Theology and the Dialectics of History

L.M. Read was a Philosophy of Religion and Economics professor at
Carleton University.

Doran begins with Lonergan’s position that “a theology mediates
between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in
that context.” Hence, Christian theology mediates between the
Christian gospel and the cultural situation. The gospel as interpreted
by Doran is that of transcendent love and grace—which is paradoxically
also the way of the cross as depicted in the suffering servant of
Deutero-Isaiah and incarnate in Christ. The situation is that of human
subjects in social-cultural contexts shaped by the dialectics of
history. Since theology mediates between gospel and situation, the
situation as well as the gospel is a source of theology. “Situations
are constituted by meaning”; theological praxis is oriented to
producing “change in constitutive meaning” in order to bring the
situation closer to an approximation of the reign of God.

Mediating the gospel to the historic situation calls for an
understanding—a theory—of history. Doran contributes to this theory
the notion of three component dialectics: those of subject, of
community, and of culture. Parts 2, 3, and 4, the bulk of this large
volume, deal with these component dialectics in turn. The dialectics are
oriented by the integral scale of values—personal, social, and
cultural—the ultimate measure of which is the transcendent love
mediated by the suffering servant.

Doran distinguishes two kinds of dialectic: the dialectic of
contraries, which operates through a tension between opposites that are
nonetheless reconcilable (e.g., between limitation and transcendence);
and the dialectic of contradictories, which is not reconcilable. In our
own situation, we are confronted not only with contraries but with
contradictories—for example, imperialistic systems vying for world
domination opposed to global communitarian alternatives; or, more
generally, a nihilism of meaning and value opposed to the meaning and
value of transcendent love.

Doran’s view of the Christian gospel brings him close to Latin
American liberation theologians. On the other hand, his critique of
Marxist theory and praxis as contributing to contemporary distortions of
culture and society will disturb many liberation theologians.

Throughout his work, Doran is consciously closely dependent on
Lonergan’s interiority or intentionality analyses. An interesting
develpoment of the Lonergan approach Doran offers is his reorientation
and integration of depth psychology. He finds in certain dreams anagogic
symbols pointing not to self-integration but to self-transcendence and
the transcendent mystery.