' s account of self-transcendence.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)