Poznanie religijne w ujęciu Bernarda Lonergana

Abstract

The article is an attempt to present and explain basic categories of religious cognition – by Bernard Lonergan. The whole of the article is divided into three fundamental parts. The first one is concerned with the issue of religious experience. It discusses, among other things, the problem of transcendental bases of that experience, its structure and existential meaning. According to Lonergan religious experience “grows out” of the integrally grasped structure of human spirit, and its anthropological basis consists in self-transcendence of a subject and of a person. In the order of that self-transcendence a man opens himself to unrestricted horizons of the truth and good. Religious experience should be comprehended as a dynamic state of unrestricted being in love with God. Religious love, assuming a prior gift of God’s grace, is the fulfilment of human aspiration to self-transcendence and the highest degree of human authenticity. The second part of the article is devoted to the issue of faith and religious beliefs. According to Lonergan religious experience constitutes the source of possible knowledge of God. It is the knowledge “born of religious love”. We acquire this by recognition of specific values. Knowledge of this type forms the horizon of faith. In Lonergan’s theory faith is first and foremost a grasp of a transcendent value – it is the act of fundamental and unconditional affirmation of God conceived in categories of the highest truth and absolute good. The faith understood in such a way establishes a proper hierarchy of all remaining values. Among the values revealed by a fundamental decision of faith there is also a value of acceptance of certain judgements presented by religion. In this way faith constitutes a basis for religious beliefs. It is a process of several stages to form beliefs. It consists of acts of understanding, critical reflection, rational assessment and decision. The acts of believing are the last stage of that process. The collection of accepted religious beliefs creates the religious tradition of a given community. The third part of the article includes final remarks. They concern some problems related to the objectivity and rationality of religious cognition in Lonergan’s theory as well as the theological context of that theory.