Robert Croken – författare

A companion to Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964 (Volume 6 in the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan series), this anthology contains Lonergan''s lectures on philosophy and theology given during the later period of his life, 1965-1980. These papers document his development in the discipline during the years leading up to the publication of Method in Theology, and beyond to 1980 when he was more engaged in his writings and seminars on macroeconomics.

Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965-1980 is divided into five sections, forming units on the basis of dates. The three central sections are each a set of lectures respectively given at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gonzaga University in Spokane, and Trinity College (University of Toronto). Although there is some repetition amongst the lecture sets and in relation to other more familiar works, this repetition displays occasional new turns of phrase that the careful reader will note. In at least one instance, familiar material suddenly opens out onto expressions not to be found anywhere else in Lonergan''s work. Other very interesting developments regard the movement from speaking of the immutability of dogmas to their permanence of meaning and the permutations among ''real self-transcendence,'' ''performative self-transcendence,'' and ''moral self-transcendence.''

As a prolific scholar and theologian, Bernard Lonergan authored a significant amount of material aside from the works with which he is commonly associated. Shorter Papers is a collection of lesser-known items written by Lonergan over the course of his career. Together, they offer privileged access to the author''s thought and work, as well as a glimpse at some of his most personal qualities.

The items in this volume extend from some of the earliest writings – the Blandyke Papers, for instance, which predates any of the materials represented in the Collected Works – to pieces written near the end of Lonergan''s life. Organized chronologically, they give an impression of his development as a writer, his ever-strengthening religious commitment, and his role as teacher. As a sampling of pieces from the late 1920s to the early 1980s, Shorter Papers testifies to the cumulative impact of Lonergan''s work, as well as to the amazing continuity that he maintained throughout his career as an author and intellectual.

The renowned Christian theologian Bernard Lonergan was also a professor, teaching courses on theological method at universities in Canada, the United States, and Italy. This volume records his lectures and teaching materials, thus preserving and elucidating his intellectual development between the publication of Insight in 1957 and Method in Theology in 1972.

The present volume contains a record of the lectures delivered in 1962 (Regis College, Toronto), 1964 (Georgetown University), and 1968 (Boston College). This is the most ''interactive'' volume yet published in the Collected Works series. The audio recordings of the 1962 and 1968 lectures are now available on the website www.bernardlonergan.com, as are PDF files of original papers from his 1964 institute at Georgetown. These lectures help to elucidate the development of Lonergan''s ideas on such key notions as horizon, conversion, and meaning, as well as his evolving opinion on how best to divide theology into fields of specialization.