Bringing Bernard Lonergan Down to Earth and Into Our Hearts and Communities

Bernard Lonergan is a world-renowned philosopher, methodologist, and theologian. The complexity of his work has tended to limit his accessibility to average readers. Bringing Bernard Lonergan Down to Earth seeks to remedy this limitation by showing how Lonergan did address problems of community life. He also broadened his interest after writing Insight to include a reaching into our hearts as modeled, for example, by the genius Blaise Pascal. Lonergan also sought to bridge religious divides. Here the Christian theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are indispensable but that does not curtail from Lonergan's uncanny ability to reach out to secularists by focusing on ethics. The importance of Lonergan's interdisciplinary work is signaled in the book's twelve explorations (in the concluding Part IV) that detail for interested readers his extraordinary ability to solve major philosophical issues. Do not be deceived by Raymaker's and Mombula's title, as if they have arrived at a formula regarding 'bringing down to earth.' On the contrary, they identify splendidly a massive task for these next centuries. On their road to that identification there is quite an astonishing sweep through cultures and sciences, climbing to a dozen quite definite and powerful illustrations of 'the amplitude of Lonergan's pointers' in the final part of the book. This is not a book for light or commonsense reading: it is a door-opening to the real possibility of establishing a world community in the millennium ahead. --Philip McShane, editor, Phenomenology and Logic John Raymaker has specialized in social ethics and in studying Buddhism during his twenty years in Japan where he taught cultural anthropology at Hosei University. He has authored and coauthored books on a possible Vatican III Council and on Bernard Lonergan. Godefroid Mombula, a native of the Congo, is a member of the Missionhurst missionary congregation. He spent several years as a missionary in the Philippines. After obtaining his PhD at the Gregorianum in Rome, he has returned to the Congo where he now directs several developmental projects.