David Tracy has God in a box. Or is it the other way around? For Tracy, long regarded as one of the most distinguished and adventuresome contemporary Catholic theologians, such a dilemma might be intriguing, even amusing, were it not so personal. For nearly twenty years, Tracy, born in 1939 and retired after thirty-five years on the faculty of the University of Chicago Divinit (...)
Article
God-obsessed
David Tracy’s Theological Quest
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Tracy's conclusions, after a life of study, are similar to those of Thomas Aquinas, after a life of study: Prayer, mysticism and a Christian life are more central and important than scholarly pursuits when it comes to God and the message of the Gospels. Prayer and love do much more than argumentation in bringing anyone to the faith.
I was delighted to se the name of David Gibson among your current Commonweal authors since I remember him well among my favorite Vatican Radio interviewers and reporters in the late '80s when I was working in Rome as director of the documentaion, information and press office of Caritas Internationalis.
I enjoyed his article on the theology and the life of David Tracy. I urge Commonweal to think of David Gibson when the need arises to enlist someone to review David Tracy's "Big Book," published at last after twenty years of preparation. Let David review David for us.
Larry N. Lorenzoni, S.D.B.
I found so many spirituality-affirming "nuggets" for my personal journey in the article. Thank you for bringing David Tracy to Commonweal.
Thank you, David Gibson, for the wonderful article on David Tracy. I have been reading Tracy for years, and am eager in my anticipation of the Great Book! He is truly a seminal thinker: he is thinking great thoughts that others will need to study and popularize. I believe, too, that he stands with not only Thomas Aquinas, but with Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Lonergan...one of the great Catholic theological minds of the 20th century. I'm very proud of him!
David Gibson's article was a moving, re-inspiring reminder of how much so many of us theologians struggling to be Catholic owe to David Tracy. It covered, in my estimation, all the main ingredients of Tracy's theological journey and left us with ever greater anticipation of "the Big Book." I was especially happy to see that Gibson pointed out that "Tracy sees 'massive global suffering' as 'the overwhelming issue' in the modern world." This is the issue that will ground, direct, and animate not only Christian theology,as traditionally understood, but also what is today called "comparative theology" --the effort to do theology inter-religiously.
Greetings from Australia! I agree with the comment immediately above, which compares Tracy to Aquinas. But what I really wanted to say was this. For years, as a seminarian, as a priest in parishes, and now, as a post-grad student, I have always circled around David Tracy's writings. It is like what we do when trying to fathom an unusual exhibit in a museum or a gallery: we walk around it, looking at the various angles, scratching our fingers over our pate or our chins as we try to grasp what is going on before our eyes.
David Gibson has shed some light on Tracy's life and thought. I now have a new appreciation and, hopefully, can approach Tracy with new vigor. Thanks very much.
Whenever there is a piece on Tracy or Bernard Lonergan there is reference to the axiom that Tracy attributes to Lonergan, namely, "Be attentive, be intelligent, be rational, be responsible, develop, and, if necessary, change." p. 17. I can find in the work of Lonergan documentation only for the the transcendental precepts but not for "develop, and, if necessary, change." Did Lonergan really say or write those words or are they embellishments from another source? It is not on p. 231 in Method in Theology as everyone assumes!!!
Sam Miglarese, Duke University