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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
This paper looks back over the eight books of John S. Dunne as forming a unified theological project in two phases, each comprising four books. Dunne's first phase is a “journey of the mind,” in which Dunne is concerned with knowing and unknowing, with understanding and insight, and his basic epistemological stance is developed. His second phase is a “journey of the heart,” in which he moves from the basic loneliness of the human condition, to the “heart's desire” for God, to the presence of God in the desiring. Several changes in Dunne's understanding of the human relationships with God, others, and self are traced here. Dunne's most recent book adds a “pilgrimage of the soul” to those of mind and heart, so this paper moves to a discussion of the meaning and development of Dunne's idea of “soul.” It concludes by considering Dunne's work as spiritual writing and as theology.
1 Dunne, John S., The Homing Spirit (New York: Crossroad, 1987), p. vii.Google Scholar This title is abbreviated “HS” in this essay.
2 New York: Doubleday, 1973. Abbreviated “TM” in this essay.
3 Dunne, , The Reasons of the Heart (New York: Macmillan, 1978), p. 147.Google Scholar This title is abbreviated “HR” in this essay.
4 New York: Macmillan, 1965.
5 New York: Macmillan, 1969. Abbreviated “SG” in this essay.
6 New York: Macmillan, 1972. Abbreviated “WAE” in this essay.
7 New York: Macmillan, 1982. Abbreviated “CPD” in this essay.
8 San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985. Abbreviated “HW” in this essay.
9 Nilson, Jon, “Doing Theology by Heart: John S. Dunne's Theological Method,” Theological Studies 48 (1987), 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quoting Lonergan, Bernard, Method in Theology (2nd ed.; New York: Herder, 1973), pp. 4, 14.Google Scholar In documenting this paper, I want to follow Nilson's practice in two respects. First, in order not to “impoverish” Dunne's work of its “evocative and persuasive power,” and in order not to dissociate his insights from the images which give rise to them, I will quote more extensively than is customary in an expository paper. Second, “Since his major themes are considered from various standpoints in each and all of his books, practically every main idea could be given at least two citations,” but like Nilson I will ordinarily confine myself to one. See Nilson, p. 66.
10 Theological Studies 21 (1960), 45–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Nilson, p. 65.
12 Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1984), p. 285.Google Scholar
13 Dunne, John, interviewed by Woodward, Kenneth, “Spiritual Adventure: The Emergence of a New Theology,” Psychology Today 11/8 (January 1978), 48.Google Scholar This article will be abbreviated “PT” in this essay.
14 On rationality as “conversational,” see Bernstein, Richard J., Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).Google Scholar
15 An aspect of foundational theology which is lacking in Dunne's theology is the grounding of religious language in the collective practice of a community. There are hints of this in The Church of the Poor Devil, but this theme is not developed in any detail anywhere in Dunne's writings, which usually address the situation of an individual whose relation with human communities is problematic. On the grounding of religious language in collective practice, see the work by Schüssler Fiorenza cited above.
16 I heard this in an unpublished lecture by Burns at Yale University in 1973.
17 The Kafka quotation is from Tagebücher (New York: Schocken, 1949), p. 475Google ScholarPubMed, Dunne's translation.
18 Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (New York: Vintage, 1967), p. 299.Google Scholar See Augustine, De Trinitate 14.11.14.
19 Augustine, Confessions 10.19-27.
20 Burns, J. Patout, Theological Anthropology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), p. 13.Google Scholar
21 “Participation in the Theology of St. Thomas” (Gregorian University, 1958).Google Scholar See “St. Thomas' Theology of Participation,” Theological Studies 18 (1957), 487–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 See Nilson, p. 66.
23 See, for instance, Method in Theology, p. xi.
24 Tolkien, J. R. R., The Lord of the Rings,one-volume edition (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), p. 1122Google Scholar, quoted, CPD 107. The words are spoken by Cirdan to Mithrandir (Gandalf).
25 I wish to thank Elizabeth Watts for assistance at every stage in the development of this paper.
