Heritage and discovery: A framework for moral theology

Theological Studies

Volumn 63, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 559-574

  Crysdale, Cynthia S W ^a  

^a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950227389     PISSN: 00405639     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004056390206300306     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. This article emerges from a presentation made to the moral theology section of the Catholic Theological Society of America, June 9, 2000, in San Jose, California. It develops ideas I explored in an earlier article: "Development, Conversion, and Religious Education," Horizons 17 (1990) 30-46.
2. See Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child, trans. Marjorie Gabain (New York: Penguin, 1977; orig. ed. 1932);
3. Lawrence Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981);
4. and James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981).
5. There are many approaches to moral and religious behavior and reasoning besides the structural development view. Nevertheless, these theories, and types of theories, have become commonly accepted. For a recent discussion of these matters in relation to moral theology, see William C. Spohn, "Conscience and Moral Development," Theological Studies 61 (2000) 122-38.
6. See, for example, Craig Dykstra, Vision and Character (New York: Paulist, 1981)
7. and Gabriel Moran, Religious Education Development (Minneapolis: Winston, 1983)
8. and No Ladder to the Sky (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).
9. See, for example, Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1982).
10. See also Spohn, "Conscience" 131-35.
11. See R. H. Niebuhr, The Responsible Self (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).
12. On Barth's ethics, see Nigel Biggar, The Hastening That Waits: Karl Barth's Ethics (New York: Oxford University, 1993).
13. For an approach that tries to retrieve ethics from a divine command perspective, see Richard Mouw, The God Who Commands (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1990).
14. See, for example, Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993; orig. ed. 1950),
15. and his Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics (New York: Scribners, 1967);
16. Richard McCormick, The Critical Calling (Washington: Georgetown University, 1989).
17. See, for example, Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1981);
18. and Jean Porter, The Recovery of Virtue (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990).
19. See also Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1981)
20. and Nancey Murphy, Brad Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen Nation, ed., Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity International, 1997).
21. See Hugh Hartshorne and Mark Arthur May, Studies in the Nature of Character. vol. 1: Studies in Deceit;
22. See also Kohlberg's discussion of this work, what he calls the "bag of virtues" approach, in Philosophy of Moral Development 31-35; 183-84.
23. See Nathan Isaacs, A Brief Introduction to Piaget (New York: Schocken Books, 1960) chap. 3.
24. The primary text on this is Jean Piaget, The Child's Conception of Number, trans. G. Gattegno and F. M. Hodgson (New York: Humanities, 1952).
25. Piaget, Moral Judgment 115-33.
26. See also Ronald Duska and Mariellen Whelan, Moral Development: A Guide to Piaget and Kohlberg, chap. 1 and app. 1.
27. See Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development,
28. and Duska and Whelan, Moral Development, chap. 2 and app. 2.
29. See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Seabury, 1972), Introduction.
30. What counts here is not just what Lonergan says about theology and theologians, but that his work on theological method presents a basic anthropology of human discovery. He does not rely on observation and experiment in the way of Piaget, but uses a generalized empirical method to show that human persons are dynamically oriented toward interacting with, understanding, and changing their worlds. All persons, he claims, use the same pattern of recurrent and related operations to interact with their worlds. This pattern can be verified, not by observing "every Tom, Dick, and Harry," but through each person being attentive to what they are doing while they are doing it - what Lonergan calls "self-appropriation." For the reference to "Tom, Dick, and Harry," see Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1957) xviii.
31. On "self-appropriation," see Lonergan, Method 6-7, 13-16, 83-85.
32. Lonergan, "Healing and Creating in History," in A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J. E Lonergan, S. J., ed. Frederick E. Crowe (New York: Paulist, 1985), 106.
33. Lonergan, "Natural Right and Historical Mindedness," Third Collection 180-81.
34. See Norma Haan, Eliane Aerts, Bruce A. B. Cooper, On Moral Grounds: The Search for Practical Morality (New York: New York University, 1985).
35. See Albert Bandura, Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall, 1986).
36. See also Joan E. Grusec, "Social Learning Theory and Developmental Psychology: The Legacies of Robert Sears and Albert Bandura," Developmental Psychology 28 (1992) 776-89.
37. Both Haan and Bandura are discussed in Timothy E. O'Connell, Making Disciples: A Handbook of Christian Moral Formation (New York, Crossroad, 1998) 79-82, 91-94.
38. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Doubleday, 1966) 65.
39. This section, entitled "Beliefs" begins with the following sentence: "To appropriate one's social, cultural, religious heritage is largely a matter of belief." Many scholarly fans of Lonergan's work have been so taken with his epistemology (of "discovery") that this aspect of Lonergan's thought has been often overlooked. One exception would be Frederick E. Crowe, Old Things and New: A Strategy for Education (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985).
40. The work of Erik Erikson explores this process. See, for example, Childhood and Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963; orig. ed. 1950) esp. chap. 7.
41. See Lonergan, Insight 217 ff.
42. Note that one of the most devastating cycles of distortion occurs when what gets passed on are distorted beliefs about knowledge and discovery themselves. Since the tools of discovery need to be acquired (though curiosity is innate) it is the role of socializing agents to teach learning skills and a sense of competence. If such persons convey the message that children - or persons of certain races or genders or social classes - are incapable of learning, or deny learners access to the resources of education, the development of these persons will be skewed at its very core. For this reason education and literacy are vital to true democracy, while dictators do everything in their power to deny these to the masses. For more on the importance of "the discovery of discovery," see Crysdale, "Women and the Social Construction of Self-Appropriation," in Lonergan and Feminism, ed. Cynthia Crysdale (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1994) 88-113.
43. See also my volume: Embracing Travail: Retrieving the Cross Today (New York: Continuum, 1999) chap. 4.
44. Robert M. Doran has made explicit these two distinct meanings of "dialectic" within Lonergan's work. For more on the dialectic of "contraries" and "contradictories" see Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990) 9-10, and chap. 3.
45. On this topic, see Paul's Letter to the Galatians.