Bernard Lonergans filosofiska teologi

Abstract

This article deals with the theory of knowledge of God elaborated by the Canadian theologian and philosopher Bernard Lonergan. Its main aim is to present Lonergan’s theory and to discuss whether it is foundationalist in character or not. The first part of the article introduces the reader into the discussion about foundationalism in contemporary philosophy, especially with regard to the field of philosophy of religion. In the article’s second part Lonergan’s theory of how to ground knowledge of God is being presented, along with its connection to Lonergan’s general cognitional theory. Lonergan’s fourfold God-question and its relationship to the distinction between natural and supernatural knowledge of God is also elucidated. The concluding part of the article shows why Lonergan’s philosophy of God is not a version of foundationalism in its proper sense, since Lonergan rejects the foundationalist attribution of epistemic primacy to propositional entities, and instead places his epistemic foundations in a set of intentional operations of the human mind.