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Negative Contrast Experience: An Ignatian Appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2014

LaReine-Marie Mosely
LaReine-Marie Mosely*
Affiliation:
Loyola University Chicago
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Abstract

In the face of continual and increased human suffering in every corner of the world, good and principled people often do nothing. Edward Schillebeeckx's understanding of negative experiences of contrast begins with outrage at excessive human suffering and is followed by protest and eventual praxis to ameliorate and end the suffering. The author queries whether unconscious bias prevents human beings from seeing this suffering, and suggests that embracing a rigorous Ignatian consciousness examen may correct this impairment.

Keywords

SchillebeeckxnegativecontrastsufferingbiasIgnatianexamenpraxis
Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , June 2014 , pp. 74 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2014 

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References

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2 Schillebeeckx, Edward, Geloofsverstaan: Interpretatie en kritiek, Theologische Peilinge 5 (Bloemendaal: Nelissen, 1972)Google Scholar; English translation: The Understanding of Faith: Interpretation and Criticism, trans. Smith, N. D. (New York: Seabury Press, 1974)Google Scholar. About this work, Lieven Boeve states, “It is fair to say that in Geloofsverstaan all the preparatory work was completed for Schillebeeckx's theological project from the seventies until the present day” (Boeve, “Experience according to Schillebeeckx: The Driving Force of Faith and Theology,” in Divinising Experience: Essays in the History of Religious Experience from Origen to Ricoeur, ed. Boeve, Lieven and Hemming, Laurence Paul, Studies in Philosophical Theology, vol. 23 [Leuven: Peeters, 2004], 205).Google Scholar

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37 Ibid.

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39 Ibid.

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68 Individual bias is the conscious decision to sidestep or reject opportunities to engage those who are problematically different. Group bias is the intentional decision persons make to self-segregate so as to avoid engaging those who are different. This may be fueled by ethnocentricism and violence. The general bias of common sense is linked with group bias so as to promote the ideas of those with power and repress the ideas of those on the margins. See Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 14. See also Orji, Cyril, Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa: An Analysis of Bias, Decline, and Conversion Based on the Works of Bernard Lonergan, Marquette Studies in Theology (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008).Google Scholar

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91 Schillebeeckx, Christ, 818.