Bernard Joseph Francis Lonergan SJ CC (17 December 1904 – 26 November 1984) was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian, regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.

By self-appropriation, one finds in one's own intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility the foundation of every kind of inquiry and the basic pattern of operations undergirding methodical investigation in every field.

[20] After a year of Jesuit formation ("tertianship") in Amiens,[21] Lonergan returned to the Gregorian University in 1937 to pursue doctoral studies in theology.

Due to the Second World War, he was whisked out of Italy and back to Canada in May 1940, just two days before the scheduled defence of his doctoral dissertation.

In the event, he would not formally defend his dissertation and receive his doctorate until a special board of examiners from the Immaculee Conception was convened in Montreal on 23 December 1946.

At the Gregorian, Lonergan taught Trinity and Christology in alternate years, and produced substantial textbooks on these topics.

[26] In the epilogue to Insight, Lonergan mentions the important personal transformation wrought in him by a decade's apprenticeship to the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

[29] A study of Thomas Aquinas on divine grace and human freedom was well-suited to his interest in working out a theoretical analysis of history.

[33] In 1945 Lonergan gave a course at the Thomas More Institute in Montreal that extended from September to April 1946 entitled "Thought and Reality," and the success of that course was the inspiration behind his decision to write the book Insight.

Through his work on method, Lonergan aimed, among other things, to establish a firm basis for agreement and progress in disciplines such as philosophy and theology.

The chapter on "Religious Commitment" in Method in Theology was delivered in a lecture at The Villanova University Symposium and published in: The Pilgrim People: A Vision with Hope, Volume IV (ed.

[35] Moreover, his proposal was intended to move theology off a "list of academic disciplines" by appealing to patterns of operations yielding progress in "successful sciences.

"[36] Lonergan's thinking in Method was, indeed, inspirational in bringing theological and psychology together in a unique way, e.g., Bernard J. Tyrrell, "Christotherapy: A Theology of Christian Healing and Enlightenment Inspired by the Thought of Thomas Hora and Bernard Lonergan" in The Papin Festschrift: Wisdom and Knowledge, Essays in Honour of Joseph Papin, Volume II (ed.

[38] In The Triune God: Doctrines, Lonergan begins with an examination of the dialectical process by which the dogma of the Trinity developed in the first four centuries.

The volume begins with a discussion of the method of systematic theology which seeks an imperfect but highly fruitful understanding of the mysteries of faith by means of analogies.

The following chapters develop an analogical conception of the divine processions (as intelligible emanations), relations, persons, and the two missions of the Word and Spirit.

[40] In 1956 he produced a supplemental volume De Constitutione Christi Ontologica et Psychica; the fourth and final edition of 1964 was presented in the Collected Works with an interleaf translation as The Ontological and Psychological Constitution of Christ (2002).

The fourth part concerns "what belongs to Christ" (de iis quae christi sunt), including his grace, knowledge, sinlessness, and freedom (theses 11–14).

GEM traces to their roots in consciousness the sources of all the meanings and values that make up personality, social orders, and historical developments.

Given the fact that no science can today be mastered by a single individual, Lonergan advocated sub-division of the scientific process in all fields.

[56] Frederick G. Lawrence has made the claim that Lonergan's work may be seen as the culmination of the postmodern hermeneutic revolution begun by Martin Heidegger.

Lawrence makes the observation that Heidegger—influenced also by Augustine's inability to work out a theoretical distinction between grace and freedom—conflated finitude and fallenness in his account of the human being.

Lonergan builds on the "theorem of the supernatural" achieved in medieval times, as well as on the distinction between grace and freedom worked out by Thomas Aquinas, and so is able to remove all the brackets and return to the truly concrete with a unique synthesis of "Jerusalem and Athens.

The West Coast Methods Institute sponsors the annual Fallon Memorial Lonergan Symposium at Loyola Marymount University.