The previous blog raises the problem of development.

Lonergan’s model of human nature is intellect(moral(religious)).

Lonergan’s model of our existential situation is (“be holy, loving and responsible(decision(self-transcendence)).

According to Lonergan, if a person practices fidelity to the project of self-transcendence, that person achieves authenticity.  Un-authenticity derails human self-transcendence from the intended endpoint.  Un-authenticity is easier.

“Practical intelligence” (fear of the Lord, deliberation, and humility) guides fidelity.  “Spontaneity” (concupiscence, foolishness, and pride) guides one to immediate benefits, satisfaction and further impulses of desire.  Spontaneity is natural.

Practical intelligence and spontaneity operate in a milieu of intersubjectivity.  The person is situated by the group.  Group intersubjectivity creates a field of biases, some supporting and some alienating.  Biases often pull practical intelligence and spontaneity in opposing directions.

Even more disturbing, many of the biases appear to operate on one level but effect change on another level.  For example, a biased definition of “be holy, loving and responsible” (such as, by killing unwanted fetuses) targets a woman’s decisions.  Power, the command (or taking over) of one person’s decisions by another, effects all three levels of individual subjectivity for both persons.

Consider the nature of the bribe.  The “bribe” is an act of power where the individual subjectivity of both giver and receiver is altered.  The decision (existential activity) to give or take a bribe lacks fidelity to the project of self-transcendence (existential mission) and betrays command to be holy, loving and responsible (existential subjectivity).

The results are, what Lonergan calls, “false facts”, “the actual existence of what should not be”, or more eloquently, “the social surd”.

For Lonergan, sin is grounded in the self-contradiction produced by the refusal or absence of self-transcendence and leads to the problem of sustained unauthenticity: that is, the incapacity to sustain development.