Customer Reviews

Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St.Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1 (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan)

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This was Lonergan's doctoral dissertation. It focuses on the relationship between divine activity and human responsibility, between grace and freedom. To what extent are our good works our own, and to extent, or in what way, are they the product of God's grace? This issue is of fundamental importance for Christian theology. A deeply theoretical problem, its practical implications can be seen in the difference between the theological ethics of such thinkers as John Courney Murray and Reinhold Niebuhr.

I have found the first chapter in particular to be helpful. It traces the history of the development of the theoretical category of nature. Nothing in this world is purely natural; all is a mixture of nature, sin, and grace, but having the neutral term of nature allows theologians to avoid extremes that view humanity (including culture) as either absolutely fallen and thus totally helpless, or completely redeemed, and thus able to achieve anything on its own. Lonergan compares this to the theory of gravity: nothing actually falls at 9.8 meters per second squared, but this abstraction makes for some clear thinking about actual, concrete falling bodies, and thus, is indispensably helpful for very practical problems (such as, Is scripture the only source of truth? What is the relationship between church and state?)

The rest of the work focuses on Thomas Aquinas's treatment of the relationship between grace and freedom (our will and choices). It's very complicated, exploring such distinctions as actual and habitual grace, operative and cooperative grace, healing and elevating grace, their interrelations, and their relations with the will, merit, the theological virtues, etc. By a historical treatment of Thomas's thought, Lonergan seeks to present Thomas free from the ahistorical readings of decadent scholastic Thomists.

A great secondary source for this work is Michael Stebbins' "The Divine Initiative."

Anyone who buys this book knows what they're getting since it's certainly not for a mainstream audience. But as far as an entry point into Lonergan's appreciation of Aquinas the book is a must have. The editors of the collected edition have done an excellent job. Latin quotations from Aquinas have been translated afresh into English in the footnotes and there is a ready guide to Lonergan's latin in the back. An excellent index also helps the student of Lonergan and of course, of Aquinas. The addition of Lonergan's PhD thesis as well as the previously published edition was a masterful stroke since it gives a little more detail on Lonergan's thinking. I for one, found the dissertation far easier to read and comprehend than the previously published work which I had labored over for some time before getting my hands on this copy.

As far as the content of the work, it demonstrates Lonergan's mastery of his subject and the viability of his method - attend to the data before judging people!

The student of Lonergan will already own this. The student of Aquinas should seriously consider picking it up.