This is the talk I gave at the third Salamanca Conference held in 1996. I re-read it recently and found that it sets out, in what I confess is a very dense argument, themes that have occupied me ever since I started work in ecclesiology in the late 1960s. In fact, the central thesis was supposed to be the subject of a major book, something that I fear is never going to be written. One way of putting it is that if God wills that there be a Church, he wills that certain events take place in the subjectivity and inter-subjective relationships of human beings. Here I draw upon Bernard Lonergan’s theorem of divine transcendence and extrinsic denomination to make the point.
Comments very welcome!
"In verbo veritatis" (2 Cor 6:7) 