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The problem of history in Thomas Torrance and Bernard Lonergan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2024

Stanley Maclean Open the ORCID record for Stanley Maclean [Opens in a new window]
Stanley Maclean*
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Keimyung University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
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Abstract

The essay compares the problem of history in the theological methods of the Reformed theologian Thomas Torrance and the Catholic theologian Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan works to incorporate historical science into theology, while Torrance argues for a revision of historical science. Lonergan's method is a synthesis of Catholic theology and history, but it is one constructed at the expense of eschatology and the full significance of Christ's resurrection. Torrance's method, on the contrary, includes a dogmatic understanding of history that is grounded solidly on the ‘Word-Act’ of God – the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. It gives full weight to eschatology but elides the contingencies of history.

Keywords

eschatologyBernard LonerganresurrectionThomas Torrancetranscendental method
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , First View , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Lonergan, Bernard, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), p. 4Google Scholar; Torrance, Thomas, Theological Science (Oxford: OUP, 1969), p. 107Google Scholar.

2 Torrance, Thomas F., ‘The Function of Inner and Outer Word in Lonergan's Theological Method’, in Corcoran, Patrick (ed.), Looking at Lonergan's Method (Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1975), pp. 101–26Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 120.

4 Some notable examples include Macmurray, John, The Clue to History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939)Google Scholar; Collingwood, Robin George, The Idea of History (Oxford: OUP, 1946)Google Scholar; Cullmann, Oscar, Christ and Time (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950)Google Scholar; Dawson, Christopher, The Dynamics of World History (London: Sheed and Ward, 1956)Google Scholar; Berkof, Henrikus, Christ the Meaning of History (London: SCM, 1966)Google Scholar; Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Revelation as History (New York: Macmillan, 1968 [1961])Google Scholar.

5 Kähler, Martin, The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ, ed. and tr. Braaten, Carl (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1964), p. 66Google Scholar.

6 The Holy See, ‘Pascendi Dominic Gregis’ (Encyclical of Pope Pius X on the Doctrines of The Modernists), https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html, 30–31.

7 Papal Encyclicals Online, ‘The Oath against Modernism’, https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10moath.htm.

8 See Lonergan, Bernard, Early Papers on History, vol. 25 of The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019)Google Scholar.

9 Crowe, Frederick E. S.J., Christ and History: The Christology of Bernard Lonergan from 1935 to 1982 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005)Google Scholar, p. 168 (emphasis added).

10 O'Hara, J. Martin, MacGuigan, Gerald, and Tansey, Charlotte (eds), Curiosity at the Centre of One's Life: Statements and Questions of R. Eric O’ Connor (Montreal: Thomas Moore Institute, 1984), p. 427Google Scholar.

11 Kerr, Fergus, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 2Google Scholar.

12 Lonergan, Bernard, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, eds. Crowe, Frederick S.J. and Doran, Robert S.J. (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 805Google Scholar.

13 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 90.

14 Bernard Lonergan, ‘Philosophy and Religious Phenomenon’, p. 4 (Bernard Lonergan Archive, Marquette University), https://bernardlonergan.com/archive/26250dte070.

15 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. xi.

16 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 90.

17 Ibid., p. 205.

18 Ibid.

19 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. 175.

20 Ibid., pp. 4, 14.

21 Ibid., pp. 19–20.

22 Ibid., p. 57.

23 Ibid., pp. 76, 78.

24 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 137.

25 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. 81.

26 Ibid., p. 355.

27 Ibid., pp. 103, 105.

28 Ibid., p. 129.

29 Ibid., p. 111.

30 Ibid., p. 109.

31 Ibid., p. 205.

32 Ibid., p. 93.

33 Ibid., pp. 259, 265.

34 Ibid., p. 8.

35 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 11.

36 Ibid., p. 166.

37 Bernard Lonergan, ‘Pantôn anakephalaiôsis’ (Bernard Lonergan Archive, Marquette University), https://bernardlonergan.com/archive/71303dte030.

38 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 30.

39 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. xi.

40 Crowe, Christ and History, p. 181.

41 Ibid., p. 184.

42 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. 355.

43 Ibid., p. 114; Crowe, Christ and History, p. 186.

44 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. 114.

45 Crowe, Christ and History, pp. 174, 219.

46 Alasdair Heron, A Century of Protestant Theology (London: Lutterworth Press, 1980), p. 112.

47 Torrance, Theological Science, p. xviii.

48 Ibid., p. 210.

49 Ibid., p. 85.

50 Ibid., p. 312.

51 The most infamous example of this approach is Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926–1928 [1918]).

52 Thomas Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (London: SCM Press, 1965), pp. 19–22. See also his God and Rationality (London: OUP, 1971), pp. 23–25.

53 Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 20.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid., p. 21.

57 Torrance, Theological Science, p. 317.

58 Ibid., p. 315.

59 Ibid., p. 241.

60 Thomas Torrance, The Christian Frame of Mind (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015), p. 25.

61 Torrance, Theological Science, p. 321.

62 Ibid., p. 315.

63 Ibid., p. 319.

64 Torrance, Theological Science, p. 322.

65 Berdyaev, Nicolas, The Meaning of History (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), p. 36Google Scholar.

66 Torrance, Thomas, The Doctrine of Jesus Christ (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002). 4Google Scholar.

67 Torrance, Thomas F., ‘History and Reformation’, Scottish Journal of Theology 4/3 (1951), p. 284CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Torrance, Theological Science, p. 325.

69 Ibid., p. 333.

70 Ibid., p. 326.

71 Ibid.

72 Torrance, Thomas, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976), p. 88Google Scholar.

73 Ibid., p. 95.

74 Ibid.

75 See Bultmann, Rudolf, History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019)Google Scholar.

76 Torrance, Thomas, Apocalypse Today (London: James Clark, 1960), p. 40Google Scholar.

77 Torrance, ‘History and Reformation’, p. 289.

78 Bernard Lonergan, ‘Theology and Man's Future’, 1960s, p. 2 (Bernard Lonergan Archive, Marquette University), https://bernardlonergan.com/archive/71303dte030.

79 Lonergan, Method in Theology, p. xi.

80 Ibid., pp. xi–xii.

81 Ibid., p. 318.