Introduction

"I am a knower": Lonergan explicitly makes this first judgment in Chapter XI of Insight, which is commonly recognized among scholars 1 to be the most important section of the whole book. As a knower, one operates within the four levels of consciousness, namely, the experiential, intellectual, rational and responsible levels, to receive cognition about the world or oneself so that objective truth and value is attained. The implication of this judgment is that all kinds of knowledge unite in the same operation of knowing where the subject, in the process of self-appropriation, is commonly attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible. Lamenting the split of knowledge after Modernity, when the ground of knowledge loses its objective certainty and cannot help but retreat to the subjective boundary so that empiricism or idealism becomes the only solution, Lonergan sets up his project to rebuild the dignity of knowledge which is rooted in being, yet he transforms the traditional and scholastic categories.

As a child of his time, when historical consciousness prevails, Lonergan affirms that what is at stake is no longer the static nature of knowledge as permanent achievement, but the method of ongoing process of discovery where the authenticity, transcendence and metanoia of the subject become central and critical. 2 Therefore, personal but continual conversion is the issue in theological discourse.Against this basic understanding of Lonergan as background, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, if various kinds of knowledge, namely, mathematics, science and common sense as illustrated in Insight, follow the same pattern of knowing, this paper tries to for God. Among various spiritualities and figures in history who set up milestones for us to dialogue demonstrate that the same pattern can also be applied and be valid in our interior searching with God and know God, Ignatius' self-appropriation and legacy in his conversion and Spiritual Exercises is destined to be a significant paradigm in congruent very much with Lonergan's categories on self-discovery. In fact, the assumption may not be too naive that as a Jesuit, Lonergan implicitly receives no little insight from the Spiritual Exercises to arrive his own theory of epistemology and method in theology.

Secondly, this paper represents an attempt at my own self-appropriation of the Spiritual Exercises. It is taken for granted as self-evident is that God, though the absolute Other and totally transcendent, wants to show us his way in concrete historical contexts for our own salvation and happiness as long as we are willing to get rid of our inordinate attachments. In fact, nothing in this life is more important and rewarding for us than finding and knowing God's will. However, what is at stake here is a genuine and deep self-knowledge on the one hand, and a personal, intimate yet solid understanding of the incarnated and historical Jesus on the other.

To fulfil these two purposes, chapter I delineates the basic elements of Lonergan's Insight which are relevant and similar to what Ignatius experienced in his life and later organized into his Spiritual Exercises. Chapter II is a succinct presentation of how Ignatius arrived at his own insight. Chapter III, as the major part of this paper, shows how the Spiritual Exercises fits into the Lonerganian pattern of discovery and knowing as discussed in chapter 1, and represents my own understanding of its focal dynamics and content. Finally, chapter IV, as a further reflection, tries to pin down why the need of conversion for the subject is problematic and crucial in the whole process, and to understand more deeply the incarnated elements of, as well as resistance to, God's will in concrete history. It is important to keep these in view for any director to co-discern with the retreatant for a better and more confident grasp of what is possibly happening in the dynamics of the latter's self-discovery of God's will.

1. Cf. David Tracy, The Achievement of Bernard Lonergan (NY: Herder and Herder, 1970), 133; 關永中, "認知者的自我肯定：郎尼根「洞察」第十一章一至六節釋義(上)", 哲學與文化 第20卷 第四期 (93年4月), 375.

2. Cf. Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S.J., Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972), xi, 104, 131, etc.