Conclusion

After Insight, Lonergan named his next book as Method in Theology, instead of Method of Theology. His idea is clear that there is but one transcendental method operating through the human spirit's four levels of consciousness to approach the being of all beings by our unlimited drive of questioning and knowing. 58 In this sense, theology belongs to part of this most worthy enterprise of being human. Following the master's conviction, I name this paper "Insight in Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises".

There is another Lonerganian reason, though somewhat more implicit. His project shows insight to be adequate with being, then insight understands itself, and finally the primary insight is equal to the notion of God. 59 Therefore, every insight participates in God, comes from God and returns to God. This understanding matches very much what Ignatius' inner journey and his Spiritual Exercises aim for, culminating in the contemplation to attain love.

Since Plato's metaphor of the cave, searching for truth has been signified as a journey, a process of running out from darkness to the light. However, though every human being desires to know, this process is not automatic or mechanical because various contrast forces have corrupted our drive for truth, just as the people in the cave were originally fettered by chains while the darkness and shadows seem to dominate. Therefore, it is an uphill battle to liberate oneself from them. In Christian anthropology, this darkness is our personal, communal and universal, sinfulness and inordinate attachments, which block us from seeing God's will, the light itself. The foregoing chapter IV tries to bring this reality into a thematic and deeper understanding.

Ignatius called himself a pilgrim, signifying an inner journey and struggle within to free himself from sin and become free for God. Yet it is God who initiates the whole process and guides Ignatius to follow the whole heuristic structure, as illustrated above, and so to discover his divine will. Therefore, gratitude is the distinctive Ignatian disposition and characteristic. In the last few months, I myself began the intellectual journey to struggle with what the insight of Lonergan is up to, in the context of my spiritual journey as a son of St. Ignatius. With deep gratitude, coming to the closing line of this little paper, I share very much the sentiment of T.S. Eliot in his beautiful lines:

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Four Quartets

Little Gidding, V

58. Cf. Method in Theology, Ch. I, 3-25.

59. Cf. Insight, Ch. XIX, 657-669.