Bernarda Lonergana rozumienie teologii i jej struktury poznawczej

Abstract

The reflections presented in the paper are divided into five parts. In the first of them the main subject is a general conception of theology as proposed by Lonergan. The author is supporting an “empirical” conception of the indicated discipline. He maintains that the properly understood theology begins with collecting of religious data; that it is an ongoing process of comprehending the truths and statements of belief; finally there should be taken into consideration subject conditions of and historical and cultural context of religious cognition and thinking. The author of the article discusses and explains the elements. In the second part of his considerations the author tries to show the relevance of certain structures of religious life and religious and theological thinking. According to Lonergan each of the basic structures of religious existence (they are: religious experience, believe as a transcend value, believe in revelation and religious conviction) generates specific for itself type of questions and appropriate way of inquiry. Within the frames of the paper (after a previous characteristics of the mentioned structures of religious life) there were shown the most important domains, research paradigms and types of reflection on religion. Certainly, special stress was put on the theology itself. The third part of the paper is an attempt to reconstruct Lonergan’s theory of the foundations of theology. The key element of the theory is a return to the subject. According to Lonergan the real foundation of theology is a human being itself: fully aware of all the possible within religion acts, cognitive activities, truths and statements. At the first level it is a subject of the “primary” religious acts, at the second one – a subject of theological reflection. However, the most important here is a subject of religious conversion. The author of the paper explains what the conversion is based on and how it defines “a basic reality” of theology. Then, in the fourth part of the work, he passes to the question of a theological method. He focuses on both the conception of the method itself and its structure, with special regard of the division into eight functional specializations introduced by Lonergan. The last part of the paper is an attempt of a judgement of Lonergan’s metatheological propositions.