Lonergan’s
View of Theological Method:
According to Lonergan, theological method comprises eight functional specialties that are stages of a process going from data to results.
There are also four levels of operations involved in this process: experiencing (i.e. the apprehension of data), understanding (insight into the data), judgment (acceptance or rejection of ideas that come from this understanding), and decision (acknowledging values and selecting means for attaining them). All four of these levels may operate in any of the functional specialties, but each functional specialty has one of these levels as its particular goal or end.[1]
Mediating
Phase = 1. Research - experience
2. Interpretation - understanding encounters
3. History - judgment the past
4. Dialectic - decision
Mediated
Phase = 5. Foundations - decision
6. Doctrines - judgment confronts
7. Systematics - understanding the future
8. Communications – experience