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³ For two diverse examples of theologians who argue that it is impossible to prove through unaided reason the existence of God, see Küng, Hans, Does God Exist?, trans. Quinn, Edward (New York: Random House, 1981), 529–51Google Scholar and Milbank, John and Pickstock, Catherine, Truth in Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2001), 21–39.Google Scholar

⁴ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., “Natural Knowledge of God,” A Second Collection, ed. Ryan, William F. J. and Tyrrell, Bernard J. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 117–33.Google Scholar

⁵ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Insight: An Essay in Human Understanding, ed. Crowe, Frederick E. and Doran, Robert M., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).Google Scholar

⁶ Lonergan, , “Insight Revisited,” A Second Collection, 277.Google Scholar

⁷ Turner, Denys, How to be an Atheist: Inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge, 12 October 2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 8.Google Scholar See also idem, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 230.

⁸ See Milbank, John and Pickstock, Catherine, Aquinas on Truth (London: Routledge, 2001), 28–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Turner, , Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 4–5, 16–17.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid., 210–11.

¹¹ Pseudo-Dionysius, , The Complete Works, trans. Luibheid, Colm and Rorem, Paul, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist, 1987), 98Google Scholar, as cited in Turner, , Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 156.Google Scholar

¹² Faith, , Reason and the Existence of God, 19.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., 120.

¹⁴ Ibid., 118.

¹⁵ Ibid., 86–87.

¹⁶ Ibid., 106.

¹⁷ Ibid., 76. See Turner, Denys, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., 116–22.

¹⁹ See Turner, Denys, “Atheism, Apophaticism, and Différance” in Théologie negative, ed. Olivetti, Marco M., Biblioteca dell'Archivio di Filosofia, 29 (Padova: CEOAM, 2002), 225–41.Google Scholar

²⁰ How to be an Atheist, 39. Turner is taking aim at Bertrand Russell's famous “brute fact” approach to the “why is there anything at all” question.

²¹ Faith, , Reason and the Existence of God, 100–01.Google Scholar

²² Ibid., 220.

²³ The same crucial point regarding Christology is made by Sokolowski, Robert, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).Google Scholar

²⁴ Turner's notion that a proof for the existence of God would entail the simple recognition that the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” reveals a basic similarity to Bernard Lonergan's proof, in Chapter 19 of Insight, that “If being is intelligible, then God exists.”

²⁵ Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 201.

²⁶ Scotus, , Ordinatio 1 d3 n.36Google Scholar, quoted in ibid, 199.

²⁷ Ibid., 197–202. Turner's position is that, in order to avoid Scotus' position that univocity between premises and conclusion is required and possible in a proof for the existence of God, Milbank affirms an a priori experience of God (and reads such into Aquinas' proofs). Scotus (and Milbank) are mistaken in assuming that such univocity is required for a valid proof. Mention of such experience, of course, brings Rahner's Vorgriff to mind. However, a comparison of Milbank-Pickstock and Rahner on the question of what precedes explicit reflection, while an important issue, stretches beyond the limits of the present essay. For a compendious presentation of the development of Rahner's position, see McCool, Gerald, “Karl Rahner and the Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas” in Kelly, William J. S.J., ed., Theology and Discovery: Essays in Honor of Karl Rahner, S.J. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), 63–93.Google Scholar

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²⁹ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Insight: An Essay in Human Understanding, ed. Crowe, Frederick E. and Doran, Robert M., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).Google Scholar

³⁰ Note Turner's tongue in cheek comment that one can learn to be an atheist by “being careful to suppress any [questions] which might seem to push thought off civilized limits; be reasonable, lest you find yourself being committed to an excessive rationality; have the good manners to scratch no itches which occur in intellectually embarrassing places—at least not in public” (How to be an Atheist, 39).

³¹ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., “Philosophy of God and Theology,” in Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965–1980, ed. Croken, Robert C. and Doran, Robert M., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 17 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 159–218.Google Scholar

³² Reason, being a part of creation, shares its capacity to reveal the sacred, and thus displays its sacramentality. See Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 224–25.

³³ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., “The Form of Inference,” in Collection, ed. Crowe, Frederick E. and Doran, Robert M., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 3–16, at 5.Google Scholar The essay was originally published in 1943 but probably written earlier (see the editorial note in ibid, 256).

³⁴ Turner, , Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 80, 89.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., 87.

³⁶ Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, ed. Crowe, Frederick E. and Doran, Robert M., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 38–39 and 39, n.126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Insight, 396.

³⁷ See McShane, Philip, ed. Language, Truth, and Meaning: Papers from the International Lonergan Congress, St. Leo College, 1970 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972).Google Scholar

³⁸ “Philosophy of God, and Theology,” 171–72, at 172.

³⁹ Method in Theology (New York: Seabury, 1972), 364.

⁴⁰ A Second Collection, ed. Ryan, William F. J. and Tyrrell, Bernard J. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974)Google Scholar and A Third Collection, ed. Crowe, Frederick E. (New York: Paulist, 1985).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Faith, Reason and the Existence of God, 262.