Further Along the Fourth Stage of Meaning: Lonergan, Alterity and ‘Genuine’ Religion

Abstract

The chapter on religion in Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology is a rich compilation of many ideas that were important to his thought throughout his career. It is at once a theory of ‘genuine’ religion, a theory of the distortions of such religion, and an expansion of his theology of grace into a wider ecumenical multi-religious or universalist context, to name a few. This essay draws upon that chapter to investigate a further development of Lonergan’s thought of a fourth stage of meaning to be added to his three stages of meaning. Among other things, the fourth stage of meaning anticipates a global age of inter-religious and social cooperation. It also enables one to avoid the danger of the third stage with an overemphasis on interiority by bringing emphases upon vertical and horizontal alterity. Moreover, in the context of Method in Theology as a whole, this theory also raises questions about the future of systematic theology in view of the emerging fourth stage as a distinct differentiated realm.